It was a long time since Mrs Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were always ‘bargains’, so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed ‘kid’ over Mrs Sommers’s hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where money might be spent.
There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing – had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.
She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite – a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet – a crème-frappée, for instance; a glass of Rhine wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee.
While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with the blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray, whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.
There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinée poster.
It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole – stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy and wept – she and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing – unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As kingfishers catch fire
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
SUETONIUS · Caligula
APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The Tinder Box
RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
DANTE · Circles of Hell
HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
CHARLES DICKENS · The Great Winglebury Duel
HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
C.P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
Sindbad the Sailor
SOPHOCLES · Antigone
RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
OVID · The Fall of Icarus
SAPPHO · Come Close
IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
H. G. WELLS · A Slip under the Microscope
HERODOTUS · The Madness of Cambyses
Speaking of Siva
The Dhammapada
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN CLASSICS
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This selection published in Penguin Classics 2015
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ISBN: 978-0-141-39854-9