Read FICTION books online

Reading books fiction 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.



Fiction genre suitable for people of all ages. Everyone will find something interesting for themselves. Our electronic library is always at your service. Reading online free books without registration. Nowadays ebooks are convenient and efficient. After all, don’t forget: literature exists and develops largely thanks to readers.
The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

Book online «Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖». Author Charles Dickens



1 ... 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 ... 182
Go to page:
when he is with Allan

Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that.”

 

I pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr.

Woodcourt had come to her cousin John’s house and had known us all

there, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had

always liked him, and—and so forth.

 

“All true,” said Ada, “but that he is such a devoted friend to us

we owe to you.”

 

I thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no

more about it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I

felt her trembling.

 

“Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good

wife indeed. You shall teach me.”

 

I teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was

fluttering over the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to

speak, that it was she who had something to say to me.

 

“When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before

him. I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I

had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but

I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther.”

 

“I know, I know, my darling.”

 

“When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able

to convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in

a new way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately

for my sake—as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would

have married him just the same, Esther. Just the same!”

 

In the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still—a

firmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying

away with them—I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones.

 

“You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what

you see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better

than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could

scarcely know Richard better than my love does.”

 

She spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed

such agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My

dear, dear girl!

 

“I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I

know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was

quite determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show

him that I grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy.

I want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I

want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I

married him to do this, and this supports me.”

 

I felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and

I now thought I began to know what it was.

 

“And something else supports me, Esther.”

 

She stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in

motion.

 

“I look forward a little while, and I don’t know what great aid may

come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be

something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with

greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him

back.”

 

Her hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped

her in mine.

 

“If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look

forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and

think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps,

a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of

him and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as

handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk

in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to

himself, ‘I thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal

inheritance, and restored through me!’”

 

Oh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against

me!

 

“These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will.

Though sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that

arises when I look at Richard.”

 

I tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing

and weeping, she replied, “That he may not live to see his child.”

CHAPTER LXI

A Discovery

 

The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl

brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I

never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in

my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will

shine for ever.

 

Not a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I

found Mr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing

the piano and talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides

my very much mistrusting the probability of his being there without

making Richard poorer, I felt as if there were something in his

careless gaiety too inconsistent with what I knew of the depths of

Ada’s life. I clearly perceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings.

I therefore resolved, after much thinking of it, to make a private

visit to Mr. Skimpole and try delicately to explain myself. My

dear girl was the great consideration that made me bold.

 

I set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As

I approached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I

felt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr.

Skimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally

defeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through

with it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole’s door—

literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone—and after a long

parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area

when I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to

light the fire with.

 

Mr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a

little, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he

asked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I

have his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment

daughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect

nosegay?

 

I replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself

only if he would give me leave.

 

“My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course,” he said,

bringing his chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating

smile, “of course it’s not business. Then it’s pleasure!”

 

I said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was

not quite a pleasant matter.

 

“Then, my dear Miss Summerson,” said he with the frankest gaiety,

“don’t allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT

a pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter

creature, in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly

pleasant; I am imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an

unpleasant matter, how much less should you! So that’s disposed

of, and we will talk of something else.”

 

Although I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still

wished to pursue the subject.

 

“I should think it a mistake,” said Mr. Skimpole with his airy

laugh, “if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I

don’t!”

 

“Mr. Skimpole,” said I, raising my eyes to his, “I have so often

heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of

life—”

 

“Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who’s the

junior partner? D?” said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. “Not an idea of

them!”

 

“—That perhaps,” I went on, “you will excuse my boldness on that

account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is

poorer than he was.”

 

“Dear me!” said Mr. Skimpole. “So am I, they tell me.”

 

“And in very embarrassed circumstances.”

 

“Parallel case, exactly!” said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted

countenance.

 

“This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I

think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by

visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his

mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that—if

you would—not—”

 

I was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by

both hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way

anticipated it.

 

“Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most

assuredly not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go

for pleasure. I don’t go anywhere for pain, because I was made for

pleasure. Pain comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very

little pleasure at our dear Richard’s lately, and your practical

sagacity demonstrates why. Our young friends, losing the youthful

poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, ‘This

is a man who wants pounds.’ So I am; I always want pounds; not for

myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our

young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, ‘This is the man

who HAD pounds, who borrowed them,’ which I did. I always borrow

pounds. So our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to

be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to

me. Why should I go to see them, therefore? Absurd!”

 

Through the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned

thus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence

quite astonishing.

 

“Besides,” he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of light-hearted conviction, “if I don’t go anywhere for pain—which would

be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing

to do—why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went

to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of

mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be

disagreeable. They might say, ‘This is the man who had pounds and

who can’t pay pounds,’ which I can’t, of course; nothing could be

more out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn’t

go near them—and I won’t.”

 

He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing

but Miss Summerson’s fine tact, he said, would have found this out

for him.

 

I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point

were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted

everything leading to it. I had determined to mention something

else, however, and I thought I was not to be put off in that.

 

“Mr. Skimpole,” said I, “I must take the liberty of saying before I

conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best

authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor

boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that

occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it

would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much

surprised.”

 

“No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?” he returned

inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows.

 

1 ... 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 ... 182
Go to page:

Free ebook «Bleak House by Charles Dickens (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment