Chains : $b lesser novels and storiesDreiser, Theodore
General
Chains : $b lesser novels and stories
Dreiser, Theodore
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Beryl was crazy about music, although she couldn’t play except a little
by ear. Her mother had been too poor to give her anything more than a
common school education, which was about all that he had had. But she
was crazy about the violin and anybody who could play it, and when any
of the great violinists came to town she always managed to afford to
go. Raskoffsky was a big blond Russian who played wonderfully, so she
said. She and Alice had gone to hear him, and for weeks afterward they
had raved about him. They had even talked of writing to him, just to
see if he would answer, but he had frowned on such a proceeding because
he didn’t want Beryl writing to any man. What good would it do her? A
man like that wouldn’t bother about answering her letter, especially if
all the women were as crazy about him as the papers said. Yet later he
had found Raskoffsky’s picture in Beryl’s room, only it was inscribed
to Alice.... Still, Beryl might have put Alice up to it, might even
have sent her own picture under Alice’s name, just to see if he would
answer. They had talked of sending a picture. Besides, if Alice had
written and secured this picture, why wasn’t it in her rather than
Beryl’s possession. He had asked about that. Yet the one flaw in that
was that Alice wasn’t really good-looking enough to send her picture
and she knew it. Yet Beryl had sworn that she hadn’t written. And Alice
had insisted that it was she and not Beryl who had written. But there
was no way of proving that she hadn’t or that Beryl had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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