Yes - it was the year before the war, the first war, 1913. How long? Twenty - no, more like thirty years, wasn't it? Wait a minute. But when? The rest of it was not so easy to recollect. He could remember the boy - yes, quite clearly he could remember him. The old man pressed his face closer to the window. 'My little Kalmuck, that's who it is! My little Kalmuck with a picture in the finest shop in Paris! Just imagine that!'Ĭheck out the best interactive novels on Whispers: Interactive stories. Attached to the frame there was a little plaque, and on this it said: CHAIM SOUTINE (1894-1943).ĭrioli stared at the picture, wondering vaguely what there was about it that seemed familiar. It was a landscape, a clump of trees leaning madly over to one side as if blown by a tremendous wind, the sky swirling and twisting all around. He checked, looked back and now, suddenly, there came to him a slight uneasiness, a movement of the memory, a distant recollection of something, somewhere, he had seen before. This one had a single canvas on display in the window.
He moved on glancing without any interest at the things in the shop windows - perfume, silk ties and shirts, diamonds, porcelain, antique furniture, finely bound books. The door of a cafe opened and the faint whiff of roasting chicken brought a pain of yearning to the top of his stomach. He was cold and miserable, huddled up like a hedgehog in a filthy black coat, only his eyes and the top of his head visible above the turned-up collar. The old man who was called Drioli shuffled painfully along the sidewalk of the rue de Rivoli. Although it was April, a freezing wind blew through the streets of the city, and overhead the snow clouds moved across the sky. That year - 1946 - winter was a long time going.
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