The wonders of science

Others will be more beautiful than her, but Mrs. Bathurst is an unforgettable woman. Just hear how the men spoke about it by chance as they gathered at an outpost on the outskirts of the British Empire. The black silk dress, the ready-made joke, the subtlety of tying a hair band to a particular customer’s favorite beer. So they met her in Auckland, New Zealand, where Mrs. Bathurst ran a small and decent hotel. They did not expect to find it this way, during quite a few it was presented under the loud title of Wonders of Science. It is cinema in its infancy closer to magic than to art. “It sounded like the buzz of a dynamo – remembers one of the group – but the pictures were not very superlative: alive, moving.” In this sequence of scenes ‘taken from reality’ appears Mrs. Bathurst, captured on her arrival at London Station. Another company, Vickery, returns to the theme park five nights in a row, only to see that face fade on screen “like a shadow in front of a candle.” First published in 1904, Mrs. Bathurst is one of Rudyard Kipling’s best short stories. A love tragedy told by allusions, and fired by the face of a woman in the cinema. © Reproduction preserved

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