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

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Eliza sat heavily on a chair, her face bent sideways on her rested hand. She was weeping, her face contorted by the comical and ugly grimace that is far more terrible than any quiet beatitude of sorrow. Gant comforted her awkwardly but, looking at the boy from time to time, he went out into the hall and cast his arms forth in agony, in bewilderment.

The undertakers put the body in a basket and took it away.

"He was just twelve years and twenty days old," said Eliza over and over, and this fact seemed to trouble her more than any other.

"You children go and get some sleep now," she commanded suddenly and, as she spoke, her eye fell on Ben, who stood puzzled and scowling, gazing in with his curious old-man's look. She thought of the severance of the twins; they had entered life within twenty minutes of each other; her heart was gripped with pity at the thought of the boy's loneliness. She wept anew. The children went to bed. For some time Eliza and Gant continued to sit alone in the room. Gant leaned his face in his powerful hands. "The best boy I had," he muttered. "By God, he was the best of the lot."