Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late; indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad". On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of Bovril to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps) were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archæology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him--Miss Mapp recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up her hand just in time to save a bottle of Bovril which she had put on the top shelf in front of the sack of flour from tumbling to the ground. With the latest additions she had made to her larder, it required considerable ingenuity to fit all the tins and packages in, and for a while she diverted her mind from Captain Puffin's drinking to her own eating. But by careful packing and balancing she managed to stow everything away with sufficient economy of space to allow her to shut the door, and then put the card-table in place again. It was then late, and with a fond look at her sweet flowers sleeping in the moonlight, she went to bed. Captain Puffin's sitting-room was still alight, and even as she deplored this, his shadow in profile crossed the blind. Shadows were queer things--she could make a beautiful shadow-rabbit on the wall by a dexterous interlacement of fingers and thumbs--and certainly this shadow, in the momentary glance she had of it, appeared to have a large moustache. She could make nothing whatever out of that, except to suppose that just as fingers and thumbs became a rabbit, so his nose became a moustache, for he could not have grown one since he came back from golf. . . .

On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on."News!" she said. "Lucia's going to have a lover.""No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner"But I tell you she is. He's with her now.""They won't want me then," said Tony. "And yet she asked me to come at half-past five.""Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt."Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence."Tell me all about it," he said."I'm sure I'm right," said she. "Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory.""But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. "I really think I had better not go in.""Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Stephen there in order to show him to me, and to show him to you. It's the most wonderful plan; and it's wonderful of me to have understood it so quickly. You must go in: there's nothing private of any kind: indeed, she thirsts for publicity."Her confidence inspired confidence, and Tony was naturally consumed with curiosity. He got out, told Adele's chauffeur to drive on, and went upstairs. Stephen was no longer sitting in the chair next to Lucia, but on the sofa at the other side of the tea-table. This rather looked as if Adele was right: it was consistent anyhow with their being lovers in public, but certainly not lovers in private."Dear Lord Tony," said Lucia--this appellation was a halfway house between Lord Limpsfield and Tony, and she left out the "Lord" except to him--"how nice of you to drop in. You have just missed Adele. Stephen, you know Lord Limpsfield?"Lucia gave him his tea, and presently getting up, reseated herself negligently on the sofa beside Stephen. She was a shade too close at first, and edged slightly away."Wonderful play of Tchekov's the other day," she said. "Such a strange, unhappy atmosphere. We came out, didn't we, Stephen, feeling as if we had been in some remote dream. I saw you there, Lord Tony, with Adele who had been lunching with me."Tony knew that: was not that the birthday of the Luciaphils?

Miss Mapp moved towards the screen."What a delicious big screen," she said."Yes, but don't go behind it, Mapp," said Irene, "or you'll see my model undressing."Miss Mapp retreated from it precipitately, as from a wasp's nest, and examined some of the studies on the wall, for it was more than probable from the unfinished picture on the easel that Adam lurked behind the delicious screen. Terrible though it all was, she was conscious of an unbridled curiosity to know who Adam was. It was dreadful to think that there could be any man in Tilling so depraved as to stand to be looked at with so little on...Irene strolled round the walls with her."Studies of Lucy," she said."I see, dear," said Miss Mapp. "How clever! Legs and things! But when you have your bridge-party, won't you perhaps cover some of them up, or turn them to the wall? We should all be looking at your pictures instead of attending to our cards. And if you were thinking of asking the Padre, you know..."They were approaching the corner of the room where the screen stood, when a movement there as if Adam had hit it with his elbow made Miss Mapp turn round. The screen fell flat on the ground and within a yard of her stood Mr. Hopkins, the proprietor of the fish-shop just up the street. Often and often had Miss Mapp had pleasant little conversations with him, with a view to bringing down the price of flounders. He had little bathing-drawers on..."Hullo, Hopkins, are you ready," said Irene. "You know Miss Mapp, don't you?"Miss Mapp had not imagined that Time and Eternity combined could hold so embarrassing a moment. She did not know where to look, but wherever she looked, it should not be at Hopkins. But (wherever she looked) she could not be unaware that Hopkins raised his large bare arm and touched the place where his cap would have been, if he had had one."Good morning, Hopkins," she said. "Well, Irene darling, I must be trotting, and leave you to your--" she hardly knew what to call it--"to your work."She tripped from the room, which seemed to be entirely full of unclothed limbs, and redder than one of Mr. Hopkins's boiled lobsters hurried down the street. She felt that she could never face him again, but would be obliged to go to the establishment in the High Street where Irene dealt, when it was fish she wanted from a fish-shop... Her head was in a whirl at the brazenness of mankind, especially womankind. How had Irene started the overtures that led to this? Had she just said to Hopkins one morning: "Will you come to my studio and take off all your clothes?" If Irene had not been such a wonderful mimic, she would certainly have felt it her duty to go straight to the Padre, and, pulling down her veil, confide to him the whole sad story. But as that was out of the question, she went into Twemlow's and ordered four pounds of dried apricots.

Jack was mid-jump when I burst into my room. I snatched his ankle, flipping him horizontal. He crashed down hard to my bed and rolled off onto the floor.And laughed."Let's do that again! But this time I'll jump even higher.""No! No, you won't! What are you doing here?"He sat up on the floor and shrugged. "I was bored.""I don't care! I'm not your babysitter!"His blue eyes twinkled. Honestly, whose eyes actually twinkle? Then his face crumpled, his lower lip jutting out. He blinked his ridiculously long eyelashes at me. "I thought we werefriends.""Oh, knock it off.""Come on." He jumped up and grabbed my hand. "Let's do something fun.""I can't! I have to work, and then I have a date.""Frying-pan boy again? I thought you guys broke up.""No! Why would we break up?"Jack shrugged. "Dunno. He didn'tseem thrilled last time I saw him. Whatever, though. I wanted to checkand make sure you were okay. Looks like you are, although I still say he's boring. Can he take you to see krakens?""No way! Really? Those are real? I've always wanted to-" I stopped, taking a deep breath. "Seriously. I'm busy. Withmy boyfriend." This time I thought I saw a flash of something genuine in his disappointed expression. Great. Another person I was letting down. I knew where he was coming from, though. If all he had to choose from were the Center and the Faerie Realms, well, he deserved a friend. "Can I take a rain check? Weekends are busy for me."He shrugged, his perma smile back in all its dimpled glory. "You'd probably figure out a way to nearly get killed, anyway."Arianna cleared her throat loudly from the doorway. I'd charged in right past her without explaining, and no doubt I'd have to do so now. Problem was figuring out what to explain."Oh, umm, Arianna, this is Jack. He, uh, well, what did he tell you?"She rolled her eyes, the kohl-rimmed, chocolate brown glamour ones mimicking the actions of her milky white corpse eyes. "He said he was here to inspect the beds. I figured he was one of your old friends.""No, he's not-well, kind of. He's not a faerie, he's human, but, uh-" I hadn't told Arianna about my new arrangement with IPCA. Lend was already mad enough about it; I didn'twant my roommate being annoyed with me, too."Jack." He flashed her his most melt-worthy grin and stuck out a hand. "Definitely human, but-" he took her hand and pressed his lips to it "-I might be willing to try out an alternate lifestyle if it meant getting to know you better.""Umm, eew?" Arianna pulled back her hand, her face disgusted but a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "Eternal life is bad enough without giving it to pests like you."He sighed heavily. "Girls are mean. At least faeries simply kill you if they don't want you around." He put a hand on the wall, leaning against it and tapping his foot impatiently."Where are you going?" I asked,feeling guilty for not being able to hang out with him."To find a faerie to kill me, of course." He winked at us, then pretended to fall straight through when the faerie door opened. Even Arianna laughed as the door closed behind him."Where did you find that one?""I have no idea. I'm a magnet for crazies, I guess.""They must be able to sense a kindred spirit.

The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practice next day when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two quite long paragraphs, in "Five o'clock Chit-Chat," over the renowned signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outwards and a little upwards, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably) the Moonlight Sonata. . . . She had come up, so Hermione told countless readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her marvellous Worcester tea service. . . . (At this point Daisy, whose hands were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, "The very day she arrived!") Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant, beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to the London season.Daisy was beginning to feel physically unwell. She hurried over the few remaining lines, and then ejaculating "Witty! Beautiful!" sent de Vere across to Georgie's with the paper, bidding him to return it, as she hadn't finished with it. But she thought he ought to know. . . . Georgie read it through, and with admirable self restraint, sent Foljambe back with it and a message of thanks--nothing more--to Mrs. Quantock for the loan of it. Daisy, by this time feeling better, memorised the whole of it.Life under the new conditions was not easy, for a mere glance at the paper might send any true Riseholmite into a paroxysm of chattering rage or a deep disgusted melancholy. The Times again recorded the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had arrived at 25 Brompton Square, there was another terrible paragraph headed 'Dinner,' stating that Mrs. Sandeman entertained the following to dinner. There was an Ambassador, a Marquis, a Countess (dowager), two Viscounts with wives, a Baronet, a quantity of Honourables and Knights, and Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas. Every single person except Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had a title. The list was too much for Mrs. Boucher, who, reading it at breakfast, suddenly exclaimed:"I didn't think it of them. And it's a poor consolation to know that they must have gone in last."Then she hermetically sealed her lips again on this painful subject, and when she had finished her breakfast (her appetite had quite gone) she looked up every member of that degrading party in Colonel Boucher's "Who's Who.

Hello? This is Clary Fairchild.”“Clary? It’s me, Emma.”“Oh, Emma, hi! I haven’t heard from you in ages. My mom says thanks for the wedding flowers, by the way. She wanted to send a note but Luke whisked her away on a honeymoon to Tahiti.”“Tahiti sounds nice.”“It probably is — Jace, what are you doing with that thing? There is no way it’ll fit.”“Is this a bad time?”“What? No! Jace is trying to drag a trebuchet into the training room. Alec, stop helping him.”“What’s a trebuchet?”“It’s a huge catapult.”“What are they going to use it for?”“I have no idea. Alec, you’re enabling! You’re an enabler!”“Maybe it is a bad time.”“I doubt there’ll be a better one. Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do?”“I think we have your cat.”“What?”“Your cat. Big fuzzy Blue Persian? Always looks angry? Julian says it’s your cat. He says he saw it at the New York Institute. Well, saw him. It’s a boy cat.”“Church? You have Church? But I thought — well, we knew he was gone. We thought Brother Zachariah took him. Isabelle was annoyed, but they seemed to know each other. I’ve never seen Church actually likeanyone like that.”“I don’t know if he likes anyone here. He bit Julian twice. Oh, wait. Julian says he likes Ty. He’s asleep on Ty’s bed.”“How did you wind up with him?”“Someone rang our front doorbell. Diana, she’s our tutor, went down to see what it was. Church was in a cage on the front step with a note tied to it. It said For Emma. This is Church, a longtime friend of the Carstairs. Take care of this cat and he will take care of you. —J.”“Brother Zachariah left you a cat.”“But I don’t even really know him. And he’s not a Silent Brother any more.”“You may not know him, but he clearly knows you.”“What do you think the J stands for?”“His real name. Look, Emma, if he wants you to have Church, and you want Church, you should keep him.”“Are you sure? The Lightwoods —“‘They’re both standing here nodding. Well, Alec is partially trapped under a trebuchet, but he seems to be nodding.”“Jules says we’d like to keep him. We used to have a cat named Oscar, but he died, and, well, Church seems to be good for Ty’s nightmares.”“Oh, honey. I think, really, he’s Brother Zachariah’s cat. And if he wants you to have him, then you should.”“Why does Brother Zachariah want to protect me? It’s like he knows me, but I don’t know why he knows me.”“I don’t exactly know … But I know Tessa. She’s his — well, girlfriend seems not the right word for it. They’ve known each other a long, long time. I have a feeling they’re both watching over you.”“That’s good. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”“Emma — oh my God. The trebuchet just crashed through the floor. I have to go. Call me later.”“But we can keep the cat?”“You can keep the cat.

She ran her hands, butterfly fashion, over the keys."A little morsel of Stravinski?" she said.It was in the middle of the morsel that Adele came in and found Lucia playing Stravinski to Mr. Greatorex. The position seemed to be away, away beyond her orbit altogether, and she merely waited with undiminished faith in Lucia, to see what would happen when Lucia became aware to whom she was playing. . . . It was a longish morsel, too: more like a meal than a morsel, and it was also remarkably like a muddle. Finally, Lucia made an optimistic attempt at the double chromatic scale in divergent directions which brought it to an end, and laughed gaily."My poor fingers," she said. "Delicious piano, dear Adele. I love a Bechstein; that was a little morsel of Stravinski. Hectic perhaps, do you think? But so true to the modern idea: little feverish excursions: little bits of tunes, and nothing worked out. But I always say that there is something in Stravinski, if you study him. How I worked at that little piece, and I'm afraid it's far from perfect yet."Lucia played one more little run with her right hand, while she cudgelled her brain to remember where she had seen this man before, and turned round on the music-stool. She felt sure he was an artist of some kind, and she did not want to ask Adele to introduce him, for that would look as if she did not know everybody. She tried pictures next."In Art I always think that the Stravinski school is represented by the Post-Cubists," she said. "They give us pattern in lines, just as Stravinski gives us patterns in notes, and the modern poet patterns in words. At Sophy Alingsby's the other night we had a feast of patterns. Dear Sophy--what a curious mixture of tastes! She cares only for the ultra-primitive in music, and the ultra-modern in Art. Just before you came in, Adele, I was trying to remember the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight, those triplets though they look easy have to be kept so level. And yet Sophy considers Beethoven a positive decadent. I ought to have taken her to Diva's little concert--Diva Dalrymple--for I assure you really that Stravinski sounded classical compared to the rest of the programme. It was very creditably played, too. Mr.--" what was his name?--"Mr Greatorex."She had actually said the word before her brain made the connection. She gave her little peal of laughter."Ah, you wicked people," she cried. "A plot: clearly a plot. Mr. Greatorex, how could you? Adele told you to come in here when she heard me begin my little strummings, and told you to sit down and encourage me. Don't deny it, Adele! I know it was like that. I shall tell everybody how unkind you've been, unless Mr. Greatorex sits down instantly and magically restores to life what I have just murdered."Adele denied nothing. In fact there was no time to deny anything, for Lucia positively thrust Mr. Greatorex on to the music stood, and instantly put on her rapt musical face, chin in hand, and eyes looking dreamily upwards. There was Nemesis, you would have thought, dealing thrusts at her, but Nemesis was no match for her amazing quickness. She parried and thrust again, and here--what richness of future reminiscence--was Mr. Greatorex playing Stravinski to her, before no audience but herself and Adele who really didn't count, for the only tune she liked was "Land of Hope and Glory". . . . Great was Lucia!

Dearest creature in creation,Study English pronunciation.I will teach you in my verseSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.I will keep you, Suzy, busy,Make your head with heat grow dizzy.Tear in eye, your dress will tear.So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.Just compare heart, beard, and heard,Dies and diet, lord and word,Sword and sward, retain and Britain.(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)Now I surely will not plague youWith such words as plaque and ague.But be careful how you speak:Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;Cloven, oven, how and low,Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.Hear me say, devoid of trickery,Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,Exiles, similes, and reviles;Scholar, vicar, and cigar,Solar, mica, war and far;One, anemone, Balmoral,Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;Gertrude, German, wind and mind,Scene, Melpomene, mankind.Billet does not rhyme with ballet,Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.Blood and flood are not like food,Nor is mould like should and would.Viscous, viscount, load and broad,Toward, to forward, to reward.And your pronunciation’s OKWhen you correctly say croquet,Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,Friend and fiend, alive and live.Ivy, privy, famous; clamourAnd enamour rhyme with hammer.River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,Doll and roll and some and home.Stranger does not rhyme with anger,Neither does devour with clangour.Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,And then singer, ginger, linger,Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.Query does not rhyme with very,Nor does fury sound like bury.Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.Though the differences seem little,We say actual but victual.Refer does not rhyme with deafer.Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.Mint, pint, senate and sedate;Dull, bull, and George ate late.Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,Science, conscience, scientific.Liberty, library, heave and heaven,Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.We say hallowed, but allowed,People, leopard, towed, but vowed.Mark the differences, moreover,Between mover, cover, clover;Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,Chalice, but police and lice;Camel, constable, unstable,Principle, disciple, label.Petal, panel, and canal,Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,Senator, spectator, mayor.Tour, but our and succour, four.Gas, alas, and Arkansas.Sea, idea, Korea, area,Psalm, Maria, but malaria.Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.Doctrine, turpentine, marine.Compare alien with Italian,Dandelion and battalion.Sally with ally, yea, ye,Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.Say aver, but ever, fever,Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.Heron, granary, canary.Crevice and device and aerie.Face, but preface, not efface.Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.Large, but target, gin, give, verging,Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.Ear, but earn and wear and tearDo not rhyme with here but ere.Seven is right, but so is even,Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)Is a paling stout and spikey?Won’t it make you lose your wits,Writing groats and saying grits?It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,Islington and Isle of Wight,Housewife, verdict and indict.Finally, which rhymes with enough,Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?Hiccough has the sound of cup.My advice is to give up!!!

I have just finished reading 'The Planner' by Tom Campbell. Its about James, a thoroughly decent but naive young city planner working for the London borough of Southwick. James, 32, has worked his way up the Southwick bureaucracy by dint of hard work, devotion to duty, and professional judgement. He has been responsible for a significant multi-purpose development and is an expert in how to survive lengthy meetings and local government practice. He has an intimate planning knowledge of London, its administrative districts, its zones and zoning regulations, its poverty rates, its demographic characteristics etc. But he knows almost nothing about the lifestyles of people who live there. The book opens on a scene where James has a get together with a few of his old friends from university. One has become a rich lawyer, one has become an even richer banker and his ex-girlfriend has become a well-known media celebrity. His friends all seem to be living glamorous and successful lives. They confront him with how dull he is; how little he has made of himself since he left university. He is filled with dissatisfaction with himself and the safe but dull life he leads. He decides he needs to brighten his life up a bit and start living a life more like that of his friends. Meanwhile, he is offered a position of Assistant Director of Planning for Nottingham (probably the UK of Hamilton, Palmy or New Plymouth) and he has 3 months to decide. He has to choose between a promotion to a safe but dull job in Nottingham, or a more glamorous life in London.He meets Felix, an advertising planner - one who designs advertising campaigns. Felix cares little about the buildings and connections of physical London, but is deeply knowledgeable about London society. He introduces James to a totally different London: London where the drug dealers live, London of high society, London of the rich and famous. He sets out to learn what he can about these aspects of London, hoping to earn the respect of his glamorous friends. In due course he begins to mix with developers whose aims are completely the opposite of his precious plan for SouthwickThe book is a wonderful depiction of the contrasts between city as built environment and city as lived environment. It raises questions about the value of public sector planning versus private sector development. It is also a delightful sketch of the temptations for a young planner to stray from the worthy objectives of public sector planning to private sector development; will James be lured away from his job as a local authority planner sincerely concerned about social issues such as public housing and street design, or will he be seduced by Felix and the glamorous world of the developers? Here's a lovely quote about a rumination of James as he crosses the wide open spaces of Canary Wharf, a part of London that was sold off by the state to private development:'All of the people that James could see made a significant contribution to the wealth of the nation while making the world a worse place to live in. They worked in business services, and spent their lives helping international corporations to pay less tax, acquire commercial rivals, exploit monopoly positions, evade environmental regulations and skirt legal responsibilities. They were central to the functioning of the modern economy. Twenty thousand other people travelled in every day to make them coffee, serve them lunch and guard the buildings. It was, everyone had agreed, a tremendous success.'It is well worth a read.

Лейтенанту Шейскопфу отчаянно хотелось завоевать первое место на параде, и, обдумывая, как это сделать, он просиживал за столом чуть не до рассвета, в то время как его жена, охваченная любовным трепетом, дожидалась его в постели, перелистывая заветные страницы Крафта-Эббинга.Муж в это время читал книги по строевой подготовке. Он закупал коробками шоколадных солдатиков и переставлял их на столе, пока они не начинали таять в руках, и тогда он принимался за пластмассовых ковбоев, выстраивая их по двенадцати в ряд. Этих ковбоев он выписал по почте на вымышленную фамилию и днем держал под замком, подальше от чужих глаз. Альбом с анатомическими рисунками Леонардо да Винчи стал его настольной книгой. Однажды вечером он почувствовал, что ему необходима живая модель, и приказал жене промаршировать по комнате.— Голой?! — с надеждой в голосе спросила она.Лейтенант Шейскопф в отчаянии схватился за голову. Он проклинал судьбу за то, что она связала его с этой женщиной, не способной подняться выше похоти и понять душу благородного мужчины, который геройски ведет поистине титаническую борьбу во имя недосягаемого идеала.— Почему ты меня никогда не постегаешь кнутом, милый? — обиженно надув губки, однажды ночью спросила жена.— Потому что у меня нет на это времени, — нетерпеливо огрызнулся он. — Нет времени, ясно? Неужели ты не знаешь, что у меня парад на носу?