Swithin Forsyte answered: “I don't get any sleep at night, now I can't
get out; and I've bought a new carriage—gave a pot of money for it. D'
you ever have bronchitis? They tell me champagne's dangerous; it's my
belief I couldn't take a better thing.”
James Forsyte rose.
“You ought to have another opinion. Emily sent her love; she would have
come in, but she had to go to Niagara. Everybody goes there; it's the
place now. Rachel goes every morning: she overdoes it—she'll be laid up
one of these days. There's a fancy ball there to-night; the Duke gives
the prizes.”
Swithin Forsyte said angrily: “I can't get things properly cooked here;
at the club I get spinach decently done.” The bed-clothes jerked at the
tremor of his legs.
James Forsyte replied: “You must have done well with Tintos; you must
have made a lot of money by them. Your ground-rents must be falling
in, too. You must have any amount you don't know what to do with.” He
mouthed the words, as if his lips were watering.
Swithin Forsyte glared. “Money!” he said; “my doctor's bill's enormous.”
James Forsyte stretched out a cold, damp hand “Goodbye! You ought to
have another opinion. I can't keep the horses waiting: they're a new
pair—stood me in three hundred. You ought to take care of yourself. I
shall speak to Blank about you. You ought to have him—everybody says
he's the first man. Good-bye!”
Swithin Forsyte continued to stare at the ceiling. He thought: 'A
poor thing, James! a selfish beggar! Must be worth a couple of hundred
thousand!' He wheezed, meditating on life....
He was ill and lonely. For many years he had been lonely, and for two
years ill; but as he had smoked his first cigar, so he would live his
life-stoutly, to its predestined end. Every day he was driven to the
club; sitting forward on the spring cushions of a single brougham, his
hands on his knees, swaying a little, strangely solemn. He ascended
the steps into that marble hall—the folds of his chin wedged into the
aperture of his collar—walking squarely with a stick. Later he would
dine, eating majestically, and savouring his food, behind a bottle of
champagne set in an ice-pail—his waistcoat defended by a napkin, his
eyes rolling a little or glued in a stare on the waiter. Never did he
suffer his head or back to droop, for it was not distinguished so to do.
Because he was old and deaf, he spoke to no one; and no one spoke to
him. The club gossip, an Irishman, said to each newcomer: “Old Forsyte!
Look at 'um! Must ha' had something in his life to sour 'um!” But
Swithin had had nothing in his life to sour him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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