介绍:
Lester had thought of his predicament(困境;窘境) earnestly enough, and he would have been satisfied to act soon if it had not been that one of those disrupting influences which sometimes complicate our affairs entered into his Hyde Park domicile(住处;定居地). Gerhardt’s health began rapidly to fail.
Little by little he had been obliged to give up his various duties about the place; finally he was obliged to take to his bed. He lay in his room, devotedly attended by Jennie and visited constantly by Vesta, and occasionally by Lester. There was a window not far from his bed, which commanded a charming view of the lawn and one of the surrounding streets, and through this he would gaze by the hour, wondering how the world was getting on without him. He suspected that Woods, the coachman, was not looking after the horses and harnesses as well as he should, that the newspaper carrier was getting negligent in his delivery of the papers, that the furnace man was wasting coal, or was not giving them enough heat. A score of little petty worries, which were nevertheless real enough to him. He knew how a house should be kept. He was always rigid in his performance of his self-appointed duties, and he was so afraid that things would not go right. Jennie made for him a most imposing and sumptuous dressing-gown of basted wool, covered with dark-blue silk, and bought him a pair of soft, thick, wool slippers to match, but he did not wear them often. He preferred to lie in bed, read his Bible and the Lutheran papers, and ask Jennie how things were getting along.
“I want you should go down in the basement and see what that feller is doing. He’s not giving us any heat,” he would complain. “I bet I know what he does. He sits down there and reads, and then he forgets what the fire is doing until it is almost out. The beer is right there where he can take it. You should lock it up. You don’t know what kind of a man he is. He may be no good.”
Jennie would protest that the house was fairly comfortable, that the man was a nice, quiet, respectable-looking American—that if he did drink a little beer it would not matter. Gerhardt would immediately become incensed(愤怒的;大怒的).
“That is always the way,” he declared vigorously. “You have no sense of economy. You are always so ready to let things go if I am not there. He is a nice man! How do you know he is a nice man? Does he keep the fire up? No! Does he keep the walks clean? If you don’t watch him he will be just like the others, no good. You should go around and see how things are for yourself.”
“All right, papa,” she would reply in a genial(友好的;欢快的) effort to soothe him, “I will. Please don’t worry. I’ll lock up the beer. Don’t you want a cup of coffee now and some toast?”
“No,” Gerhardt would sigh immediately, “my stomach it don’t do right. I don’t know how I am going to come out of this.”
Dr. Makin, the leading physician of the vicinity, and a man of considerable experience and ability, called at Jennie’s request and suggested a few simple things—hot milk, a wine tonic, rest, but he told Jennie that she must not expect too much. “You know he is quite well along in years now. He is quite feeble. If he were twenty years younger we might do a great deal for him. As it is he is quite well off where he is. He may live for some time. He may get up and be around again, and then he may not. We must all expect these things. I have never any care as to what may happen to me. I am too old myself.”
Jennie felt sorry to think that her father might die, but she was pleased to think that if he must it was going to be under such comfortable circumstances. Here at least he could have every care.
