Mansfield The Garden Party
THE GARDEN PARTY (1921)
By Katherine Mansfield
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden--parties; parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.
Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels archangels. Breakfast was not yet over before the men came to put up the marquee.
"Where do you want the marquee put, mother?"
"My dear child, it's no use asking me. I'm determined to leave everything to you children this year. Forget I am your mother. Treat me as a an honoured guest."
But Meg could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban, with a dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always came down in a silk petticoat and a kimono jacket. "You'll have to go, Laura; you're the artistic one."
Away Laura flew, still holding her piece of bread-and-butter. bread butter. It's so delicious to have an excuse for eating out of doors, and besides, she loved having to arrange things; t she always felt she could do it so much better than anybody else.
Four men in their shirt-sleeves sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool tool-bags bags slung on their backs. They looked ked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got the bread-and bread and-butter, but there was nowhere to put
By Katherine Mansfield
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine. As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden--parties; parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.
Hundreds, yes, literally hundreds, had come out in a single night; the green bushes bowed down as though they had been visited by archangels archangels. Breakfast was not yet over before the men came to put up the marquee.
"Where do you want the marquee put, mother?"
"My dear child, it's no use asking me. I'm determined to leave everything to you children this year. Forget I am your mother. Treat me as a an honoured guest."
But Meg could not possibly go and supervise the men. She had washed her hair before breakfast, and she sat drinking her coffee in a green turban, with a dark wet curl stamped on each cheek. Jose, the butterfly, always came down in a silk petticoat and a kimono jacket. "You'll have to go, Laura; you're the artistic one."
Away Laura flew, still holding her piece of bread-and-butter. bread butter. It's so delicious to have an excuse for eating out of doors, and besides, she loved having to arrange things; t she always felt she could do it so much better than anybody else.
Four men in their shirt-sleeves sleeves stood grouped together on the garden path. They carried staves covered with rolls of canvas, and they had big tool tool-bags bags slung on their backs. They looked ked impressive. Laura wished now that she had not got the bread-and bread and-butter, but there was nowhere to put