Оглавление
Henry James. Washington Square
WASHINGTON SQUARE
1. Poor Catherine
2. A handsome young man
3. Who is Morris Townsend?
4. Morris Townsend looks for a position
5. Doctor Sloper decides
6. Catherine tries to be good
7. Catherine decides
8. The last parting
9. Morris returns
GLOSSARY
Washington Square. ACTIVITIES
ACTIVITIES. Before Reading
ACTIVITIES. While Reading
ACTIVITIES. After Reading
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OXFORD BOOKWORMS LIBRARY
Отрывок из книги
In the first half of the nineteenth century there lived in New York a very successful doctor. His success was for two reasons. He was, without doubt, a good doctor, intelligent and honest, but he also knew how to please his patients. He gave long, careful explanations about the illness, and always gave them some medicine to take. Indeed, his patients were fond of saying that they had the best doctor in the country.
By the time he was fifty, Doctor Austin Sloper was quite a famous person in New York. His conversation was clever and amusing, and no fashionable party in the city was complete without him.
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Some of the experience, however, was very unwelcome. His first child, a little boy of great promise, died at three years of age. Neither the mother’s love nor the father’s medicine could save him. Two years later Mrs Sloper had a second child, a little girl. This disappointed the Doctor, who had wished for another son to take the place of the first, but there was worse news to come. A week after the child was born, the young mother fell ill, and before another week had passed, she was dead.
For a man whose profession was to keep people alive, Austin Sloper had certainly done badly in his own family, but the only person who blamed Doctor Sloper was Doctor Sloper himself. He felt that he had failed, and he carried this private blame for the rest of his life.
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