{"id":3397,"date":"2025-06-28T01:28:45","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T01:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3397"},"modified":"2025-06-28T01:28:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T01:28:45","slug":"his-fathers-son-by-edith-wharton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=3397","title":{"rendered":"His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>His Father\u2019s Son by <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/the-great-american-novel-quiz\">Edith Wharton<\/a> was first published in 1909. It confronts questions of paternity and illegitimacy\u00a0when a young man is about to get married.<\/p>\n<p><em>This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton<\/h2>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade no-lazyload\"><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton<\/h3>\n<p>AFTER his wife\u2019s death Mason Grew took the momentous step of selling out his business and moving from Wingfield, Connecticut, to Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p>For years he had secretly nursed the hope of such a change, but had never dared to suggest it to Mrs. Grew, a woman of immutable habits. Mr. Grew himself was attached to Wingfield, where he had grown up, prospered, and become what the local press described as \u201cprominent.\u201d He was attached to his ugly brick house with sandstone trimmings and a cast-iron area-railing neatly sanded to match; to the similar row of houses across the street, the \u201ctrolley\u201d wires forming a kind of aerial pathway between, and the sprawling vista closed by the steeple of the church which he and his wife had always attended, and where their only child had been baptized.<\/p>\n<p>It was hard to snap all these threads of association, visual and sentimental; yet still harder, now that he was alone, to live so far from his boy. Ronald Grew was practising law in New York, and there was no more chance of returning to live at Wingfield than of a river\u2019s flowing inland from the sea. Therefore to be near him his father must move; and it was characteristic of Mr. Grew, and of the situation generally, that the translation, when it took place, was to Brooklyn, and not to New York.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy you bury yourself in that hole I can\u2019t think,\u201d had been Ronald\u2019s comment; and Mr. Grew simply replied that rents were lower in Brooklyn, and that he had heard of a house that would suit him. In reality he had said to himself\u2014being the only recipient of his own confidences\u2014that if he went to New York he might be on the boy\u2019s mind; whereas, if he lived in Brooklyn, Ronald would always have a good excuse for not popping over to see him every other day. The sociological isolation of Brooklyn, combined with its geographical nearness, presented in fact the precise conditions for Mr. Grew\u2019s case. He wanted to be near enough to New York to go there often, to feel under his feet the same pavement that Ronald trod, to sit now and then in the same theatres, and find on his breakfast-table the journals which, with increasing frequency, inserted Ronald\u2019s name in the sacred bounds of the society column. It had always been a trial to Mr. Grew to have to wait twenty-four hours to read that \u201camong those present was Mr. Ronald Grew.\u201d Now he had it with his coffee, and left it on the breakfast-table to the perusal of a \u201chired girl\u201d cosmopolitan enough to do it justice. In such ways Brooklyn attested the advantages of its propinquity to New York, while remaining, as regards Ronald\u2019s duty to his father, as remote and inaccessible as Wingfield.<\/p>\n<p>It was not that Ronald shirked his filial obligations, but rather because of his heavy sense of them, that Mr. Grew so persistently sought to minimize and lighten them. It was he who insisted, to Ronald, on the immense difficulty of getting from New York to Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny way you look at it, it makes a big hole in the day; and there\u2019s not much use in the ragged rim left. You say you\u2019re dining out next Sunday? Then I forbid you to come over here for lunch. Do you understand me, sir? You disobey at the risk of your father\u2019s malediction! Where did you say you were dining? With the Waltham Bankshires again? Why, that\u2019s the second time in three weeks, ain\u2019t it? Big blow-out, I suppose? Gold plate and orchids\u2014opera singers in afterward? Well, you\u2019d be in a nice box if there was a fog on the river, and you got hung up half-way over. That\u2019d be a handsome return for the attention Mrs. Bankshire has shown you\u2014singling out a whipper-snapper like you twice in three weeks! (What\u2019s the daughter\u2019s name\u2014Daisy?) No,\u00a0<em>sir<\/em>\u2014don\u2019t you come fooling round here next Sunday, or I\u2019ll set the dogs on you. And you wouldn\u2019t find me in anyhow, come to think of it. I\u2019m lunching out myself, as it happens\u2014yes sir,\u00a0<em>lunching out<\/em>. Is there anything especially comic in my lunching out? I don\u2019t often do it, you say? Well, that\u2019s no reason why I never should. Who with? Why, with\u2014with old Dr. Bleaker: Dr. Eliphalet Bleaker. No, you wouldn\u2019t know about him\u2014he\u2019s only an old friend of your mother\u2019s and mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gradually Ronald\u2019s insistence became less difficult to overcome. With his customary sweetness and tact (as Mr. Grew put it) he began to \u201ctake the hint,\u201d to give in to \u201cthe old gentleman\u2019s\u201d growing desire for solitude.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m set in my ways, Ronny, that\u2019s about the size of it; I like to go tick-ticking along like a clock. I always did. And when you come bouncing in I never feel sure there\u2019s enough for dinner\u2014or that I haven\u2019t sent Maria out for the evening. And I don\u2019t want the neighbors to see me opening my own door to my son. That\u2019s the kind of cringing snob I am. Don\u2019t give me away, will you? I want \u2018em to think I keep four or five powdered flunkeys in the hall day and night\u2014same as the lobby of one of those Fifth Avenue hotels. And if you pop over when you\u2019re not expected, how am I going to keep up the bluff?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald yielded after the proper amount of resistance\u2014his intuitive sense, in every social transaction, of the proper amount of force to be expended, was one of the qualities his father most admired in him. Mr. Grew\u2019s perceptions in this line were probably more acute than his son suspected. The souls of short thick-set men, with chubby features, mutton-chop whiskers, and pale eyes peering between folds of fat like almond kernels in half-split shells\u2014souls thus encased do not reveal themselves to the casual scrutiny as delicate emotional instruments. But in spite of the dense disguise in which he walked Mr. Grew vibrated exquisitely in response to every imaginative appeal; and his son Ronald was perpetually stimulating and feeding his imagination.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald in fact constituted his father\u2019s one escape from the impenetrable element of mediocrity which had always hemmed him in. To a man so enamoured of beauty, and so little qualified to add to its sum total, it was a wonderful privilege to have bestowed on the world such a being. Ronald\u2019s resemblance to Mr. Grew\u2019s early conception of what he himself would have liked to look might have put new life into the discredited theory of pre-natal influences. At any rate, if the young man owed his beauty, his distinction and his winning manner to the dreams of one of his parents, it was certainly to those of Mr. Grew, who, while outwardly devoting his life to the manufacture and dissemination of Grew\u2019s Secure Suspender Buckle, moved in an enchanted inward world peopled with all the figures of romance. In this high company Mr. Grew cut as brilliant a figure as any of its noble phantoms; and to see his vision of himself suddenly projected on the outer world in the shape of a brilliant popular conquering son, seemed, in retrospect, to give to that image a belated objective reality. There were even moments when, forgetting his physiognomy, Mr. Grew said to himself that if he\u2019d had \u201chalf a chance\u201d he might have done as well as Ronald; but this only fortified his resolve that Ronald should do infinitely better.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald\u2019s ability to do well almost equalled his gift of looking well. Mr. Grew constantly affirmed to himself that the boy was \u201cnot a genius\u201d; but, barring this slight deficiency, he was almost everything that a parent could wish. Even at Harvard he had managed to be several desirable things at once\u2014writing poetry in the college magazine, playing delightfully \u201cby ear,\u201d acquitting himself honorably in his studies, and yet holding his own in the fashionable sporting set that formed, as it were, the gateway of the temple of Society. Mr. Grew\u2019s idealism did not preclude the frank desire that his son should pass through that gateway; but the wish was not prompted by material considerations. It was Mr. Grew\u2019s notion that, in the rough and hurrying current of a new civilization, the little pools of leisure and enjoyment must nurture delicate growths, material graces as well as moral refinements, likely to be uprooted and swept away by the rush of the main torrent. He based his theory on the fact that he had liked the few \u201csociety\u201d people he had met\u2014had found their manners simpler, their voices more agreeable, their views more consonant with his own, than those of the leading citizens of Wingfield. But then he had met very few.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald\u2019s sympathies needed no urging in the same direction. He took naturally, dauntlessly, to all the high and exceptional things about which his father\u2019s imagination had so long sheepishly and ineffectually hovered\u2014from the start he\u00a0<em>was<\/em>\u00a0what Mr. Grew had dreamed of being. And so precise, so detailed, was Mr. Grew\u2019s vision of his own imaginary career, that as Ronald grew up, and began to travel in a widening orbit, his father had an almost uncanny sense of the extent to which that career was enacting itself before him. At Harvard, Ronald had done exactly what the hypothetical Mason Grew would have done, had not his actual self, at the same age, been working his way up in old Slagden\u2019s button factory\u2014the institution which was later to acquire fame, and even notoriety, as the birthplace of Grew\u2019s Secure Suspender Buckle. Afterward, at a period when the actual Grew had passed from the factory to the bookkeeper\u2019s desk, his invisible double had been reading law at Columbia\u2014precisely again what Ronald did! But it was when the young man left the paths laid out for him by the parental hand, and cast himself boldly on the world, that his adventures began to bear the most astonishing resemblance to those of the unrealized Mason Grew. It was in New York that the scene of this hypothetical being\u2019s first exploits had always been laid; and it was in New York that Ronald was to achieve his first triumph. There was nothing small or timid about Mr. Grew\u2019s imagination; it had never stopped at anything between Wingfield and the metropolis. And the real Ronald had the same cosmic vision as his parent. He brushed aside with a contemptuous laugh his mother\u2019s tearful entreaty that he should stay at Wingfield and continue the dynasty of the Grew Suspender Buckle. Mr. Grew knew that in reality Ronald winced at the Buckle, loathed it, blushed for his connection with it. Yet it was the Buckle that had seen him through Groton, Harvard and the Law School, and had permitted him to enter the office of a distinguished corporation lawyer, instead of being enslaved to some sordid business with quick returns. The Buckle had been Ronald\u2019s fairy godmother\u2014yet his father did not blame him for abhorring and disowning it. Mr. Grew himself often bitterly regretted having bestowed his own name on the instrument of his material success, though, at the time, his doing so had been the natural expression of his romanticism. When he invented the Buckle, and took out his patent, he and his wife both felt that to bestow their name on it was like naming a battle-ship or a peak of the Andes.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs. Grew had never learned to know better; but Mr. Grew had discovered his error before Ronald was out of school. He read it first in a black eye of his boy\u2019s. Ronald\u2019s symmetry had been marred by the insolent fist of a fourth former whom he had chastised for alluding to his father as \u201cOld Buckles;\u201d and when Mr. Grew heard the epithet he understood in a flash that the Buckle was a thing to blush for. It was too late then to dissociate his name from it, or to efface from the hoardings of the entire continent the picture of two gentlemen, one contorting himself in the abject effort to repair a broken brace, while the careless ease of the other\u2019s attitude proclaimed his trust in the Secure Suspender Buckle. These records were indelible, but Ronald could at least be spared all direct connection with them; and from that day Mr. Grew resolved that the boy should not return to Wingfield.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ll see,\u201d he had said to Mrs. Grew, \u201che\u2019ll take right hold in New York. Ronald\u2019s got my knack for taking hold,\u201d he added, throwing out his chest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the way you took hold was in business,\u201d objected Mrs. Grew, who was large and literal.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew\u2019s chest collapsed, and he became suddenly conscious of his comic face in its rim of sandy whiskers. \u201cThat\u2019s not the only way,\u201d he said, with a touch of wistfulness which escaped his wife\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, of course you could have written beautifully,\u201d she rejoined with admiring eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>\u00a0Written?<\/em>\u00a0Me!\u201d Mr. Grew became sardonic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy, those letters\u2014weren\u2019t\u00a0<em>they<\/em>\u00a0beautiful, I\u2019d like to know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The couple exchanged a glance, innocently allusive and amused on the wife\u2019s part, and charged with a sudden tragic significance on the husband\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I\u2019ve got to be going along to the office now,\u201d he merely said, dragging himself out of his rocking-chair.<\/p>\n<p>This had happened while Ronald was still at school; and now Mrs. Grew slept in the Wingfield cemetery, under a life-size theological virtue of her own choosing, and Mr. Grew\u2019s prognostications as to Ronald\u2019s ability to \u201ctake right hold\u201d in New York were being more and more brilliantly fulfilled.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">II<\/h3>\n<p>RONALD obeyed his father\u2019s injunction not to come to luncheon on the day of the Bankshires\u2019 dinner; but in the middle of the following week Mr. Grew was surprised by a telegram from his son.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWant to see you important matter. Expect me to-morrow afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew received the telegram after breakfast. To peruse it he had lifted his eye from a paragraph of the morning paper describing a fancy-dress dinner which had taken place the night before at the Hamilton Gliddens\u2019 for the house-warming of their new Fifth Avenue palace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmong the couples who afterward danced in the Poets\u2019 Quadrille were Miss Daisy Bankshire, looking more than usually lovely as Laura, and Mr. Ronald Grew as the young Petrarch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petrarch and Laura! Well\u2014if\u00a0<em>anything<\/em>\u00a0meant anything, Mr. Grew supposed he knew what that meant. For weeks past he had noticed how constantly the names of the young people appeared together in the society notes he so insatiably devoured. Even the soulless reporter was getting into the habit of coupling them in his lists. And this Laura and Petrarch business was almost an announcement\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew dropped the telegram, wiped his eye-glasses, and re-read the paragraph. \u201cMiss Daisy Bankshire \u2026 more than usually lovely\u2026\u201d Yes; she\u00a0<em>was<\/em>\u00a0lovely. He had often seen her photograph in the papers\u2014seen her represented in every conceivable attitude of the mundane game: fondling her prize bull-dog, taking a fence on her thoroughbred, dancing a\u00a0<em>gavotte<\/em>, all patches and plumes, or fingering a guitar, all tulle and lilies; and once he had caught a glimpse of her at the theatre. Hearing that Ronald was going to a fashionable first-night with the Bankshires, Mr. Grew had for once overcome his repugnance to following his son\u2019s movements, and had secured for himself, under the shadow of the balcony, a stall whence he could observe the Bankshire box without fear of detection. Ronald had never known of his father\u2019s presence at the play; and for three blessed hours Mr. Grew had watched his boy\u2019s handsome dark head bent above the dense fair hair and white averted shoulder that were all he could catch of Miss Bankshire\u2019s beauties.<\/p>\n<p>He recalled the vision now; and with it came, as usual, its ghostly double: the vision of his young self bending above such a white shoulder and such shining hair. Needless to say that the real Mason Grew had never found himself in so enviable a situation. The late Mrs. Grew had no more resembled Miss Daisy Bankshire than he had looked like the happy victorious Ronald. And the mystery was that from their dull faces, their dull endearments, the miracle of Ronald should have sprung. It was almost\u2014fantastically\u2014as if the boy had been a changeling, child of a Latmian night, whom the divine companion of Mr. Grew\u2019s early reveries had secretly laid in the cradle of the Wingfield bedroom while Mr. And Mrs. Grew slept the deep sleep of conjugal indifference.<\/p>\n<p>The young Mason Grew had not at first accepted this astral episode as the complete cancelling of his claims on romance. He too had grasped at the high-hung glory; and, with his fatal tendency to reach too far when he reached at all, had singled out the prettiest girl in Wingfield. When he recalled his stammered confession of love his face still tingled under her cool bright stare. The wonder of his audacity had struck her dumb; and when she recovered her voice it was to fling a taunt at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be too discouraged, you know\u2014have you ever thought of trying Addie Wicks?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All Wingfield would have understood the gibe: Addie Wicks was the dullest girl in town. And a year later he had married Addie Wicks\u2026<\/p>\n<p>He looked up from the perusal of Ronald\u2019s telegram with this memory in his mind. Now at last his dream was coming true! His boy would taste of the joys that had mocked his thwarted youth and his dull gray middle-age. And it was fitting that they should be realized in Ronald\u2019s destiny. Ronald was made to take happiness boldly by the hand and lead it home like a bridegroom. He had the carriage, the confidence, the high faith in his fortune, that compel the wilful stars. And, thanks to the Buckle, he would have the exceptional setting, the background of material elegance, that became his conquering person. Since Mr. Grew had retired from business his investments had prospered, and he had been saving up his income for just such a contingency. His own wants were few: he had transferred the Wingfield furniture to Brooklyn, and his sitting-room was a replica of that in which the long years of his married life had been spent. Even the florid carpet on which Ronald\u2019s tottering footsteps had been taken was carefully matched when it became too threadbare. And on the marble centre-table, with its chenille-fringed cover and bunch of dyed pampas grass, lay the illustrated Longfellow and the copy of Ingersoll\u2019s lectures which represented literature to Mr. Grew when he had led home his bride. In the light of Ronald\u2019s romance, Mr. Grew found himself re-living, with a strange tremor of mingled pain and tenderness, all the poor prosaic incidents of his own personal history. Curiously enough, with this new splendor on them they began to emit a small faint ray of their own. His wife\u2019s armchair, in its usual place by the fire, recalled her placid unperceiving presence, seated opposite to him during the long drowsy years; and he felt her kindness, her equanimity, where formerly he had only ached at her obtuseness. And from the chair he glanced up at the large discolored photograph on the wall above, with a brittle brown wreath suspended on a corner of the frame. The photograph represented a young man with a poetic necktie and untrammelled hair, leaning negligently against a Gothic chair-back, a roll of music in his hand; and beneath was scrawled a bar of Chopin, with the words: \u201c<em>\u00a0Adieu, Adele<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The portrait was that of the great pianist, Fortune Dolbrowski; and its presence on the wall of Mr. Grew\u2019s sitting-room commemorated the only exquisite hour of his life save that of Ronald\u2019s birth. It was some time before the latter memorable event, a few months only after Mr. Grew\u2019s marriage, that he had taken his wife to New York to hear the great Dolbrowski. Their evening had been magically beautiful, and even Addie, roused from her habitual inexpressiveness, had quivered into a momentary semblance of life. \u201cI never\u2014I never\u2014\u201d she gasped out helplessly when they had regained their hotel bedroom, and sat staring back entranced at the evening\u2019s evocations. Her large immovable face was pink and tremulous, and she sat with her hands on her knees, forgetting to roll up her bonnet-strings and prepare her curl-papers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to\u00a0<em>write<\/em>\u00a0him just how I felt\u2014I wisht I knew how!\u201d she burst out suddenly in a final effervescence of emotion.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband lifted his head and looked at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWould you? I feel that way too,\u201d he said with a sheepish laugh. And they continued to stare at each other shyly through a transfiguring mist of sound.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew recalled the scene as he gazed up at the pianist\u2019s faded photograph. \u201cWell, I owe her that anyhow\u2014poor Addie!\u201d he said, with a smile at the inconsequences of fate. With Ronald\u2019s telegram in his hand he was in a mood to count his mercies.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">III<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cA CLEAR twenty-five thousand a year: that\u2019s what you can tell \u2018em with my compliments,\u201d said Mr. Grew, glancing complacently across the centre-table at his boy\u2019s charming face.<\/p>\n<p>It struck him that Ronald\u2019s gift for looking his part in life had never so romantically expressed itself. Other young men, at such a moment, would have been red, damp, tight about the collar; but Ronald\u2019s cheek was only a shade paler, and the contrast made his dark eyes more expressive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA clear twenty-five thousand; yes, sir\u2014that\u2019s what I always meant you to have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew leaned back, his hands thrust carelessly in his pockets, as though to divert attention from the agitation of his features. He had often pictured himself rolling out that phrase to Ronald, and now that it was actually on his lips he could not control their tremor.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald listened in silence, lifting a nervous hand to his slight dark moustache, as though he, too, wished to hide some involuntary betrayal of emotion. At first Mr. Grew took his silence for an expression of gratified surprise; but as it prolonged itself it became less easy to interpret.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2014see here, my boy; did you expect more? Isn\u2019t it enough?\u201d Mr. Grew cleared his throat. \u201cDo\u00a0<em>they<\/em>\u00a0expect more?\u201d he asked nervously. He was hardly able to face the pain of inflicting a disappointment on Ronald at the very moment when he had counted on putting the final touch to his felicity.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald moved uneasily in his chair and his eyes wandered upward to the laurel-wreathed photograph of the pianist above his father\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>\u00a0Is<\/em>\u00a0it that, Ronald? Speak out, my boy. We\u2019ll see, we\u2019ll look round\u2014I\u2019ll manage somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, no,\u201d the young man interrupted, abruptly raising his hand as though to silence his father.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew recovered his cheerfulness. \u201cWell, what\u2019s the matter than, if\u00a0<em>she\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0willing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald shifted his position again, and finally rose from his seat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFather\u2014I\u2014there\u2019s something I\u2019ve got to tell you. I can\u2019t take your money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew sat speechless a moment, staring blankly at his son; then he emitted a puzzled laugh. \u201cMy money? What are you talking about? What\u2019s this about my money? Why, it ain\u2019t\u00a0<em>mine<\/em>, Ronny; it\u2019s all yours\u2014every cent of it!\u201d he cried.<\/p>\n<p>The young man met his tender look with a gaze of tragic rejection.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, no, it\u2019s not mine\u2014not even in the sense you mean. Not in any sense. Can\u2019t you understand my feeling so?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFeeling so? I don\u2019t know how you\u2019re feeling. I don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about. Are you too proud to touch any money you haven\u2019t earned? Is that what you\u2019re trying to tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo. It\u2019s not that. You must know\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew flushed to the rim of his bristling whiskers. \u201cKnow? Know\u00a0<em>what?<\/em>\u00a0Can\u2019t you speak?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald hesitated, and the two men faced each other for a long strained moment, during which Mr. Grew\u2019s congested countenance grew gradually pale again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s the meaning of this? Is it because you\u2019ve done something \u2026 something you\u2019re ashamed of \u2026 ashamed to tell me?\u201d he suddenly gasped out; and walking around the table he laid his hand on his son\u2019s shoulder. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can\u2019t tell me, my boy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not that. Why do you make it so hard for me?\u201d Ronald broke out with passion. \u201cYou must have known this was sure to happen sooner or later.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHappen? What was sure to hap\u2014?\u201d Mr. Grew\u2019s question wavered on his lip and passed into a tremulous laugh. \u201cIs it something\u00a0<em>I\u2019ve<\/em>\u00a0done that you don\u2019t approve of? Is it\u2014is it\u00a0<em>the Buckle<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019re ashamed of, Ronald Grew?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald laughed too, impatiently. \u201cThe Buckle? No, I\u2019m not ashamed of the Buckle; not any more than you are,\u201d he returned with a sudden bright flush. \u201cBut I\u2019m ashamed of all I owe to it\u2014all I owe to you\u2014when\u2014when\u2014\u201d He broke off and took a few distracted steps across the room. \u201cYou might make this easier for me,\u201d he protested, turning back to his father.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMake what easier? I know less and less what you\u2019re driving at,\u201d Mr. Grew groaned.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald\u2019s walk had once more brought him beneath the photograph on the wall. He lifted his head for a moment and looked at it; then he looked again at Mr. Grew.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you suppose I haven\u2019t always known?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKnown\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven before you gave me those letters\u2014after my mother\u2019s death\u2014even before that, I suspected. I don\u2019t know how it began \u2026 perhaps from little things you let drop \u2026 you and she \u2026 and resemblances that I couldn\u2019t help seeing \u2026 in myself \u2026 How on earth could you suppose I shouldn\u2019t guess? I always thought you gave me the letters as a way of telling me\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew rose slowly from his chair. \u201cThe letters? Dolbrowski\u2019s letters?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald nodded with white lips. \u201cYou must remember giving them to me the day after the funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew nodded back. \u201cOf course. I wanted you to have everything your mother valued.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell\u2014how could I help knowing after that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKnowing\u00a0<em>what?<\/em>\u201d Mr. Grew stood staring helplessly at his son. Suddenly his look caught at a clue that seemed to confront it with a deeper bewilderment. \u201cYou thought\u2014you thought those letters \u2026 Dolbrowski\u2019s letters \u2026 you thought they meant \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, it wasn\u2019t only the letters. There were so many other signs. My love of music\u2014my\u2014all my feelings about life \u2026 and art\u2026 And when you gave me the letters I thought you must mean me to know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew had grown quiet. His lips were firm, and his small eyes looked out steadily from their creased lids.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo know that you were Fortune Dolbrowski\u2019s son?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald made a mute sign of assent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see. And what did you mean to do?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI meant to wait till I could earn my living, and then repay you \u2026 as far as I can ever repay you\u2026 But now that there\u2019s a chance of my marrying \u2026 and your generosity overwhelms me \u2026 I\u2019m obliged to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI see,\u201d said Mr. Grew again. He let himself down into his chair, looking steadily and not unkindly at the young man. \u201cSit down, Ronald. Let\u2019s talk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald made a protesting movement. \u201cIs anything to be gained by it? You can\u2019t change me\u2014change what I feel. The reading of those letters transformed my whole life\u2014I was a boy till then: they made a man of me. From that moment I understood myself.\u201d He paused, and then looked up at Mr. Grew\u2019s face. \u201cDon\u2019t imagine I don\u2019t appreciate your kindness\u2014your extraordinary generosity. But I can\u2019t go through life in disguise. And I want you to know that I have not won Daisy under false pretences\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew started up with the first expletive Ronald had ever heard on his lips.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou damned young fool, you, you haven\u2019t\u00a0<em>told<\/em>\u00a0her\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald raised his head quickly. \u201cOh, you don\u2019t know her, sir! She thinks no worse of me for knowing my secret. She is above and beyond all such conventional prejudices. She\u2019s\u00a0<em>proud<\/em>\u00a0of my parentage\u2014\u201d he straightened his slim young shoulders\u2014\u201cas I\u2019m proud of it \u2026 yes, sir, proud of it\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew sank back into his seat with a dry laugh. \u201cWell, you ought to be. You come of good stock. And you\u2019re father\u2019s son, every inch of you!\u201d He laughed again, as though the humor of the situation grew on him with its closer contemplation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I\u2019ve always felt that,\u201d Ronald murmured, flushing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour father\u2019s son, and no mistake.\u201d Mr. Grew leaned forward. \u201cYou\u2019re the son of as big a fool as yourself. And here he sits, Ronald Grew.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The young man\u2019s flush deepened to crimson; but Mr. Grew checked his reply with a decisive gesture. \u201cHere he sits, with all your young nonsense still alive in him. Don\u2019t you see the likeness? If you don\u2019t, I\u2019ll tell you the story of those letters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald stared. \u201cWhat do you mean? Don\u2019t they tell their own story?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI supposed they did when I gave them to you; but you\u2019ve given it a twist that needs straightening out.\u201d Mr. Grew squared his elbows on the table, and looked at the young man across the gift-books and the dyed pampas grass. \u201cI wrote all the letters that Dolbrowski answered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald gave back his look in frowning perplexity. \u201cYou wrote them? I don\u2019t understand. His letters are all addressed to my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. And he thought he was corresponding with her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut my mother\u2014what did she think?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew hesitated, puckering his thick lids. \u201cWell, I guess she kinder thought it was a joke. Your mother didn\u2019t think about things much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald continued to bend a puzzled frown on the question. \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d he reiterated.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew cleared his throat with a nervous laugh. \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know as you ever will\u2014<em>quite<\/em>. But this is the way it came about. I had a toughish time of it when I was young. Oh, I don\u2019t mean so much the fight I had to put up to make my way\u2014there was always plenty of fight in me. But inside of myself it was kinder lonesome. And the outside didn\u2019t attract callers.\u201d He laughed again, with an apologetic gesture toward his broad blinking face. \u201cWhen I went round with the other young fellows I was always the forlorn hope\u2014the one that had to eat the drumsticks and dance with the left-overs. As sure as there was a blighter at a picnic I had to swing her, and feed her, and drive her home. And all the time I was mad after all the things you\u2019ve got\u2014poetry and music and all the joy-forever business. So there were the pair of us\u2014my face and my imagination\u2014chained together, and fighting, and hating each other like poison.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen your mother came along and took pity on me. It sets up a gawky fellow to find a girl who ain\u2019t ashamed to be seen walking with him Sundays. And I was grateful to your mother, and we got along first-rate. Only I couldn\u2019t say things to her\u2014and she couldn\u2019t answer. Well\u2014one day, a few months after we were married, Dolbrowski came to New York, and the whole place went wild about him. I\u2019d never heard any good music, but I\u2019d always had an inkling of what it must be like, though I couldn\u2019t tell you to this day how I knew. Well, your mother read about him in the papers too, and she thought it\u2019d be the swagger thing to go to New York and hear him play\u2014so we went\u2026 I\u2019ll never forget that evening. Your mother wasn\u2019t easily stirred up\u2014she never seemed to need to let off steam. But that night she seemed to understand the way I felt. And when we got back to the hotel she said suddenly: \u2018I\u2019d like to tell him how I feel. I\u2019d like to sit right down and write to him.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Would you?\u2019 I said. \u2018So would I.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was paper and pens there before us, and I pulled a sheet toward me, and began to write. \u2018Is this what you\u2019d like to say to him?\u2019 I asked her when the letter was done. And she got pink and said: \u2018I don\u2019t understand it, but it\u2019s lovely.\u2019 And she copied it out and signed her name to it, and sent it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew paused, and Ronald sat silent, with lowered eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s how it began; and that\u2019s where I thought it would end. But it didn\u2019t, because Dolbrowski answered. His first letter was dated January 10, 1872. I guess you\u2019ll find I\u2019m correct. Well, I went back to hear him again, and I wrote him after the performance, and he answered again. And after that we kept it up for six months. Your mother always copied the letters and signed them. She seemed to think it was a kinder joke, and she was proud of his answering my letters. But she never went back to New York to hear him, though I saved up enough to give her the treat again. She was too lazy, and she let me go without her. I heard him three times in New York; and in the spring he came to Wingfield and played once at the Academy. Your mother was sick and couldn\u2019t go; so I went alone. After the performance I meant to get one of the directors to take me in to see him; but when the time came, I just went back home and wrote to him instead. And the month after, before he went back to Europe, he sent your mother a last little note, and that picture hanging up there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew paused again, and both men lifted their eyes to the photograph.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that all?\u201d Ronald slowly asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s all\u2014every bit of it,\u201d said Mr. Grew.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd my mother\u2014my mother never even spoke to Dolbrowski?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNever. She never even saw him but that once in New York at his concert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The blood crept again to Ronald\u2019s face. \u201cAre you sure of that, sir?\u201d he asked in a trembling voice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure as I am that I\u2019m sitting here. Why, she was too lazy to look at his letters after the first novelty wore off. She copied the answers just to humor me\u2014but she always said she couldn\u2019t understand what we wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut how could you go on with such a correspondence? It\u2019s incredible!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew looked at his son thoughtfully. \u201cI suppose it is, to you. You\u2019ve only had to put out your hand and get the things I was starving for\u2014music, and good talk, and ideas. Those letters gave me all that. You\u2019ve read them, and you know that Dolbrowski was not only a great musician but a great man. There was nothing beautiful he didn\u2019t see, nothing fine he didn\u2019t feel. For six months I breathed his air, and I\u2019ve lived on it ever since. Do you begin to understand a little now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes\u2014a little. But why write in my mother\u2019s name? Why make it a sentimental correspondence?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew reddened to his bald temples. \u201cWhy, I tell you it began that way, as a kinder joke. And when I saw that the first letter pleased and interested him, I was afraid to tell him\u2014<em>I couldn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0tell him. Do you suppose he\u2019d gone on writing if he\u2019d ever seen me, Ronny?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ronald suddenly looked at him with new eyes. \u201cBut he must have thought your letters very beautiful\u2014to go on as he did,\u201d he broke out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell\u2014I did my best,\u201d said Mr. Grew modestly.<\/p>\n<p>Ronald pursued his idea. \u201cWhere\u00a0<em>are<\/em>\u00a0all your letters, I wonder? Weren\u2019t they returned to you at his death?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew laughed. \u201cLord, no. I guess he had trunks and trunks full of better ones. I guess Queens and Empresses wrote to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI should have liked to see your letters,\u201d the young man insisted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, they weren\u2019t bad,\u201d said Mr. Grew drily. \u201cBut I\u2019ll tell you one thing, Ronny,\u201d he added suddenly. Ronald raised his head with a quick glance, and Mr. Grew continued: \u201cI\u2019ll tell you where the best of those letters is\u2014it\u2019s in\u00a0<em>you<\/em>. If it hadn\u2019t been for that one look at life I couldn\u2019t have made you what you are. Oh, I know you\u2019ve done a good deal of your own making\u2014but I\u2019ve been there behind you all the time. And you\u2019ll never know the work I\u2019ve spared you and the time I\u2019ve saved you. Fortune Dolbrowski helped me do that. I never saw things in little again after I\u2019d looked at \u2018em with him. And I tried to give you the big view from the stars\u2026 So that\u2019s what became of my letters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Grew paused, and for a long time Ronald sat motionless, his elbows on the table, his face dropped on his hands.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly Mr. Grew\u2019s touch fell on his shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLook at here, Ronald Grew\u2014do you want me to tell you how you\u2019re feeling at this minute? Just a mite let down, after all, at the idea that you ain\u2019t the romantic figure you\u2019d got to think yourself\u2026 Well, that\u2019s natural enough, too; but I\u2019ll tell you what it proves. It proves you\u2019re my son right enough, if any more proof was needed. For it\u2019s just the kind of fool nonsense I used to feel at your age\u2014and if there\u2019s anybody here to laugh at it\u2019s myself, and not you. And you can laugh at me just as much as you like\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Best Edith Wharton Books to Read<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3uPC6zw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4aaReYn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/46McnVS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><br \/>\nClick on the image to Buy on Amazon<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<p>If you enjoyed His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/quizlit.org\/miss-brill-by-katherine-mansfield\">Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p>Narrated by Anthony St. Pierre, courtesy of Librivox<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton was first published in 1909. It confronts questions of paternity and illegitimacy\u00a0when a young man is about to get married. This post may contain affiliate links that earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton His Father\u2019s Son by Edith Wharton [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}