Monday, February 20, 2012

Sorrow In Sunlight










 
   'I think I'm going in'

     'Oh, why?'

     'Because,' Madame Ruiz repressed a yawn, 'because, my dear, I feel armchairish.'

     With a kiss of the finger-tips (decidedly distinguished hands had Vittorio Ruiz), he turned away.

     Joying frankly in excess, the fiery noontide hour had a special charm for him.

   It was the hour, to be sure, of 'the Faun!'

  'Aho, Ahi, Aha!' he carolled, descending half trippingly a few white winding stairs that brought him upon a fountain. Palms, with their floating fronds radiating light, stood all around.

  It was here 'the creative mood' would sometimes take him, for he possessed no small measure of talent of his own.




 



     His Three Hodeidahs, and Five Phallic Dances for Pianoforte and Orchestra, otherwise known as 'Suite in Green,' had taken the whole concert world by storm, and, now, growing more audacious, he was engaged upon an opera to be known, by and by, as Sumaïa.

   'Ah Atthis, it was Sappho who told me--' tentatively he sought an air.

     A touch of banter there.
 
  'Ah Atthis--' One must make the girl feel that her little secret is out...; quiz her; but let her know, and pretty plainly, that the Poetess had been talking...







     'Ah Atthis--'

     But somehow or other the lyric mood to-day was obdurate and not to be persuaded.

     'I blame the oysters! After oysters--' he murmured, turning about to ascertain what was exciting the dogs.

     She was coming up the drive with her face to the sun, her body shielded behind a spreading bouquet of circumstance. 










From:  Ronald Firbank, Sorrow In Sunlight, 1924.

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