第2章 (第3/3页)
an you seem to have found that lot. Didn't you even try a little teensy taste of our Lavinia?'
'I can't read anything.'
'Are you in pain?'
'Agony. But it's neither my leg nor my back.'
'What then?'
'It's what my cousin Laura calls "the prickles of boredom".'
'Poor Alan. And how right your Laura is.' She picked a bunch of narcissi out off a glass that was much too large for them, dropped them with one of her best gestures into the wash-basin, and proceeded to substitute the lilac. 'One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing.'
'Small nothing. Niggling nothing. It's like being beaten with nettles.'
'Why don't you take-up something?'
'Improve the shining hour?'
'Improve your mind. To say nothing of your soul and your temper. You might study one of the philosophies. Yoga, or something like that. But I suppose an analytical mind is not he best kind to bring to the consideration of the abstract.'
'I did think of going back to algebra. I have an idea that I never did algebra justice, at school. But I've done so much geometry on that damned ceiling that I'm a little off mathematics.'
'Well, I suppose it is no use suggesting jug-saws to someone in your position. How about cross-words?