Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger [Illustration] THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS By Booth Tarkington CONTENTS Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII Chapter XXIX Chapter XXX Chapter XXXI Chapter XXXII Chapter XXXIII Chapter XXXIV Chapter XXXV Chapter I Major Amberson had âmade a fortuneâ in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the period when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland dog. In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a new purchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by. Trotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs on National Avenue and Tennessee Street; everybody recognized both the trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summer evenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time rivalry. For that matter, everybody knew everybody elseâs family horse-and-carriage, could identify such a silhouette half a mile down the street, and thereby was sure who was going to market, or to a reception, or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening supper. During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearance was believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon their shaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or so old; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. Old men and governors wore broadcloth; âfull dressâ was broadcloth with âdoeskinâ trousers; and there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only that rigid, tall silk thing known to impudence as a âstove-pipe.â In town and country these men would wear no other hat, and, without self-consciousness, they went rowing in such hats. Shifting fashions of shape replaced aristocracy of texture: dressmakers, shoemakers, hatmakers, and tailors, increasing in cunning and in power, found means to make new clothes old. The long contagion of the âDerbyâ hat arrived: one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket; the next it would be a spoon. Every house still kept its bootjack, but high-topped boots gave way to shoes and âcongress gaitersâ; and these were played through fashions that shaped them now with toes like box-ends and now with toes like the prows of racing shells. Trousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the crease proved that the garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was âready-madeâ; these betraying trousers were called âhand-me-downs,â in allusion to the shelf. In the early âeighties, while bangs and bustles were having their way with women, that variation of dandy known as the âdudeâ was invented: he wore trousers as tight as stockings, dagger-pointed shoes, a spoon âDerby,â a single-breasted coat called a âChesterfield,â with short flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar, laundered to a polish and three inches high, while his other neckgear might be a heavy, puffed cravat or a tiny bow fit for a dollâs braids. With evening dress he wore a tan overcoat so short that his black coat-tails hung visible, five inches below the over-coat; but after a season or two he lengthened his overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tight trousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently, he was seen no more, though the word that had been coined for him remained in the vocabularies of the impertinent. It was a hairier day than this. Beards were to the wearersâ fancy, and things as strange as the Kaiserliche boar-tusk moustache were commonplace. âSide-burnsâ found nourishment upon childlike profiles; great Dundreary whiskers blew like tippets over young shoulders; moustaches were trained as lambrequins over forgotten mouths; and it was possible for a Senator of the United States to wear a mist of white whisker upon his throat only, not a newspaper in the land finding the ornament distinguished enough to warrant a lampoon. Surely no more is needed to prove that so short a time ago we were living in another age! At the beginning of the Ambersonsâ great period most of the houses of the Midland town were of a pleasant architecture. They lacked style, but also lacked pretentiousness, and whatever does not pretend at all has style enough. They stood in commodious yards, well shaded by leftover forest trees, elm and walnut and beech, with here and there a line of tall sycamores where the land had been made by filling bayous from the creek. The house of a âprominent resident,â facing Military Square, or National Avenue, or Tennessee Street, was built of brick upon a stone foundation, or of wood upon a brick foundation. Usually it had a âfront porchâ and a âback porchâ; often a âside porch,â too. There was a âfront hallâ; there was a âside hallâ; and sometimes a âback hall.â From the âfront hallâ opened three rooms, the âparlour,â the âsitting room,â and the âlibraryâ; and the library could show warrant to its titleâfor some reason these people bought books. Commonly, the family sat more in the library than in the âsitting room,â while callers, when they came formally, were kept to the âparlour,â a place of formidable polish and discomfort. The upholstery of the library furniture was a little shabby; but the hostile chairs and sofa of the âparlourâ always looked new. For all the wear and tear they got they should have lasted a thousand years. Upstairs were the bedrooms; âmother-and-fatherâs roomâ the largest; a smaller room for one or two sons another for one or two daughters; each of these rooms containing a double bed, a âwashstand,â a âbureau,â a wardrobe, a little table, a rocking-chair, and often a chair or two that had been slightly damaged downstairs, but not enough to justify either the expense of repair or decisive abandonment in the attic. And there was always a âspare-room,â for visitors (where the sewing-machine usually was kept), and during the âseventies there developed an appreciation of the necessity for a bathroom. Therefore the architects placed bathrooms in the new houses, and the older houses tore out a cupboard or two, set up a boiler beside the kitchen stove, and sought a new godliness, each with its own bathroom. The great American plumber joke, that many-branched evergreen, was planted at this time. At the rear of the house, upstairs was a bleak little chamber, called âthe girlâs room,â and in the stable there was another bedroom, adjoining the hayloft, and called âthe hired manâs room.â House and stable cost seven or eight thousand dollars to build, and people with that much money to invest in such comforts were classified as the Rich. They paid the inhabitant of âthe girlâs roomâ two dollars a week, and, in the latter part of this period, two dollars and a half, and finally three dollars a week. She was Irish, ordinarily, or German or it might be Scandinavian, but never native to the land unless she happened to be a person of colour. The man or youth who lived in the stable had like wages, and sometimes he, too, was lately a steerage voyager, but much oftener he was coloured. After sunrise, on pleasant mornings, the alleys behind the stables were gay; laughter and shouting went up and down their dusty lengths, with a lively accompaniment of curry-combs knocking against back fences and stable walls, for the darkies loved to curry their horses in the alley. Darkies always prefer to gossip in shouts instead of whispers; and they feel that profanity, unless it be vociferous, is almost worthless. Horrible phrases were caught by early rising children and carried to older people for definition, sometimes at inopportune moments; while less investigative children would often merely repeat the phrases in some subsequent flurry of agitation, and yet bring about consequences so emphatic as to be recalled with ease in middle life. They have passed, those darky hired-men of the Midland town; and the introspective horses they curried and brushed and whacked and amiably cursedâthose good old horses switch their tails at flies no more. For all their seeming permanence they might as well have been buffaloesâor the buffalo laprobes that grew bald in patches and used to slide from the careless driversâ knees and hang unconcerned, half way to the ground. The stables have been transformed into other likenesses, or swept away, like the woodsheds where were kept the stove-wood and kindling that the âgirlâ and the âhired-manâ always quarrelled over: who should fetch it. Horse and stable and woodshed, and the whole tribe of the âhired-man,â all are gone. They went quickly, yet so silently that we whom they served have not yet really noticed that they are vanished. So with other vanishings. There were the little bunty street-cars on the long, single track that went its troubled way among the cobblestones. At the rear door of the car there was no platform, but a step where passengers clung in wet clumps when the weather was bad and the car crowded. The patronsâif not too absent-mindedâput their fares into a slot; and no conductor paced the heaving floor, but the driver would rap remindingly with his elbow upon the glass of the door to his little open platform if the nickels and the passengers did not appear to coincide in number. A lone mule drew the car, and sometimes drew it off the track, when the passengers would get out and push it on again. They really owed it courtesies like this, for the car was genially accommodating: a lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once and wait for her while she shut the window, put on her hat and cloak, went downstairs, found an umbrella, told the âgirlâ what to have for dinner, and came forth from the house. The previous passengers made little objection to such gallantry on the part of the car: they were wont to expect as much for themselves on like occasion. In good weather the mule pulled the car a mile in a little less than twenty minutes, unless the stops were too long; but when the trolley-car came, doing its mile in five minutes and better, it would wait for nobody. Nor could its passengers have endured such a thing, because the faster they were carried the less time they had to spare! In the days before deathly contrivances hustled them through their lives, and when they had no telephonesâanother ancient vacancy profoundly responsible for leisureâthey had time for everything: time to think, to talk, time to read, time to wait for a lady! They even had time to dance âsquare dances,â quadrilles, and âlancersâ; they also danced the âracquette,â and schottisches and polkas, and such whims as the âPortland Fancy.â They pushed back the sliding doors between the âparlourâ and the âsitting room,â tacked down crash over the carpets, hired a few palms in green tubs, stationed three or four Italian musicians under the stairway in the âfront hallââand had great nights! But these people were gayest on New Yearâs Day; they made it a true festivalâsomething no longer known. The women gathered to âassistâ the hostesses who kept âOpen Houseâ; and the carefree men, dandified and perfumed, went about in sleighs, or in carriages and ponderous âhacks,â going from Open House to Open House, leaving fantastic cards in fancy baskets as they entered each doorway, and emerging a little later, more carefree than ever, if the punch had been to their liking. It always was, and, as the afternoon wore on, pedestrians saw great gesturing and waving of skin-tight lemon gloves, while ruinous fragments of song were dropped behind as the carriages rolled up and down the streets. âKeeping Open Houseâ was a merry custom; it has gone, like the all-day picnic in the woods, and like that prettiest of all vanished customs, the serenade. When a lively girl visited the town she did not long go unserenaded, though a visitor was not indeed needed to excuse a serenade. Of a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girlâs windowâor, it might be, her fatherâs, or that of an ailing maiden auntâand flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, and bass viol would presently release to the dulcet stars such melodies as sing through âYouâll Remember Me,â âI Dreamt That I Dwelt in Marble Halls,â âSilver Threads Among the Gold,â âKathleen Mavourneen,â or âThe Soldierâs Farewell.â They had other music to offer, too, for these were the happy days of âOlivetteâ and âThe Macotteâ and âThe Chimes of Normandyâ and âGirofle-Giroflaâ and âFra Diavola.â Better than that, these were the days of âPinaforeâ and âThe Pirates of Penzanceâ and of âPatience.â This last was needed in the Midland town, as elsewhere, for the âaesthetic movementâ had reached thus far from London, and terrible things were being done to honest old furniture. Maidens sawed what-nots in two, and gilded the remains. They took the rockers from rocking-chairs and gilded the inadequate legs; they gilded the easels that supported the crayon portraits of their deceased uncles. In the new spirit of art they sold old clocks for new, and threw wax flowers and wax fruit, and the protecting glass domes, out upon the trash-heap. They filled vases with peacock feathers, or cattails, or sumac, or sunflowers, and set the vases upon mantelpieces and marble-topped tables. They embroidered daisies (which they called âmargueritesâ) and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon plush screens and upon heavy cushions, then strewed these cushions upon floors where fathers fell over them in the dark. In the teeth of sinful oratory, the daughters went on embroidering: they embroidered daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and owls and peacock feathers upon âthrowsâ which they had the courage to drape upon horsehair sofas; they painted owls and daisies and sunflowers and sumac and cat-tails and peacock feathers upon tambourines. They hung Chinese umbrellas of paper to the chandeliers; they nailed paper fans to the walls. They âstudiedâ painting on china, these girls; they sang Tostiâs new songs; they sometimes still practiced the old, genteel habit of lady-fainting, and were most charming of all when they drove forth, three or four in a basket phaeton, on a spring morning. Croquet and the mildest archery ever known were the sports of people still young and active enough for so much exertion; middle-age played euchre. There was a theatre, next door to the Amberson Hotel, and when Edwin Booth came for a night, everybody who could afford to buy a ticket was there, and all the âhacksâ in town were hired. âThe Black Crookâ also filled the theatre, but the audience then was almost entirely of men who looked uneasy as they left for home when the final curtain fell upon the shocking girls dressed as fairies. But the theatre did not often do so well; the people of the town were still too thrifty. They were thrifty because they were the sons or grandsons of the âearly settlers,â who had opened the wilderness and had reached it from the East and the South with wagons and axes and guns, but with no money at all. The pioneers were thrifty or they would have perished: they had to store away food for the winter, or goods to trade for food, and they often feared they had not stored enoughâthey left traces of that fear in their sons and grandsons. In the minds of most of these, indeed, their thrift was next to their religion: to save, even for the sake of saving, was their earliest lesson and discipline. No matter how prosperous they were, they could not spend money either upon âart,â or upon mere luxury and entertainment, without a sense of sin. Against so homespun a background the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Major Amberson bought two hundred acres of land at the end of National Avenue; and through this tract he built broad streets and cross-streets; paved them with cedar block, and curbed them with stone. He set up fountains, here and there, where the streets intersected, and at symmetrical intervals placed cast-iron statues, painted white, with their titles clear upon the pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Emperor Augustus, Fisher Boy, Stag-hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn, Antelope, Wounded Doe, and Wounded Lion. Most of the forest trees had been left to flourish still, and, at some distance, or by moonlight, the place was in truth beautiful; but the ardent citizen, loving to see his city grow, wanted neither distance nor moonlight. He had not seen Versailles, but, standing before the Fountain of Neptune in Amberson Addition, at bright noon, and quoting the favourite comparison of the local newspapers, he declared Versailles outdone. All this Art showed a profit from the start, for the lots sold well and there was something like a rush to build in the new Addition. Its main thoroughfare, an oblique continuation of National Avenue, was called Amberson Boulevard, and here, at the juncture of the new Boulevard and the Avenue, Major Amberson reserved four acres for himself, and built his new houseâthe Amberson Mansion, of course. This house was the pride of the town. Faced with stone as far back as the dining-room windows, it was a house of arches and turrets and girdling stone porches: it had the first porte-cochere seen in that town. There was a central âfront hallâ with a great black walnut stairway, and open to a green glass skylight called the âdome,â three stories above the ground floor. A ballroom occupied most of the third story; and at one end of it was a carved walnut gallery for the musicians. Citizens told strangers that the cost of all this black walnut and wood-carving was sixty thousand dollars. âSixty thousand dollars for the wood-work _alone!_ Yes, sir, and hardwood floors all over the house! Turkish rugs and no carpets at all, except a Brussels carpet in the front parlourâI hear they call it the âreception-room.â Hot and cold water upstairs and down, and stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place! Their sideboardâs built right into the house and goes all the way across one end of the dining room. It isnât walnut, itâs solid mahogany! Not veneeringâsolid mahogany! Well, sir, I presume the President of the United States would be tickled to swap the White House for the new Amberson Mansion, if the Majorâd give him the chanceâbut by the Almighty Dollar, you bet your sweet life the Major wouldnât!â The visitor to the town was certain to receive further enlightenment, for there was one form of entertainment never omitted: he was always patriotically taken for âa little drive around our city,â even if his host had to hire a hack, and the climax of the display was the Amberson Mansion. âLook at that greenhouse theyâve put up there in the side yard,â the escort would continue. âAnd look at that brick stable! Most folks would think that stable plenty big enough and good enough to live in; itâs got running water and four rooms upstairs for two hired men and one of âemâs family to live in. They keep one hired man loafinâ in the house, and they got a married hired man out in the stable, and his wife does the washing. They got box-stalls for four horses, and they keep a coupay, and some new kinds of fancy rigs you never saw the beat of! âCartsâ they call two of âemââway up in the air they areâtoo high for me! I guess they got every new kind of fancy rig in there thatâs been invented. And harnessâwell, everybody in town can tell when Ambersons are out driving after dark, by the jingle. This town never did see so much style as Ambersons are putting on, these days; and I guess itâs going to be expensive, because a lot of other folksâll try to keep up with âem. The Majorâs wife and the daughterâs been to Europe, and my wife tells me since they got back they make tea there every afternoon about five oâclock, and drink it. Seems to me it would go against a personâs stomach, just before supper like that, and anyway tea isnât fit for muchânot unless youâre sick or something. My wife says Ambersons donât make lettuce salad the way other people do; they donât chop it up with sugar and vinegar at all. They pour olive oil on it with their vinegar, and they have it separateânot along with the rest of the meal. And they _eat_ these olives, too: green things they are, something like a hard plum, but a friend of mine told me they tasted a good deal like a bad hickory-nut. My wife says sheâs going to buy some; you got to eat nine and then you get to like âem, she says. Well, I wouldnât eat nine bad hickory-nuts to get to like _them_, and Iâm going to let these olives alone. Kind of a womanâs dish, anyway, I suspect, but most everybodyâll be makinâ a stagger to worm through nine of âem, now Ambersons brought âem to town. Yes, sir, the restâll eat âem, whether they get sick or not! Looks to me like some people in this cityâd be willing to go crazy if they thought that would help âem to be as high-toned as Ambersons. Old Aleck Minaferâheâs about the closest old codger we gotâhe come in my office the other day, and he pretty near had a stroke tellinâ me about his daughter Fanny. Seems Miss Isabel Ambersonâs got some kind of a dogâthey call it a Saint Bernardâand Fanny was bound to have one, too. Well, old Aleck told her he didnât like dogs except rat-terriers, because a rat-terrier cleans up the mice, but she kept on at him, and finally he said all right she could have one. Then, by George! she says Ambersons _bought_ their dog, and you canât get one without paying for it: they cost from fifty to a hundred dollars up! Old Aleck wanted to know if I ever heard of anybody buyinâ a dog before, because, of course, even a Newfoundland or a setter you can usually get somebody to give you one. He says he saw some sense in payinâ a nigger a dime, or even a quarter, to _drown_ a dog for you, but to pay out fifty dollars and maybe moreâwell, sir, he like to choked himself to death, right there in my office! Of course everybody realizes that Major Amberson is a fine business man, but what with throwinâ money around for dogs, and every which and what, some think all this styleâs bound to break him up, if his family donât quit!â One citizen, having thus discoursed to a visitor, came to a thoughtful pause, and then added, âDoes seem pretty much like squandering, yet when you see that dog out walking with this Miss Isabel, he seems worth the money.â âWhatâs she look like?â âWell, sir,â said the citizen, âsheâs not more than just about eighteen or maybe nineteen years old, and I donât know as I know just how to put itâbut sheâs kind of a _delightful_ lookinâ young lady!â Chapter II Another citizen said an eloquent thing about Miss Isabel Ambersonâs looks. This was Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster, the foremost literary authority and intellectual leader of the communityâ-for both the daily newspapers thus described Mrs. Foster when she founded the Womenâs Tennyson Club; and her word upon art, letters, and the drama was accepted more as law than as opinion. Naturally, when âHazel Kirkeâ finally reached the town, after its long triumph in larger places, many people waited to hear what Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster thought of it before they felt warranted in expressing any estimate of the play. In fact, some of them waited in the lobby of the theatre, as they came out, and formed an inquiring group about her. âI didnât see the play,â she informed them. âWhat! Why, we saw you, right in the middle of the fourth row!â âYes,â she said, smiling, âbut I was sitting just behind Isabelle Amberson. I couldnât look at anything except her wavy brown hair and the wonderful back of her neck.â The ineligible young men of the town (they were all ineligible) were unable to content themselves with the view that had so charmed Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster: they spent their time struggling to keep Miss Ambersonâs face turned toward them. She turned it most often, observers said, toward two: one excelling in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman âled germansâ with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquetsâsonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason why he was always in debt. No one doubted that he would be able to persuade Isabel, but he unfortunately joined too merry a party one night, and, during a moonlight serenade upon the lawn before the Amberson Mansion, was easily identified from the windows as the person who stepped through the bass viol and had to be assisted to a waiting carriage. One of Miss Ambersonâs brothers was among the serenaders, and, when the party had dispersed, remained propped against the front door in a state of helpless liveliness; the Major going down in a dressing-gown and slippers to bring him in, and scolding mildly, while imperfectly concealing strong impulses to laughter. Miss Amberson also laughed at this brother, the next day, but for the suitor it was a different matter: she refused to see him when he called to apologize. âYou seem to care a great deal about bass viols!â he wrote her. âI promise never to break another.â She made no response to the note, unless it was an answer, two weeks later, when her engagement was announced. She took the persistent one, Wilbur Minafer, no breaker of bass viols or of hearts, no serenader at all. A few people, who always foresaw everything, claimed that they were not surprised, because though Wilbur Minafer âmight not be an Apollo, as it were,â he was âa steady young business man, and a good church-goer,â and Isabel Amberson was âpretty sensibleâfor such a showy girl.â But the engagement astounded the young people, and most of their fathers and mothers, too; and as a topic it supplanted literature at the next meeting of the âWomenâs Tennyson Club.â âWilbur _Minafer!_â a member cried, her inflection seeming to imply that Wilburâs crime was explained by his surname. âWilbur _Minafer!_ Itâs the queerest thing I ever heard! To think of her taking Wilbur Minafer, just because a man _any_ woman would like a thousand times better was a little wild one night at a serenade!â âNo,â said Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster. âIt isnât that. It isnât even because sheâs afraid heâd be a dissipated husband and she wants to be safe. It isnât because sheâs religious or hates wildness; it isnât even because she hates wildness in _him_.â âWell, but look how sheâs thrown him over for it.â âNo, that wasnât her reason,â said the wise Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster. âIf men only knew itâand itâs a good thing they donâtâa woman doesnât really care much about whether a manâs wild or not, if it doesnât affect herself, and Isabel Amberson doesnât care a thing!â âMrs. _Foster!_â âNo, she doesnât. What she minds is his making a clown of himself in her front yard! It made her think he didnât care much about _her_. Sheâs probably mistaken, but thatâs what she thinks, and itâs too late for her to think anything else now, because sheâs going to be married right awayâthe invitations will be out next week. Itâll be a big Amberson-style thing, raw oysters floating in scooped-out blocks of ice and a band from out-of-townâchampagne, showy presents; a colossal present from the Major. Then Wilbur will take Isabel on the carefulest little wedding trip he can manage, and sheâll be a good wife to him, but theyâll have the worst spoiled lot of children this town will ever see.â âHow on earth do you make _that_ out, Mrs. Foster?â âShe couldnât love Wilbur, could she?â Mrs. Foster demanded, with no challengers. âWell, it will all go to her children, and sheâll ruin âem!â The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely: except for that, her foresight was accurate. The wedding was of Ambersonian magnificence, even to the floating oysters; and the Majorâs colossal present was a set of architectâs designs for a house almost as elaborate and impressive as the Mansion, the house to be built in Amberson Addition by the Major. The orchestra was certainly not that local one which had suffered the loss of a bass viol; the musicians came, according to the prophecy and next morningâs paper, from afar; and at midnight the bride was still being toasted in champagne, though she had departed upon her wedding journey at ten. Four days later the pair had returned to town, which promptness seemed fairly to demonstrate that Wilbur had indeed taken Isabel upon the carefulest little trip he could manage. According to every report, she was from the start âa good wife to him,â but here in a final detail the prophecy proved inaccurate. Wilbur and Isabel did not have children; they had only one. âOnly one,â Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster admitted. âBut Iâd like to know if he isnât spoiled enough for a whole carload!â Again she found none to challenge her. At the age of nine, George Amberson Minafer, the Majorâs one grandchild, was a princely terror, dreaded not only in Amberson Addition but in many other quarters through which he galloped on his white pony. âBy golly, I guess you think you own this town!â an embittered labourer complained, one day, as Georgie rode the pony straight through a pile of sand the man was sieving. âI will when I grow up,â the undisturbed child replied. âI guess my grandpa owns it now, you bet!â And the baffled workman, having no means to controvert what seemed a mere exaggeration of the facts could only mutter âOh, pull down your vest!â âDonât haf to! Doctor says it ainât healthy!â the boy returned promptly. âBut Iâll tell you what Iâll do: Iâll pull down my vest if youâll wipe off your chin!â This was stock and stencil: the accustomed argot of street badinage of the period; and in such matters Georgie was an expert. He had no vest to pull down; the incongruous fact was that a fringed sash girdled the juncture of his velvet blouse and breeches, for the Fauntleroy period had set in, and Georgieâs mother had so poor an eye for appropriate things, where Georgie was concerned, that she dressed him according to the doctrine of that school in boy decoration. Not only did he wear a silk sash, and silk stockings, and a broad lace collar, with his little black velvet suit: he had long brown curls, and often came home with burrs in them. Except upon the surface (which was not his own work, but his motherâs) Georgie bore no vivid resemblance to the fabulous little Cedric. The storied boyâs famous âLean on _me_, grandfather,â would have been difficult to imagine upon the lips of Georgie. A month after his ninth birthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had already become acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant parts of the town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich little boy with long curls might be considered in many respects superior to their own. He fought them, learning how to go berserk at a certain point in a fight, bursting into tears of anger, reaching for rocks, uttering wailed threats of murder and attempting to fulfil them. Fights often led to intimacies, and he acquired the art of saying things more exciting than âDonât haf to!â and âDoctor says it ainât healthy!â Thus, on a summer afternoon, a strange boy, sitting bored upon the gate-post of the Reverend Malloch Smith, beheld George Amberson Minafer rapidly approaching on his white pony, and was impelled by bitterness to shout: âShoot the ole jackass! Look at the girly curls! Say, bub, whereâd you steal your motherâs ole sash!â âYour sister stole it for me!â Georgie instantly replied, checking the pony. âShe stole it off our cloâes-line anâ gave it to me.â âYou go get your hair cut!â said the stranger hotly. âYah! I havenât got any sister!â âI know you havenât at home,â Georgie responded. âI mean the one thatâs in jail.â âI dare you to get down off that pony!â Georgie jumped to the ground, and the other boy descended from the Reverend Mr. Smithâs gatepostâbut he descended inside the gate. âI dare you outside that gate,â said Georgie. âYah! I dare you half way here. I dare youââ But these were luckless challenges, for Georgie immediately vaulted the fenceâand four minutes later Mrs. Malloch Smith, hearing strange noises, looked forth from a window; then screamed, and dashed for the pastorâs study. Mr. Malloch Smith, that grim-bearded Methodist, came to the front yard and found his visiting nephew being rapidly prepared by Master Minafer to serve as a principal figure in a pageant of massacre. It was with great physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to give his nephew a chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard and quick, and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, after a grotesque tussle, got him separated from his opponent, and shook him. âYou stop that, you!â Georgie cried fiercely; and wrenched himself away. âI guess you donât know who I am!â âYes, I do know!â the angered Mr. Smith retorted. âI know who you are, and youâre a disgrace to your mother! Your mother ought to be ashamed of herself to allowââ âShut up about my mother beinâ ashamed of herself!â Mr. Smith, exasperated, was unable to close the dialogue with dignity. âShe ought to be ashamed,â he repeated. âA woman that lets a bad boy like youââ But Georgie had reached his pony and mounted. Before setting off at his accustomed gallop, he paused to interrupt the Reverend Malloch Smith again. âYou pull down your vest, you ole Billygoat, you!â he shouted, distinctly. âPull down your vest, wipe off your chinâanâ go to hell!â Such precocity is less unusual, even in children of the Rich, than most grown people imagine. However, it was a new experience for the Reverend Malloch Smith, and left him in a state of excitement. He at once wrote a note to Georgieâs mother, describing the crime according to his nephewâs testimony; and the note reached Mrs. Minafer before Georgie did. When he got home she read it to him sorrowfully. Dear Madam: Your son has caused a painful distress in my household. He made an unprovoked attack upon a little nephew of mine who is visiting in my household, insulted him by calling him vicious names and falsehoods, stating that ladies of his family were in jail. He then tried to make his pony kick him, and when the child, who is only eleven years old, while your son is much older and stronger, endeavoured to avoid his indignities and withdraw quietly, he pursued him into the enclosure of my property and brutally assaulted him. When I appeared upon this scene he deliberately called insulting words to me, concluding with profanity, such as âgo to hell,â which was heard not only by myself but by my wife and the lady who lives next door. I trust such a state of undisciplined behaviour may be remedied for the sake of the reputation for propriety, if nothing higher, of the family to which this unruly child belongs. Georgie had muttered various interruptions, and as she concluded the reading he said: âHeâs an ole liar!â âGeorgie, you mustnât say âliar.â Isnât this letter the truth?â âWell,â said Georgie, âhow old am I?â âTen.â âWell, look how he says Iâm older than a boy eleven years old.â âThatâs true,â said Isabel. âHe does. But isnât some of it true, Georgie?â Georgie felt himself to be in a difficulty here, and he was silent. âGeorgie, did you say what he says you did?â âWhich one?â âDid you tell him toâtoâDid you say, âGo to hell?ââ Georgie looked worried for a moment longer; then he brightened. âListen here, mamma; grandpa wouldnât wipe his shoe on that ole story-teller, would he?â âGeorgie, you mustnâtââ âI mean: none of the Ambersons wouldnât have anything to do with him, would they? He doesnât even know _you_, does he, mamma?â âThat hasnât anything to do with it.â âYes, it has! I mean: none of the Amberson family go to see him, and they never have him come in their house; they wouldnât ask him to, and they probâly wouldnât even let him.â âThat isnât what weâre talking about.â âI bet,â said Georgie emphatically, âI bet if he wanted to see any of âem, heâd haf to go around to the side door!â âNo, dear, theyââ âYes, they would, mamma! So what does it matter if I did say somepâmâ to him he didnât like? That kind oâ people, I donât see why you canât say anything you want to, to âem!â âNo, Georgie. And you havenât answered me whether you said that dreadful thing he says you did.â âWellââ said Georgie. âAnyway, he said somepâmâ to me that made me mad.â And upon this point he offered no further details; he would not explain to his mother that what had made him âmadâ was Mr. Smithâs hasty condemnation of herself: âYour mother ought to be ashamed,â and, âA woman that lets a bad boy like youââ Georgie did not even consider excusing himself by quoting these insolences. Isabel stroked his head. âThey were terrible words for you to use, dear. From his letter he doesnât seem a very tactful person, butââ âHeâs just riffraff,â said Georgie. âYou mustnât say so,â his mother gently agreed âWhere did you learn those bad words he speaks of? Where did you hear any one use them?â âWell, Iâve heard âem several places. I guess Uncle George Amberson was the _first_ I ever heard say âem. Uncle George Amberson said âem to papa once. Papa didnât like it, but Uncle George was just laughinâ at papa, anâ then he said âem while he was laughinâ.â âThat was wrong of him,â she said, but almost instinctively he detected the lack of conviction in her tone. It was Isabelâs great failing that whatever an Amberson did seemed right to her, especially if the Amberson was either her brother George, or her son George. She knew that she should be more severe with the latter now, but severity with him was beyond her power; and the Reverend Malloch Smith had succeeded only in rousing her resentment against himself. Georgieâs symmetrical faceâaltogether an Amberson faceâhad looked never more beautiful to her. It always looked unusually beautiful when she tried to be severe with him. âYou must promise me,â she said feebly, ânever to use those bad words again.â âI promise not to,â he said promptlyâand he whispered an immediate codicil under his breath: âUnless I get mad at somebody!â This satisfied a code according to which, in his own sincere belief, he never told lies. âThatâs a good boy,â she said, and he ran out to the yard, his punishment over. Some admiring friends were gathered there; they had heard of his adventure, knew of the note, and were waiting to see what was going to âhappenâ to him. They hoped for an account of things, and also that he would allow them to âtake turnsâ riding his pony to the end of the alley and back. They were really his henchmen: Georgie was a lord among boys. In fact, he was a personage among certain sorts of grown people, and was often fawned upon; the alley negroes delighted in him, chuckled over him, flattered him slavishly. For that matter, he often heard well-dressed people speaking of him admiringly: a group of ladies once gathered about him on the pavement where he was spinning a top. âI _know_ this is Georgie!â one exclaimed, and turned to the others with the impressiveness of a showman. âMajor Ambersonâs only grandchild!â The others said, âIt is?â and made clicking sounds with their mouths; two of them loudly whispering, âSo handsome!â Georgie, annoyed because they kept standing upon the circle he had chalked for his top, looked at them coldly and offered a suggestion: âOh, go hire a hall!â As an Amberson, he was already a public character, and the story of his adventure in the Reverend Malloch Smithâs front yard became a town topic. Many people glanced at him with great distaste, thereafter, when they chanced to encounter him, which meant nothing to Georgie, because he innocently believed most grown people to be necessarily cross-looking as a normal phenomenon resulting from the adult state; and he failed to comprehend that the distasteful glances had any personal bearing upon himself. If he had perceived such a bearing, he would have been affected only so far, probably, as to mutter, âRiffraff!â Possibly he would have shouted it; and, certainly, most people believed a story that went round the town just after Mrs. Ambersonâs funeral, when Georgie was eleven. Georgie was reported to have differed with the undertaker about the seating of the family; his indignant voice had become audible: âWell, who is the most important person at my own grandmotherâs funeral?â And later he had projected his head from the window of the foremost mournersâ carriage, as the undertaker happened to pass. â_Riffraff!_â There were peopleâgrown people they wereâwho expressed themselves longingly: they _did_ hope to live to see the day, they said, when that boy would get his come-upance! (They used that honest word, so much better than âdeserts,â and not until many years later to be more clumsily rendered as âwhat is coming to him.â) _Something_ was bound to take him down, some day, and they only wanted to be there! But Georgie heard nothing of this, and the yearners for his taking down went unsatisfied, while their yearning grew the greater as the happy day of fulfilment was longer and longer postponed. His grandeur was not diminished by the Malloch Smith story; the rather it was increased, and among other children (especially among little girls) there was added to the prestige of his gilded position that diabolical glamour which must inevitably attend a boy who has told a minister to go to hell. Chapter III Until he reached the age of twelve, Georgieâs education was a domestic process; tutors came to the house; and those citizens who yearned for his taking down often said: âJust wait till he has to go to public school; _then_ heâll get it!â But at twelve Georgie was sent to a private school in the town, and there came from this small and dependent institution no report, or even rumour, of Georgieâs getting anything that he was thought to deserve; therefore the yearning still persisted, though growing gaunt with feeding upon itself. For, although Georgieâs pomposities and impudence in the little school were often almost unbearable, the teachers were fascinated by him. They did not like himâhe was too arrogant for thatâbut he kept them in such a state of emotion that they thought more about him than they did about all of the other ten pupils. The emotion he kept them in was usually one resulting from injured self-respect, but sometimes it was dazzled admiration. So far as their conscientious observation went, he âstudiedâ his lessons sparingly; but sometimes, in class, he flashed an admirable answer, with a comprehension not often shown by the pupils they taught; and he passed his examinations easily. In all, without discernible effort, he acquired at this school some rudiments of a liberal education and learned nothing whatever about himself. The yearners were still yearning when Georgie, at sixteen, was sent away to a great âPrep School.â âNow,â they said brightly, âheâll get it! Heâll find himself among boys just as important in their home towns as he is, and theyâll knock the stuffing out of him when he puts on his airs with them! Oh, but that _would_ be worth something to see!â They were mistaken, it appeared, for when Georgie returned, a few months later, he still seemed to have the same stuffing. He had been deported by the authorities, the offense being stated as âinsolence and profanityâ; in fact, he had given the principal of the school instructions almost identical with those formerly objected to by the Reverend Malloch Smith. But he had not got his come-upance, and those who counted upon it were embittered by his appearance upon the down-town streets driving a dog-cart at criminal speed, making pedestrians retreat from the crossings, and behaving generally as if he âowned the earth.â A disgusted hardware dealer of middle age, one of those who hungered for Georgieâs downfall, was thus driven back upon the sidewalk to avoid being run over, and so far forgot himself as to make use of the pet street insult of the year: âGot âny _sense!_ See here, bub, does your mother know youâre out?â Georgie, without even seeming to look at him, flicked the long lash of his whip dexterously, and a little spurt of dust came from the hardware manâs trousers, not far below the waist. He was not made of hardware: he raved, looking for a missile; then, finding none, commanded himself sufficiently to shout after the rapid dog-cart: âTurn down your pants, you would-be dude! Raining in dear ole Lunnon! Git off the earth!â Georgie gave him no encouragement to think that he was heard. The dog-cart turned the next corner, causing indignation there, likewise, and, having proceeded some distance farther, halted in front of the âAmberson Blockââan old-fashioned four-story brick warren of lawyers offices, insurance and realestate offices, with a âdrygoods storeâ occupying the ground floor. Georgie tied his lathered trotter to a telegraph pole, and stood for a moment looking at the building critically: it seemed shabby, and he thought his grandfather ought to replace it with a fourteen-story skyscraper, or even a higher one, such as he had lately seen in New Yorkâwhen he stopped there for a few days of recreation and rest on his way home from the bereaved school. About the entryway to the stairs were various tin signs, announcing the occupation and location of upper-floor tenants, and Georgie decided to take some of these with him if he should ever go to college. However, he did not stop to collect them at this time, but climbed the worn stairsâthere was no elevatorâto the fourth floor, went down a dark corridor, and rapped three times upon a door. It was a mysterious door, its upper half, of opaque glass, bearing no sign to state the business or profession of the occupants within; but overhead, upon the lintel, four letters had been smearingly inscribed, partly with purple ink and partly with a soft lead pencil, âF. O. T. A.â and upon the plaster wall, above the lintel, there was a drawing dear to male adolescence: a skull and crossbones. Three raps, similar to Georgieâs, sounded from within the room. Georgie then rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped twice, and Georgie rapped seven times. This ended precautionary measures; and a well-dressed boy of sixteen opened the door; whereupon Georgie entered quickly, and the door was closed behind him. Seven boys of congenial age were seated in a semicircular row of damaged office chairs, facing a platform whereon stood a solemn, red-haired young personage with a table before him. At one end of the room there was a battered sideboard, and upon it were some empty beer bottles, a tobacco can about two-thirds full, with a web of mold over the surface of
{'title': 'The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}