by William Somerset Maugham

I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown.

When I went on board Mr. Kaleda's luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hairwash and his brilliantine. Mr. Kaleda's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been add the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr. Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.

"I am Mr. Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.

"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."

"Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."

I blinked.

"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.

"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I am."

To prove it, Mr. Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.

King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.

"What will you have?" he asked me.

I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr. Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.

"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."

"From each of his hip pockets he furnished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.

"A very good cocktail," I said.

"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends on board, you tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."

Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.

"The three on the four," said Mr. Kelada.

There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put the card you have turned up before you have a chance to look for yourself.

"It's coming out, it's coming out," he cried. "The ten on the knave."

With rage and hatred in my heart I finished.

Then he seized the pack.

"Do you like card tricks?"

"No, I gate card tricks," I answered.

"Well, I'll just show you this one."

He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at the table.

"Oh, that's all right," he said, "I've already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same stateroom we might just as well sit at the same table."

I did not like Mr. Kelada.

I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to hi that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the in his face without the suspicion dawning on hem that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except far a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.

Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs. Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humor. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.

One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the cultured pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be prefect. Mr. Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr. Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble as vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted.

"Well, I ought to know what I am talking about, I'm going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I'm in the trade and there's not a man in it who won't tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don't know about pearls isn't worth knowing."

Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.

"They'll never be able to get a cultured pearl that an expert like me can't tell with half an eye." He pointed to a chain that Mrs. Ramsay wore. "You take my word for it, Mrs. Ramsay, that chain you're wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now."

Mrs. Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.

"That's a pretty chain of Mrs. Ramsay's, isn't it?"

"I noticed it at once," answered Mr. Kelada. "Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right."

"I didn't buy it myself, of course. I'd be interested to know how much you think it cost."

"Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if I was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn't be surprised to hear anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it."

Ramsay smiled grimly.

"You'll be surprised to hear that Mrs. Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars."

Mr. Kelada flushed.

"Rot. It's not only real, but it's as fine a string for its size as I've ever seen."

"Will you bet on it? I'll bet you a hundred dollars it's imitation."

"Done."

"Oh, Elmer, you can't bet on a certainty," said Mrs. Ramsay.

She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.

"Can't I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it."

"But how can it be proved?" she continued. "It's only my word against Mr. Kelada's."

"Let me look at the chain, and if it's imitation I'll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars," said Mr. Kelada.

"Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants."

Mrs. Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.

"I can't undo it," she said. "Mr. Kelada will just have to take my word for it."

I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.

Ramsay jumped up.

"I'll undo it."

He handed the chain to Mr. Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught of Mrs. Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was starting at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.

Mr. Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.

"I was mistaken," he said. "It's very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn't real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing's worth."

He took out his pocketbook and from it a hundred dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.

"Perhaps that'll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend," said Ramsay as he took the note.

I noticed that Mr. Kelada's hands were trembling.

The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs. Ramsay retired to her stateroom with a headache.

Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr. Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.

"Who's this from? He opened it. "Oh!"

He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred-dollar note. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and gave them to me.

"Do you mind just throwing them out of the porthole?"

I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.

"No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool," he said.

"Were the pearls real?"

"If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe," said he.

At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. He reached out for his pocketbook and carefully put in it the hundred-dollars note.

I. Learn the vocabulary

instill вселяти, навівати

mode of life спосіб життя

prejudice забобон

prolific плодовитий

the Orient країни Сходу

spy таємний агент

playwright of distinction видатний драматург

prohibition сухий закон

message ідея

timely своєчасний

accommodation тут каюта

berth спальне місце

porthole ілюмінатор

rigidly суворо, строго

dismay страх, тривога

trunk дорожній сундук

patron постійний покупець

ebony ебеновий

scrub чистка

patience пасьянс

jolly дуже

stick триматися (разом)

blink щуритися, мружитися

to the backbone до самих кісток

sturdy міцний

lustrous блискучий

liquid прозорий, світлий

sleek прилизаний

exuberant бурний, несамовитий

betray виказувати

bone dry амер. сухий

ginger ale імбірне пиво

squash напій (фруктовий)

furnish постачати

tumbler висока склянка

pal приятель

liquor спиртний напій

chatty балакучий

drapery тканина

dignity гідність

familiar безцеремонний

put on airs триматися гордовито

seemly належний

ease спокій

exasperating дратівний

knave валет

rage лють, гнів

pack колода (карт)

stateroom кабіна

snub ігнорувати

slam грюкати

dawn on smb спасти на думку

mixer компанійська людина

sweeps азартні ігри

quoits метання кілець у ціль

at one's mercy у своїй владі

jovial веселий

loquacious говіркий

affront (публічна) образа

overweening надзвичайний

vanity пиха, многолюбство

bring round переконати

chap хлопець

frigidly байдуже, холодно

resent обурюватися

cocksureness самовпевненість

acrimonious саркастичний

interminable нескінченний

balge випинатися

resume відновлювати

demeanour манера, поведінка

cunning розумний

inevitably неминуче

diminish зменшувати

rush швидко починати

have a fling at sb зачепити кого-н.

vehement несамовитий

voluble говіркий

sting уражати

thump стукати, ударяти

loquacity балакучість

vaguely непевно

errand поїздка

triumphantly тріумфально

flicker блимати

gee амер. розм. от здорово!

grimly похмуро

rot сл. дурниці

bet іти на парі

deprecating який протестує

clasp застібка

swarthy смуглявий

appeal благання

put up терпіти

chaff піддразнювання

catch out збентежити

II. Give the Ukrainian equivalents of the following words and word-combinations:

the passenger traffic; to be hard to get; to share a cabin; a cabin to oneself; to look upon smth with less dismay; to unpack the toilet things; to make one’s way; to show a row of flashing teeth; to stick together; robe British to the backbone; to speak with a fluency; to have exuberant gestures; to be bone dry; to flash an oriental smile; to be chatty; the Union Jack; an impressive piece of drapery; to be familiar; to put aside the cards; to be exasperating; card trick; to be not wanted; to kick smb downstairs; to slam the door in one’s nose; a welcome visitor; to be a good mixer; to be an affront; the overweening vanity; to bring smb to one’s way of thinking; frigidly indifferent; the American Consular Service; to resume the post; to be on a flying visit to; demeanour; to diminish the value; to rush the new topic; to have a fling at smb; to go on commercial errand; with half an eye; a string; to undo the clasp; to examine smth closely; to stare at smb with wide and terrified eyes; to make an effort; to be cocksure; to be written in block letters; a hundred-dollar note to tear smth into little bits.

III. Find in the text the English equivalents of the following words and word-combinations:

океанські лайнери; попутник; ділити каюту з кимось; парфуми, шампунь, бриліантин; розкладати пас’янс; триматися разом; діяти (про закон); бокал з льодом; приятель; зовсім незнайома людина; мати можливість; ігнорувати; бути компанійською людиною; проводити аукціон; збирати гроші на призи; організовувати концерти; влаштовувати бали-маскаради; залишити тему розмови; гострі та нескінченні суперечки; забрати когось; почуття гумору; погано оплачуватися; приділяти особливу увагу; мати певну якість; випадково; штучні перлини; відмовлятися від можливості; несамовитий та говіркий; заховати намисто під платтям; підробка; вагатися хвилинку; збільшувальне скло; непритомніти; відчайдушні благання; почервоніти.

IV. Render in Ukrainian:

1. I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown.

2. "Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think." - "Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you understand what I mean."

3. King George has many strange subjects. Mr. Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr. Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.

4. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.

5. I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to hi that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the in his face without the suspicion dawning on hem that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment.

6. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him.

7. Ramsay was in the American Consular Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife who had been spending a year at home.

8. Here was news for us, for Mr. Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked around the table triumphantly.

9. I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.

10. Suddenly he caught of Mrs. Ramsay's face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was starting at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.

11. The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr. Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs. Ramsay retired to her stateroom with a headache.

12. "No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool," he said.

"Were the pearls real?"

"If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn't let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe," said he.

At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada. He reached out for his pocketbook and carefully put in it the hundred-dollars note.

V. Read the story once more and answer the following questions:

1. Why was the narrator prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before he knew him?

2. Why did the narrator dislike Mr. Kelada’s luggage?

3. How did the narrator get acqiainted with Mr. Kelada?

4. Why was the narrator irritated when Mr. Kelada declared himself to be English and began to prove his citizenship?

5. What is “prohibition”? Was Mr. Kelada a law-abiding person?

6. What kind of person was Mr. Kelada? What were the subjects of his talks?

7. Why was the narrator annoyed with Mr. Kelada’s behaviour?

8. What was Mr. Kelada busy with all the time? How did the passengers tolerate his activity?

9. What was Mr. Ramsay? What was the reason of his voyage?

10. What was the subject of the conversation in which Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay were engaged?

11. What new facts of Mr. Kelada’s life did the passengers discover? Were they astonished?

12. What was the subject of Mr. Kelada and Mr. Ramsay’s bet?

13. Who was declared to win the bet? Why did Mr. Kelada tell a lie?

14. What did Mr. Kelada experience after he, Mw. Know-All, had been caught out?

15. Why did the narrator change his attitude towards Mr. Kelada?

V. Speak on the points; make use of the active words and word combinations.

Section 4

At Your Service

By Alan Maley

On 15 September Madame Desjardins finally decided to open the room. It was a difficult decision.

Their marriage was based on non-interference in each other’s affairs. They had lived under the same roof for twenty years but their lives had been separate. She had her own circle of friends who shared her passion for music. In the winter she spent most evenings at the Opera or in the Salle Pleyel with one of her many artistic friends. Afterwards they would have dinner in one of the fashionable restaurants of the Champs-Elysees. When she returned home in the early hours of the morning, Edouard would be asleep in his bedroom.

He had a fixed routine. He would get up at six and do some yoga exercises. After that, he had his breakfast. This usually consisted of fresh fruit, croissants and coffee. Madeleine, their maid, would serve it on the dot of seven. In the summer months he would eat on the terrace; in winter in the small dining-room overlooking the garden. He would then bathe, dress in one of his dark, formal suits and walk round the corner to the Parc Monceau. After a brisk walk in the park, he would return home, stopping at the small “cafe tabac” on the corner to buy Le Monde. By then it would be eight-thirty. He would spend the next hour and a half reading the newspaper. At ten, he would leave the house and make his way to the Bibliotheque Nationale. For many years he had been doing research into the Bushmen tribes of the Kalahari Desert. The staff in the library knew him well. They were used to the odd clicking sounds he sometimes made while he was reading. (The Bushmen languages use a lot of clicking sounds.) He was a regular visitor. The library staff made sure that no one else ever sat in his seat near the window. He was a respected scholar, even if he was a bit odd.

Madame Desjardin’s first name was Eloise. She usually got up as soon as her husband left the house. This was not done consciously. She did not dislike her husband. It was just that, when he was in, the air felt heavy. Once he had gone out, she felt as if a weight had been lifted from the house. She would then rise. She would never hurry. Madeleine would serve her coffee and croissants in her bedroom. She would then spend an hour or two bathing, deciding on which of her many dresses she would wear, nibbling her croissants and telephoning her friends. They would exchange the latest gossip. This was far more amusing than reading a newspaper, and much less tiring.

Her day really began with lunch. Usually she would eat with one of her female friends. They would go to the Tour d’Argent, or another fashionable restaurant. Apart from the food which, of course, had to be first class, the place had to be “amusing”, “charming” or “original”. She and her network of “friends” were dedicated to amusement. They thought that the world existed in order to provide them with amusement. They called each other by “fun” names – Mimi, Mado, Aggie, Popol and so on. Her own name had been shortened to Elo.

After lunch she might visit a new exhibition – or call on her beautician, or her coiffeuse to make sure that her hair would be in perfect condition for the evening’s entertainments.

In the evenings, Edouard would return to eat his supper alone. He would then go up to his “den” on the top floor of the house. No one was allowed inside the room, which he kept locked. Eloise did not know what he did there. She assumed that it must be connected with his clicking Bushmen. Anyway she was too busy, amusing herself, to care.

Their year also followed a regular routine. From September to April they stayed in Paris – he in the library, she at her concerts and restaurants. The would give a supper party at Christmas for the few surviving family members. This was the only social event they shared; their one concession to conventional family life. In the spring, Eloise would spend a month staying with friends who had a villa on a Greek island. She would then move from friend to friend around the continent of Europe, from one “amusing” location to another, returning to Paris at the end of July.

She would spend the month of August in Paris. This was an odd thing to do, since most Parisians leave on holiday during August to escape from the heat. Eloise, however, thought that it was “original” to stay in Paris when everyone else had left. It was as if the city was empty. For a whole month it belonged to her alone. It was also the only time when she had the house entirely to herself.

For the past fifteen years Edouard had left Paris on 31 July and returned on 1 September. He would return each year in an exceptionally good mood. The he would go back to his old routine as if he had never been away. He never offered to explain where he had been, nor what he had been doing. Eloise never asked. She occasionally wondered if he had a mistress somewhere. It seemed unlikely. It would have made no difference anyway.

But this year, he had not returned on 1 September. Two weeks had passed and still he had not come back. Eloise finally decided she should open the room on the top floor. Perhaps she would find a clue to her husband’s disappearance. She waited until Madeleine’s evening off. Then she made her way up the narrow wooden stairs leading to the top floor. She had found a large screwdriver, a hammer and a pair of pincers, though she had never in her life had to use tools. It was dark in the corridor and it took her almost half an hour to open the door.

The room was small and airless. It contained a desk, a wardrobe, a bookcase and narrow camp-bed. The floor boards were bare. On the desk there was an address book and a photograph album. In the wardrobe hung a black suit with a swallowtail jacket. Below it was a pair of shiny black patent-leather shoes. There was an odd assortment of books in the bookcase; glossy coffee-table books on some of the great houses and palaces of Europe, guide-books, a number of dictionaries and phrase books in French, English, Italian, Spanish and German, books on wine and food, and a few volumes on etiquette and manners.

She opened the address book. It contained names of well-known rich, well-connected people from all over the world. There was a well-known Italian businessman with a fabulous villa on Lake Maggiore, a Gulf sheikh famous for his stable of race-horses, a lord with a castle in Scotland, a film actor with a ranch in Texas... It was incredible. Her own group of friends were nothing by comparison. Did Edouard really know all these people? And if so, how?

She began to look through the photo album. It too contained some surprises. On every page there were pictures of famous faces, taken at receptions and dinner parties. She took one out. On the back there was a dedication. “From SzaSza to Henri with gratitude for everything you have done.” She took another, “Dear Gustave – we’ll always remember you. Come again next year. Yours Sophia.” Every one she looked at contained similar messages addressed to Michel, Bertrand, Thomas, Claude – as well as to Henri and Gustave. She felt confused and angry. Why he had never told her? But was this all true, or was it a sort of fantasy world he had invented during all those lonely evenings while she had been out? And who were Henri, Gustave and all the others? And where was he now? She decided to sleep on it, took two sleeping pills and went to bed.

The letter arrived the next morning. Madeleine brought it on the breakfast tray. It had been posted in Australia. She recognized his spidery writing and tore open the envelope impatiently,

Dear Eloise,

I am sorry if I have caused you any concern, though I think that is unlikely. As you can see, I am in Australia, but I shall be moving elsewhere soon.

I have decided to leave you. I am sure it will not matter very much to you. Our “marriage” has never been more than a matter of convenience. I have made very generous financial arrangements and transferred the house to you, so you will be able to continue your usual life-style.

If anyone asks where I am, just tell them that I have gone to southern Africa to continue my research on the Bushmen. Do not try to trace me. Over the past few years I have found that I have a gift for service. I now intend to make service my full-time occupation.

With my best wishes for you future life. I hope you will find it“amusing”.

Yours,

Edouard.

Five years later Eloise visited California with some of her more amusing friends. One evening they were invited to a dinner party at the mansion of the famous film magnate, up in the hills behind Los Angeles. They had gathered on the terrace for drinks. An elegantly dressed butler in a black swallowtail coat carried in a tray. He passed from guest to guest discreetly offering them drinks from the tray. “Charles was a real discovery,” confided the magnate to the guests around him, “He really understands what service is.” At this point Charles the butler came to a halt in front of Eloise and held out the tray. “At your service Madame,” he said, “I think you will find the Californian Chardonnay to your taste – an “amusing” little wine.” And he winked. She fainted. It was Edouard.

I. Learn the vocabulary.

Section 5

The Impossible “Impossible Crime”

by Edward D. Hoch

Part I

I’m no detective. In fact, most of the time I’m more of a snow-man, plowing through head-high drifts and 70-mile winds that plague us nine month of the year in the barren area of northern Canada beyond the permafrost line. But when you are living all alone with one another man, 200 miles from the nearest settlement, and one day that only other man is murdered – well, that’s enough to make a detective out of anybody.

His name was Charles Fuller, and my name is Henry Bowfort. Charlie was a full professor at Boston University when I met him, teaching an advanced course in geology while he worked on a highly technical volume concerning the effects of permafrost on subsurface mineral deposits. I was an assistant at his department, and we struck up a friendship at once, perhaps helped along by the fact that I was nearly married to a sparkling blonde named Grace who caught his eye from the very beginning.

Charlie’s own wife had divorced him some ten years earlier and vanished into the wilderness of Southern California. The three of us dined together regularly, and a close friendship developed along fairly predictable lines.

Fuller was in the early forties at the time, a good ten years older than Grace and me, and for as long as we’d known him he’d talked often about the project closest to his heart. “Before I’m too old for it,” he’d say, “I want to spend a year above the permafrost line.”

His opportunity came before any of us thought it would, and one day he announced he would be spending his sabbatical at a research post in Northern Canada, near the Western shore of Hudson Bay. “I’ve given a foundation grant for eight months’ study,” he said. “It’s a great opportunity. I’ll never have another like it.”

“You’re going up there alone?” Grace asked.

“Actually, I was hoping I could prevail on your husband to accompany me.”

I blinked and must have looked a bit startled. “Eight months in the wilds of nowhere with nothing but snow?”

And Charlie Fuller smiled. “Nothing but snow. How about it, Grace? Could you give him up for eight months?”

“If he wants to go,” she answered loyally. She had never tried to stand in the way of every thing I’d wanted to do.

We talked about it for a long time that night, but I already knew I was hooked. I was on my way to northern Canada with Charlie Fuller.

The cabin – when we reached it by plane and boat and snowmobile – was a surprisingly comfortable place, well stocked with enough provisions for a year’s stay. We had two-way radio contact with the outside world, plus necessary medical supplies and a bookcase full of reading material, all thoughtfully provided by the foundation that was financing the permafrost study.

The cabin consisted of three large rooms – a laboratory for our study, a combination living-room-and-kitchen, and a bedroom with a bath partitioned off in one corner. We’d brought our own clothes, and Fuller had brought a rifle, too, to discourage scavenging animals.

We had all the comforts of home, and we settled in for a long winter’s stay.

The daily routine with Charlie Fuller was great fun at first. He was surely a dedicated man, and one of the most intelligent I’d ever known. We would rise early in the morning, breakfast together, and then go off in search of ore samples. We came to know the places where the endless winds chafed against bare rock, where the earth was shielded from the deep blanket of snow. And best of all in those early days, there was the constant radio communication with Grace. Her almost nightly messages brought a touch of Boston to the Northwest Territory.

But after a time Grace’s messages thinned to one or two a week, and finally to one every other week. Fuller and I began to get on each other’s nerves, and often in the mornings I’d be awakened by the sound of rifle fire as he stood outside the cabin door taking random shots at the occasional snowy owl or arctic ground squirrel that wandered near. We still had the snowmobile, but it was 200 miles to the nearest settlement at caribou, making a Saturday night’s trip into town out of the question.

Once, during the evening meal, which had grown monotonous with repetition, Fuller said, “Bet, you miss her, don’t you, Hank?”

“Grace? Sure, I miss her. It’s been a long time.”

“Think she’s sitting home nights waiting for us – for you?”

I put down my fork. “What’s that supposed to mean, Charlie?”

“Nothing – nothing at all.”

But the rest of the evening passed under a cloud. By this time we had been up there nearly five months, and it was just too long.

Christmas came and went, and the winter wind howled outside from morning to night.

It was fantastic, it was unreasonable, but up there – 200 miles from the nearest human being – there began to develop between us a sort of rivalry for my wife. An unspoken rivalry, to be sure, a rivalry for a woman nearly 2000 miles away – but still a rivalry.

“What do you think she’s doing right now, Hank?”

Or – “I wish Grace were here tonight. Warm the place up a bit. Right, Hank?”

Finally one evening in January, when a particularly heavy snow had chained us to the inside of the cabin for two long days and nights, the rivalry came to a head. Charlie Fuller was seated at the rough wooden table we used for meals and paperwork, and I was in my usual chair facing one of the windows.

“We’re losing a lot of heat out of this place,” I commented. “Look at those damn icicles.”

“I’ll go out later and knock them down” he said.

I could tell he was in a bad mood and suspected he’d been drinking from the adequate supply of Scotch we’d brought along.

He left the table and went into the lab. After a moment I followed him in, and found, to my surprise, that he was slumped against a cabinet, staring at the floor. “Leave me alone,” he said.

“Are you sick?”

“Sick of this place, sick of you!”

“Then let’s go back.”

“In this storm?”

“We’ve got a snowmobile.”

“No. No, this is one project I can’t walk out on.”

“Why not? Is it worth this torture day after day?”

“You don’t understand.” He turned to face me, just barely in control of his emotions. Oddly, though, the anger seemed to have passed from him, replaced by something very close to despair. “I didn’t start out life being a geologist. My field was biology, and I had great plans for being a research scientist at some major pharmaceutical house. They pay very well, you know.”

“What happened?”

He leaned against the wall to steady himself. “The damnedest thing, Hank. I couldn’t work with animals. I couldn’t experiment on them, kill them. I don’t think I could ever kill a living thing.”

“What about the animals and birds you shoot at?”

“That’s just the point, Hank. I never hit them! I try to, but I purposely miss! That’s why I went into geology – rocks, the earth. That was the only safe thing, the only field in which I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.”

“You couldn’t make a fool of yourself, Charlie. Even if we called it quits and went back today, the university would still welcome you. You’d still have your professorship.”

“I’ve got to succeed at something, Hank.” He ran a hand through his graying hair. “Don’t you understand? It’s too late for another failure – too late in life to start over again!”

He didn’t mention Grace the rest of the day, but I had the sinking sensation that we hadn’t just been talking about his work. His first marriage had been a failure, too. Was he trying to tell me he had to succeed with Grace?

I. Learn the vocabulary.