Hilda - A Story of Calcutta by Sara Jeannette Duncan
page 46 of 305 (15%)
page 46 of 305 (15%)
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conditions."
"Surely there would be some moments of splendid compensation?" "Oh, yes; and for those in the end we are all willing to perish! But then you know all, you have done all; there is nothing afterwards but the eternal strain to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could begin to make you see the joys of a strolling player--they aren't much understood in the proscenium--but there are so many, honestly, that London being at the top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of going has twice wound round the world already. But I'm talking like an illustrated interview. You will grant the impertinence of all I've been saying when I tell you that I've never yet had an illustrated interview." "Aren't they almost always vulgar?" Alicia asked. "Don't they make you sit the wrong way on a chair, in tights?" Hilda threw her head back and laughed almost, Alicia noted, like a man. She certainly did not hide her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, as woman often do in bursts of hilarity; she laughed freely, and as much as she wanted to, and it was as clear as possible that tights presented themselves quite preposterously to any discussion of her profession. They were things to be taken for granted, like the curtain and the wings; they had no relation to clothing in the world. Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd--her outsider's prejudices. She said something like that, and Hilda seemed to soar again for her point of view about the illustrated interviews. "They _are_ atrocities," she said. "On their merits they ought to be cast out of |
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