Love in the Blitz. Eileen Alexander. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Eileen Alexander
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Биографии и Мемуары
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780008311223
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almost human, and it had a rosy glow of retrospective pleasure on its face when it described Charles’s six days leave at Easter, which they spent at their London flat. (I gather they spent most of the time entertaining their relations to meals – but no doubt they had the evenings to themselves – in which to knit happily on either side of the hearth!) Even her clichés had a glimmer of life – like Lyons’s pastry – if you warm it up in the oven.

      Monday 8 April Have you any wires you can pull, dear? If so try for your life – and mine – and don’t forget that the Air Force and Navy have intelligence services too – and if you get into them you’re not expected either to fly or run the Gauntlet of the U-boat pest. (I’m not suggesting that you would mind if you were – but I would.)

      Friday 12 April I don’t like the Miss Sloane: Leslie: Eileen: Gershon equation. Leslie can’t do without Miss Sloane, but he is nevertheless wholly & permanently unaware of her as a living person. She’s just the Hand that Wields the Pen. You would be quite justified in looking upon me in just that light, of course – but nevertheless I hope you don’t.

      1 In May 1939 the government had introduced a very limited programme of conscription, and on the outbreak of war this was superseded by the National Service (Armed Forces) Act, under which all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, with numerous deferments and exemptions, became liable for conscription.

      2 Helen Marion Wodehouse (1880–1964).

      3 A reference to ‘Jabberwocky’, by Lewis Carroll (1832–98).

      4 The sinking of HMS Courageous off the coast of Ireland by a U-boat with the loss of 519 lives. Hailed as a triumph in Germany, it came as an early blow to British pride in the Royal Navy.

      5 ‘An unconsidered trifle of the goldsmith’s art’, the vinaigrette was a small ornamented container with a pierced grille containing a perfumed sponge. A lifelong passion of Eileen’s, she would have the best collection in England and after the war write a book on the subject.

      6 From Adonais: An elegy on the death of John Keats, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822).

      7 A drama (1936) starring Isobel Lillian Steele and based on her own experiences.

      8 A play by the Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov (1860–1904).

      9 Characters based on the life of Francesca de Rimini (c.1255–85) from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (c.1265–1321).

      10 Eileen would be a little unfair to Hore-Belisha: on his death in 1957 he left two-thirds of his estate to Miss Sloane and the other third to Miss Fox.

      11 Margery Kempe (c.1373–1438) was an English Christian mystic, known for dictating The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language.

      12 An allusion to ‘Sonnet 55’ by William Shakespeare.

      13 Macbeth, Act II, scene ii.

      14 A glass coffee machine.

      15 Gershon was always complaining about Eileen’s spelling, and she happily confessed that she could not spell in any language, including in Hebrew.

      16 As You Like It, Act III, scene ii.

      17 ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834).

      18 Hore-Belisha had been at odds with his generals since he first took office, and disagreements over the disposition and readiness of the BEF in France finally led to his dismissal. Public opinion was on his side but it was the effective end of his political career.

      19 An RFC pilot in the First World War, Sir Alan Cobham was a famous pioneer of long-distance aviation.

      20 A controversial Jewish orientalist and historian, Dr Bernard Lewis worked in intelligence during the war.

      21 From the poem ‘The Sun Rising’ by John Donne (1572–1631).

      22 ‘Sonnet 116’ by William Shakespeare.

      23 Most likely a reference to ‘Desert Bloom’, a poem by Gertrude Thomas Arnold (1876–1962).

      24 Eileen’s car, ‘the most delicate shade of ivory imaginable’, named after the legendary queen of King Ninus of Assyria.

      25 Jewish writer, translator, poet and decorated wartime soldier, Raphael Loewe came from a long tradition of Jewish