The Good Apprentice Read Online Free Page A

know, to get you out of yourself.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Willy and Ursula will be there.’ Willy Brightwalton was Edward’s tutor. (Edward was studying French.) His wife Ursula was the family doctor. ‘Are you taking those pills Ursula gave you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Edward, do listen to me, concentrate, take a pull on yourself, get yourself together a bit. Try to put all this behind you. Nobody blames you, you’re not guilty of anything, it was an accident. Don’t be so self-important, everybody isn’t thinking about you, if that’s what’s worrying you. People have other troubles, you’ve been forgotten. You’re free now, you’ve been through it all and got off. British justice has forgiven you and sent you home to get on with your life, so can’t you forgive yourself and do just that? You’ve got every advantage, you’re young, you’re attractive, you’re clever, you’re healthy, don’t chuck it all away. Happiness, that’s what life’s about, it’s your job to be happy, not to spread gloom and despair all round. Don’t be so selfish. Get your courage back, get your narcissism back, get your myth back, straighten your spine and believe in yourself again.’
    Edward looked at Harry, or glanced at him, with an expression of faint wincing distaste, huddled himself further into his chair, and resumed gazing into the corner of the room.
    Harry, who had only lately seen his sons’ faces change from the soft vague sweetness of boyhood to the hard anxious definition of manhood, looked with despair and anguish at Edward’s weak puckered discontented almost feminine air.
    ‘You want to be a writer, don’t you? Well, here’s an experience, why not write about it!’
    ‘I couldn’t. It’s not — an experience — ’
    ‘Write a diary about it, about how you feel, you could use it for material later on.’
    Edward shook his head. His whole face was insipid, entirely changed, ugly with weakness. Looking at that change Harry thought, he’s very ill.
    ‘You’re making too much of it, see it in proportion, see it in perspective, you’re sick with self-pity, you want to wallow in guilt, in a way you’re enjoying it. It doesn’t matter so much. It doesn’t matter all that much what you do, personal responsibility is a sort of pretentious notion anyway, it’s a fiction, who do you think you are? There isn’t anything deep here, God isn’t watching you, your job is to make yourself function again, just get going, get back to college, get back to work anyway, and for Christ’s sake don’t let Thomas talk you into some sort of interesting psychological condition, that could go on forever. Edward, are you listening?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘This is a small incident in your life, it’s almost nothing to do with you at all, you’ll see that later, all life is accidental, of course we blunder against each other, and there are wicked men, but you’re not one. Buck up, stop thinking about yourself, that’s what’s wrong, don’t let this business lodge in your soul, it isn’t anything, it isn’t deep, it isn’t a great spiritual drama, just shrug it off, toss it away, as if it were a bit of mud or a bit of ash or — ’ Harry, made increasingly irritable and upset by Edward’s silence, leaned forward and picked up a cinder from the grate. He dropped it hastily. It was extremely hot and had burnt his fingers. ‘Damn!’ He flapped his hand and blew upon it.
    Edward watched him with a faint gleam of interest.
    ‘Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?’
    ‘No.’
    The first speaker was Harry Cuno, the second Thomas McCaskerville.
    The scene was the McCaskervilles’ dinner party at their house in Fulham, the little gathering which was ‘for’ the unfortunate Edward. Midge McCaskerville was in the kitchen, Thomas, Harry and Edward in the drawing room. Edward, glanced at occasionally by the other two, had taken a book from a shelf and was sitting in a corner