The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

luckily had escaped with no great harm done.
    “Odd things have been happening, however,” the major went on, crisply. He paused, waiting for his words to sink in. The words had had the ring of military authority. He would have had a good war, thought Henri Poussin, an engineer. A nonentity before, and a nonentity of a different kind after, but when the keynotes of the times were urgency and violence, Lionheart must have been pretty good.
    “Would you care to justify that statement, Major?” said Vogel, the German lawyer, sharply.
    The major looked at him with scarcely veiled contempt. Vogel was a cynic and a poltroon; he had been caught cheating at cards. “Of course,” said the major quietly. “The falling stars.” The silence of the assembled throng fell into a deeper stillness, with all of them at once—except Vogel—holding their breaths. “Everyone has seen them,” the major went on quietly. “Not just one or two people, but everyone; and not just on one night but almost every night. Large, bright, white stars.”
    “Large as maple leaves,” said the salesman’s mistress, in a soft, half-drugged tone. She squeezed her hands together, as if frightened that she had spoken out.
    “Exactly,” said the major.
    “And the elm leaves are red,” said the watchmaker, springing up, shaking off his wife’s hand. “Has anyone else noticed that?” He looked around him excitedly, and several heads nodded. He was referring to the cluster of elms at the end of the lawn behind the hotel. The people who had nodded dropped their gaze and licked their lips nervously. But other voices agitatedly claimed that this was not true. These voices carried little conviction, and were soon silent. Total silence fell again, and a distinct coldnesshad spread in the room. Anxious to avoid a spread of alarm and despondency, the major proposed that they should break off for a few minutes while people went upstairs to recharge their glasses. The major sat down, suddenly tired, and in the hubbub of talking and pushing towards the stairs Vogel glided up to him, his rimless glasses glinting maliciously. “I’m surprised at you, Lionheart,” he said—lightly enough, but with an iron edge of contempt and resentment.
    The major leaned back in his chair. “Are you? In what way?”
    “Spreading panic among the ladies. Why couldn’t you have kept them out of it? I don’t accept your alarmist ideas for one moment. But just supposing they’re true, why couldn’t you have left them out of it?”
    “In the first place, Vogel, you are under-rating the ladies’ intelligence. It’s a habit with people in sedentary occupations—always unwise, and in some cases dangerous.”
    Vogel flushed slightly, but he remained controlled.
    “In the second place?”
    “For their own safety—for the safety of all of us—they’ve got to realize we may be menaced by things we don’t understand. At least, I don’t pretend to understand them. But then, I haven’t had the benefit of a German education.”
    The lawyer turned away abruptly. The soldier felt annoyed that he had allowed himself to be goaded into a discourteous remark. But he quickly brought his thoughts back to the serious business in hand, as his fellow guests had reassembled with their drinks and were waiting for him to resume the discussion. He got to his feet. Momentarily dizzy, swaying slightly, he gripped the damp cushion of the billiard table.
    “The important thing,” he said, “is for us to share frankly what we have seen, or think we have seen; and if possible to findrational explanations. For instance I don’t know if I’m alone in having seen lightning striking the lake? A livid stroke, absolutely vertical.” He looked around questioningly. After a short, tense silence, an elderly nurse flushed and said quietly, “No, I saw it too.” “And I,” said a gaunt, hook-nosed accountant. His wife, too, nodded her head vigorously. Several others gave subdued, embarrassed