Talált idézet. Observations on (some) women by Mr Chandler

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.


"From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away. "

"As it is she will probably turn out to be one of these acid-faced virgins that sit behind little desks in public libraries and stamp dates in books."

"There are blonde and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blonde as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk.

There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare.

There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very, very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you found about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial.

There is the soft and willing alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne.

There is the small perky blonde who is a little pale and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review.

There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading the Wasteland or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provencal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindesmith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them."*

*The Long Good-by, magyarul: Elkéstél, Terry!

R. Chandler 1888-ban született. A 20-as évek elején viszonyt kezd egy nála 17-18 évvel idősebb asszonnyal, akit annak válása után 1924-ben feleségül is vett (úgy tűnik, hogy az asszony végig letagadott az életkorából egy évtizedet). 30 év múlva felesége meghal (ekkor a The Long Goodbye-t írja) és öngyilkosságot kísérel meg, aztán ideggyógyintézetbe kerül (depressziós hajlama felerősödik), majd rendesen halálra issza magát, és 5 év múlva meghal. Image stolen from here. Itt meg egy Ian Fleming-interjú vele.

Chandler levele kiadójához, fentebbi forrásból. "In a sense I had said goodbye to her long ago. In fact, many times during the past two years in the middle of the night I had realised that it was only a question of time until I lost her. But that is not the same thing as having it happen. Saying goodbye to your loved one in your mind is not the same as closing her eyes and knowing they will never open again. Late at night when people have gone to bed and the house is still and it is difficult to read I hear light steps rustling on the carpet and I see a gentle smile hovering at the edge of the lamplight and I hear a voice calling me by a pet name. I have a couple of very old friends staying with me, and they are patient and kind beyond expectation. But the horrors are all mine just the same. For 30 years, 10 months and four days, she was the light of my life, my whole ambition. Anything else I did was just the light for her to warm her hands at."