Sorrow in Sunlight
Ronald Firbank
9781465663887
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Looking gloriously bored, Miss Miami Mouth gaped up into the boughs of a giant silk-cotton-tree. In the lethargic noontide nothing stirred: all was so still, indeed, that the sound of someone snoring was clearly audible among the cane-fields far away. “After dose yams an’ pods an’ de white falernum, I dats way sleepy too,” she murmured, fixing heavy, somnolent, eyes upon the prospect that lay before her. Through the sun-tinged greenery shone the sea, like a floor of silver glass strewn with white sails. Somewhere out there, fishing, must be her boy, Bamboo! And, inconsequently, her thoughts wandered from the numerous shark-casualties of late to the mundane proclivities of her mother; for to quit the little village of Mediavilla for the capital was that dame’s fixed obsession. Leave Mediavilla, leave Bamboo! The young negress fetched a sigh. In what, she reflected, way would the family gain by entering Society, and how did one enter it, at all? There would be a gathering, doubtless, of the elect (probably armed), since the best Society is exclusive, and difficult to enter. And then? Did one burrow? Or charge? She had sometimes heard it said that people “pushed” ... and closing her eyes, Miss Miami Mouth sought to picture her parents, assisted by her small sister, Edna, and her brother, Charlie, forcing their way, perspiring, but triumphant, into the highest social circles of the city of Cuna-Cuna. Across the dark savannah country the city lay, one of the chief alluring cities of the world: The Celestial city of Cuna-Cuna, Cuna, city of Mimosa, Cuna, city of Arches, Queen of the Tropics, Paradise—almost invariably travellers referred to it like that. Oh, everything must be fantastic there, where even the very pickneys put on clothes! And Miss Miami Mouth glanced fondly down at her own plump little person, nude, but for a girdle of creepers that she would gather freshly twice a day. “It would be a shame, sh’o, to cover it,” she murmured drowsily, caressing her body; and moved to a sudden spasm of laughter, she tittered: “No! really. De ideah!”
