Epreuve Anglais - Etude De texte: Evening - Maeve Binchy -

Description

Niveau: Secondaire, Lycée
Lisez très attentivement le texte ci-dessous. On the day that the bus came to take her with her belongings to the town with the airport, Gabriella came out on her steps. She didn't speak and nor did Signora, but they bowed to each other. Their faces were grave and respectful. Some of those who watched the little scene knew what was being said. They knew that one woman was thanking the other with all her heart In a way that could never be put into words, and wishing her good fortune in 5 whatever lay ahead. It was loud and crowded in the city, and the airport was full of noise and bustle, not the happy, easy bustle of Annunziata but people rushing without meeting each other's gaze. It would be like this in Dublin too, when she got back there, but Signora decided not to think about it. 10 She had made no plans, she would just do what seemed the right thing to do when she got there. No point in wasting her journey planning what could not be planned. She had told no one that she was coming. Not her family, not even Brenda. She would find a room and look after herself as she had always done, and then she would work out what to do next.

• italian money into


• verbs into


• italian


• anyone - whoever - nowhere else - whenever - none - elsewhere


• she

Sujets

• Italian
• Airport
• London
• Dublín
• Binchy
• New York City

Informations

• Publié par: profil-insu-2012
• Nombre de lectures: 146
• Langue: English

Extrait

Lisez très attentivement le texte ci-dessous.

On the day that the bus came to take her with her belongings to the town with the

airport, Gabriella came out on her steps. She didn't speak and nor did Signora, but they bowed

to each other. Their faces were grave and respectful. Some of those who watched the little

scene knew what was being said. They knew that one woman was thanking the other with all

her heart In a way that could never be put into words, and wishing her good fortune in

5

whatever lay ahead.

It was loud and crowded in the city, and the airport was full of noise and bustle, not the

happy, easy bustle of Annunziata but people rushing without meeting each other's gaze. It

would be like this in Dublin too, when she got back there, but Signora decided not to think

about it.

10

She had made no plans, she would just do what seemed the right thing to do when she

got there. No point in wasting her journey planning what could not be planned. She had told

no one that she was coming. Not her family, not even Brenda. She would find a room and

look after herself as she had always done, and then she would work out what to do next.

On the plane she began talking to a boy. He was about ten, the age of Mario and

15

Gabriella's youngest son, Enrico. Automatically she spoke to him in Italian, but he looked

away confused.

Signora looked out the window. She would never know what would happen to Enrico,

or his brother in New York, or his sister married to the kitchen help and up in Vista del

Monte. She would not know who came to live in her room. And whoever it was would never

20

know of her long years there, and why she had spent them.

It was like swimming out to sea and not knowing what would happen where you had left

and what was going to happen where you would arrive.

She changed planes in London. She had no wish to spend any time there. Not to visit 25

the old haunts where she had lived with Mario in a different life. Not to look up people long

25

forgotten, and places only barely remembered. No, she would go on to Dublin. To whatever

lay ahead.

It had all changed so much. The place was much, much bigger than she remembered.

There were flights arriving from all over the world. When she had left, most of the big 30

international flights had gone in and out of Shannon Airport. She hadn't known that things

30

would be so different. Like the road in from the airport. When she had left the bus had wound

its way out through housing estates ; now it came in on a motorway with flowers planted on

each side. Heavens, how Ireland was keeping up with the times !

An American woman on the bus asked her where she was staying.

'I'm not absolutely sure,' Signora explained. 'I'll find somewhere.'

35

'Are you a native or a visitor ?

'I came from here a long time ago,' Signora said.

'Same as me ... looking for ancestors.' The American woman was pleased. She was

giving a week to finding her roots, she thought that should be long enough.

'Oh definitely,' Signora said, realising how hard it was to find instantly the right

40

response in English. She had been about to say certo. How affected it would sound breaking

into Italian, they would think she was showing off. She must watch for it.

Signora got out of her bus and walked up the quays beside the Liffey to O'Connell

Bridge. All around her there were young people, tall, confident, laughing, in groups. She 45

remembered reading somewhere about this youthful population, half the country under the age

45

of twenty-four was it ?

She hadn't expected to see such proof of it. And they were dressed brightly too. Before

she had gone to England to work, Dublin had been a grey and drab place. A lot of the

buildings had been cleaned, there were smart cars, expensive cars in the busy traffic lanes. She

remembered more bicycles and second-hand cars. The shops were bright and opened up. Her

50

eye caught the magazines, girls with big bosoms, surely these had been banned when she was

last here or was she living in some kind of cloud cuckoo land ?

Maeve BINCHY,

Evening Class, 1996