Falconer? Why should he prefer
geography to rambling, or Latin to Romany? His purposelessness and
his love for Robert alone kept him where he was.
The next evening, having given up his praying, Robert sat with his
Sallust before him. But the fount of tears began to swell, and the
more he tried to keep it down, the more it went on swelling till his
throat was filled with a lump of pain. He rose and left the room.
But he could not go near the garret. That door too was closed. He
opened the house door instead, and went out into the street. There,
nothing was to be seen but faint blue air full of moonlight, solid
houses, and shining snow. Bareheaded he wandered round the corner
of the house to the window whence first he had heard the sweet
sounds of the pianoforte. The fire within lighted up the crimson
curtains, but no voice of music came forth. The window was as dumb
as the pale, faintly befogged moon overhead, itself seeming but a
skylight through which shone the sickly light of the passionless
world of the dead. Not a form was in the street. The eyes of the
houses gleamed here and there upon the snow. He leaned his elbow on
the window-sill behind which stood that sealed fountain of lovely
sound, looked up at the moon, careless of her or of aught else in
heaven or on earth, and sunk into a reverie, in which nothing was
consciously present but a stream of fog-smoke that flowed slowly,
listlessly across the face of the moon, like the ghost of a dead
cataract.
Pages:
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289