{"id":253419,"date":"2026-07-13T02:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-summer-bird-cage-margaret-drabble-1\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T02:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:48:20","slug":"a-summer-bird-cage-margaret-drabble-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-summer-bird-cage-margaret-drabble-1\/","title":{"rendered":"A Summer Bird Cage – Margaret Drabble (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I had no intention of going to add my small words to the circle of dislike and admiration which success attracts, and I was distinctly surprised when he intercepted one of my glances and started over to the corner where Jackie and I were sitting, with our sour cigarettes, holding hot hands. He stood before us, huge and dark like a colossus, shutting out all the dim red light from our corner. I felt like a child: the fact that I was on the floor and he standing put me at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

I felt, literally, small. \u2018Are you dancing?\u2019 he asked me, \u2018or have you given up for the night?\u2019 \u2018I haven\u2019t given up yet,\u2019 I said, without presence of mind. \u2018Then do you mind getting up from there? Excuse us, Jackie.\u2019 I rose to my feet, dazed by the shock treatment: my reactions were slow that night. I murmured \u2018Wait\u2019 at Jackie Almond, who sat there, apparently waiting: I felt as though a head boy or a lord of the manor had removed me by right of place from a fifth-former or a serf.<\/p>\n

The minute John took hold of me I began to regret my feebleness: I badly wanted to sit down, as I didn\u2019t feel at all steady on my feet, nor at all able to engage in conversation. Also I was soon busy detesting myself for the faint frisson that came from dancing with the best-known and in a certain style the best-looking man in the room. He managed to hold me far more aggressively and personally than my nice Jackie person, and seemed to crush all the movement out of me.<\/p>\n

I felt squashed in his grasp, squashed and angry. He wasn\u2019t even dancing properly, he was just ambling around with me. It was only after a couple of minutes that I realized he wanted to talk, not to dance. The first thing he said was, \u2018Well, I saw your sister last week.\u2019 \u2018Oh, did you?\u2019<\/p>\n

I replied. \u2018Yes, I did. She was in Paris. With Stephen, still with Stephen.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t say less than \u2018Oh?\u2019 \u2018Amazing, isn\u2019t it? An old sod like Stephen.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know how to comment on this either: I sensed danger on every side. I was subdued by the way he kept his hand hard on my back ribs, and pushed me ever so slightly backwards, so that I felt off balance and defeated.<\/p>\n

\u2018I went to see them,\u2019 John continued, \u2018because Stephen wants me to be in a film of his, called The Decline of Marriage. A very good title, don\u2019t you think?\u2019<\/p>\n

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For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. www.hmhbooks.com First U.S. edition in 1964 by William Morrow & Co. Published in Great Britain in 1963 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available. eISBN 978-0-544-28520-0 v1.1013 1kitap1.com\/en FOR CLIVE 1kitap1.com\/en \u2019Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.<\/p>\n

John Webster 1kitap1.com\/en 1 The Crossing I HAD TO come home for my sister\u2019s wedding. Home is a house in Warwickshire, and where I was coming from was Paris. I was keen on Paris, but will refrain from launching into descriptions of the Seine. I would if I could, but I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I like the way things look, but can never remember them when I need to. So I\u2019ll leave Paris at that. I was leaving to go home to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of my sister Louise. And I didn\u2019t mind leaving, either: all the foreignness that seemed so enchanting when I first went in July had begun to drive me to distraction.<\/p>\n

Every time somebody pinched me on the M\u00e9tro I felt like screaming, and as for things like the lavatory paper and the price of chocolate and the brisk, bare-kneed, smart little girls I used to take for English conversation\u2014well, I felt I\u2019d really had enough. I\u2019d only been there for two months, but it seemed like far longer.<\/p>\n

So when the letter arrived from Louise asking me to go and bridesmaid, I heaved a sigh of relief and bought my ticket. Also, I felt that it was time I stopped wasting time. I don\u2019t know why I hate wasting time so much. I hadn\u2019t really been doing anything in Paris.<\/p>\n

I had gone there immediately after coming down from Oxford with a lovely, shiny, useless new degree, in a faute-de-mieux middle-class way, to fill in time. To fill in time till what? What indeed?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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