High City on a Hill (Ch12)
The art exhibition scene and its follow-up turned out to feel rather less accomplished when I came to type the chapter up then I had remembered them in retrospect :-( And the forthcoming beginning of Chapter 13 is definitely going to need some work. I have adopted the classic approach of starting it 'with a bang', namely the sound of a gunshot, and then spending three pages of flashback explaining where and when Hertha is and how the characters got there, and upon rereading the result I don't think the readers are going to make the intended connection between Hertha sitting around and worrying in the foyer and the canonical shot that gets fired by mistake without any consequences in the auditorium just before the start of "Don Juan"...
( narcissi )Chapter 12 — “I Need to See the End”
It was full dark by the time we drew up in the Place Clignot-les-Pins. I had been expected back from the dressmaker’s hours earlier, and the household was in a state of suppressed tumult and concern. No-one had dared worry my mother with my absence —I was a married woman, after all, and not a child— but my father would be home imminently for dinner, and it was clear that nobody had been relishing the prospect of having to explain to him that I had gone out to Madame Walbroek’s establishment that afternoon and failed to return.
For my part I had no desire to talk about my encounter with the Ghost if it could be avoided, and I did not suppose Christine was in any hurry to introduce the subject either. Stories of sinister alluring figures in deserted graveyards could only sound like hysterical delusion at the best, or a lame excuse for some more culpable assignation.
I was tired, and hurting, and consumed by terrified guilt at what my reckless behaviour might cost, and how I would ever be able to tell Raoul. The last thing I wanted to do was to try to convince a parcel of servants of the whole improbable experience; I wanted a bed, and a doctor, and my mother’s arms, and if I could not have the latter then I would say whatever it took to get rid of the crowd of worried faces.
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