The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

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The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes The Grey Wig; Chassé-Croisé; The Woman Beater; The Eternal Feminine; The Silent Sisters; The Big Bow Mystery; Merely Mary Ann; The Serio-Comic Governess

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THE GREY WIG

Stories and Novelettes

by

I. Zangwill

Author of "The Mantle of Elijah" "Children of the Ghetto" etc., etc.

1923

TO MY MOTHER AND SISTERS

THIS BOOK

Mainly a Study of Woman

IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED

This Volume embraces my newest and oldest work, and includes-for the sake of uniformity of edition-a couple of shilling novelettes that are out of print.

I.Z.

Mentone, February, 1903.

THE GREY WIG

They both styled themselves "Madame," but only the younger of the old ladies had been married. Madame Valiere was still a demoiselle, but as she drew towards sixty it had seemed more convenable to possess a mature label. Certainly Madame Depine had no visible matrimonial advantages over her fellow-lodger at the Hotel des Tourterelles, though in the symmetrical cemetery of Montparnasse (Section 22) wreaths of glass beads testified to a copious domesticity in the far past, and a newspaper picture of a chasseur d'Afrique pinned over her bed recalled-though only the uniform was the dead soldier's-the son she had contributed to France's colonial empire. Practically it was two old maids-or two lone widows-whose boots turned pointed toes towards each other in the dark cranny of the rambling, fusty corridor of the sky-floor. Madame Depine was round, and grew dumpier with age; "Madame" Valiere was long, and grew slimmer. Otherwise their lives ran parallel.

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