Saturday, December 8, 2012

The boy went across the patio to bed

The boy went across the patio to bed. He had a little dark room with an iron bedstead that he shared with his father. He lay next the wall and his father would lie on the outside, so that he could come to bed without waking his son. He took off his shoes and undressed glumly by candlelight: he could hear the whispering of prayers in the other room; he felt cheated and disappointed because he had missed something,http://www.moncleroutletonlinestore.com/. Lying on his back in the heat he stared up at the ceiling,north face outlet, and it seemed to him that there was nothing in the world but the store, his mother reading, and silly games in the plaza.
But very soon he went to sleep. He dreamed that the priest whom they had shot that morning was back in the house dressed in the clothes his father had lent him and laid out stiffly for burial. The boy sat beside the bed and his mother read out of a very long book all about how the priest had acted in front of the bishop the part of Julius Caesar: there was a fish basket at her feet, and the fish were bleeding, wrapped in her handkerchief. He was very bored and very tired and somebody was hammering nails into a coffin in the passage. Suddenly the dead priest winked at him—an unmistakable flicker of the eyelid, just like that.
He woke and there was the crack, crack of the knocker on the outer door. His father wasn't in bed and there was complete silence in the other room. Hours must have passed. He lay listening: he was frightened, but after a short interval the knocking began again, and nobody stirred anywhere in the house,Moncler Sale. Reluctantly, he put his feet on the ground—it might [213] be only his father locked out: he lit the candle and wrapped a blanket round himself and stood listening again. His mother might hear it and go, but he knew very well that it was his duty. He was the only man in the house.
Slowly he made his way across the patio towards the outer door. Suppose it was the lieutenant come back to revenge himself for the spittle. ... He unlocked the heavy iron door and swung it open. A stranger stood in the street: a tall pale thin man with a rather sour mouth, who carried a small suitcase. He named the boy's mother and asked if this was the Se?ora's house. Yes, the boy said, but she was asleep. He began to shut the door, but a pointed shoe got in the way.
The stranger said: "I have only just landed. I came up the river tonight. I thought perhaps ... I have an introduction for the Se?ora from a great friend of hers."
"She is asleep," the boy repeated.
"If you would let me come in," the man said with an odd frightened smile, and suddenly lowering his voice he said to the boy: "I am a priest."
"You?" the boy exclaimed.
"Yes,http://www.cheapnorthfacedownjacket.com/," he said gently. "My name is Father—" But the boy had already swung the door open and put his lips to his hand before the other could give himself a name.

THE END

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