The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy (hot novels to read TXT) đ
- Author: John Galsworthy
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But with young Jolyon following to his wifeâs room it was different.
He found her seated on a chair before her dressing-glass, with her hands before her face.
Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. This passion of hers for suffering was mysterious to him. He had been through a hundred of these moods; how he had survived them he never knew, for he could never believe they were moods, and that the last hour of his partnership had not struck.
In the night she would be sure to throw her arms round his neck and say: âOh! Jo, how I make you suffer!â as she had done a hundred times before.
He reached out his hand, and, unseen, slipped his razor-case into his pocket. âI cannot stay here,â he thought, âI must go down!â Without a word he left the room, and went back to the lawn.
Old Jolyon had little Holly on his knee; she had taken possession of his watch; Jolly, very red in the face, was trying to show that he could stand on his head. The dog Balthasar, as close as he might be to the tea-table, had fixed his eyes on the cake.
Young Jolyon felt a malicious desire to cut their enjoyment short.
What business had his father to come and upset his wife like this? It was a shock, after all these years! He ought to have known; he ought to have given them warning; but when did a Forsyte ever imagine that his conduct could upset anybody! And in his thoughts he did old Jolyon wrong.
He spoke sharply to the children, and told them to go in to their tea. Greatly surprised, for they had never heard their father speak sharply before, they went off, hand in hand, little Holly looking back over her shoulder.
Young Jolyon poured out the tea.
âMy wifeâs not the thing today,â he said, but he knew well enough that his father had penetrated the cause of that sudden withdrawal, and almost hated the old man for sitting there so calmly.
âYouâve got a nice little house here,â said old Jolyon with a shrewd look; âI suppose youâve taken a lease of it!â
Young Jolyon nodded.
âI donât like the neighbourhood,â said old Jolyon; âa ramshackle lot.â
Young Jolyon replied: âYes, weâre a ramshackle lot.â
The silence was now only broken by the sound of the dog Balthasarâs scratching.
Old Jolyon said simply: âI suppose I oughtnât to have come here, Jo; but I get so lonely!â
At these words young Jolyon got up and put his hand on his fatherâs shoulder.
In the next house someone was playing over and over again: âLa Donna Ăš Mobileâ on an untuned piano; and the little garden had fallen into shade, the sun now only reached the wall at the end, whereon basked a crouching cat, her yellow eyes turned sleepily down on the dog Balthasar. There was a drowsy hum of very distant traffic; the creepered trellis round the garden shut out everything but sky, and house, and pear-tree, with its top branches still gilded by the sun.
For some time they sat there, talking but little. Then old Jolyon rose to go, and not a word was said about his coming again.
He walked away very sadly. What a poor miserable place; and he thought of the great, empty house in Stanhope Gate, fit residence for a Forsyte, with its huge billiard-room and drawing-room that no one entered from one weekâs end to another.
That woman, whose face he had rather liked, was too thin-skinned by half; she gave Jo a bad time he knew! And those sweet children! Ah! what a piece of awful folly!
He walked towards the Edgware Road, between rows of little houses, all suggesting to him (erroneously no doubt, but the prejudices of a Forsyte are sacred) shady histories of some sort or kind.
Society, forsooth, the chattering hags and jackanapesâ âhad set themselves up to pass judgment on his flesh and blood! A parcel of old women! He stumped his umbrella on the ground, as though to drive it into the heart of that unfortunate body, which had dared to ostracize his son and his sonâs son, in whom he could have lived again!
He stumped his umbrella fiercely; yet he himself had followed Societyâs behaviour for fifteen yearsâ âhad only today been false to it!
He thought of June, and her dead mother, and the whole story, with all his old bitterness. A wretched business!
He was a long time reaching Stanhope Gate, for, with native perversity, being extremely tired, he walked the whole way.
After washing his hands in the lavatory downstairs, he went to the dining-room to wait for dinner, the only room he used when June was outâ âit was less lonely so. The evening paper had not yet come; he had finished the Times, there was therefore nothing to do.
The room faced the backwater of traffic, and was very silent. He disliked dogs, but a dog even would have been company. His gaze, travelling round the walls, rested on a picture entitled: âGroup of Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.â the chef dâoeuvre of his collection. It gave him no pleasure. He closed his eyes. He was lonely! He oughtnât to complain, he knew, but he couldnât help it: He was a poor thingâ âhad always been a poor thingâ âno pluck! Such was his thought.
The butler came to lay the table for dinner, and seeing his master apparently asleep, exercised
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