3 Books To Know Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Edith Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ obeyed, and could still hear a pathetic sniffing from the dining room as he went up the stairs.

      “By George!” he grunted, as he reached his own room; and his thought was that living with a person so sensitive to kindly raillery might prove lugubrious. He whistled, long and low, then went to the window and looked through the darkness to the great silhouette of his grandfather's house. Lights were burning over there, upstairs; probably his newly arrived uncle was engaged in talk with the Major.

      George's glance lowered, resting casually upon the indistinct ground, and he beheld some vague shapes, unfamiliar to him. Formless heaps, they seemed; but, without much curiosity, he supposed that sewer connections or water pipes might be out of order, making necessary some excavations. He hoped the work would not take long; he hated to see that sweep of lawn made unsightly by trenches and lines of dirt, even temporarily. Not greatly disturbed, however, he pulled down the shade, yawned, and began to undress, leaving further investigation for the morning.

      But in the morning he had forgotten all about it, and raised his shade, to let in the light, without even glancing toward the ground. Not until he had finished dressing did he look forth from his window, and then his glance was casual. The next instant his attitude became electric, and he gave utterance to a bellow of dismay. He ran from his room, plunged down the stairs, out of the front door, and, upon a nearer view of the destroyed lawn, began to release profanity upon the breezeless summer air, which remained unaffected. Between his mother's house and his grandfather's, excavations for the cellars of five new houses were in process, each within a few feet of its neighbour. Foundations of brick were being laid; everywhere were piles of brick and stacked lumber, and sand heaps and mortar beds.

      It was Sunday, and so the workmen implicated in these defacings were denied what unquestionably they would have considered a treat; but as the fanatic orator continued the monologue, a gentleman in flannels emerged upward from one of the excavations, and regarded him contemplatively.

      “Obtaining any relief, nephew?” he inquired with some interest. “You must have learned quite a number of those expressions in childhood—it's so long since I'd heard them I fancied they were obsolete.”

      “Who wouldn't swear?” George demanded hotly. “In the name of God, what does grandfather mean, doing such things?”

      “My private opinion is,” said Amberson gravely, “he desires to increase his income by building these houses to rent.”

      “Well, in the name of God, can't he increase his income any other way but this?”

      “In the name of God, it would appear he couldn't.”

      “It's beastly! It's a damn degradation! It's a crime!”

      “I don't know about its being a crime,” said his uncle, stepping over some planks to join him. “It might be a mistake, though. Your mother said not to tell you until we got home, so as not to spoil commencement for you. She rather feared you'd be upset.”

      “Upset! Oh, my Lord, I should think I would be upset! He's in his second childhood. What did you let him do it for, in the name of—”

      “Make it in the name of heaven this time, George; it's Sunday. Well, I thought, myself, it was a mistake.”

      “I should say so!”

      “Yes,” said Amberson. “I wanted him to put up an apartment building instead of these houses.”

      “An apartment building! Here?”

      “Yes; that was my idea.”

      George struck his hands together despairingly. “An apartment house! Oh, my Lord!”

      “Don't worry! Your grandfather wouldn't listen to me, but he'll wish he had, some day. He says that people aren't going to live in miserable little flats when they can get a whole house with some grass in front and plenty of backyard behind. He sticks it out that apartment houses will never do in a town of this type, and when I pointed out to him that a dozen or so of 'em already are doing, he claimed it was just the novelty, and that they'd all be empty as soon as people got used to 'em. So he's putting up these houses.”

      “Is he getting miserly in his old age?”

      “Hardly! Look what he gave Sydney and Amelia!”

      “I don't mean he's a miser, of course,” said George. “Heaven knows he's liberal enough with mother and me; but why on earth didn't he sell something or other rather than do a thing like this?”

      “As a matter of fact,” Amberson returned coolly, “I believe he has sold something or other, from time to time.”

      “Well, in heaven's name,” George cried, “what did he do it for?”

      “To get money,” his uncle mildly replied. “That's my deduction.”

      “I suppose you're joking—or trying to!”

      “That's the best way to look at it,” Amberson said amiably. “Take the whole thing as a joke—and in the meantime, if you haven't had your breakfast—”

      “I haven't!”

      “Then if I were you I'd go in and get some. And”—he paused, becoming serious—“and if I were you I wouldn't say anything to your grandfather about this.”

      “I don't think I could trust myself to speak to him about it,” said George. “I want to treat him respectfully, because he is my grandfather, but I don't believe I could if I talked to him about such a thing as this!”

      And with a gesture of despair, plainly signifying that all too soon after leaving bright college years behind him he had entered into the full tragedy of life, George turned bitterly upon his heel and went into the house for his breakfast.

      His uncle, with his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after him not altogether unsympathetically, then descended again into the excavation whence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he took in the old carriage with the Major, when, George was encountered upon the highway, flashing along in his runabout with Lucy beside him and Pendennis doing better than three minutes.

      “He seems to have recovered,” Amberson remarked: “Looks in the highest good spirits.”

      “I beg your pardon.”

      “Your grandson,” Amberson explained. “He was inclined to melancholy this morning, but seemed jolly enough just now when they passed us.”

      “What was he melancholy about? Not getting remorseful about all the money he's spent at college, was he?” The Major chuckled feebly, but with sufficient grimness. “I wonder what he thinks I'm made of,” he concluded querulously.

      “Gold,” his son suggested, adding gently, “And he's right about part of you, father.”

      “What part?”

      “Your heart.”

      The Major laughed ruefully. “I suppose that may account for how heavy it feels, sometimes, nowadays. This town seems to be rolling right over that old heart you mentioned, George—rolling over it and burying it under! When I think СКАЧАТЬ