Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖
- Author: Anthony Trollope
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Book online «He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖». Author Anthony Trollope
intended when it was written, and was now with his prime minister,
before his prime minister had been able to take any action on the last
instruction received. ‘Does one Mr Samuel Bozzle live here?’ asked
Trevelyan. Then Bozzle came forward and introduced his wife. There was
no one else present except the baby, and Bozzle intimated that let
matters be as delicate as they might, they could be discussed with
perfect security in his wife’s presence. But Trevelyan was of a
different opinion, and he was disgusted and revolted most unreasonably
by the appearance of his minister’s domestic arrangements. Bozzle had
always waited upon him with a decent coat, and a well-brushed hat, and
clean shoes. It is very much easier for such men as Mr Bozzle to carry
decency of appearance about with them than to keep it at home.
Trevelyan had never believed his ally to be more than an ordinary
ex-policeman, but he had not considered how unattractive might be the
interior of a private detective’s private residence. Mrs Bozzle had set
a chair for him, but he had declined to sit down. The room was dirty,
and very close as though no breath of air was ever allowed to find
entrance there. ‘Perhaps you could put on your coat, and walk out with
me for a few minutes,’ said Trevelyan. Mrs Bozzle, who well understood
that business was business, and that wives were not business, felt no
anger at this, and handed her husband his best coat. The well-brushed
hat was fetched from a cupboard, and it was astonishing to see how
easily and how quickly the outer respectability of Bozzle was restored.
‘Well?’ said Trevelyan, as soon as they were together in the middle of
Stony Walk.
‘There hasn’t been nothing to be done, sir,’ said Bozzle.
‘Why not?’ Trevelyan could perceive at once that the authority which he
had once respected had gone from the man. Bozzle away from his own
home, out on business, with his coat buttoned over his breast, and his
best hat in his hand, was aware that he commanded respect and he could
carry himself accordingly. He knew himself to be somebody, and could be
easy, self-confident, confidential, severe, authoritative, or even
arrogant, as the circumstances of the moment might demand. But he had
been found with his coat off, and a baby in his arms, and he could not
recover himself. ‘I do not suppose that anybody will question my right
to have the care of my own child,’ said Trevelyan.
‘If you would have gone to Mr Skint, sir ,’ suggested Bozzle. ‘There
ain’t no smarter gent in all the profession, sir, than Mr Skint.’
Mr Trevelyan made no reply to this, but walked on in silence, with his
minister at his elbow. He was very wretched, understanding well the
degradation to which he was subjecting himself in discussing his wife’s
conduct with this man; but with whom else could he discuss it? The man
seemed to be meaner now than he had been before he had been seen in his
own home. And Trevelyan was conscious too that he himself was not in
outward appearance as he used to be, that he was ill-dressed, and
haggard, and worn, and visibly a wretched being. How can any man care
to dress himself with attention who is always alone, and always
miserable when alone? During the months which had passed over him since
he had sent his wife away from him, his very nature had been altered,
and he himself was aware of the change. As he went about, his eyes were
ever cast downwards, and he walked with a quick shuffling gait, and he
suspected others, feeling that he himself was suspected. And all work
had ceased with him. Since she had left him he had not read a single
book that was worth the reading. And he knew it all. He was conscious
that he was becoming disgraced and degraded. He would sooner have shot
himself than have walked into his club, or even have allowed himself to
be seen by daylight in Pall Mall, or Piccadilly. He had taken in his
misery to drinking little drops of brandy in the morning, although he
knew well that there was no shorter road to the devil than that opened
by such a habit. He looked up for a moment at Bozzle, and then asked
him a question. ‘Where is he now?’
‘You mean the Colonel, sir. He up in town, sir, a minding of his
parliamentary duties. He have been up all this month, sir.’
‘They haven’t met?’
Bozzle paused a moment before he replied, and then smiled as he spoke.
‘It is so hard, to say, sir. Ladies is so cute and cunning. I’ve
watched as sharp as watching can go, pretty near. I’ve put a youngster
on at each bend, and both of ‘em’d hear a mouse stirring in his sleep.
I ain’t got no evidence, Mr Trevelyan. But if you ask me my opinion,
why in course they’ve been together somewhere. It stands to reason, Mr
Trevelyan; don’t it?’ And Bozzle as he said this smiled almost aloud.
‘D n and b t it all for ever!’ said Trevelyan, gnashing his teeth, and
moving away into Union Street as fast as he could walk. And he did go
away, leaving Bozzle standing in the middle of Stony Walk.
‘He’s disturbed in his mind quite ‘orrid,’ Bozzle said when he got back
to his wife. ‘He cursed and swore as made even me feel bad.’
‘B.,’ said is wife, ‘do you listen to me. Get in what’s a howing and
don’t you have any more to do with it.’
ANOTHER STRUGGLE
Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were to reach England about the end of
March or the beginning of April, and both Mrs Trevelyan and Nora Rowley
were almost sick for their arrival. Both their uncle and aunt had done
very much for them, had been true to them in their need, and had
submitted to endless discomforts in order that their nieces might have
respectable shelter in their great need; but nevertheless their conduct
had not been of a kind to produce either love or friendship. Each of
the sisters felt that she had been much better off at Nuncombe Putney;
and that either the weakness of Mrs Stanbury, or the hardness of
Priscilla, was preferable to the repulsive forbearance of their
clerical host. He did not scold them. He never threw it in Mrs
Trevelyan’s teeth that she had been separated from her husband by her
own fault; he did not tell them of his own discomfort. But he showed it
in every gesture, and spoke of it in every tone of his voice, so that
Mrs Trevelyan could not refrain from apologising for the misfortune of
her presence.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘things can’t be pleasant and unpleasant at the
same time. You were quite right to come here. I am glad for all our
sakes that Sir Marmaduke will be with us so soon.’
She had almost given up in her mind the hope that she had long
cherished, that she might some day be able to live again with her
husband. Every step which he now took in reference to her seemed to be
prompted by so bitter an hostility, that she could not but believe that
she was hateful to him. How was it possible that a husband and his wife
should again come together, when there had been between them such an
emissary as a detective policeman? Mrs Trevelyan had gradually come to
learn that Bozzle had been at Nuncombe Putney, watching her, and to be
aware that she was still under the surveillance of his eye. For some
months past now she had neither seen Colonel Osborne, nor heard from
him. He had certainly by his folly done much to produce the ruin which
had fallen upon her; but it never occurred to her to blame him. Indeed
she did not know that he was liable to blame. Mr Outhouse always spoke
of him with indignant scorn, and Nora had learned to think that much of
their misery was due to his imprudence. But Mrs Trevelyan would not see
this, and, not seeing it, was more widely separated from her husband
than she would have been had she acknowledged that any excuse for his
misconduct had been afforded by the vanity and folly of the other man.
Lady Rowley had written to have a furnished house taken for them from
the first of April, and a house had been secured in Manchester Street.
The situation in question is not one which is of itself very charming,
nor is it supposed to be in a high degree fashionable; but Nora looked
forward to her escape from St. Diddulph’s to Manchester Street as
though Paradise were to be re-opened to her as soon as she should be
there with her father and mother. She was quite clear now as to her
course about Hugh Stanbury. She did not doubt that that she could so
argue the matter as to get the consent of her father and mother. She
felt herself to be altogether altered in her views of life, since
experience had come upon her, first at Nuncombe Putney, and after that,
much more heavily and seriously, at St. Diddulph’s. She looked back as
though to a childish dream to the ideas which had prevailed with her
when she had told herself, as she used to do so frequently, that she
was unfit to be a poor man’s wife. Why should she be more unfit for
such a position than another? Of course there were many thoughts in her
mind, much of memory if nothing of regret, in regard to Mr Glascock and
the splendour that had been offered to her. She had had her chance of
being a rich man’s wife, and had rejected it—had rejected it twice,
with her eyes open. Readers will say that if she loved Hugh Stanbury
with all her heart, there could be nothing of regret in her
reflections. But we are perhaps accustomed in judging for ourselves and
of others to draw the lines too sharply, and to say that on this side
lie vice, folly, heartlessness, and greed and on the other honour,
love, truth, and wisdom, the good and the bad each in its own domain.
But the good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts,
even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in
overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence. There had
been many moments of regret with Nora but none of remorse. At the very
moment in which she had sent Mr Glascock away from her, and had felt
that he had now been sent away for always, she had been full of regret.
Since that there had been many hours in which she had thought of her
own self-lesson, of that teaching by which she had striven to convince
herself that she could never fitly become a poor man’s wife. But the
upshot of it all was a healthy pride in what she had done, and a strong
resolution that she would make shirts and hem towels for her husband if
he required it. It had been given her to choose, and she had chosen.
She had found herself unable to tell a man that she loved him when she
did not love him and equally unable to conceal the love which she did
feel. ‘If he wheeled a barrow of turnips about the street, I’d marry
him tomorrow,’ she said to her sister one afternoon as they were
sitting together in the room which ought to have been her uncle’s
study.
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