The Elephant Man [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE To Dr Frederick Treves' frustrated imagination the engines around him seemed to be those of Hell. They whooped, they bellowed, they belched out steam and stinking fumes. A hundred oil-lamps flickered inside and out of a dozen tents, fighting off the darkness that settled üke a thick blanket over the fun-fair on Hampstead Heath. That summer of 1888 was a good one for fun-fairs. The weather was kind, and show after show settled on the Heath for a week before moving on. Somé of them, like this one, were cireuses as well as fairs, and then his two' young daughters clamoured louder than ever to be taken. Almost always he said yes, and he and his wife, Anne, would set off together with the girls. But once they were there it would not be long until Treves slipped away alone. While Jenny and Kate enjoyed themselves, and their mother tried to keep them in somé sort of decent order, Treves himself was to be found round the back of the sideshows talking to anyone who came his way, his eyes constantly flickering for the one thing that would catch and hold his attention. The only thing he knew for certain was that he would know it when he saw it. Today he had wandered off alone at the beginning of the circus performance, and now that it was over he was waiting for his wife and daughters to re jóin him. He could see them in the distance, just emerging from the tent.. He fixed his eyes on his wife. At this distance she looked barely more than the girl of twenty he had married fourteen years before. The beauty that had taken his breath away then was settling now into domestic plumpness, but she was still an extraordinarily pretty woman. He knew he had worn less well. Long hours and a fanatical absorption in his work had worn premature lines on his faee and given his skin an unhealthy pallor. And the