The Short Reign of Pippin IV (23 page)

“Will you have a cigarette?”

“Thank you. Ah! a Lucky Strike.”

“Keep the package,” said Pippin. He winked. “I've been out of the country.”

The gendarme smiled. “I understand, M'sieur.” And he put the package in his pocket under his cape.

Pippin had to ring the bell endlessly before the concierge shuffled bleary-eyed and ill-tempered to open the iron gate for him.

“A strange time to be coming in,” he muttered.

Pippin placed a bill in his hand. “It's a long trip from Strasbourg.”

“You have come from Strasbourg?”

“Well, in one jump from Nancy.”

“I myself am from Lunéville. How does the country look?”

“They had a great harvest. The geese looked fine and fat. And they say the wine—”

“I've heard—I've heard. But did you hear how the elections in Lunéville came out? That is a very important thing. You see, the mayoralty has been held—” He closed his fist in front of him. “It is time for change—everyone feels that. Everyone, that is, but—” He tightened his fist again.

Pippin said, “I will have to trouble you to open my door—my keys—”

“But Madame is in. You have only to ring. And what a turning out she's given it. Carry this, carry that. What a fury! Now the party in Lunéville that has held it in a grip—”

Pippin said, “Good night, M'sieur. I will want to hear another time. It's a long ride from Nancy.”

He crossed the courtyard to the entrance of the stablehouse. He took off his crash helmet and brushed back his hair with his fingers—and finally he laid his finger on the ivory button of the bell.

 

This Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression follows the western movement of one family and a nation in search of work and human dignity.
ISBN 0-14-018640-9

 

The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years,
East of Eden
is the powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is both family saga and a modern retelling of the book of Genesis.
ISBN 0-14-018639-5

 

A parable about commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss,
Of Mice and Men
remains one of America's most widely read and beloved novels.

Steinbeck's tough but loving portrait evokes the lives of Monterey's vital laboring class and their emotional triumph over the bleak existence of life in
Cannery Row
.
ISBN 0-14-018737-5

 

The diver Kino believes that his discovery of a beautiful pearl means the promise of a better life for his impoverished family. His fall from innocence is one of Steinbeck's most moving stories about the American dream.
ISBN 0-14-018738-3

 

In September 1960, Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. A picaresque tale, this chronicle of their trip meanders along scenic backroads and speeds along anonymous superhighways, moving from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases.
ISBN 0-14-018741-3

This grand sampling of Steinbeck's most important works includes two complete novels,
Of Mice and Men
and
The Red Pony,
as well as excerpts from many of his other books, short stories, and his 1962 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.
ISBN 0-14-015002-1

 

This original new collection brings together for the first time more than fifty of Steinbeck's finest essays and journalistic pieces, along with the complete text of his last-published and long-out-of-print
America and Americans. ISBN 0-14-243741-7

 

Written as a play in story form, this novel traces the story of a man ignorant of his own sterility, a wife who commits adultery to give her husband a child, the father of that child, and the outsider whose actions affect them all.
ISBN 0-14-018742-1

 

Steinbeck's first novel, and the only historical novel he ever wrote, brings to life the exciting, violent adventures of the infamous pirate Henry Morgan.
ISBN 0-14-018743-X

 

This powerful social novel, set in the California apple country, is a story of labor unrest in the migrant community and the search for identity of its protagonist, young Jim Nolan.
ISBN 0-14-018641-7

 

This exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts, drawn from the longer
Sea of Cortez
, is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.
ISBN 0-14-018744-8

 

First published in 1938, this collection of stories set in the rich farm-land of the Salinas Valley includes the O. Henry Prize-winning story “The Murder,” as well as one of Steinbeck's most famous short works, “The Snake.”
ISBN 0-14-018745-6

In this masterful tale set in Norway during World War II, Steinbeck explores the effects of invasion on both the conquered and the conquerors. As he delves into the emotions of the German commander and the Norwegian traitor, and depicts the spirited patriotism of the Norwegian underground, Steinbeck uncovers profound, often unsettling truths about war—and about human nature.
ISBN 0-14-018746-4

 

Steinbeck's dispatches filed from the front lines during World War II vividly evoke the human side of the war.
ISBN 0-14-018747-2

 

Each of these interconnected tales is devoted to a family living in a fertile valley on the outskirts of Monterey, California, and the effects, either intentional or unwitting, that one family has on all of them.
ISBN 0-14-018748-0

This cycle of coming-of-age stories tells of a spirited adolescent boy whose encounters with birth and death teach him about loss and profound emptiness, instead of giving him the more conventional hero's pragmatic “maturity.”
ISBN 0-14-018739-1

 

First published in 1948,
A Russian Journal
is a remarkable memoir and unique historical document that records the writer and acclaimed war photographer's journey through Cold War Russia.

Steinbeck's only work of political satire turns the French Revolution upside down, creating the hilarious characters of the motley royal court of King Pippin.
ISBN 0-14-018749-9

 

Returning to the scene of
Cannery Row
—the weedy lot and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, California—Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears, from Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter.
ISBN 0-14-018750-2

Set in familiar Steinbeck territory,
To a God Unknown
is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control the forces of nature and, ultimately, to understand the ways of God.
ISBN 0-14-018751-0

 

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a “Camelot” on a shabby hillside above Monterey on the California coast and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. As Steinbeck chronicles their thoughts and emotions, temptations and lusts, he spins a tale as compelling, and ultimately as touched by sorrow, as the famous legends of the
Round Table. ISBN 0-14-018740-5

 

In this imaginative and unsentimental chronicle of a bus traveling California's back roads, Steinbeck creates a vivid assortment of characters, all running away from their shattered dreams but hoping that they are running toward the promise of a future.
ISBN 0-14-018752-9

 

Ethan Hawley works as a clerk in the grocery store owned by an Italian immigrant. His wife is restless, and his teenaged children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.
ISBN 0-14-018753-7

 

“The definitive biography of John Steinbeck . . . A book rich in detail, in anecdote, in literary criticism . . . Benson's book is a milestone.” —
San Francisco Chronicle ISBN 0-14-014417-X

Winner of the PEN-West USA Award for Nonfiction

In every corner of the world, on every subject under the sun, Penguin represents quality and variety—the very best in publishing today.

For complete information about books available from Penguin—including Penguin Classics and Puffins—and how to order them, write to us at the appropriate address below. Please note that for copyright reasons the selection of books varies from country to country.