Breakfast in the Ruins

Начало книги

WHEN in doubt, Karl Glogauer would always return to Derry and Toms. He would walk down Kensington Church Street in the summer sunshine, ignoring the boutiques and coffee shops, until he reached the High Street. He would pass the first of the three great department stores which stood side by side to each other, stern and eternal and bountiful, blotting out the sky, and would go through the tall glass doors of the second store, Derry's. The strongest of the citadels.

Weaving his way between the bright counters, piled with hats and silks and paper flowers, he would reach the lifts with their late art nouveau brass work and he would take one of them up to the third floor—a little journey through time, for here it was all art deco and Cunard style pastel plastics which he could admire for their own sake as he waited for the special lift which would come and bear him up into the paradise of the roof garden.

Читать дальше →