Dimanche and Other Stories (Vintage International)
Irene Nemirovsky
Language: English
Pages: 293
ISBN: 0307476367
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A never-before-translated collection by the bestselling author of Suite Française
Written between 1934 and 1942, these ten gem-like stories mine the same terrain of Némirovsky's bestselling novel Suite Française: a keen eye for the details of social class; the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives; the manners and mannerisms of the French bourgeoisie; questions of religion and personal identity. Moving from the drawing rooms of pre-war Paris to the lives of men and women in wartime France, here we find the beautiful work of a writer at the height of her tragically short career.
worn-out old tart, her happiness. She hummed to herself as she climbed the stairs of the Hotel de Berne and went into her dark, stuffy room; then she stretched out on her bed and fell peacefully asleep. At that very moment the first white engagement bouquets were beginning to arrive at Christiane’s home. Boehmer was nervously rubbing his pale, dry hands together as he waited for the wealthy old aunt whom Gérard had asked to make the formal request for Christiane’s hand. Mme. Boehmer, her heavy
I’m a different man, not just spiritually, but physically as well. My nose and mouth don’t matter, they are nothing. Only the soul matters!” He did not realize it but, carried away by his thoughts, he was swaying forward and backward on the seat in a slow, strange rhythm, in time with the motion of the train; and so it was that, in moments of fatigue or stress, his body found itself repeating the rocking movement that had soothed earlier generations of rabbis bent over the holy book, money
every quarter of an hour. Staring at its hands, she waited without moving a muscle, as if complete silence, complete stillness, would somehow slow the passing of time. Three thirty. Three forty-five. That was nothing, one side or the other of the half hour made little difference, even when it was three forty, but if you said, “twenty to four, quarter to four,” then you were lost, everything was ruined, gone forever. He wasn’t coming, he was laughing at her! Who was he with at that very moment? To
“It’s not difficult to stop,” Robert said with a smirk (the car had been stuck for an hour in an unimaginably bad traffic jam). “The problem will be to get going again.” “Do what I tell you,” Monsieur Rose replied. “Get out of the car and run to that house. Buy whatever you can, bread, ham, fruit … oh yes, and a bottle of mineral water; I’m dying of thirst!” “So am I,” said Robert. Pulling his cap down over his eyes, he climbed out of the car. “Well,” thought Monsieur Rose, “I’ll get even with
along.” Dange interrupted her. “She’s not here to defend herself,” he said quietly, his voice shaking. “Monsieur, I’m speaking to you as before God. I am a believer and I know that her spirit is here, listening to us, and can see that I’m telling the truth. I was the one who looked after her for those two years, allowing her to glimpse a wonderful future, promising her glory and love if she would only listen to me. I’ll say it again, it was intoxicating to watch that beautiful creature