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Text 3
Michael gave the room a complacent glance.
'I've had a good deal of experience. I always design the sets myself for our plays. Of course, I have a man
to do the rough work for me, but the ideas are mine.'
They had moved into that house two years before and they had put it into the hands of an expensive
decorator. The house was furnished in extremely good taste, with a judicious mixture of the antique and the
modern and Michael was right when he said that it was quite obviously a gentleman's house. Julia, however,
had insisted that she must have her bedroom as she liked, and having had exactly the bedroom that pleased
her in the old house in Regent's Park which they had occupied since the end of the war she brought it over
bodily. The bed and dressing-table were upholstered in pink silk, the chaise-longue and the armchair in
Nattier blue; over the bed there were fat little gilt cherubs who dangled a lamp with a pink shade, and fat
little gilt cherubs swarmed all round the mirror on the dressing-table. On satinwood tables were signed
photographs, richly framed, of actors and actresses and members of the royal family. The decorator had
raised his supercilious eyebrows, but it was the only room in the house-in which Julia felt completely at
home. She wrote her letters at a satinwood desk, seated on a gilt Hamlet stool. Luncheon was announced and
they went downstairs.
They sat at a refectory table, Julia and Michael at either end in very grand Italian chairs, and the young
man in the middle on a chair that was not at all comfortable, but perfectly incharacter.
(Extract from "Theatre "by W. S. Maugham)
DAILY ROUTINE
Text 1
One Morning in Victor Wicox's Life
Monday, January 13th, 1986. Victor Wilcox lies awake, in the dark bedroom, waiting for his quartz alarm
clock to bleep. It is set to do this at 6.45. How long he has to wait he doesn't know. He could easily find out
by groping for the clock, lifting it to his line of vision, and pressing the button that illuminates the digital
display. But he would rather not know. He feels as if he is the only man awake in the entire world.
The alarm clock cheeps.
He presses the snooze button* on the clock with a practised finger and falls effortlessly asleep. Five
minutes later, the alarm wakes him again, cheeping insistently like a mechanical bird. Vie sighs, hits the Off
button on the clock, switches on his bedside lamp, gets out of bed and paddles through the deep pile of the
bedroom carpet to the en suite bathroom.
* A button one the alarm clock; pressing the snooze button during the alarm action sequences will temporarily terminate the
sequences for 8 or 9 minutes, then the sequences will start over again. Snooze function can be repeated as many times as desired
within the 1 hour 59 minutes alarm sequences.
He does not greatly care for the dark purplish suite but it had been one of the things that attracted
Marjorie when they bought the house two years ago — the bathroom, with its kidney-shaped handbasin and
goldplated taps and sunken bath and streamlined loo and bidet. And, above all, the fact that it was 'en suite'.
Vic flushes the toilet and steps on to the bathroom scales. Ten stone, two ounces. Quite enough for a man
only five feet, five and a half inches tall. Vic frowns in the mirror above the handbasin, thinking again of last
month's accounts, the annual review... He runs hot water into the dark purple bowl, lathers his face with
shaving foam from an aerosol can, and begins to scrape his jaw with a safety razor.
Vic wipes the tidemark of foam from his cheeks and fingers the shaven flesh appraisingly. Dark brown
eyes stare back at him. Who am I? He grips the washbasin, leans forward on locked arms, and scans the
square face. You know who you are: it's all on file at Division*.
* Division file: a file containing the minimum of information about an employee (cf. "личное дело").
Wilcox: Victor Eugene. Date of Birth: 19 Oct. 1940. Place of Birth: Easton, Rummidge, England. Marital
Status: married (to Marjorie Florence Coleman, 1964). Children: Raymond (b. 1966), Sandra (b. 1969),
Gary (b. 1972). Present Position: Managing Director, J. Pringle & Sons Casting and General Engineering.
That's who I am.
Vic grimaces at his own reflection, as if to say: somebody has to earn a living in this family.
He shrugs on his dressing-gown, which hangs from a hook on the bathroom door, switches off the light,
and softly re-enters the dimly lit bedroom. Marjorie has, however, been woken by the sound of plumbing.
'Is that you?' she says drowsily; then, without waiting for an answer, 'I'll be down in a minute.'