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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to say this to you. If I do not say it now—’
‘You heard what Emily said.’
‘No, what did she say?’
‘She said that it would not be for good that you should speak to me
thus.’
‘Why not for good? But she is unhappy, and looks gloomily at things.’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘But all the world need not be sad for ever because she has been
unfortunate.’
‘Not all the world, Mr Stanbury, but you must not be surprised if it
affects me.’
‘But would that prevent your loving me if you did love me? But, Nora, I
do not expect you to love me not yet. I do not say that I expect it
ever. But if you would—. Nora, I can do no more than tell you the
simple truth. Just listen to me for a minute. You know how I came to be
intimate with you all in Curzon Street. The first day I saw you I loved
you; and there has come no change yet. It is months now since I first
knew that I loved you. Well; I told myself more than once when I was
down at Nuncombe for instance that I had no right to speak to you. What
right can a poor devil like me have, who lives from hand to mouth, to
ask such a girl as you to be his wife? And so I said nothing though it
was on my lips every moment that I was there.’ Nora remembered at the
moment how she had looked to his lips, and had not seen the words
there. ‘But I think there is something unmanly in this. If you cannot
give me a grain of hope, if you tell me that there never can be hope, it
is my misfortune. It will be very grievous, but I will bear it. But
that will be better than puling and moping about without daring to tell
my tale. I am not ashamed of it. I have fallen in love with you, Nora,
and I think it best to come for an answer.’
He held out his arms as though he thought that she might perhaps come
to him. Indeed he had no idea of any such coming on her part; but she,
as she looked at him, almost thought that it was her duty to go. Had
she a right to withhold herself from him, she who loved him so dearly?
Had he stepped forward and taken her in his arms, it might be that all
power of refusal would soon have been beyond her power.
‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘you have confessed yourself that it is
impossible.’
‘But do you love me, do you think that it is possible that you should
ever love me?’
‘You know, Mr Stanbury, that you should not say anything further. You
know that it cannot be.’
‘But do you love me?’
‘You are ungenerous not to take an answer without driving me to be
uncourteous.’
‘I do not care for courtesy. Tell me the truth. Can you ever love me?
With one word of hope I will wait, and work, and feel myself to be a
hero. I will not go till you tell me that you cannot love me.’
‘Then I must tell you so.’
‘What is it you will tell me, Nora? Speak it. Say it. If I knew that a
girl disliked me, nothing should make me press myself upon her. Am I
odious to you, Nora?’
‘No; not odious, but very, very unfair.’
‘I will have the truth if I be ever so unfair,’ he said. And by this
time probably some inkling of the truth had reached his intelligence.
There was already a tear in Nora’s eye, but he did not pity her. She
owed it to him to tell him the truth, and he would have it from her if
it was to be reached. ‘Nora,’ he said, ‘listen to me again. All my
heart and soul are in this. It is everything to me. If you can love me
you are bound to say so. By Jove, I will believe you do, unless you
swear to me that it is not so!’ He was now holding her by the hand and
looking closely into her face.
‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘let me go; pray, pray let me go.’
‘Not till you say that you love me. Oh, Nora, I believe that you love
me. You do; yes; you do love me. Dearest, dearest Nora, would you not
say a word to make me the happiest man in the world?’ And now he had
his arm round her waist.
‘Let me go,’ she said, struggling through her tears and covering her
face with her hands. ‘You are very, very wicked. I will never speak to
you again. Nay, but you shall let me go!’ And then she was out of his
arms and had escaped from the room before he had managed to touch her
face with his lips.
As he was thinking how he also might escape now, might escape and
comfort himself with his triumph, Mrs Outhouse returned to the chamber.
She was very demure, and her manner towards him was considerably
changed since she had left the chamber. ‘Mr Stanbury,’ she said, ‘this
kind of thing mustn’t go any further indeed, at least not in my house.’
‘What kind of thing, Mrs Outhouse?’
‘Well, what my elder niece has told me. I have not seen Miss Rowley
since she left you. I am quite sure she has behaved with discretion.’
‘Indeed she has, Mrs Outhouse.’
‘The fact is my nieces are in grief and trouble, and this is no time or
place for lovemaking. I am sorry to be uncivil, but I must ask you not
to come here any more.’
‘I will stay away from this house, certainly, if you bid me.’
‘I am very sorry; but I must bid you. Sir Marmaduke will be home in the
spring, and if you have anything to say to him of course you can see
him.’
Then Hugh Stanbury took his leave of Mrs Outhouse; but as he went home,
again on the knifeboard of an omnibus, he smoked the pipe of triumph
rather than the pipe of contemplation.
‘C. G.’
The Miss Spaldings were met at the station at Florence by their uncle,
the American Minister, by their cousin, the American Secretary of
Legation, and by three or four other dear friends and relations, who
were there to welcome the newcomers to sunny Italy. Mr Glascock,
therefore, who ten minutes since had been, and had felt himself to be,
quite indispensable to their comfort, suddenly became as though he were
nothing and nobody. Who is there that has not felt these sudden
disruptions to the intimacies and friendships of a long journey? He
bowed to them, and they to him, and then they were whirled away in
their grandeur. He put himself into a small, open hackney-carriage, and
had himself driven to the York Hotel, feeling himself to be deserted
and desolate. The two Miss Spaldings were the daughters of a very
respectable lawyer at Boston, whereas Mr Glascock was heir to a
peerage, to an enormous fortune, and to one of the finest places in
England. But he thought nothing of this at the time. As he went, he was
meditating which young woman was the most attractive, Nora Rowley or
Caroline Spalding. He had no doubt but that Nora was the prettier, the
pleasanter in manner, the better dressed, the more engaging in all that
concerned the outer woman; but he thought that he had never met any
lady who talked better than Caroline Spalding. And what was Nora
Rowley’s beauty to him? Had she not told him that she was the property
of some one else; or, for the matter of that, what was Miss Spalding to
him? They had parted, and he was going on to Naples in two days. He had
said some half-defined word as to calling at the American Embassy, but
it had not been taken up by either of the ladies. He had not pressed
it, and so they had parted without an understanding as to a future
meeting.
The double journey, from Turin to Bologna and from Bologna to Florence,
is very long, and forms ample time for a considerable intimacy. There
had, too, been a long day’s journeying together before that; and with
no women is a speedy intimacy so possible, or indeed so profitable, as
with Americans. They fear nothing, neither you nor themselves; and talk
with as much freedom as though they were men. It may, perhaps, be
assumed to be true as a rule, that women’s society is always more
agreeable to men than that of other men except for the lack of ease. It
undoubtedly is so when the women be young and pretty. There is a
feeling, however, among pretty women in Europe that such freedom is
dangerous, and it is withheld. There is such danger, and more or less
of such withholding is expedient; but the American woman does not
recognise the danger; and, if she withhold the grace of her countenance
and the pearls of her speech, it is because she is not desirous of the
society which is proffered to her. These two American sisters had not
withholden their pearls from Mr Glascock. He was much their senior in
age; he was gentle in his manners, and they probably recognised him to
be a safe companion. They had no idea who he was, and had not heard his
name when they parted from him. But it was not probable that they
should have been with him so long, and that they should leave him
without further thought of him, without curiosity, or a desire to know
more of him. They had seen ‘C. G.’ in large letters, on his
dressing-bag, and that was all they had learned as to his identity. He
had known their names well, and had once called Olivia by hers, in the
hurry of speaking to her sister. He had apologised, and there had been
a little laugh, and a discussion about the use of Christian names such
as is very conducive to intimacy between gentlemen and ladies. When you
can talk to a young lady about her own Christian name, you are almost
entitled for the nonce to use it.
Mr Glascock went to his hotel, and was very moody and desolate. His
name was very soon known there, and he received the honours due to his
rank and station. ‘I should like to travel in America,’ he said to
himself, ‘if I could be sure that no one would find out who I was.’ He
had received letters at Turin, stating that his father was better, and,
therefore, he intended to remain two days at Florence. The weather was
still very hot, and Florence in the middle of September is much
preferable to Naples.
That night, when the two Miss Spaldings were alone together, they
discussed their fellow-traveller thoroughly. Something, of course, had
been said about him to their uncle the minister, to their aunt the
minister’s wife, and to their cousin the secretary of legation. But
travellers will always observe that the dear new friends they have made
on their journey are not interesting to the dear old friends whom they
meet afterwards. There may be some touch of jealousy in this; and then,
though you, the traveller, are fully aware that there has been
something special in the case which has made this new friendship more
peculiar than others
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