Those Who Smiled

Perceval Gibbon

Description

Fans of O. Henry's beloved short stories will relish this well-rounded collection from Welsh-born writer and journalist Perceval Gibbon. Gibbon's tales are characterized by a wry irony and unexpected twist endings that never fail to surprise and delight.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776597017
• Langue: English

Extrait

THOSE WHO SMILED
AND ELEVEN OTHER STORIES
* * *
PERCEVAL GIBBON
 
*
Those Who Smiled And Eleven Other Stories First published in 1920 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-701-7 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-702-4 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - Those Who Smiled II - The Dago III - Wood-Ladies IV - A Man Before the Mast V - The Girl VI - The Breadwinner VII - "Plain German" VIII - Alms and the Man IX - The Darkened Path X - Miss Pilgrim's Progress XI - The Connoisseur XII - The Day of Omens
*
To
MY SISTER, MURIEL GIBBON
I - Those Who Smiled
*
From the great villa, marble-white amid its yews and cedars, in whichthe invaders had set up their headquarters, the two officers thestout, formidable German captain and the young Austrian lieutenantwent together through the mulberry orchards, where the parched grassunderfoot was tiger-striped with alternate sun and shadow. The hushof the afternoon and the benign tyranny of the North Italian sunsubdued them; they scarcely spoke as they came through the ranks offruit-laden trees to the low embankment where the last houses of thevillage tailed out beside the road.
"So ist's gut!" said Captain Hahn then. "We are on time nicely ontime!" He climbed the grassy bank to the road and paused, his tallyoung companion beside him. "Halt here," he directed; "we shall seeeverything from here."
He suspired exhaustively in the still, strong heat, and tookpossession of the scene with commanding, intolerant eyes. He was aman in the earliest years of middle life, short, naturallyfull-bodied, and already plethoric with undisciplined passions andappetites. His large sanguine face had anger and impatience for anhabitual expression; he carried a thick bamboo cane, with which helashed the air about him in vehement gesticulation as he spoke; allhis appearance and manner were an incarnate ejaculation. Beside him,and by contrast with the violence of his effect, his companion waseclipsed and insignificant, no more than a shape of a silent youngman, slender in his close-fitting grey uniform, with a swart,immobile face intent upon what passed.
It was the hour that should crown recent police activities of CaptainHahn with the arrest of an absconding forced-laborer, who, havingescaped from his slave-gang behind the firing-line on the Piave, hadbeen traced to his father's house in the village. An Italianrenegade, a discovery of Captain Hahn's, had served in the affair; awhole machinery of espionage and secret treachery had been put inmotion; and now Lieutenant Jovannic, of the Austrian Army, was to beshown how the German method ensured the German success. Even as theyarrived upon the road they saw the carefully careless group oflounging soldiers, like characters on a stage "discovered" at therise of the curtain, break into movement and slouch with elaboratepurposelessness to surround the cottage. Their corporal remainedwhere he was, leaning against a wall in the shade, eating an onionand ready to give the signal with his whistle; he did not glancetowards the two watching officers. To Lieutenant Jovannic, thefalsity and unreality of it all were as strident as a brass band; yetin the long vista of the village street, brimful of sun and silence,the few people who moved upon their business went indifferently asshadows upon a wall. An old man trudged in the wake of a ladendonkey; a girl bore water-buckets slung from a yoke; a child wassweeping up dung. None turned a head.
"Sieh' 'mal!" chuckled Captain Harm joyously. "Here comes my Judas!"
From the door of the cottage opposite them, whose opening showed deadblack against the golden glare without, came the renegade, pausingupon the threshold to speak a last cheery word to those within. PoorJovannic, it was at this moment that, to the fantastic and absurdcharacter of the whole event, as arranged by Captain Hahn, there wasnow added a quality of sheer horror. The man upon the threshold wasnot like a man; vastly pot-bellied, so that the dingy white of hisshirt was only narrowly framed by the black of his jacket, swollen inbody to the comic point, collarless, with a staircase of unshavenchins crushed under his great, jovial, black-mustached face, thecreature yet moved on little feet like a spinning-top on its point,buoyantly, with the gait of a tethered balloon. He had the gestures,the attitude upon the threshold, of a jolly companion; when heturned, his huge, fatuous face was amiable, and creased yet with thedregs of smiles. From the breast of his jacket he exhumed a whitehandkerchief. "Arrivederci!" he called for the last time to theinterior of the house; someone within answered pleasantly; thendeliberately, with a suggestion of ceremonial and significance in thegesture, he buried the obscenity of his countenance in thehandkerchief and blew his nose as one blows upon a trumpet.
"Tadellos!" applauded Captain Hahn enthusiastically. "He inventedthat signal himself; he's the only man in the village who carries ahandkerchief. Und jetzt geht's los!"
And forthwith it went 'los'; the farce quickened to drama. A coupleof idle soldiers, rifle-less and armed only with the bayonets attheir belts, had edged near the door; others had disappeared behindthe house; Judas, mincing on his feet like a soubrette, moved brisklyaway; and the corporal, tossing the wreck of his onion from him, blewa single note on his whistle. The thin squeal of it was barelyaudible thirty yards away, yet it seemed to Jovannic as though thebrief jet of sound had screamed the afternoon stillness to rags. Thetwo slack-bodied soldiers were suddenly swift and violent; drawnbayonet in hand, they plunged together into the black of the door andvanished within. Down the long street the old man let the donkeywander on and turned, bludgeon in hand, to stare; the child and girlwith the buckets were running, and every door and window showedstartled heads. From within the cottage came uproar screams,stamping, and the crash of furniture overset.
"You see?" There was for an instant a school-masterly touch inCaptain Hahn. "You see? They've got him; not a hitch anywhere.Organization, method, foresight; I tell you."
From the dark door there spouted forth a tangle of folk to the hotdust of the road that rose like smoke under their shifting feet. Thesoldiers had the fighting, plunging prisoner; between their bodies,and past those of the men and women who had run out with them, hisyoung, black-avised face surged and raged in an agony of resistance,lifting itself in a maniac effort to be free, then dragged and beatendown. An old woman tottered on the fringes of the struggle, cryingfeebly; others, young and old, wept or screamed; a soldier, bitten inthe hand, cried an oath and gave way. The prisoner tore himself allbut loose.
"Verfluchter Schweinhund!" roared Captain Halm suddenly. He had stoodtill then intent, steeped in the interest of the thing, but aloof asan engineer might watch the action of his machine till the moment atwhich it fails. Suddenly, a dangerous compact figure of energy, hedashed across the road, shouting. "You'd resist arrest, would you?"he was vociferating. His bamboo cane, thick as a stout thumb, roseand fell twice smashingly; Jovannic saw the second blow go home uponthe hair above the prisoner's forehead. The man was down in aninstant, and the soldiers were over him and upon him. Captain Hahn,cane in hand, stood like a victorious duelist.
The old woman the prisoner's mother, possibly, had staggered back atthe thrash of the stick, and now, one hand against the wall of thehouse and one to her bosom, she uttered a thin, moaning wail. At thatvoice of pain Jovannic started; it was then that he realized that theother voices, those that had screamed and those that had cursed, hadceased; even the prisoner, dragged to his feet and held, made nosound. For an instant the disorder of his mind made it appear thatthe sun-drowned silence had never really been broken, that all thathad happened had been no more than a flash of nightmare. Then heperceived.
Captain Hahn, legs astraddle, a-bulge with the sense of achievement,was giving orders.
"Tie the dog's hands," he commanded. "Tie them behind his back! Cord?Get a cord somewhere, you fool! Teach the hound to resist, I will!Hurry now!"
The prisoner's face was clear to see, no longer writhen and crazy.For all the great bruise that darkened his brow, it was composed to acalm as strange as the calm of death. He looked directly at CaptainHahn, seeming to listen and understand; and when that man of wrathceased to speak, his rather sullen young face, heavy-browed,thick-mouthed, relaxed from its quiet. He smiled!
Beyond him, against the yellow front of the cottage, an old man,bareheaded, with a fleshless skull's face, had passed his arm underthat of the old woman and was supporting her. The lieutenant saw thatbony mask, too, break into a smile. He looked at the others, thebarefoot girls and the women; whatever the understanding was, theyshared it; each oval, sun-tinged face, under its crown of jet hair,had the same faint light of laughter of tragic, inscrutable mirth, atonce contemptuous and pitiful. Along the street, folk had come forthfrom their doors and stood watching in silence.
"That's right, Corporal; tie him up," came Captain Harm's thickishvoice, rich and fruity with the assurance of power. "He won't desertagain when I've done with him and he won't resist either."
It was not for