細節
EDWARD FREDERIC BENSON (1867-1940)
The 43pp. holograph manuscript of a short story The Return of Dodo, first published in 1890, with corrections in Benson's hand. The story recounts Dodo's return to London after two years' absence. Her arrival for the opening of a bazaar is awaited with baited breath, and speculation mounts as society wonders whether she has "reformed." Lady Bretton, who is in charge of the bazaar, remarks: "I am told that certain people say they won't speak to her. Unless they come early they won't have a chance." The bazaar is preceded by a dance at which she is triumphant: "All London was as sheep, & Dodo was its Shpeherd." But she returns home to her husband's wrath and his determination to: "have no more scandals." At the bazaar itself, Dodo over reaches herself on her palm-reading stall. She proceeds to read her husband's palm in public in a derogatory fashion, telling him that his career has been: "one of misfortune & calamity ... for which he has only himself to blame," and that: "he will be buried at the age of forty-seven ... in a garret in the New Cut, by the hands of the common hangman," a prophecy which has unfortunate consequences.
