The Reverberator

The Reverberator

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reverberator, by Henry James
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Title: The Reverberator
Author: Henry James
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7529] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 14,
2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
REVERBERATOR ***

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THE REVERBERATOR
HENRY JAMES
"I guess my daughter's in here," the old man said leading the way into
the little salon de lecture. He was not of the most advanced age, but that
is the way George Flack considered him, and indeed he looked older
than he was. George Flack had found him sitting in the court of the
hotel--he sat a great deal in the court of the hotel--and had gone up to
him with characteristic directness and asked him for Miss Francina.
Poor Mr. Dosson had with the greatest docility disposed himself to wait
on the young man: he had as a matter of course risen and made his way
across the court to announce to his child that she had a visitor. He
looked submissive, almost servile, as he preceded the visitor, thrusting
his head forward in his quest; but it was not in Mr. Flack's line to notice
that sort of thing. He accepted the old gentleman's good offices as he
would have accepted those of a waiter, conveying no hint of an
attention paid also to himself. An observer of these two persons would
have assured himself that the degree to which Mr. Dosson thought it
natural any one should want to see his daughter was only equalled by
the degree to which the young man thought it natural her father should
take trouble to produce her. There was a superfluous drapery in the
doorway of the salon de lecture, which Mr. Dosson pushed aside while
George Flack stepped in after him.
The reading-room of the Hotel de l'Univers et de Cheltenham was none
too ample, and had seemed to Mr. Dosson from the first to consist
principally of a highly-polished floor on the bareness of which it was
easy for a relaxed elderly American to slip. It was composed further, to
his perception, of a table with a green velvet cloth, of a fireplace with a

great deal of fringe and no fire, of a window with a great deal of curtain
and no light, and of the Figaro, which he couldn't read, and the New
York Herald, which he had already read. A single person was just now
in possession of these conveniences--a young lady who sat with her
back to the window, looking straight before her into the conventional
room. She was dressed as for the street; her empty hands rested upon
the arms of her chair--she had withdrawn her long gloves, which were
lying in her lap--and she seemed to be doing nothing as hard as she
could. Her face was so much in shadow as to be barely distinguishable;
nevertheless the young man had a disappointed cry as soon as he saw
her. "Why, it ain't Miss Francie--it's Miss Delia!"
"Well, I guess we can fix that," said Mr. Dosson, wandering further
into the room and drawing his feet over the floor without lifting them.
Whatever he did he ever seemed to wander: he had an impermanent
transitory air, an aspect of weary yet patient non-arrival, even when he
sat, as he was capable of sitting for hours, in the court of the inn. As he
glanced down at the two newspapers in their desert of green velvet he
raised a hopeless uninterested glass to his eye. "Delia dear, where's
your little sister?"
Delia made no movement whatever, nor did any expression, so far as
could be perceived, pass over her large young face. She only ejaculated:
"Why, Mr. Flack, where did you drop