She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Kipling - Poems
Not even at the wedding.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a
station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered
from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other
trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves
was affected, and the fever made it worse.
This showed itself later on.
Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill.
She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to pick
up every form of illness that went about a station, from simple fever
upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times;
and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided himself
on speaking his mind.
When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and went
back to the lairs of his bachelordom.
She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any saddle
would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never was
asked to dance, because she did not dance well; and she was so dull
and uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any cards in it.
Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was going to be such
a scare-crow after her marriage, he would never have married her. He
always prided himself on speaking his mind, did Schreiderling!
He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment.
Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I found
out at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick--very sick--on an
off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves had nearly
killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew--what I had no interest in
knowing--when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote to tell her. They had
not seen each other since a month before the wedding. And here comes the
unpleasant part of the story.
A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one evening.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a
station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered
from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other
trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves
was affected, and the fever made it worse.
This showed itself later on.
Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill.
She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to pick
up every form of illness that went about a station, from simple fever
upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times;
and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided himself
on speaking his mind.
When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and went
back to the lairs of his bachelordom.
She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any saddle
would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never was
asked to dance, because she did not dance well; and she was so dull
and uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any cards in it.
Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was going to be such
a scare-crow after her marriage, he would never have married her. He
always prided himself on speaking his mind, did Schreiderling!
He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment.
Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I found
out at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick--very sick--on an
off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves had nearly
killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew--what I had no interest in
knowing--when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote to tell her. They had
not seen each other since a month before the wedding. And here comes the
unpleasant part of the story.
A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one evening.
