The Tortoise; A Novel Book

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1921 Original Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Subjects: World War, 1914-1918 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE man and the woman were dreadfully still in the joyous rustling garden. Through the early rippling light of lovely morning they showed like desolate statues -- motionless, soundless, pallid. It was as if the dark night had turned them to stone, and left upon them its darkness. The man was at a distance from the woman. The long emerald lawn still silvery with dew, and the shining space above it, where the birds darted and twittered, separated them, but something invisible, taut as a strong wire held them together. The man was bigger than most men. He loomed huge and heavy before the rose-laden gable of the small doorway, his great back and hunched shoulders turned to the long low house that seemed too small for him. A weary Colossus, his feet planted on the brick walk between the beds of wallflowers and pansies, he waited, immensely still. His attention was fixed on the distant woman, who sat rigid on the edge of a garden seat, in the centre of the lawn, her long body tilted forward, her bosom lifted, her pale head averted and thrown back so that her face received the full light of the sun. Her pose was that of a figure nailed to the prow of a ship. Her arms hung down, slanting backward. The powerful gesture of her hands, if she hadmoved, would have been that of a swimmer, but she made no gesture. Her figure was tense with the dangerous stillness of fear. She looked to him like one who would commit suicide by drowning in the sunlight if she could. It was clear that this man was capable of great physical effort, but now all his effort...Read More