Читать книгу What Will He Do with It? — Volume 04 - Эдвард Джордж Бульвер-Литтон, Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - Страница 1

In the kindliest natures there is a certain sensitiveness, which, when wounded, occasions the same pain, and bequeaths the same resentment, as mortified vanity or galled self-love.

It is exactly that day week, towards the hour of five in the evening, Mr. Hartopp, alone in the parlour behind his warehouse, is locking up his books and ledgers preparatory to the return to his villa. There is a certain change in the expression of his countenance since we saw it last. If it be possible for Mr. Hartopp to look sullen,—sullen he looks; if it be possible for the Mayor of Gatesboro' to be crestfallen, crestfallen he is. That smooth existence has surely received some fatal concussion, and has not yet recovered the shock. But if you will glance beyond the parlour at Mr. Williams giving orders in the warehouse, at the warehousemen themselves, at the rough faces in the tan-yard,-nay, at Mike Callaghan, who has just brought a parcel from the railway, all of them have evidently shared in the effects of the concussion; all of them wear a look more or less sullen; all seem crestfallen. Could you carry your gaze farther on, could you peep into the shops in the High Street, or at the loungers in the city reading-room; could you extend the vision farther still,—to Mr. Hartopp's villa, behold his wife, his little ones, his men-servants, and his maid-servants, more and more impressively general would become the tokens of disturbance occasioned by that infamous concussion. Everywhere a sullen look,—everywhere that ineffable aspect of crestfallenness! What can have happened? is the good man bankrupt? No, rich as ever! What can it be? Reader! that fatal event which they who love Josiah Hartopp are ever at watch to prevent, despite all their vigilance, has occurred! Josiah Hartopp has been TAKEN IN! Other men may be occasionally taken in, and no one mourns; perhaps they deserve it! they are not especially benevolent, or they set up to be specially wise. But to take in that lamb! And it was not only the Mayor's heart that was wounded, but his pride, his self- esteem, his sense of dignity, were terribly humiliated. For as we know, though all the world considered Mr. Hartopp the very man born to be taken in, and therefore combined to protect him, yet in his secret soul Mr. Hartopp considered that no man less needed such protection; that he was never taken in, unless he meant to be so. Thus the cruelty and ingratitude of the base action under which his crest was so fallen jarred on his whole system. Nay, more, he could not but feel that the event would long affect his personal comfort and independence; he would be more than ever under the affectionate tyranny of Mr. Williams, more than ever be an object of universal surveillance and espionage. There would be one thought paramount throughout Gatesboro'. "The Mayor, God bless him! has been taken in: this must not occur again, or Gatesboro' is dishonoured, and Virtue indeed a name!" Mr. Hartopp felt not only mortified but subjugated,—he who had hitherto been the soft subjugator of the hardest. He felt not only subjugated, but indignant at the consciousness of being so. He was too meekly convinced of Heaven's unerring justice not to feel assured that the man who had taken him in would come to a tragic end. He would not have hung that man with his own hands: he was too mild for vengeance. But if he had seen that man hanging he would have said piously, "Fitting retribution," and passed on his way soothed and comforted. Taken in!—taken in at last!—he, Josiah Hartopp, taken in by a fellow with one eye!