"Olaf Stapledon - A Man Divided" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

TO
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IN GRATITIDE TO HER
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1 - A WEDDING FIASCO
1921

VICTOR HAD REFUSED his bride at the altar! That was the brute fact which agitated the little party in the vestry. No amount of
explanation could mitigate it. As best man I had been in a good position to observe events; and even I, who had formerly been
fairly intimate with Victor, was completely taken by surprise. True, I had long suspected that there was something queer about
him; but up to the very moment of his quietly shattering remark, as he put the ring into his pocket, I had no idea that anything
serious was amiss.

James Victor Cadogan-Smith, later to be known as plain Victor Smith, had seemed the ideal bridegroom. He was the son of a
successful colonial administrator who had climbed by his own ability from a very lowly position, and had recently acquired a
knighthood. The family had been humble "Smiths" until Victor's father had married the only child of a more aristocratic family,
and had agreed to splice his wife's name to his own.

The new "Cadogan-Smith" assured his friends that he had done this mainly to please his father-in-law. But in later life he used to
say, "In those days my snobbery was unconscious."




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A Man Divided




His son Victor was born in 1890. He was now a bridegroom of thirty- one, and certainly a catch for any girl. Looking at him in
his wedding clothes, one could not help using the cliché "every inch a gentleman". His financial prospects were excellent. He was
already reputed to be one of the most brilliant young business men of his city, and he was well established as a junior partner in a
great shipping firm. Victor had come through the Great War, as we called it in those days, undamaged and with a Military Cross;
and now, in the brief period of optimism that followed the war, it seemed that he had excellent prospects of working out for
himself a triumphant business career in the phase of post-war recovery. To crown all, he had secured as his bride the charming
daughter of the head of his firm.

The wedding celebrations had been planned in appropriate style. The only factor which was not in perfect harmony with the spirit
of the occasion, I fear, was the best man. I had been greatly flattered by Victor's request that I should fill this office, but I could
not help wondering why he had not asked one of his many more presentable friends. His subsequent behaviour toward me almost
suggested that he regretted his choice. Certainly I did not fit at all into the picture of a smart wedding; and from the moment when
I found that I should have to hire a conventional wedding garment my heart had failed me. Victor must have found me a very