WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT
SOUND REFERENCES IN LITERATURE



757.

Isable Pervin was listening for two sounds - for the sound of wheels on the drive outside and for the noise of her husband's footsteps in the hall ... The wind was roaring in the great elms beyond the outhouses ... She listened intensely. Then she heard a small noise in the distance - far away, it seemed - the chink of a pan, and a man's voice speaking a brief word.

D.H. Lawrence, 'The Blind Man,' from England, My England, Penguin, 1966, pp. 55, 61.

TIME: early 20th c.

PLACE: a farm in England

CIRCUMSTANCE: a woman waits for her husband and an old friend to arrive

 

758.

Tonight, however, he was still serene, though little tremors of unreasonable exasperation ran through him. He had to handle the razor very carefully, as he shaved, for it was not at one with him, he was afraid of it. His hearing also was too much sharpened. He heard the woman lighting the lamps on the corridor, and attending to the fire in the visitor's room. And then, as he went to his room he heard the trap arrive. Then came Isabel's voice, lifted and calling, like a bell ringing:

'Is it you, Bertie? Have you come?'

D. H. Lawrence, 'The Blind Man,' from England, My England, Penguin, 1966, p. 65.

TIME: early 20th c.

PLACE: a farm in England

CIRCUMSTANCE: a blind man hears his wife's friend arrive

 

759.

He disliked the Scotch accent in Bertie's speech, and the slight response it found on Isabel's tongue. He disliked the slight purr of complacency in the Scottish speech. He disliked intensely the glib way in which Isabel spoke of their happiness and nearness. It made him recoil.

D.H. Lawrence, 'The Blind Man,' from England, My England, Penguin 1966, p. 66.

TIME: early 20th c.

PLACE: a farm in England

CIRCUMSTANCE: a blind man meets again his wife's old friend


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