Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh Read Free Book Online

apart and lay on their backs, sun hats tilted over their
noses, shading their eyes from the brilliant equatorial sun. They were on the
crest of the little hills above Debra Dowa; it was cool there, eight thousand
feet up. Behind them in a stockade of euphorbia trees stood a thatched
Nestorian shrine. At its door the priest’s youngest child lay sunning his naked
belly, gazing serenely into the heavens, indifferent to the flies which settled
on the corners of his mouth and sauntered across his eyeballs. Below them the
tin roofs of Debra Dowa and a few thin columns of smoke were visible among the
blue gums. At a distance the Legation syce sat in charge of the ponies.
    ‘William,
darling, there’s something so extraordinary on your neck. I believe it’s two of
them.’
    ‘Well,
I think you might knock it off.’
    ‘I
believe it’s that kind which sting worst.’
    ‘Beast.’
    ‘Oh,
it’s gone now. It was two.’
    ‘I can
feel it walking about.’
    ‘No,
darling, that’s me. I think you might look sometimes when I’m being
sweet to you. I’ve invented a new way of kissing. You do it with your
eyelashes.’
    ‘I’ve
known that for years. It’s called a butterfly kiss.’
    ‘Well
you needn’t be so high up about it. I only do these things for your benefit.’
    ‘It was
very nice, darling. I only said it wasn’t very new.’
    ‘I
don’t believe you liked it at all.’
    ‘It was
so like the stinging thing.’
    ‘Oh,
how maddening it is to have no one to make love with except you.’
    ‘Sophisticated
voice.’
    ‘That’s
not sophisticated. It’s my gramophone record voice. My sophisticated voice is
quite different. It’s like this.’
    ‘I call
that American.’
    ‘Shall
I do my vibrant-with-passion voice?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh
dear, men are hard to keep amused.’ Prudence sat up and lit a cigarette. ‘I
think you’re effeminate and undersexed,’ she said, ‘and I hate you.’
    ‘That’s
because you’re too young to arouse serious emotion. You might give me a
cigarette.’
    ‘I
hoped you’d say that. It happens to be the last. Not only the last in my pocket
but the last in Debra Dowa. I got it out of the Envoy Extraordinary’s bedroom
this morning.’
    ‘Oh
Lord, when will this idiotic war be over? We haven’t had a bag for six weeks.
I’ve run out of hair-wash and detective stories and now no cigarettes. I think
you might give me some of that.’
    ‘I hope
you go bald. Still, I’ll let you have the cigarette.’
    ‘Pru,
how sweet of you. I never thought you would.’
    ‘I’m
that kind of girl.’
    ‘I
think I’ll give you a kiss.’
    ‘No,
try the new way with eyelashes.’
    ‘Is
that right?’
    ‘Delicious.
Do it some more. ‘.
    Presently
they remounted and rode back to the Legation. On the way William said:
    ‘I hope
it doesn’t give one a twitch.’
    ‘What
doesn’t, darling?’
    ‘That
way with the eyelashes. I’ve seen people with twitches. I dare say that’s how
they got it. There was once a man who got run in for winking at girls in the
street. So he said it was a permanent affliction and he winked all through his
trial and got off. But the sad thing is that now he can’t stop and he’s been
winking ever since.’
    ‘I will
say one thing for you,’ said Prudence. ‘You do know a lovely lot of stories. I
dare say that’s why I like you.’
     
     
    Three Powers — Great
Britain, France and the United States — maintained permanent diplomatic
representatives at Debra Dowa. It was not an important appointment. Mr
Schonbaum, the doyen, had adopted diplomacy late in life. Indeed the more
formative years of his career had already passed before he made up his mind, in
view of the uncertainty of Central European exchanges, to become a citizen of
the republic he represented. From the age of ten until the age of forty he had
lived an active life variously engaged in journalism, electrical engineering,
real estate, cotton broking, hotel management, shipping and