e ceiling. He thought: 'A poor
thing, James! a selfish beggar! Must be worth a couple of hundred
thousand!' He wheezed, meditating on life....

He was ill and lonely. For many years he had been lonely, and for two
years ill; but as he had smoked his first cigar, so he would live his
life-stoutly, to its predestined end. Every day he was driven to the
club; sitting forward on the spring cushions of a single brougham, his
hands on his knees, swaying a little, strangely solemn. He ascended the
steps into that marble hall--the folds of his chin wedged into the
aperture of his collar--walking squarely with a stick. Later he would
dine, eating majestically, and savouring his food, behind a bottle of
champagne set in an ice-pail--his waistcoat defended by a napkin, his
eyes rolling a little or glued in a stare on the waiter. Never did he
suffer his head or back to droop, for it was not distinguished so to do.

Because he was old and deaf, he spoke to no one; and no one spoke to him.
The club gossip, an Irishman, said to each newcomer: "Old Forsyte! Look
at 'um! Must ha' had something in his life to sour 'um!" But Swithin
had had nothing in his life to sour him.

For many days now he had lain in bed in a room exuding silver, crimson,
and electric light, smelling of opopanax and of cigars. The curtains
were drawn, the firelight gleamed; on a table by his bed were a jug of
barley-water and the Times. He made an attempt to read, failed, and fell
again to thinking. His face with its square chin, looked like a block of
pale leather bedded in the pillow. It was lonely! A woman in the room
would have made all the difference! Why had he never married? He
breathed hard, staring froglike at the ceiling; a memory had come into
his mind. It was a long time ago--forty odd years--but it seemed like
yesterday....

It happened when he was thirty-eight, for the first and only time in his
life travelling on the Continent, with his twin-brother James and a man
named Traquair. On the way from Germany to Venice, he had found himself
at the Hotel Goldene Alp at Salzburg. It was late August, and weather
for the gods: sunshine on the walls and the shadows of the vine-leaves,
and at night, the moonlight, and again on the walls the shadows of the
vine-leaves. Averse to the suggestions of other people, Swithin had
refused to visit the Citadel; he had spent the day alone in the window of
his bedroom, smoking a succession of cigars,