Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy WorksGalsworthy, John
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Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works
Galsworthy, John
English literature -- 20th century; Literature -- Collections
They were unlike, as though recognising the difference set between them
by the circumstances of their births. Jolly, the child of sin,
pudgy-faced, with his tow-coloured hair brushed off his forehead, and a
dimple in his chin, had an air of stubborn amiability, and the eyes of a
Forsyte; little Holly, the child of wedlock, was a dark-skinned, solemn
soul, with her mother's, grey and wistful eyes.
The dog Balthasar, having walked round the three small flower-beds, to
show his extreme contempt for things at large, had also taken a seat in
front of old Jolyon, and, oscillating a tail curled by Nature tightly
over his back, was staring up with eyes that did not blink.
Even in the garden, that sense of things being pokey haunted old Jolyon;
the wicker chair creaked under his weight; the garden-beds looked
'daverdy'; on the far side, under the smut-stained wall, cats had made a
path.
While he and his grandchildren thus regarded each other with the peculiar
scrutiny, curious yet trustful, that passes between the very young and
the very old, young Jolyon watched his wife.
The colour had deepened in her thin, oval face, with its straight brows,
and large, grey eyes. Her hair, brushed in fine, high curves back from
her forehead, was going grey, like his own, and this greyness made the
sudden vivid colour in her cheeks painfully pathetic.
The look on her face, such as he had never seen there before, such as she
had always hidden from him, was full of secret resentments, and longings,
and fears. Her eyes, under their twitching brows, stared painfully. And
she was silent.
Jolly alone sustained the conversation; he had many possessions, and was
anxious that his unknown friend with extremely large moustaches, and
hands all covered with blue veins, who sat with legs crossed like his own
father (a habit he was himself trying to acquire), should know it; but
being a Forsyte, though not yet quite eight years old, he made no mention
of the thing at the moment dearest to his heart--a camp of soldiers in a
shop-window, which his father had promised to buy. No doubt it seemed to
him too precious; a tempting of Providence to mention it yet.
And the sunlight played through the leaves on that little party of the
three generations grouped tranquilly under the pear-tree, which had long
borne no fruit.
Old Jolyon's furrowed face was reddening patchily, as old men's faces
redden in the sun. He took one of Jolly's hands in his own; the boy
climbed on to his knee; and little Holly, mesmerized by this sight, crept
up to them; the sound of the dog Balthasar's scratching arose
rhythmically.
Suddenly young Mrs. Jolyon got up and hurried indoors. A minute later
her husband muttered an excuse, and followed. Old Jolyon was left alone
with his grandchildren.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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