But she heard my father coming from the dressing-room,
where he had gone to take off his clothes, and, to avoid the 'scene' which
he would make if he saw me, she said, in a voice half-stifled by her
anger: "Run away at once. Don't let your father see you standing there
like a crazy jane!"
But I begged her again to "Come and say good night to me!" terrified as I
saw the light from my father's candle already creeping up the wall, but
also making use of his approach as a means of blackmail, in the hope that
my mother, not wishing him to find me there, as find me he must if she
continued to hold out, would give in to me, and say: "Go back to your
room. I will come."
Too late: my father was upon us. Instinctively I murmured, though no one
heard me, "I am done for!"
I was not, however. My father used constantly to refuse to let me do
things which were quite clearly allowed by the more liberal charters
granted me by my mother and grandmother, because he paid no heed to
'Principles,' and because in his sight there were no such things as
'Rights of Man.' For some quite irrelevant reason, or for no reason at
all, he would at the last moment prevent me from taking some particular
walk, one so regular and so consecrated to my use that to deprive me of it
was a clear breach of faith; or again, as he had done this evening, long
before the appointed hour he would snap out: "Run along up to bed now; no
excuses!" But then again, simply because he was devoid of principles (in
my grandmother's sense), so he could not, properly speaking, be called
inexorable.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73