A sport and a pastime full book free download

She drinks black coffee stirred with a tiny spoon. Her face is natural and unpainted. Her legs are bare. She is like a performer backstage. One loves this ordinary moment, this pause between the brilliant acts of her life. A friend from Bristol, Tennessee, she tells me as she leads me back. She puts flowers in all the bidets. He gets furious. Already I dread her. People are still coming in, even this late, appearing after other dinners, the theatre.

Beneduce is guiding a handsome trio into the room, a man and two stunning women in suede boots and tightly belted coats. Mother and daughter, Cristina tells me. Near the bar Anna Soren listens to the conversation around her with a wavering, a translucent smile. She looks at the wrong person.

Her false eyelashes are coming loose. It pleases but disturbs me, this remark. There is no way to begin except with admiration for Isabel who is forty and dressed in a beautiful, black Chanel suit with silver buttons and a ruffled, white shirt. On her finger is a ring with a large diamond, a perfectly round diamond that catches every piece of light, and her smile is as dazzling as her clothes. She laughs and laughs. Phillip Dean says nothing. His face seems to show it.

There still remain the faint, lustrous tones of journeys in an open car. Images of a young man in the dun-colored cities of late afternoon.

Trees line the great avenues. Seville at night, the smell of dust that has settled, the smell of oleander, richer, green. In front of the big hotel two porters are hosing the sidewalk. Suddenly I like him. Dean has a small, straight mouth and wide-set, intelligent eyes.

Hair that the summer has dried. She is seized with a sudden gaiety. The air is chilly at this hour, noises seem to ring in it. The workmen glance up from their crates at the unmistakable sound of high heels. Isabel is talking. They are pointing everything out. We trail foolishly between great barricades of fruit and produce, past empty bars, through the carts and trucks. Finally we emerge at the roaring, iron galleries where meat is handled. The overhead lights are blazing. The smell of carnage is everywhere, the very metal reeks with an odor denser than flowers.

On the sidewalk there are wheelbarrows of slaughtered heads. We stare down at the dumb victims. There are scores of them. The mouths are pink, the nostrils still moist. Worn knives with the edge of a razor have flensed them while their eyes were still fluttering, the huge, eloquent eyes of young calves.

The bloody arms of the workers sketch quickly. Wherever they move, the skin magically parts, the warm insides pour out. Everything is swiftly divided. An animal which two minutes ago was led to them has now disappeared.

Cristina draws her white coat around her like a countess. It takes us ten minutes to find it. Taxis are waiting with their lights on dim. Cars are parked everywhere. The restaurant is filled. Somehow we find a table. Billy is rubbing his hands. The crowd is thick. The waiters struggle to get through. They seem to hear nothing, or it has no effect. The patrons are multiplying as if in a dream.

Incredible faces on every side, Algerian, bony as feet, cardboard American, the pink of French. Isabel is laughing, laughing. She claps her hand over her mouth and rocks back and forth a little. He was shouting at her in French. Then she laughs. She is hugging Coco, her poodle, and laughing. She is opening boxes from Lanvin, the tissue crashing as she brushes it aside.

She laughs and laughs, she talks for hours. There are just the four of us left, Dean has gone. I am exhausted. I feel as if I am entering a grave crisis of the soul. The streets are completely abandoned. The sky has begun to pale. We pull up before a building on the Avenue Montaigne, Billy takes her to the door.

I stay in the car with Cristina, our heads leaning back, our eyes closed. Great walls crumbling at the sill. Bricks are laid beneath them. The sidewalks are veined with moss.

As one descends, the streets begin to flower out. Rue Dufraigne. Faubourg St. Blaise, a fine house here, small iron balcony, enormous garden. The trees pour over the wall and shade the public side as well. The doors look quite secure.

A marvelous color—faded brick, with the doors, windows, all the major lines set in white stone. Gravel driveway. Tall, iron gates. I pass it in the morning as a girl in a pink smock opens the shutters room by room.

Yeux , nez , gorge , oreilles. The fixtures are polished. The plaques are always shined. Autun against Charolles. Autun against Chagny. No one seems to read them. A few men are playing dominoes; they look like North Africans.

At the bottom of town the factories are silent. The old ones have been abandoned, tanneries with their tall chimneys cold, their windows dark. Beyond, the river lies still. Four in the afternoon. The trees along the street, the upper branches, are catching the last, full light.

The stadium is quiet, some bicycles leaning against the outer wall. I read the schedule once again and then go in, turning down towards the stands which are almost empty.

Far away, the players are streaming across the soft grass. There seem to be no cries, no shouting, only the faint thud of kicks. It is the emptiness which pleases me, the blue dimensions of this life.

Beyond the game, as far as one can see, are the fields, the trees of the countryside. Above us, provincial sky, a little cloudy. Once in a while the sun breaks out, vague as a smile. I sit alone. There are the glances of some young boys, nothing more. The game drifts back and forth. It seems to take a long, long time. Someone sends a little boy to the far side to chase the ball when it goes out of bounds. I watch him slowly circle the field. He passes behind the goal. He trots a while, then he walks.

He seems lost in the journey. Finally he is over there, small and isolated on the sideline. After a while I can see him kicking at stones. I am at the center of emptiness. Every act seems purer for it, easier to define. The sounds separate themselves. The details all appear. The varnish is worn from the curve of the chairs. The finish is gone from the floor.

Glass doors along the street. Wherever one looks, it seems possible to see out. I listen without watching. The soft click of the balls is like a concert.

The players stand around, talking in hoarse voices. The billiard table seems less dark. The wood is drawing apart at the corners. Beneath the pale green cloth which is always thrown over it, the felt is worn, like the sleeves of an old suit.

False teeth, white as buttons. Belonged to her husband probably. I can hear them clattering in her mouth. The three or four gilded youths of the town, too, slouched on the divans. I know them by sight. One is an angel, at least for betrayal. Beautiful face. Soft, dark hair. A mouth like spoiled fruit. The rest of the time they sit in boredom, polishing the gestures of contempt. The angel is taller than the rest. He has an expensive suit and a tie knotted loosely at the neck.

Sometimes a sweater. Soft cuffs. To believe is to make real, they say. A chill passes through me. I recognize in him a clear strain of assurance which has nothing to imitate, which springs forth intact. It feeds on its own reflection. He looks carefully at himself in the mirror, combing his hair. He inspects his teeth. The maid has let him undress her. She hates him, but she cannot make him go. He has an instinct for it. He is here to hunt them down, to discover the weaklings.

I am modeling myself after him, just for the evening. As I walk home I see my image floating on the glass of darkened shopfronts.

I stop and look at clothes. I have discarded my identity. I am still at large, free of my old self until the first encounters, and now I imagine, very clearly, meeting Claude Picquet. For a moment I have the sure premonition I am about to, that I am really going to see her at the next corner and, made confident by the cognacs, begin quite naturally to talk. We walk along together. I watch her closely as she speaks.

I can tell she is interested in me, I am circling her like a shark. Suddenly I realize: it will be her. She pretends that surprises her. Do you know the Wheatlands, I ask. The Wheatlands? Monsieur and Madame Wheatland, I say. Ah, oui. What comes next? I want her to come and see it, of course. I want to hear the door close behind her. She stands over by the window. I am going to just touch her lightly on the arm… Claude… She looks at me and smiles.

Mornings with clouds. Windy mornings. Mornings with black wind rushing like water. The trees quiver, the windows are creaking like a ship. After a while the first silent drops appear on the glass. Slowly they increase, cover it, begin to run. All of Autun beneath the cool, morning rain, the sculptures on the Roman gates streaking and then turning dark, the slate roofs gleaming now, the cemetery, the bridges across the Arroux.

Every once in a while the wind returns, the rain moves sideways, beats against the windows like sand. Rain falling everywhere, on all the avenues and enterprises, the ancient glories of the town. A long, even rain that makes me quite content. Yes, he insists I admire it, a convertible standing low and journey-dark in the dusk.

We walk around to the front. It is a marvelous looking machine. Dean trails behind me, pointing out details. The headlights are like washbasins. Cool, October evening. The seats are chilled and smell of leather. The doors shut with a heavy, unequivocal sound.

He inserts the key and starts it up. All the needles leap. We drive along the curving, mysterious streets. The shutters are already closed throughout town.

People are coming home from work, some on bicycles, most of them walking. I can see the pale of their faces as they turn to look at the car. It has Paris plates. They have no idea whose it is, of course. We cross the square and go down the long, open street that runs to the station, bicycles swimming beside us, their faint headlights quivering on the road. The line of dark trees continues the entire length and then, turning, leads to the open space in front of the station, the hotels across the way, the bus terminal to one side with its lighted booth that takes four photos for a franc.

There are two taxis waiting. The drivers—one is a fat woman with glasses—are in the hotel bar, wrapped in the congenial odor of tobacco and wine. They have nothing to do until the train arrives. We stop for a moment and look back up towards town.

Sitting in the car makes it all very privileged. The air is melancholy and dark. People walk by bent on their errands. Behind us the river flows. There are booths on each side and a row of tables in the middle. A small bar. A small dance floor. The place is almost empty, though.

They all come later and sit in white silence before the television. We take a booth near the front. I told him there was the whole house.

At the hotels, you know, the doormen would open the door. Bonjour , monsieur. We arrive at the hotel about eight. The dining room is well lit, it seems even brighter than usual. We open the menus. Our heads lower a bit to consider things. Around us are the soft, reassuring sounds of dining. In the center of the room a table gleams with fruit. Picquet and her little girl. They could be relatives. Her husband fell in love with another woman. Claude was too abundant for him, perhaps, too sumptuous.

Bracelets on each wrist. Big rings, one of them on her left index finger. She even wears it when she types. She might be twenty-eight, Claude, or twenty-nine. When she walks, she leaves me weak. A hobbled, feminine step. Full hips. Small waist. Her legs are a little thin. She leans over the typewriter, erasing. My eyes keep going there in quick, helpless glances. Her divorce was very expensive, she told me.

I noticed the mole painted on her cheekbone. It cost four hundred dollars, she said, and her husband four hundred, too, and besides that, she had to give him almost all the furniture, this vanished husband who was an eyeglasses salesman and had to travel a lot. She makes a little gesture of resignation. Her daughter sits beside her, attentive, composed.

Quite a pretty child. She eats with a fork that is too big for her. She glances up at Claude from time to time. He casually eats them right from the tablecloth. His French is better already. Of course, the waiter pretends not to understand him. Long, unhurried hours of evening, the car parked outside where light from the entrance falls on it, people pausing to look, the winter coming on. Plates being silently removed, the taste of foods lingering. The immortal procession of a French meal.

Dean is pouring Perrier water into his glass. His voice is fading. He describes it casually, without stooping to explain, but the authority of the act overwhelms me. If I had been an underclassman he would have become my hero, the rebel who, if I had only had the courage, I might have also become. Instead I did everything properly. I had good marks. I took care of my books.

My clothes were right. Now, looking at him, I am convinced of all I missed. I am envious. Somehow his life seems more truthful than mine, stronger, even able to draw mine to it like the pull of a dark star.

He quit. It was too easy for him, his sister told me, and so he refused it. He had always been extraordinary in math. He had a scholarship. He knew he was exceptional. He wrote that at the top of the page. His paper was so brilliant the professor fell in love with him. Dean was disappointed, of course. It only proved how ridiculous everything was. He went to see a psychiatrist.

He lived with various friends in New York and began to develop a style. It lasted a whole year, but the university was very understanding. Finally he went back and did another year, but in the end he quit altogether.

Then he began educating himself. Standing there half-naked, he seems very thin. He has bony shoulders. I am trying to create details. Narrow, white feet. He visited their houses. He drove their cars. He cleans it with occasional bursts of water. In the outer room, fully dressed, I sit waiting. He inspects himself hastily in the mirror. Those first, early weeks with the cold skies of Europe covering them, weeks that seem now never to have been, that later events washed out of existence, almost out of memory.

Over the crown of western hills we sail beneath a brilliant sky of clouds shot through with sunlight and begin the descent to town, the road cutting back and forth in deep, blind turns. And then those great, lineal runs through neighborhoods I knew nothing of, making straight for the perfect square which marked the city like a signet.

How could I know? Streets that later would become as sacred to me as those of my childhood. Boulevard Georges Clemenceau. We pass it and are gone. The streets are crowded. Men are roasting chestnuts on the corners. The blue sky of France flooding with clouds. The last of the year upon us, the cold coming on—one can feel it every day. Dean is studying the guidebook.

I stare out the window. Around the square cars turn, slow as oxen. Occasionally a Jaguar or Mercedes goes past, one of those great, ghosting machines and sometimes a lovely face inside.

The shops are jammed with shoes, gold ornaments, suedes, beautiful cheeses. I see it at dawn now, when the light is chalky and then the palest blue. The streets are absolutely still. The huge portes are silent—Place Carnot, its long regiment of trees. I wander this city like a somnambulist. The blue cigarette smoke is rising, the odor of reminiscences, in the Bar de la Division de Fer.

Avenue du XXme Corps. The veterans sit hunched in their sweaters, their blue suit-coats, surrounded by the relics of a glory now spent, gone to rust, the white hand of mould staining it, the smell of dampness.

They walk home alone, along the canal, their shoes scuffing the grey sidewalk. Autumn nights. We stroll in the early darkness, deciding where to eat, and start for home in the first flurries of snow, bundled up and breathing vapor in the old Delage.

The heater is still no good. Snow is streaming into the headlights, pouring against us, exploding on the glass. The gear box is grinding away. Taking a curve, we begin to snake wildly. Across the road a river of snow is flowing, spilling sideways, shifting, rushing away.

We begin to drive slower. The snow beats white against us, making no sound. We are lost in a whirling whiteness, in the rich voice of the car.

It takes hours. The villages are dark. When we finally arrive, we stop in at the Foy. The wood of the floor feels good. We sit down in one of the booths. There are some couples scattered around. The waitress brings us tea. She wears a turtleneck sweater, black skirt, a leather belt cinched tightly around her waist dividing her into two erotic zones.

Behind the bar the radio is going softly. Outside, the snow is falling, covering the car like the statue of a hero, filling the tracks that lead to where it is parked. Join over This book written by Gordon Inglis and published by Unknown. Get book and read anywhere and anytime you want.

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