A Canary For One Learn English through story
a canary for one
the train passed very quickly along red
stone house with a garden
and four thick palm trees with tables
under them in the shade
on the other side was the sea then there
was a cutting through red stone and clay
and the sea was only occasionally and
far below against rocks
i bought him in palermo the american
lady said
we only had an hour ashore and it was
sunday morning the man wanted to be paid
in dollars and i gave him a dollar and a
half
he really sings very beautifully
it was very hot in the train and it was
very hot in the lid
salon compartment there was no breeze
came through the open window
the american lady pulled the window
blind down and there was no more sea
even occasionally on the other side
there was glass
then the corridor then an open window
and outside the window were dusty trees
and an oiled road and flat fields of
grapes
with greystone hills behind them there
was smoke from many tall chimneys
coming into marseille and the train
slowed down and followed one track
through many others into the station
the train stayed 25 minutes in the
station at marseille
and the american lady bought a copy of
the daily mail and a half bottle of
avion water
she walked a little way along the
station platform but she stayed near the
steps of the car because at khan
where it stopped for 12 minutes the
train had left with no signal of
departure
and she had gotten on only just in time
the american lady was a little deaf and
she was afraid that perhaps signals of
departure were given
and that she did not hear them the train
left the station in marseille
and there was not only the switch yards
and the factory smoke
but looking back the town of marseille
and the harbor with stone hills behind
it
and the last of the sun on the water
as it was getting dark the train passed
a farmhouse burning in a field
motorcars were stopped along the road
and bedding and things from inside the
farmhouse were spread in the field
many people were watching the house burn
after it was dark the train was in
avignon people got on and off
at the newsstand frenchman returning to
paris
bought that day’s french papers on the
station platform were negro
soldiers they wore brown uniforms and
were tall
and their faces shone close under the
electric light
their faces were very black and they
were too tall to stare
the train left avignon station with the
negros standing there
a short white sergeant was with them
inside the lit salon compartment the
porter had pulled down the three beds
from inside the wall
and prepared them for sleeping in the
night
the american lady lay without sleeping
because the train was a repeat
and went very fast and she was afraid of
the speed in the night
the american lady’s bed was the one next
to the window
the canary from palermo a cloth spread
over his cage
was out of the draft in the corridor
that went into the compartment washroom
there was a blue light outside the
compartment and all night the train went
very fast
and the american lady lay awake and
waited for a wreck
in the morning the train was near paris
and after the american lady had come out
from the washroom looking very wholesome
and middle-aged and
american in spite of not having slept
and had taken the cloth off the birdcage
and hung the cage in the sun
she went back to the restaurant car for
breakfast
when she came back to the lit salon
compartment again the beds had been
pushed back into the wall and made into
seats
the canary was shaking his feathers in
the sunlight that came through the open
window
and the train was much nearer paris
he loves the sun the american lady said
he’ll sing now in a little while the
canary shook his feathers and pecked
into them
i’ve always loved birds the american
lady said
i’m taking him home to my little girl
there he’s singing now
the canary chirped and the feathers on
his throat stood out
then he dropped his bill and pecked into
his feathers again
the train crossed a river and passed
through a very carefully tended forest
the train passed through many outside of
paris towns
there were tram cars in the towns and
big advertisements for the
belgian air and dubunnae and perno
on the walls toward the train all that
the train passed through looked as
though it were before breakfast
for several minutes i had not listened
to the american lady who was talking to
my wife
is your husband american too asked the
lady
yes said my wife we’re both americans
i thought you were english oh no
perhaps that was because i wore braces i
said
i had started to say suspenders and
changed it to braces in the mouth
to keep my english character the
american lady did not hear
she was really quite deaf she read lips
and i had not looked toward her i had
looked out of the window
she went on talking to my wife i’m so
glad you’re americans
american men make the best husbands the
american lady was saying
that was why we left the continent you
know my daughter fell in love with a man
in vive
she stopped they were simply madly in
love
she stopped again i took her away of
course
did she get over it ask my wife i don’t
think so
said the american lady she wouldn’t eat
anything and she wouldn’t sleep at all
i’ve tried so very hard but she doesn’t
seem to take an interest in anything
she doesn’t care about things i couldn’t
have her marrying a foreigner
she paused someone a very good friend
told me once
no foreigner can make an american girl a
good husband
no said my wife i suppose not
the american lady admired my wife’s
traveling coat
and it turned out that the american lady
had bought her own clothes for 20 years
now
from the same meson de courtier in the
rue san honore
they had her measurements and evondus
who knew her
and her tastes picked the dresses out
for her and they were sent to america
they came to the post office near where
she lived uptown in new york
and the duty was never exorbitant
because they opened the dresses there in
the post office to appraise them
and they were always very simple looking
and
with no gold lace nor ornaments that
would make the dresses look expensive
before the present bondos named terez
there had been
another vandus named amelie
altogether there had only been these two
in the 20 years
it had always been the same kochiye
prices however had gone up
the exchange though equalized that they
had her daughter’s measurements now too
she was grown up and there was not much
chance of their changing now
the train was now coming into paris the
fortifications were leveled but grass
had not
grown there were many cars standing on
tracks
brown wooden restaurant cars and brown
wooden
sleeping cars that would go to italy at
five o’clock that night
if the train still left at five the cars
were marked paris rome
and cars with seats on the roofs had
went back and forth to the suburbs with
at certain hours people in all the seats
and
on the roofs if that were the way it was
still done
and passing with the white walls and
many windows of houses
no one had eaten any breakfast
americans make the best husbands the
american lady said to my wife
i was getting down the bags american men
are the only men in the world to marry
how long ago did you leave vive ask my
way
two years ago this fall it’s her you
know that i’m
taking the canary to was the man your
daughter was in love with a swiss
yes said the american lady he was from a
very good family in vive
he was going to be an engineer they met
there in the va
they used to go on long walks together
i know vive said my wife we were there
on our honeymoon
were you really that must have been
lovely
i had no idea of course that she’d fall
in love with him
it was a very lovely place said my wife
yes
said the american lady isn’t it lovely
where did you stop there
we stayed at the toi coron said my wife
it’s such a fine old hotel said the
american lady
yes said my wife we had a very fine room
and in the fall the country was lovely
were you there in the fall yes said my
wife
we were passing three cars that had been
in a wreck they were splittered open and
the roof sagged in
look i said it’s been a wreck
the american lady looked and saw the
last car
i was afraid of just that all night she
said i have terrific presentments about
things sometimes
i’ll never travel on a repeat again at
night there must be other comfortable
trains that don’t go so fast
then the train was in the dark of the
guard de leon
and then stopped and porters came up to
the windows
i handed bags through the windows and we
were out in the dim
longness of the platform and the
american lady put herself in charge of
one of three men from cooks who said
just a moment madame and now look for
your name
the porter brought a truck and piled on
the baggage
and my wife said goodbye and i said
goodbye to the american lady
whose name had been found by the man
from cooks on a typewritten page
in a sheaf of typewritten pages which he
replaced in his pocket
we followed the porter with the truck
down the long cement platform beside the
train
at the end was a gate and a man took the
tickets
we were returning to paris to set up
separate
residences