Free Sea of Glass (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Dennis Parry Page A

much the same way as we use the phrase of a professional billiards player; and, I suspect, for much the same reason, namely abounding self-confidence. A fraction of this was transferred by the contact and from it I derived a definite, though momentary, alleviation of my symptoms.
    ‘You must be cured,’ she said.
    ‘I don’t want to trouble them to send for a doctor.’
    ‘I shall cure you myself,’ she said with a certain condescension.
    ‘Do you know how?’
    ‘My nurse taught me. She was a witch. She could poison and she could heal.’
    It was not really a very auspicious testimonial. I must have been feeling damned ill; otherwise I should never have surrendered myself to second-hand Asiatic sorceries. But had I not, I should certainly have missed something.
    We went upstairs, my skull opening and shutting at every step. Varvara stopped at the door of her own room. I hesitated, but, seeing that I was obviously meant to enter, I did so.
    ‘Lie down on the bed,’ she ordered. ‘Take off your shoes first.’
    ‘I should have done that in any case,’ I said coldly.
    Through a haze of fever I watched her preparations. In a corner of the room, looking wildly out of place against the rich smug Victorian furniture and hangings, was a large and hideous tin trunk stamped with the initials F.J.E. She opened it and took out a box with the same black japanned surface, which contained a number of little jars and bottles made of coarse china. From one of the former she measured out on to her thumbnail some small slivers like fragments of dried haricot, and tipped them into the famous rhinoceros-horn goblet, a dingy vessel which a quiet word from Mrs. Ellison had lately caused to be banished from the dining-room. Then she added a few drops of reddish liquid and began to pound the strips with the handle of a hairbrush. There was nothing antiseptic about Varvara’s medicine.
    Lying still on my back made me feel better, and consequently rather more observant. I noticed Varvara’s clothes, to which I had become hardened of late. In those days there was no question in a house like Mrs. Ellison’s but that one dressed for dinner. Her evening frock was about the right length for current fashion, but its fabric reminded me of nothing so much as those curtains of string and beads which are still found in old-fashioned pubs.
    She must have seen the direction of my gaze in the mirror.
    ‘Why are you staring at me, David?’
    I was not up to social evasion.
    ‘I was looking at your dress,’ I said, ‘and wondering where you got it.’
    ‘Passing through Shanghai on my way to England. At a shop for the modes.’
    ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘the modes.’
    She gave me the look of sorrowful nobility, which, on occasions when she had been insulted or injured, alternated quite unpredictably with tigerish rage.
    ‘I know I am dressed laughably,’ she said. ‘At home I wore my trousers and coat, like the other women of the country, and I am not used to your clothes.’
    ‘I didn’t mean to be rude,’ I pleaded unhappily.
    Varvara continued: ‘My father had an English proverb: First things first. Thus, first I shall defeat my enemies. Second I shall become fashionable so that I fill everyone with desire.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think you do badly as it is,’ I mumbled.
    Varvara blushed and went back to triturating the contents of the horn. Though she said nothing, I knew that I had made amends for my remark about the dress.
    Soon she came over with the medicine. I sat up and drank it. It was curiously bland and rather sickening, and it made me shake my head involuntarily as though trying to expel the after-taste. I put my feet on the floor, meaning to thank her and return to my own room, but she pushed me back on to the bed. (Her push would have been more use in a rugger scrum than mine ever was.)
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘You must remain quiet. Otherwise it will do you harm.’
    I began to feel alarmed. ‘What in God’s name have you given