Читать книгу Self-Doomed. A Novel - Farjeon Benjamin Leopold - Страница 5

He grew into a tall, thin, sallow-faced young man, about as ill-favored as one of Pharaoh's lean kine; with large splay feet; with sandy hair; with a nose which looked as if it had been broken in the middle by a violent blow; with eyes as dull as the eyes of a fish; with a voice in which was never heard a note of natural gayety. Such men are a mistake in the world, and how any young woman can be drawn to them is a mystery which I defy students of human nature to satisfactorily explain. A mother's love for her ugly bantling is easily understood, but a fine young woman's, with bright eyes in her head, for such a scarecrow as Gideon Wolf is beyond ordinary comprehension. Yet they draw prizes these crooked-grained ones, while better men are left to sigh in vain.

You have already heard how Gideon passed through his apprenticeship, and how I continued to employ him as a workman when his time was out. He was twenty-two years of age when, on a certain evening, old Anna, who had been out marketing, burst in upon me with a plump goose in her hand, and cried in a great heat,

"Fine doings, Master Fink, fine doings! It is high time the world came to an end."

"What, in Heaven's name, has put you in such a fever?" I inquired, looking up from the newspaper in which I was reading an account of a wonderful ox, which had a man's head growing out of one shoulder and a turtle out of the other. "Ah," I cried, in sudden fear, "that goose! You have been cheated. It is not a fresh goose; it ought to have been eaten days ago, and the dealer will not change it. Give it to me-I will go to him myself-"

"No need to trouble, Master Fink," said Anna, in a slightly acid tone; "the goose is a good goose, and I bought it cheap. I should like to see the dealer who could take me in. Look at it."

I did more than look at it. I poked its ribs; I felt its fat breast; my eyes glistened.

"Already, Anna," I cried, joyously, "already I smell the stuffing!"

"I don't deny it; I am fond of good cooking. It is nothing to be ashamed of; we were sent into the world to eat, as well as to do other things, and it is right that we should enjoy it."

"It is not the goose that has put me in a fever," said Anna, "it is Gideon Wolf."

I pricked up my ears. "Has he been behaving rudely to you, Anna?"

"What!" she screamed, in a voice so shrill that I jumped in my chair. "He! A lamp-post like him! If he dared, I'd box his ears till I set them on fire!"