Extraits

A Mader, admirer et adorer les riches est le premier article de foi. Ses parents auraient crié au blasphème s'il se fût conduit autrement.

Je vous ai proposé une exécution sans douleur pour tous ou pour ceux qui le souhaitent. Je vous ai proposé de faire enlever vos femmes, fiancées, enfants et mères et de les faire venir ici. J'agrandirai l'endroit où vous êtes, là en bas, et vous serez nourris et habillés le restant de votre vie. S'il existait un moyen de provoquer une amnésie permanente, je vous ferais tous opérer et je vous relâcherais immédiatement, quelque part en dehors de ma chasse gardée. Mais je n'ai rien d'autre à vous proposer.

Afterward John remembered that first night as a daze of many colors, of quick sensory impressions, of music soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights and shadows, and motions and faces. There was a whitehaired man who stood drinking a many−hued cordial from a crystal thimble set on a golden stem. There was a girl with a flowery face, dressed like Titania with braided sapphires in her hair. There was a room where the solid, soft gold of the walls yielded to the pressure of his hand, and a room that was like a platonic conception of the ultimate prism−−ceiling, floor, and all, it was lined with an unbroken mass of diamonds, diamonds of every size and shape, until, lit with tall violet lamps in the corners, it dazzled the eyes with a whiteness that could be compared only with itself, beyond human wish or dream.

In the middle of his second year at school, a quiet, handsome boy named Percy Washington had been put in John's form. The newcomer was pleasant in his manner and exceedingly well dressed even for St. Midas', but for some reason he kept aloof from the other boys. The only person with whom he was intimate was John T. Unger, but even to John he was entirely uncommunicative concerning his home or his family. That he was wealthy went without saying, but beyond a few such deductions John knew little of his friend, so it promised rich confectionery for his curiosity when Percy invited him to spend the summer at his home "in the West." He accepted, without hesitation.

JOHN T. UNGER came from a family that had been well known in Hades−−a small town on the Mississippi

River−−for several generations.

John's father had held the amateur golf championship through many a heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known

"from hot−box to hot−bed," as the local phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents.

Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas' School near Boston−− Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.

- C'était un rêve, dit John avec calme. Pour tout le monde, la jeunesse n'est qu'un rêve, une sorte de folie.

- Comme c'est agréable d'être fou, alors.

- C'est ce que je croyais, dit John tristement. A présent, je n'en suis plus si sûr.