The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

As these visions crowded before him, causing emotion to swell his heart,

he rose, and stood at the window, looking down into the little walled

strip of garden, where the pear-tree, bare of leaves before its time,

stood with gaunt branches in the slow-gathering mist of the autumn

afternoon. The dog Balthasar, his tail curled tightly over a piebald,

furry back, was walking at the farther end, sniffing at the plants, and

at intervals placing his leg for support against the wall.

And old Jolyon mused.

What pleasure was there left but to give? It was pleasant to give, when

you could find one who would be thankful for what you gave--one of your

own flesh and blood! There was no such satisfaction to be had out of

giving to those who did not belong to you, to those who had no claim

on you! Such giving as that was a betrayal of the individualistic

convictions and actions of his life, of all his enterprise, his labour,

and his moderation, of the great and proud fact that, like tens of

thousands of Forsytes before him, tens of thousands in the present, tens

of thousands in the future, he had always made his own, and held his

own, in the world.

And, while he stood there looking down on the smut-covered foliage

of the laurels, the black-stained grass-plot, the progress of the dog

Balthasar, all the suffering of the fifteen years during which he had

been baulked of legitimate enjoyment mingled its gall with the sweetness

of the approaching moment.

Young Jolyon came at last, pleased with his work, and fresh from long

hours in the open air. On hearing that his father was in the drawing

room, he inquired hurriedly whether Mrs. Forsyte was at home, and being

informed that she was not, heaved a sigh of relief. Then putting his

painting materials carefully in the little coat-closet out of sight, he

went in.

With characteristic decision old Jolyon came at once to the point. "I've

been altering my arrangements, Jo," he said. "You can cut your coat a

bit longer in the future--I'm settling a thousand a year on you at once.

June will have fifty thousand at my death; and you the rest. That dog of

yours is spoiling the garden. I shouldn't keep a dog, if I were you!"

The dog Balthasar, seated in the centre of the lawn, was examining his

tail.

Young Jolyon looked at the animal, but saw him dimly, for his eyes were

misty.

"Yours won't come short of a hundred thousand, my boy," said old Jolyon;

"I thought you'd better know. I haven't much longer to live at my age. I

shan't allude to it again. How's your wife? And--give her my love."