Chapter 3 third chapter

William W. Codrup returned to his mansion on Montgomery Street.This street is Regent Street, Broadway, San Francisco's Italian boulevard.This thoroughfare, which runs parallel to the city's pier, is full of life and energy: all kinds of trams, horse-drawn carriages or mule-drawn carts, busy on the gravel sidewalks. Pedestrians, more interested in well-stocked stores than bars selling authentic California drinks. There is no need to describe the hotel where the rich man of Frisco stayed.Too many millions, too much luxury, more comfort than taste, less artistic opinion than practical.One cannot have everything.

The reader need only know that there is a sumptuous drawing-room, and that in this drawing-room there is a piano whose chords were playing in the hot air of the mansion when the rich Koldrup returned. "Good!" he said to himself, "she's there with him! Tell my cashier, and we'll talk later!" So he went to his studio, to close the little Spencer Island business, and to think no more of it.To settle, simply discount a few bills in your wallet to pay for the island you bought.Four lines to his stockbroker and no more.Then William W. Codrup noticed another "combination," which was on his mind quite differently.

yes!She and he are in the drawing room: she, sitting in front of her piano, he, half lying on an easy chair, listening vaguely to the perfect note of the piano sound slipping from the fingers of this charming person . "Are you listening to me?" she said. "definitely." "Okay! But do you hear me?" "I hear you, Fina! You've never played better variations on 'Grey Mockingbird Ord'." "I'm not playing 'Grey Mockingbird Ord', Godfrey...it's 'Happy Time'..." "Ah! I thought so!" said Godfrey, in a decidedly nonchalant tone.

The young girl raised her hands and let her fingers temporarily hang over the keyboard, as if to press and play a chord again.Then, half-turning on the piano bench, he stayed for a moment, looking at the overly composed Godfrey, who tried to avoid hers. Fina Holary was the goddaughter of William W. Coedrup.She was an orphan, raised by him, and he gave her the right to think of herself as his daughter, and to love him as a father, and she did. This is a girl, as they say, "with girlish prettyness," but necessarily lovely, a sixteen-year-old bloomer with evening thoughts, which can be seen in her crystal blue-black eyes.We must not forget to compare her to a lily, for this comparison is always used in high society to refer to American beauty.So, if you agree, it's a lily, but a lily grafted on a hardy resistant dog rose.There was no doubt that this young lady had many emotions, but also a great deal of practicality, a very individual manner of keeping herself from the fantasies and dreams of her sex and age.

Dreams are beautiful in sleep, but not in wakefulness.And at this moment she was not asleep, and she didn't want to fall asleep at all. "Godfrey?" she went on. "Fina?" The young man responded. "Where are you now?" "Beside you...in this room..." "No, not with me, Godfrey! Not in this room! . . . but far, far away . . . over the sea, isn't it?" And Fina's hand, mechanically looking for the keyboard, played a wrong chromatic sequence of a diminished seventh. That desolate sequence should have been elongated, and William W. Codrup's nephew may not have played it. know.

Because the young man was linked to the rich owner of the house by his kinship.Godfrey Morgan, bereaved son of a sister of the island's buyer, had been brought up, like Fina, for many years in the house of his uncle, who never had a moment's rest in his zeal for business. to think about marriage. Godfrey was 22 years old at the time, and after finishing school, he had nothing to do.As a recipient of a college degree, he wasn't very well versed in this area.Life just opened up some easy passages for him.He can go to the right, to the left: this always leads him somewhere where there is no shortage of money.

Besides, he was good-looking, elegant, dignified, and never put his tie into a ring, nor covered his fingers, shirt cuffs, or bosom with the fancy lace that was so prized by his countrymen. jewelry. I said it wouldn't surprise anyone that Godfrey would marry Fina Hollaly.How could it be impossible?Everything is on par.Besides, William W. Codrup wanted them to unite.That way he could entrust his fortune to these two people who were dearest to him in the world, not to speak of pleasing Godfrey, who did not dislike Fina in the least.This must be done in order to do a good job in the account of this business family.From their birth, one account has been opened for the young man and the other for the girl: just settle the bills and put them into a new account for the couple.The venerable businessman very much hopes that this will be done by the end of this month, and the accounts will be finally evened out, regardless of omissions.

However, there were oversights, and possibly errors, as described below. Mistakes, because Godfrey felt he was not yet mature enough to speak of marital matters; omissions, because omissions on the matter gave him a hunch. Indeed, after his studies Godfrey felt prematurely what seemed to be a weariness of society, of a life so perfectly arranged, that he lacked nothing, had no wish for him to weave, nothing for him to do. !The idea of ​​traveling the world then broke into his mind: he found that he had learned everything except travel.Really, there was only one thing he knew of the Old World and the New, San Francisco, where he was born and never left, if not in his dreams.But what does it mean for a young man, please, to think, not to have traveled the globe two or three times—especially if he is an American?So what is the use of this?Does he know if he can pull himself out of any situation on a long trip?If he doesn't try a life of adventure, how can he dare to be responsible for himself in the future?In short, to travel thousands of miles, to travel around the face of the earth, to see, to observe, to learn, is not this, for a young man, the necessary perfection of a good education?

So it happened that for nearly a year Godfrey was absorbed in the travel books, which are so ubiquitous in our time, and which excited him to be read.He discovered Marco Polo's kingdom of heaven, Columbus's America, Cook's Pacific Ocean, and Dumont de Vere's Antarctic.He had the idea of ​​going where these famous travelers had been and where he had not been.Indeed, he had never had an expedition of several years that cost him too dearly, raids by Malayan pirates, conflicts at sea, shipwrecks in the middle of nowhere, and had to live through a Selkirk or a A Robinson Crusoe life!A Robinson!Be a Robinson Crusoe!What young imagination, reading, as Godfrey so often, too often reads, the supposed heroic adventures of Daniel Defoe or de Welsh, has not dreamed of them?

yes!William W. Coedrup's own nephew, was thinking of this when his uncle considered tying him, as they say, to the chains of marriage.As for traveling with Fina, now Mrs. Godfrey Morgan, no, that's impossible!He has to do it alone, or he doesn't.And, add to that, his past capriciousness, could Godfrey sign his contract on better terms?When a person has not even been to Japan, China, or Europe beforehand, can he be satisfied with the happiness of having a wife?cannot!definitely. That's why Godfrey was so absent-minded around Miss Fina now, so cold when she spoke to him, so hard to hear when she played those songs he used to love.

Fina is a serious and thoughtful girl, and she is clearly aware of it.To say that she did not feel some kind of bitter resentment over it would be baseless slander.But, accustomed to seeing things on the positive side, she had reasoned it out for herself. "If he absolutely has to go, it's better to go before marriage than after marriage!" So she had a short, meaningful sentence to Godfrey: "No!...you're not by my side right now...you're on the other side of the sea!" Godfrey stood up.He walked a few steps in the room without looking at Fina, but unconsciously, he stretched out his index finger and pressed it on a key of the piano. It was a rough "re" flattened, an octave below the staff, a most mournful note, which answered for him. Fina understood, so she didn't discuss any further, she wanted to force her fiancé to make a decision, and waited for her to help him open a gap in this matter so that he could escape to the place where his fantasy led him, Just then the living room door opened. William W. Codrup showed up, always looking a little busy.This is a businessman who has just closed one transaction and is about to start another. "Then," he said, "it is now only necessary to finally fix the date." "Day?" Godfrey answered, startled. "What day, please tell me, uncle?" "You two's wedding day!" retorted William W. Coedrup, "it's not my wedding day, I thought!" "It's probably too hasty!" Fina said. "Hmph! . . . what? . . . " cried the uncle. "What does that mean? . . . We said the end of the month, didn't we?" "Godfather Will," the girl replied, "today is not a wedding day, but a departure day!" "A move?..." "Yes, Godfrey is leaving," Miss Finer went on, "Godfrey, before we get married, I feel the need to take a walk in the world!" "You're leaving... you?" cried William W. Coedrup, coming up to the young man and grabbing his arm, as if afraid that the "bastard nephew" would run away from him. "Yes, Uncle Will," Godfrey answered bravely. "How long will it be?" "One and a half years, at most two years, if..." "if?……" "If you agree, and if Fina waits for me until then!" "Wait! You see this fiancé just wants to get away!" cried William W. Coedrup. "Godfrey should be allowed to do it," answered the girl. "Godfather Will, I've thought about all this. I'm young, but Godfrey is younger than I am! The journey will make him He's old enough so I don't think he should be discouraged! He wants to travel, let him travel! He's going to need a break next, and he'll come back to me." "What!" exclaimed William W. Codrup, "you agree to let the fool fly away?" "Yes, he asked for two years!" "And you will wait for him? . . . " "Uncle Will, if I can't wait for him, it means I don't love him anymore!" Having said this, Miss Fina went back to her piano, and, whether intentionally or not, her fingers flicked a very popular piece "The Fiance's Departure", which, we will admit, fit perfectly This is the situation.But Fina probably didn't notice it, and played it in "la" minor, despite the "la" major.Thus all the sentiments of the melody are altered by this mode, and its plaintive character well expresses the girl's inner feelings. Godfrey, however, did not speak due to embarrassment.His uncle lifted his head, turned to the light, and looked at him.He asked him in this way without speaking, and he answered him without answering. And the lament of "The Fiancé's Departure" echoes bleakly all the time.At last William W. Coedrup, having turned round the room, came before Godfrey again, and stood before his judge as motionless as a guilty man.Then, raising his voice: "Is this serious?" he asked. "Seriously," Miss Fina replied immediately, but Godfrey only made a gesture of affirmation. "All right!" retorted William W. Codrup, looking at his nephew with an odd look. Then, I heard him muttering between his teeth: "Ah! You want to try traveling before you marry Fina! Well! Go ahead, my nephew!" He took two or three steps, however, stopped, folded his arms, and stood before Godfrey. "Where do you want to go?" he asked him. "Everywhere." "So when are you going to leave?" "Listen to you, Uncle Will." "Well, the sooner the better!" Hearing the last sentence, Fina stopped suddenly.The little finger of her left hand has just touched a sharped "sol"...the fourth on the tonic is still unresolved.She remains on the "leading note," like Raoul the Huguenot when he flees after his duet with Valentine. Miss Fina's heart may have been a little heavy, but she had made up her mind to say nothing. Now it was William W. Codrup, without looking at Godfrey, approaching the piano: "Fina," he said solemnly, "never stay on the 'guide tone'!" So he landed his fat fingers vertically on a keyboard and played a natural sound "1a".