Mothers and Daughters
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Год: 1961
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon and Schuster
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Mothers and Daughters». Краткое содержание книги:
The paintings were on the third floor, a series that showed men and women alike wearing white masks that covered their faces. At first she thought the paintings depicted some sort of masquerade ball, some fourteenth-century Mardi gras. And then she thought perhaps the plague had visited Venice at one time and the masks were a protection against the disease. Their guide explained the meaning of the masks, an explanation she never quite believed, but which nonetheless planted an idea in her mind. The guide told Julia and Millie that in those days there was great intrigue in Venice, and it was not uncommon to find noblemen with slit throats floating in the canals on any given morning. In order to protect themselves from homicide and assorted mayhem, the noblemen took to sending their servants out dressed in their clothes and wearing white masks that covered their features. The point of the masquerade, then, was to confuse would-be assassins. No one wanted to run a dagger across the throat of a supposed Count only to discover it was his own brother-in-law who worked in the Count’s kitchen. But, as with many another measure originally conceived of necessity, the masks became quite popular and enjoyed a sort of curious vogue. The women began wearing them as part of their everyday dress, and the masks became more ornate, decorated with pearls and jewels, dominos hid the eyes and the nose, the city was suddenly filled with faceless citizens.
The concept of the masks intrigued Julia.
For the first time in her life, she began wondering exactly who she was, began wondering who was the noblewoman and who was the scullery maid in disguise, began indeed to wonder whether the mask hid the true face or whether the mask was the face itself.
She had never questioned herself along these lines. She had long ago dismissed soul-searching as a particularly obnoxious fictional device, had long ago in fact stopped reading fiction of any sort, because she felt it added nothing to her understanding of herself as a wife and a mother. There were things Julia accepted, and things she refused to accept, and she had always believed that her own freedom of choice was the very fabric of her life. But now she began wondering if her freedom wasn’t simply the security of a jungle animal in captivity. She felt undeniably different in Italy. She could not honestly say she had changed in any way, because there was no tangible change she could see, and really no essential inner change she could feel. She seemed to move in exactly the same way, and think in exactly the same way — and yet there was a difference. A mask had been lowered, or perhaps a mask had been raised. She did not know which, and the uncertainty was puzzling. To Julia, there had always been things that were true and things that were false. She had always known exactly which was which, and she had governed her life accordingly, sure of their constancy. Now, she wondered.
She knew she was attractive. There was no doubt whatever in her mind about that. She had known it even when she was a little girl who seriously studied her own face in the big ornately carved mirror in her mother’s bedroom. She would look into the glass and touch her button nose and the edges of her eyes, the thick-fringed lashes, the long silken brown hair. Grownups enjoyed looking at her, Julia Stark knew that, too. She would play games with her own childish beauty. She would sometimes get all messy on purpose, so that she could come in with smudges on her face and on her clothes, the incongruous grime heightening the visual impact of her delicately boned face and body. When she matured, providence was again on her side. At first, she was terribly frightened by the sudden pucker of her chest. She would stare at her tentative buds in the big mirror and touch them exploringly, frightened to death, fascinated too, fascinated the way she was with the steady, slow growth of the four-o’clocks she’d planted in her mother’s garden. The fear and fascination gave way to pleasure and gratitude. She would examine herself critically now, pulling back her shoulders and marveling at the new ripe slope of her chest. And sometimes at night in the privacy of her bed, she would seize herself in delight and whisper fervent thanks for her bounty. The other girls in the sixth grade were not quite as enthusiastically grateful for the blossoming flower in their midst. She was pretty enough to begin with. She did not need any unnecessary and totally unfair embellishments. The hardest thing Julia had to bear was their hidden envy and their open scorn. She didn’t mind the stares of the boys. She clouted one when he tried to touch her, but she connected no thoughts of sexuality to the boy’s understandable curiosity. Her breasts were simply a new part of her body, and she didn’t like anyone touching her, no matter how scientifically probing the attitude. She asked her mother to take her into Talmadge to Mr. Kannen’s clothing store, and her mother helped her in picking out a suitable brassière. She could still remember it. It had been white, and made of cotton, and she found it difficult reaching behind her back to clasp and unclasp it.
She knew she was attractive, yes. This was one of the indisputable and governing facts in Julia’s life. She used her beauty unconsciously, the way most beautiful women do, but she used it nonetheless. She learned in her teens that a pretty girl can get away with a great many more things than her unattractive counterpart. But she never used her good looks flagrantly, never played the outrageous flirt — until she met Arthur Regan. With other boys, she maintained a sort of cool dignity that was sometimes maddening. She was, quite naturally, one of the most popular girls at Talmadge High, and from the time she was sixteen and permitted to date, she never lacked male company on any weekend night. There was about Julia a touch of recklessness, a tinge of heresy, an abandon beneath that pristine exterior, which promised adventure. When she chose to kiss a boy — and she did not choose to very often — she kissed him with an ardor that curled his toes. This, to Julia Stark, was another of the facts of life. If you wanted to kiss someone, you kissed him because you enjoyed it, and you kissed him as if you were enjoying it. Otherwise, you didn’t kiss him at all. She never felt guilty about leaving a date on her doorstep with a handshake and a smile. She felt she owed nothing more than her undoubtedly pleasant company to anyone who took her out. Whatever else they reaped in the way of residual benefits was something Julia and Julia alone would decide. If anyone got silly about it, if any boy decided he would try to wrestle his way into her favor, Julia instantly hit him. She found that an openhanded slap had a remarkably quieting effect. Most boys would not risk Julia’s wrath. They dated her because she was really very pleasant to be with, and to be seen with. And if she chose not to kiss them, there was always the hope — and hope had surely nurtured less ambitious projects — that one day, oh perhaps one day, Julia would offer her mouth, one day Julia would allow her blouse to be opened, her skirt to be pulled back, one day Julia...
The hopes were mostly the stuff of which dreams are made.
Kiss you she would, yes, they knew that. Reports of her kisses were passed around like international secrets among the chosen few. Her lips, they said, did you ever feel softer lips? Her mouth, they said, she kissed you with all of her mouth. Her teeth, they said, she nibbles at your lips, she nibbles at your tongue, she drives you nuts, they said. But more than that they could not discuss, because there never was more than that. The boys of Talmadge had run headlong into another of Julia’s incontrovertible facts of life. She was not easy, and she was not promiscuous, and she knew without the slightest hesitation or doubt that the man who married her would be the first and only man ever to possess her.