Читать книгу Look Homeward, Angel. A Story of the Buried Life онлайн

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One day in the hot barren back yard, two cots and mattresses had been set up for airing. He lay upon one luxuriously, breathing the hot mattress, and drawing his small legs up lazily. Luke lay upon the other. They were eating peaches.

A fly grew sticky on Eugene's peach. He swallowed it. Luke howled with laughter.

"Swallowed a fly! Swallowed a fly!"

He grew violently sick, vomited, and was unable to eat for some time. He wondered why he had swallowed the fly when he had seen it all the time.

The summer came down blazing hot. Gant arrived for a few days, bringing Daisy with him. One night they drank beer at the Delmar Gardens. In the hot air, at a little table, he gazed thirstily at the beaded foaming stein: he would thrust his face, he thought, in that chill foam and drink deep of happiness. Eliza gave him a taste; they all shrieked at his bitter surprised face.

Years later he remembered Gant, his moustache flecked with foam, quaffing mightily at the glass: the magnificent gusto, the beautiful thirst inspired in him the desire for emulation, and he wondered if all beer were bitter, if there were not a period of initiation into the pleasures of this great beverage.