Booth Tarkington

“ For the first time, now that the change was imminent, George began to develop before his mind’s eye pictures of what he was in for; and they appalled him. He decided that such a life verged upon the sheerly unbearable, and that after all there were some things left that he just couldn’t stand. So he made up his mind to speak to his aunt about it at “dinner,” and tell her that he preferred to ask Bronson to let him put a sofa-bed, a trunk, and a folding rubber bathtub behind a screen in the dark rear room of the office. George felt that this would be infinitely more tolerable ”

“ George said quietly. “I don’t count on anything.”
“Oh, we’ll not feel that things are quite desperate,” Amberson laughed, but not with great cheerfulness. “We’ll survive, Georgie—you will, especially. For my part I’m a little too old and too accustomed to fall back on somebody else for supplies to start a big fight with life: I’ll be content with just surviving, and I can do it on an eighteen-hundred-dollar-a-year consulship. An ex-congressman can always be pretty sure of getting some such job, and I hear from Washington the matter’s about settled. ”

“ She did not go. “I’m sure we’re going to enjoy the new little home, George,” she said timidly. “I’ll try hard to make things nice for you, and the people really are lovely. You mustn’t feel as if things are altogether gloomy, George. I know everything’s going to turn out all right. You’re young and strong and you have a good mind and I’m sure—” she hesitated—“I’m sure your mother’s watching over you, Georgie. Good-night, dear.”
“Good-night, Aunt Fanny.” ”

“ But you’ve received a pretty heavy jolt, and I had enough of your disposition, myself, at your age, to understand a little of what cocksure youth has to go through inside when it finds that it can make terrible mistakes. Poor old fellow! You get both kinds of jolts together, spiritual and material—and you’ve taken them pretty quietly and—well, with my train coming into the shed, you’ll forgive me for saying that there have been times when I thought you ought to be hanged—but I’ve always been fond of you, and now I like you! ”

“ We can’t ever tell what will happen at all, can we? Once I stood where we’re standing now, to say good-bye to a pretty girl—only it was in the old station before this was built, and we called it the ‘dépôt.’ She’d been visiting your mother, before Isabel was married, and I was wild about her, and she admitted she didn’t mind that. In fact, we decided we couldn’t live without each other, and we were to be married. ”

“ This was the last “walk home” he was ever to take by the route he was now following: up National Avenue to Amberson Addition and the two big old houses at the foot of Amberson Boulevard; for to-night would be the last night that he and Fanny were to spend in the house which the Major had forgotten to deed to Isabel. To-morrow they were to “move out,” and George was to begin his work in Bronson’s office. He had not come to this collapse without a fierce struggle—but the struggle was inward, and the rolling world was not agitated by it, and rolled calmly on. ”

“ And just for a last word: there may be somebody else in this town who’s always felt about you like that—fond of you, I mean, no matter how much it seemed you ought to be hanged. You might try—— Hello, I must run. I’ll send back the money as fast as they pay me—so, good-bye and God bless you, Georgie!”
He passed through the gates, waved his hat cheerily from the other side of the iron screen, and was lost from sight in the hurrying crowd. And as he disappeared, an unexpected poignant loneliness fell upon his nephew so heavily and so suddenly that he had no energy to recoil from the shock. ”

“ Emptiness was there, too, and the closing of the door resounded through bare rooms; for downstairs there was no furniture in the house except a kitchen table in the dining room, which Fanny had kept “for dinner,” she said, though as she was to cook and serve that meal herself George had his doubts about her name for it. Upstairs, she had retained her own furniture, and George had been living in his mother’s room, having sent everything from his own to the auction. Isabel’s room was still as it had been, but the furniture would be moved with Fanny’s to new quarters in the morning. ”

“ I’ll live pleasantly enough with a pitcher of ice under a palm tree, and black folks to wait on me—that part of it will be like home—and I’ll manage to send you fifty dollars every now and then, after I once get settled. ”

“ The ladies of this party were favourably affected at sight of the pedestrian upon the sidewalk, and, as the machine was moving slowly, and close to the curb, they had time to observe him in detail, which they did with a frankness not pleasing to the object of their attentions. “One sees so many nice-looking people one doesn’t know nowadays,” said the youngest of the young ladies. “This old town of ours is really getting enormous. ”