0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'The Alternative,' George Barr McCutcheon weaves a captivating narrative that explores the intricacies of human desire and moral choice through a richly imagined plot set against the backdrop of early 20th-century societal expectations. The novel is characterized by McCutcheon's distinct style'Äîa blend of sharp dialogue and vivid descriptions'Äîallowing readers to engage deeply with both the characters and their dilemmas. The thematic exploration of love and fidelity serves as a lens through which McCutcheon critiques the conventions of his time, presenting an incisive commentary on the conflicts between societal norms and individual aspirations. George Barr McCutcheon was an influential American author and playwright, best known for his contributions to popular fiction during the early 1900s. His background in journalism and his keen observations of the societal shifts during the Progressive Era informed his writing, allowing him to blend realism with romantic elements seamlessly. 'The Alternative' reflects McCutcheon'Äôs understanding of the complexities of human relationships, likely drawn from his own experiences and observations of societal dynamics. This novel is highly recommended for readers interested in early American literature that deftly captures the tensions between personal desire and societal expectation. McCutcheon's insightful narrative offers a thought-provoking exploration suitable for fans of character-driven stories, making 'The Alternative' a compelling read that resonates with contemporary themes of choice and consequence.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
The Alternative
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
THE VAN PYCKES
A shrieking wind, thick with the sleety snow that knows no mercy nor feels remorse, beat vainly and with savage insolence against the staid windows in the lounging room of one of New York's most desirable clubs—one of those characteristic homes for college men who were up for membership on the day they were born, if one may speak so broadly of the virtue that links the early eighteenth-century graduate with his great-grandson of the class of 1908. Not to say, of course, that the eighteenth-century graduate was so carefully preserved from the biting snowstorm as the fellow of to-day, but that he got his learning in the ancient halls that now grind out his descendants by the hundred, one way or another. It is going much too far to assert that every member of this autocratic club had a colonial ancestor in college, but you'd think so if you didn't pin him down to an actual confession to the contrary. It is likely to be the way with college men who do not owe their degrees to certain mushroom institutions in the West, where electricity and mechanics are considered to be quite as necessary to a young man's equipment as the acquaintance, by tradition, with somebody's great-grandaddy, no matter how eminent he may have been in his primogenial day.
All of which is neither here nor there. Ancestors for the future are in the club this night, enjoying the luxury, the coziness, the warmth, and the present good cheer of a great and glorious achievement: they are inside of solid walls on this bitter night, eating or tippling, smoking or toasting, reading or chatting with small regard for the ancient gentlemen who gave their Alma Mater its name, but who, if suddenly come to life, would pass away again in a jiffy, not so much through the shock of opulence as at the sight of the wicked high-ball.
At one of the windows, overlooking a broad street, stood two elderly gentlemen, conversing in no mild tones about the blizzard. Straight-backed, dignified gentlemen, they. They kept their hands clasped behind their backs, smoked very good cigars instead of cigarets, and spoke not of the chorus that gamboled just around a certain corner, but of the blizzard that did the same thing—in a less exalted manner—around all corners.
A thin, arrogant figure crossed from the hallway doors, his watery green eyes sweeping the group of young men at the lower end of the room. Evidently the person for whom he was looking was not among them. As he was turning toward the two elderly gentlemen in the window, one of the joyous spirits of 1908 saw him, and called out:
"Hello, Mr. Van Pycke! Lookin' for Buzzy?"
The thin old gentleman paused. He lifted his nose-glasses and deliberately set them upon the bridge of his long, aristocratic,—and we must say it,—somewhat rose-tinted nose. Then his slim fingers dropped to the end of his neat gray mustache. A coolly impersonal stare sought out the speaker.
"Good evening," he said, in the most suave manner possible. No one would have suspected that he was unable to recall the name of the youth who put the question. "Yes, I rather expected to find Bosworth here. He said something about dining here."
"He's upstairs in Peter Palmer's room."
"Thank you. I sha'n't disturb him. Disagreeable night, gentlemen."
The back of his spike-tailed coat confronted the group an instant later; he was crossing the room, headed for the gray-heads in the window.
"Good evening, Billings. How are you, Knapp? A beastly night."
The three did not shake hands. They had passed that stage long ago. They did nothing that they didn't have to do.
"I was just telling Knapp that it reminds me of the blizzard in—"
"Stop right there, Billings," interrupted Mr. Van Pycke. "It reminds me of every blizzard that has happened within my recollection. They're all alike—theoretically. A lot of wind, snow, and talk about the poor. Sit down here and have your liqueurs with me."
"I'm glad I don't have to go in all this to-night," said little Mr. Billings, '59, unconsciously pressing his knees together as he sat down at the small table.
"You're getting old, Billings."
"So are you, Van Pycke. Demmit, I'm not more than two years older than you. What's more, you have a grown son."
"My dear fellow, Bosworth is only twenty-five. A man doesn't have to be a Methuselah to have a grown son. They grow up like weeds. And some of them amount to about as much as—ahem! Ahem! Please press that button for me, will you, Knapp? I don't see why the devil they always have the button on the other side of the table. No, no! I'll sign for them, old chap. Don't think of it! Here, boy, let me have the ticket. Mr. Knapp rang, but he did it to oblige me. Now, see here, Knapp, I don't like that sort of—"
"My dear Van Pycke, permit me! Billings is having his coffee with me. It's coming now. I insist on adding the cordial."
"Very well, if you insist. Napoleon brandy with a single drop of Curaçao. Mind you,—a single drop, waiter. Ever try that fine old brandy, Knapp?"
"I can't afford it," said Knapp, bluntly.
"It's the only kind that I can drink," was all that Van Pycke said, lifting his thin eyebrows ever so slightly.
"Yes, it's a rotten night," put in Mr. Billings with excellent haste.
Knapp's face had gone a trifle red.
Down at the other end of the room the "young bucks" were discussing the seared trio under the smileless portrait of a college founder. They spoke in rather subdued tones, with frequent glances toward the door at their left.
"Old Van Pycke is the darndest sponge in the club. He never buys a drink, and yet he's always drinking," said one young man.
"His nose shows that all right. I hate a pink nose."
"You'd think he owned the club, the way he treats it," said another.
"Tell me about him," said a new member—from the West. "He's the most elegant, the most fastidious gentleman I've ever seen. An old family?"
"Rather! The Van Pyckes are as old as Bowling Green. Some of 'em came over in the Ark—or was it the 'Mayflower'?"
"Buzzy came over in the 'Lusitania' last year," ventured one of them.
The self-appointed historian, a drawler with ancestors in Trinity churchyard, went on: "Buckets of blue blood in 'em. The old man there is the last of his type. His son, Buzzy,—Bosworth Van Pycke,—he's the chap who gave the much-talked of supper for Carmen the other night—he's really a different sort. Or would be, I should have said, if he had half a chance. Buzzy's a good fellow—a regular—"
"You bet he is!" exclaimed two or three approvingly.
"The old man's got queer ideas about Buzzy. He insists on his being a regular gentleman."
"Nothing queer in that," interrupted the Westerner.
"Except that he thinks a fellow can't be a gentleman unless he's a loafer. He brought Buzzy up with the understanding that it wasn't necessary for him to be anything but a Van Pycke. The Van Pycke name, and all that sort of rot. It wouldn't be so bad if the old man had anything to back it up with. He hasn't a sou markee. That's the situation. For the last twenty years he's lived in the clubs, owing everybody and always being a gentleman about it. He has a small interest in the business of Rubenstein, Rosenthal & Meyer,—logical but not lineal descendants of the Van Pyckes who were gentlemen in dread of a rainy day,—but he doesn't get much out of it. Five or six thousand a year, I'd say. When Buzzy's maternal grandfather died, he left something in trust for the boy. Fixed it in such a way that he isn't to have the principal until he's fifty. By that time the old man over there will have passed in his checks. Catch the point? It was done to keep the amiable son-in-law from getting his fingers on the pile and squandering it as he squandered two or three other paternal and grand-paternal fortunes. Buzzy has about ten thousand a year from the trust fund. I know that he pays some of his father's debts—not all of 'em, of course; just the embarrassing kind that he hears about from creditors who really want their money. In a way, the old man has spoiled Buzzy. He has always pounded it into the boy's head that it isn't necessary to work—in fact, it's vulgar. When Buzzy first came into the club, two years ago, he was insufferable. At college, every one liked him. He was himself when out from under the old man's influence. After he left college, he set himself up as Van Pycke, gentleman. The old man told him the name was worth five millions at least. All he had to do was to wait around a bit and he'd have no trouble in marrying that amount or more. Marriage is the best business in the world for a gentleman, he argues. I've heard him say so myself.
"Well, Buzzy's pretty much of a frivoler, but he isn't a cad. He'd like to do right, I'm sure. He didn't get started right, that's all. He goes about drinking tea and making love and spending all he has—like a gentleman. Just sleeps, eats, and frivols, that's all. He'll never amount to a hang. It's a shame, too. He's a darned good sort."
At the little table down the room Van Pycke, senior, was holding forth in his most suave, convincing manner.
"Gentlemen, I don't know what New York is coming to. There are not ten real gentlemen between the Battery and Central Park. Nothing but money grabbers. They don't know how to live. They eat like the devil and drink as though they lived in an aquarium; and they say they're New Yorkers."
Mr. Van Pycke's patrician nose was a shade redder than usual. Billings, paying no heed to his remarks, was trying to remember how Van Pycke looked before his nose was thoroughly pickled. It was a long way back, thought Mr. Billings, vaguely.
"I think I'll have a high-ball," said Mr. Van Pycke. "Have something, Knapp? Billings? Oh, I remember: you don't drink immediately after dinner. Splendid idea, too. I think I'll follow your example, to-night at least. I have a rather important—er—engagement, later on." He twirled his mustache fondly.
"You'll pursue the fair sex up to the very brink of the grave, Van Pycke," grumbled Knapp.
"If you mean my own grave, yes," said the other, calmly. "If you mean that I'll pursue any fair sexton to the brink of her grave, you're mistaken. I don't like old women. By the way, Knapp, do you happen to know Jim Scoville's widow?"
"You mean young Jim Scoville?"
"Certainly. I don't discuss dowagers. Everybody knows the old one. I mean the pretty Mrs. Scoville."
"More or less scandal about her, isn't there?" ventured Billings, pricking up his ears.
"Not a grain of truth in it, not a grain," retorted Mr. Van Pycke in such a way that you had the feeling he wanted you to believe there was scandal and that he was more or less connected with it. He studied the chandelier in a most evasive manner. "Ahem! Do you know her?"
"Only by reputation," said Knapp, with gentle irony.
"I've seen her," said Billings. "At the horse show. Or was it the automobile—"
"I was in her box at one and in her tonneau at the other," said Mr. Van Pycke, taking the cigar Knapp extended. He glanced at his watch with sudden interest. "Yes, I see quite a bit of her. Charming girl—ahem! Of course" (punctuating his opinion with deliberate care) "she has been talked about, in a way. Lot of demmed old tabbies around town rippin' her up the back whenever she turns to look the other way. Old Mrs. Scoville is the queen tabby. She hates the young Mrs. Jim like poison. And, come to think of it, I don't blame the dowager. Charlotte is one of the most attract—"
"Charlotte!" exclaimed Knapp. "Do you call her Charlotte?"
"Certainly!" said Mr. Van Pycke, with a chilly uplifting of his eyebrows.
"I thought her name was Laura," said Billings, who read all the gossip in the weekly periodicals.
Mr. Van Pycke coughed. There seemed some likelihood of his bursting, the fit lasted so long.
"Charlotte is a pet name we have for her," he explained, somewhat huskily, when it was over. "Demmed stupid of me!" he was saying to himself. "As I said before, I don't blame the old lady. Young Mrs. Jim has got five or six of the Scoville millions, and she's showing the family how to spend it. Her husband's been dead over two years. She's got a perfect right to take notice of other men and to have a bit of fun if she takes the notion. Hasn't she? I—I—it wouldn't surprise me at all if she were to take a new husband unto herself before long." He uttered a very conscious cackle and looked at his watch quite suddenly—or past it, rather, for he forgot to open the virtuously chased hunting case.
Billings waited a moment. "I hear she is quite devoted to Chauncey De Foe,—or is it the other way?"
Mr. Van Pycke took five puffs at his cigar before responding, all the while staring at Billings in a perfectly unseeing way.
"I beg pardon? Oh, yes, I see. Not at all, my dear Billings. De Foe is—er—you might say, a part of her past. He's out of it, quite. I don't mind telling you, he's a—ahem! a damned nuisance, though." This time he looked at his watch with considerable asperity. "Half-past eight! Where the devil is Bos—I say, Knapp, can you see the length of the room? Is he in that crowd over there?"
"No, he isn't," said Knapp, shortly.
"I shall have to telephone up to Palmer's room. I must see him before leaving the club. Beastly night, isn't it?"
"Beastly," remarked the two old gentlemen, unconsciously heaving sighs of relief as Mr. Van Pycke arose and adjusted his immaculate waistcoat. Then he moved away, trimly.
