tion>John Galsworthy
Five Tales
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664654120
Table of Contents
And this is what he remembered.
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE is also posted as Etext #2594 [In the present 1919 edition of “Five Tales” the fifth tale was “Indian Summer of a Forsyte;” in later collections, “Indian Summer …” became the first section of the second volume of The Forsyte Saga]
THE FIRST AND LAST
“So the last shall be first, and the first last.”—HOLY WRIT.
It was a dark room at that hour of six in the evening, when just the single oil reading-lamp under its green shade let fall a dapple of light over the Turkey carpet; over the covers of books taken out of the bookshelves, and the open pages of the one selected; over the deep blue and gold of the coffee service on the little old stool with its Oriental embroidery. Very dark in the winter, with drawn curtains, many rows of leather-bound volumes, oak-panelled walls and ceiling. So large, too, that the lighted spot before the fire where he sat was just an oasis. But that was what Keith Darrant liked, after his day's work—the hard early morning study of his “cases,” the fret and strain of the day in court; it was his rest, these two hours before dinner, with books, coffee, a pipe, and sometimes a nap. In red Turkish slippers and his old brown velvet coat, he was well suited to that framing of glow and darkness. A painter would have seized avidly on his clear-cut, yellowish face, with its black
