The Living is Easy. Dorothy West. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Dorothy West
Издательство: Ingram
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Жанр произведения: История
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781558617322
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       To Ike

      Copyright © 1948, 1975 by Dorothy West

      Afterword © 1982 by the Feminist Press at CUNY

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      The characters in this novel are fictitious; any resemblance to actual persons is wholly accidental and unintentional.

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

       West, Dorothy, 1907–1998

       The living is easy.

       Reprint. Originally published: Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1948.

       Includes bibliographical references.

       I. Title.

       [PS3545.E82794L5 . 1982] 813'.54 81-22062

       eISBN 9781558617322

      This publication is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts

       CONTENTS

       Front Cover

       Title page

       Copyright page

       Contents

       The Living Is Easy

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Part Two

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Afterword

       About the Author

       About the Feminist Press

       Also Available from the Feminist Press

       The Living Is Easy

      “WALK UP,” hissed Cleo, somewhat fiercely.

      Judy was five, and her legs were fat, but she got up steam and propelled her small stout body along like a tired scow straining in the wake of a racing sloop. She peeped at her mother from under the expansive brim of her leghorn straw. She knew what Cleo would look like. Cleo looked mad.

      Cleo swished down the spit-spattered street with her head in the air and her sailor aslant her pompadour. Her French heels rapped the sidewalk smartly, and her starched skirt swayed briskly from her slender buttocks. Through the thin stuff of her shirtwaist her golden shoulders gleamed, and were tied to the rest of her torso with the immaculate straps of her camisole, chemise, and summer shirt, which were banded together with tiny gold-plated safety pins. One gloved hand gave ballast to Judy, the other gripped her pocketbook.

      This large patent-leather pouch held her secret life with her sisters. In it were their letters of obligation, acknowledging her latest distribution of money and clothing and prodigal advice. The instruments of the concrete side of her charity, which instruments never left the inviolate privacy of her purse, were her credit books, showing various aliases and unfinished payments, and her pawnshop tickets, the expiration dates of which had mostly come and gone, constraining her to tell her husband, with no intent of irony, that another of her diamonds had gone down the drain.

      The