Beyond the City - Arthur Conan Doyle

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Résumé :
Beyond the City By Arthur Conan Doyle Beyond the City (1892) is a novel by the Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.If you please, mum, said the voice of a domestic from somewhere round the angle of the door, number three is moving in. Two little old ladies, who were sitting at either side of a table, sprang to their feet with ejaculations of interest, and rushed to the window of the sittingroom. Take care, Monica dear, said one, shrouding herself in the lace curtain don't let them see us. No, no, Bertha. We must not give them reason to say that their neighbors are inquisitive. But I think that we are safe if we stand like this. The open window looked out upon a sloping lawn, well trimmed and pleasant, with fuzzy rosebushes and a star-shaped bed of sweet-william. It was bounded by a low wooden fence, which screened it off from a broad, modern, new metaled road. At the other side of this road were three large detached deep- bodied villas with peaky eaves and small wooden balconies, each standing in its own little square of grass and of flowers. All three were equally new, but numbers one and two were curtained and sedate, with a human, sociable look to them while number three, with yawning door and unkempt garden, had apparently only just received its furniture and made itself ready for its occupants. A four-wheeler had driven up to the gate, and it was at this that the old ladies, peeping out bird-like from behind their curtains, directed an eager and questioning gaze. The cabman had descended, and the passengers within were handing out the articles which they desired him to carry up to the house. He stood red-faced and blinking, with his crooked arms outstretched, while a male hand, protruding from the window, kept piling up upon him a series of articles the sight of which filled the curious old ladies with bewilderment. My goodness me! cried Monica, the smaller, the drier, and the more wizened of the pair. What do you call that, Bertha? It looks to me like four batter puddings.Those are what young men box each other with, said Bertha, with a conscious air of superior worldly knowledge. And those? Two great bottle-shaped pieces of yellow shining wood had been heaped upon the cabman. Oh, I don't know what those are, confessed Bertha. Indian clubs had never before obtruded themselves upon her peaceful and very feminine existence. These mysterious articles were followed, however, by others which were more within their range of comprehension-by a pair of dumb-bells, a purple cricket-bag, a set of golf clubs, and a tennis racket. Finally, when the cabman, all top-heavy and bristling, had staggered off up the garden path, there emerged in a very leisurely way from the cab a big, powerfully built young man, with a bull pup under one arm and a pink sporting paper in his hand. The paper he crammed into the pocket of his light yellow dust-coat, and extended his hand as if to assist some one else from the vehicle. To the surprise of the two old ladies, however, the only thing which his open palm received was a violent slap, and a tall lady bounded unassisted out of the cab. With a regal wave she motioned the young man towards the door, and then with one hand upon her hip she stood in a careless, lounging attitude by the gate, kicking her toe against the wall and listlessly awaiting the return of the driver.

Biographie:
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ DL (22 May 1859 - 7 July 1930) was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes. Originally a physician, in 1887 he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and more than fifty short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.
Doyle was a prolific writer; his non-Sherlockian works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement, helped to popularise the mystery of the Mary Celeste.
Doyle is often referred to as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or simply Conan Doyle (implying that Conan is part of a compound surname as opposed to his given middle name). His baptism entry in the register of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives Arthur Ignatius Conan as his given names and Doyle as his surname. It also names Michael Conan as his godfather.[1] The cataloguers of the British Libraryand the Library of Congress treat Doyle alone as his surname.
Steven Doyle, editor of The Baker Street Journal, wrote, Conan was Arthur's middle name. Shortly after he graduated from high school he began using Conan as a sort of surname. But technically his last name is simply 'Doyle'.[3] When knighted, he was gazetted as Doyle, not under the compound Conan Doyle
Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 at 11 Picardy Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Charles Altamont Doyle, was born in England, of Irish Catholic descent, and his mother, Mary (n?e Foley), was Irish Catholic. His parents married in 1855.[7] In 1864 the family dispersed because of Charles's growing alcoholism, and the children were temporarily housed across Edinburgh. In 1867, the family came together again and lived in squalid tenement flats at 3 Sciennes Place.[8] Doyle's father died in 1893, in the Crichton Royal, Dumfries, after many years of psychiatric illness.