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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fathers and brothers and wives and sisters do not see it in that light.
They suspect, perhaps, that the new friend was a bagman, or an opera
dancer, and think that the affair need not be made of importance. The
American Minister had cast his eye on Mr Glascock during that momentary
parting, and had not thought much of Mr Glascock. ‘He was, certainly, a
gentleman,’ Caroline had said. ‘There are a great many English
gentlemen,’ the minister had replied.
‘I thought you would have asked him to call,’ Olivia said to her
sister. ‘He did offer.’
‘I know he did. I heard it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him he might come?’
‘Because we are not in Boston, Livy. It might be the most horrible
thing in the world to do here in Florence; and it may make a
difference, because Uncle Jonas is minister.’
‘Why should that make a difference? Do you mean that one isn’t to see
one’s own friends? That must be nonsense.’
‘But he isn’t a friend, Livy.’
‘It seems to me as if I’d known him for ever. That soft, monotonous
voice, which never became excited and never disagreeable, is as
familiar to me as though I had lived with it all my life.’
‘I thought him very pleasant.’
‘Indeed, you did, Carry. And he thought you pleasant too. Doesn’t it
seem odd? You were mending his glove for him this very afternoon, just
as if he were your brother.’
‘Why shouldn’t I mend his glove?’
‘Why not, indeed? He was entitled to have everything mended after
getting us such a good dinner at Bologna. By-the-bye, you never paid
him.’
‘Yes, I did when you were not by.’
‘I wonder who he is! C. G.! That fine man in the brown coat was his
servant, you know. I thought at first that C. G. must have been
cracked, and that the tall man was his keeper.’
‘I never knew any one less like a madman.’
‘No but the man was so queer. He did nothing, you know. We hardly saw
him, if you remember, at Turin. All he did was to tie the shawls at
Bologna. What can any man want with another man about with him like
that, unless he is cracked either in body or mind?’
‘You’d better ask C. G. yourself.’
‘I shall never see C. G. again, I suppose. I should like to see him
again. I guess you would too, Carry. Eh?’
‘Of course, I should why not?’
‘I never knew a man so imperturbable, and who had yet so much to say
for himself. I wonder what he is! Perhaps he’s on business, and that
man was a kind of a clerk.’
‘He had livery buttons on,’ said Carry.
‘And does that make a difference?’
‘I don’t think they put clerks into livery, even in England.’
‘Nor yet mad doctors,’ said Olivia. ‘Well, I like him very much; and
the only thing against him is that he should have a man, six feet high,
going about with him doing nothing.’
‘You’ll make me angry, Livy, if you talk in that way. It’s
uncharitable.’
‘In what way?’
‘About a mad doctor.’
‘It’s my belief,’ said Olivia, ‘that he’s an English swell, a lord, or
a duke and it’s my belief, too, that he’s in love with you.’
‘It’s my belief, Livy, that you’re a regular ass;’ and so the
conversation was ended on that occasion.
On the next day, about noon, the American Minister, as a part of the
duty which he owed to his country, read in a publication of that day,
issued for the purpose, the names of the new arrivals at Florence.
First and foremost was that of the Honourable Charles Glascock, with
his suite, at the York Hotel, en route to join his father, Lord
Peterborough, at Naples. Having read the news first to himself, the
minister read it out loud in the presence of his nieces.
‘That’s our friend C. G.,’ said Livy.
‘I should think not,’ said the minister, who had his own ideas about an
English lord.
‘I’m sure it is, because of the tall man with the buttons,’ said
Olivia.
‘It’s very unlikely,’ said the secretary of legation. ‘Lord
Peterborough is a man of immense wealth, very old, indeed. They say he
is dying at Naples. This man is his eldest son.’
‘Is that any reason why he shouldn’t have been civil to us?’ asked
Olivia.
‘I don’t think he is the sort of man likely to sit up in the banquette;
and he would have posted over the Alps. Moreover, he had his suite with
him.’
‘His suite was Buttons,’ said Olivia. ‘Only fancy, Carry, we’ve been
waited on for two days by a lord as is to be, and didn’t know it! And
you have mended the tips of his lordship’s glove!’ But Carry said
nothing at all.
Late on that same evening, they met Mr Glascock close to the Duomo,
under the shade of the Campanile. He had come out as they had done, to
see by moonlight that loveliest of all works made by man’s hands. They
were with the minister, but Mr Glascock came up and shook hands with
them.
‘I would introduce you to my uncle, Mr Spalding,’ said Olivia ‘only as
it happens we have never yet heard your name.’
‘My name is Mr Glascock,’ said he, smiling. Then the introduction was
made; and the American Minister took off his hat, and was very affable.
‘Only think, Carry,’ said Olivia, when they were alone that evening,
‘if you were to become the wife of an English lord!’
SHEWING WHAT TOOK PLACE AT ST DIDDULPH’S
Nora Rowley, when she escaped from the violence of her lover, at once
rushed up to her own room, and managed to fasten herself in before she
had been seen by any one. Her eider sister had at once gone to her aunt
when, at Hugh’s request, she had left the room, thinking it right that
Mrs Outhouse should know what was being done in her own house. Mrs
Outhouse had considered the matter patiently for a while, giving the
lovers the benefit of her hesitation, and had then spoken her mind to
Stanbury, as we have already heard. He had, upon the whole, been so
well pleased with what had occurred, that he was not in the least angry
with the parson’s wife when he left the parsonage. As soon as he was
gone Mrs Outhouse was at once joined by her elder niece, but Nora
remained for a while alone in her room.
Had she committed herself; and if so, did she regret it? He had behaved
very badly to her, certainly, taking her by the hand and putting his
arm round her waist. And then had he not even attempted to kiss her? He
had done all this, although she had been resolute in refusing to speak
to him one word of kindness though she had told him with all the energy
and certainty of which she was mistress, that she would never be his
wife. If a girl were to be subjected to such treatment as this when she
herself had been so firm, so discreet, so decided, then indeed it would
be unfit that a girl should trust herself with a man. She had never
thought that he had been such a one as that, to ill-use her, to lay a
hand on her in violence, to refuse to take an answer. She threw herself
on the bed and sobbed, and then hid her face and was conscious that in
spite of this acting before herself she was the happiest girl alive. He
had behaved very badly of course, he had behaved most wickedly, and she
would tell him so some day. But was he not the dearest fellow living?
Did ever man speak with more absolute conviction of love in every tone
of his voice? Was it not the finest, noblest heart that ever throbbed
beneath a waistcoat? Had not his very wickedness come from the
overpowering truth of his affection for her? She would never quite
forgive him because it had been so very wrong; but she would be true to
him for ever and ever. Of course they could not marry. What! would she
go to him and be a clog round his neck, and a weight upon him for ever,
bringing him down to the gutter by the burden of her own useless and
unworthy self? No. She would never so injure him. She would not even
hamper him by an engagement. But yet she would be true to him. She had
an idea that in spite of all her protestations which, as she looked
back upon them, appeared to her to have been louder than they had been,
that through the teeth of her denials, something of the truth had
escaped from her. Well let it be so. It was the truth, and why should
he not know it? Then she pictured to herself a long romance, in which
the heroine lived happily on the simple knowledge that she had been
beloved. And the reader may be sure that in this romance Mr Glascock
with his splendid prospects filled one of the characters.
She had been so wretched at Nuncombe Putney when she had felt herself
constrained to admit to herself that this man for whom she had
sacrificed herself did not care for her, that she could not now but
enjoy her triumph. After she had sobbed upon the bed, she got up and
walked about the room smiling; and she would now press her hands to her
forehead, and then shake her tresses, and then clasp her own left hand
with her right, as though he were still holding it. Wicked man! Why had
he been so wicked and so violent? And why, why, why had she not once
felt his lips upon her brow?
And she was pleased with herself. Her sister had rebuked her because
she had refused to make her fortune by marrying Mr Glascock; and, to
own the truth, she had rebuked herself on the same score when she found
that Hugh Stanbury had not had a word of love to say to her. It was not
that she regretted the grandeur which she had lost, but that she
should, even within her own thoughts, with the consciousness of her own
bosom, have declared herself unable to receive another man’s devotion
because of her love for this man who neglected her. Now she was proud
of herself. Whether it might be accounted as good or ill-fortune that
she had ever seen Hugh Stanbury, it must at any rate be right that she
should be true to him now that she had seen him, and had loved him. To
know that she loved and that she was not loved again had nearly killed
her. But such was not her lot. She too had been successful with her
quarry, and had struck her game, and brought down her dear. He had been
very violent with her, but his violence had at least made the matter
clear. He did love her. She would be satisfied with that, and would
endeavour so to live that that alone should make life happy for her.
How should she get his photograph and a lock of his hair? and when
again might she have the pleasure of placing her own hand within his
great, rough, violent grasp? Then she kissed the hand which he had
held, and opened the door of her room, at which her
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