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another difference, which he struggled to reconcile.
In March the thaws came, and under the warming sun Hugo made a deliberate attempt
to fall in love with Janice, who was the daughter of his French professor. She was a happy,
innocent little girl, with gold hair, and brown eyes that lived oddly beneath it. She worshiped
Hugo. He petted her, talked through long evenings to her, tried to be faithful to her in his
most unfettered dreams, and once considered proposing to her. When he found himself
unable to do that, he was compelled to resist an impulse to seduce her. Ashamed, believing
himself unfit for a nice girl, he untangled that romance as painlessly as he could, separating
himself from Janice little by little and denying every accusation of waning interest.
Then for a month he believed that he could never be satisfied by any woman, that he
was superior to women. He read the lives of great lovers and adulterers and he wished he
could see Bessie, who had taken his money long before in New York City. She appealed to
him then more than all the others probably, he thought, because he was drunk and had not
viewed her in sharp perspective. For hours he meditated on women, while he longed
constantly to possess a woman.
But the habitual routine of his life did not suffer. He attended his classes and lectures,
played on the basketball team, tried tentatively to write for the campus newspaper, learned to
perform indifferently on the mandolin, and made himself into the semblance of an ideal
college man. His criticism of college then was at its lowest ebb. He spent Christmas in New
York at Left Foresman s parents elaborate home, slightly intoxicated through the two weeks,
hastening to the opera, to ball and parties, ill at ease when presented to people whose names
struck his ears familiarly, seeing for the first time the exaggeration of scale on which the very
rich live and wondering constantly why he never met Iris, wishing for and fearing that
meeting while he wondered.
When his first year at college was near to its end, and that still and respectful silence
that marks the passing of a senior class had fallen over the campus, Hugo realized with a
shock that he would soon be on his way back to Indian Creek. Then, suddenly, he saw what
an amazing and splendid thing that year at college had been. He realized how it had filled his
life to the brim with activities of which he had not dreamed, how it had shaped him so that he
would be almost a stranger in his own home, how it had aged and educated him in the
business of living. When the time of parting with his new friends drew near, he understood
that they were valuable to him, in spite of his questioning. And they made it clear that he
would be missed by them. At last he shared a feeling with his classmates, a fond sadness, an
illimitable poignancy that was young and unadulterated by motive. He was perversely happy
when he became aware of it. He felt somewhat justified for being himself and living his life.
A day or two before college closed, he received a letter from his father. It was the
third he had received during the year. It said:
Dear Son
Your mother and I have decided to break the news to you before you leave for home,
because there may be better opportunities for you in the East than here at Indian Creek. When
you went away to Webster University, I agreed to take care of all your expenses. It was the
least I could do, I felt, for my only son. The two thousand dollars your mother and I had
saved seemed ample for your four years. But the bills we have received, as well as your own
demands, have been staggering. In March, when a scant six hundred dollars of the original
fund remained, I invested the money in a mine stock which, the salesman said, would easily
net the six thousand dollars you appeared to need. I now find to my chagrin that the stock is
worthless. I am unable to get back my purchase money.
It will be impossible during the coming year for me to let you have more than five
hundred dollars. Perhaps, with what you earn this summer and with the exercise of economy,
you can get along. I trust so. But, anxious as we are to see you again, we felt that, in the light
of such information, you might prefer to remain in the East to earn what you can.
We are both despondent over the situation and we wish that we could do more than
tender our regrets. But we hope that you will be able to find some solution to this situation.
Thus, with our very warmest affection and our fondest hope, we wish you good fortune.
Your loving father,
ABEDNEGO DANNER.
Hugo read the letter down to the last period after the rather tremulous signature. His
emotions were confused. Touched by the earnest and pathetically futile efforts of his father
and by the attempt of that lonely little man to express what was, perhaps, a great affection.
Hugo was, nevertheless, aghast at a prospect that he had not considered. He was going to be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]