Alice Adams Booth Tarkington (ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Booth Tarkington
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âWell, I want to hunt around and see, anyhow.â
Alice patted his hand. âYou must just be contented, papa. Everythingâs going to be all right, and you mustnât get to worrying about doing anything. We own this house itâs all clearâ âand youâve taken care of mama and me all our lives; now itâs our turn.â
âNo, sir!â he said, querulously. âI donât like the idea of being the landladyâs husband around a boardinghouse; it goes against my gizzard. I know: makes out the bills for his wife Sunday morningsâ âworks with a screwdriver on somebodyâs bureau drawer sometimesâ ââtends the furnace maybeâ âone the boarders gives him a cigar now and then. Thatâs a fine life to look forward to! No, sir; I donât want to finish as a landladyâs husband!â
Alice looked grave; for she knew the sketch was but too accurately prophetic in every probability. âBut, papa,â she said, to console him, âdonât you think maybe there isnât such a thing as a âfinish,â after all! You say perhaps we donât learn to live till we die but maybe thatâs how it is after we die, tooâ âjust learning some more, the way we do here, and maybe through trouble again, even after that.â
âOh, it might be,â he sighed. âI expect so.â
âWell, then,â she said, âwhatâs the use of talking about a âfinishâ? We do keep looking ahead to things as if theyâd finish something, but when we get to them, they donât finish anything. Theyâre just part of going on. Iâll tell youâ âI looked ahead all summer to something I was afraid of, and I said to myself, âWell, if that happens, Iâm finished!â But it wasnât so, papa. It did happen, and nothingâs finished; Iâm going on, just the same onlyâ ââ She stopped and blushed.
âOnly what?â he asked.
âWellâ ââ She blushed more deeply, then jumped up, and, standing before him, caught both his hands in hers. âWell, donât you think, since we do have to go on, we ought at least to have learned some sense about how to do it?â
He looked up at her adoringly.
âWhat I think,â he said, and his voice trembled;â ââI think youâre the smartest girl in the world! I wouldnât trade you for the whole kit-and-boodle of âem!â
But as this folly of his threatened to make her tearful, she kissed him hastily, and went forth upon her errand.
Since the night of the tragic-comic dinner she had not seen Russell, nor caught even the remotest chance glimpse of him; and it was curious that she should encounter him as she went upon such an errand as now engaged her. At a corner, not far from that tobacconistâs shop she had just left when he overtook her and walked with her for the first time, she met him today. He turned the corner, coming toward her, and they were face to face; whereupon that engaging face of Russellâs was instantly reddened, but Aliceâs remained serene.
She stopped short, though; and so did he; then she smiled brightly as she put out her hand.
âWhy, Mr. Russell!â
âIâm soâ âIâm so glad to have thisâ âthis chance,â he stammered. âIâve wanted to tell youâ âitâs just that going into a new undertakingâ âthis business lifeâ âone doesnât get to do a great many things heâd like to. I hope youâll let me call again some time, if I can.â
âYes, do!â she said, cordially, and then, with a quick nod, went briskly on.
She breathed more rapidly, but knew that he could not have detected it, and she took some pride in herself for the way she had met this little crisis. But to have met it with such easy courage meant to her something more reassuring than a momentary pride in the serenity she had shown. For she found that what she had resolved in her inmost heart was now really true: she was âthrough with all that!â
She walked on, but more slowly, for the tobacconistâs shop was not far from her nowâ âand, beyond it, that portal of doom, Frinckeâs Business College. Already Alice could read the begrimed gilt letters of the sign; and although they had spelled destiny never with a more painful imminence than just then, an old habit of dramatizing herself still prevailed with her.
There came into her mind a whimsical comparison of her fate with that of the heroine in a French romance she had read long ago and remembered well, for she had cried over it. The story ended with the heroineâs taking the veil after a death blow to love; and the final scene again became vivid to Alice, for a moment. Again, as when she had read and wept, she seemed herself to stand among the great shadows in the cathedral nave; smelled the smoky incense on the enclosed air, and heard the solemn pulses of the organ. She remembered how the noviceâs father knelt, trembling, beside a pillar of gray stone; how the faithless lover watched and shivered behind the statue of a saint; how stifled sobs and outcries were heard when the novice came to the altar; and how a shaft of light struck through the rose-window, enveloping her in an amber glow.
It was the vision of a moment only, and for no longer than a moment did Alice tell herself that the romance provided a prettier way of taking the veil than she had chosen, and that a faithless lover, shaking with remorse behind a saintâs statue, was a greater solace than one left on a street corner protesting that heâd like to call some timeâ âif he could! Her pity for herself vanished more reluctantly; but she shook it off and tried to smile at it, and at her romantic recollectionsâ âat all of them. She had something important to think of.
She passed the tobacconistâs, and before her was that dark entrance to the wooden stairway leading up to Frinckeâs Business Collegeâ âthe very doorway she had always looked upon as the end of youth and the end of hope.
How often she had gone by here, hating the dreary
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