BLIX

by Frank Norris

Chapter I

IT had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that hung over the

mantelpiece in the dining-room, when Victorine brought in the

halved watermelon and set it in front of Mr. Bessemer's plate.

Then she went down to the front door for the damp, twisted roll of

the Sunday morning's paper, and came back and rang the breakfastbell

for the second time.

As the family still hesitated to appear, she went to the bay

window at the end of the room, and stood there for a moment

looking out. The view was wonderful. The Bessemers lived upon

the Washington Street hill, almost at its very summit, in a flat

in the third story of the building. The contractor had been

clever enough to reverse the position of kitchen and dining-room,

so that the latter room was at the rear of the house. From its

window one could command a sweep of San Francisco Bay and the

Contra Costa shore, from Mount Diablo, along past Oakland,

Berkeley, Sausalito, and Mount Tamalpais, out to the Golden Gate,

the Presidio, the ocean, and even--on very clear days--to the

Farrallone islands.

For some time Victorine stood looking down at the great expanse of

land and sea, then faced about with an impatient exclamation.

On Sundays all the week-day regime of the family was deranged, and

breakfast was a movable feast, to be had any time after seven or

before half-past nine. As Victorine was pouring the ice-water,

Mr. Bessemer himself came in, and addressed himself at once to his

meal, without so much as a thought of waiting for the others.

He was a little round man. He wore a skull-cap to keep his bald

spot warm, and read his paper through a reading-glass. The

expression of his face, wrinkled and bearded, the eyes shadowed by

enormous gray eyebrows, was that of an amiable gorilla.

Bessemer was one of those men who seem entirely disassociated from

their families. Only on rare and intense occasions did his

paternal spirit or instincts assert themselves. At table he

talked but little. Though devotedly fond of his eldest daughter,

she was a puzzle and a stranger to him. His interests and hers

were absolutely dissimilar. The children he seldom spoke to but

to reprove; while Howard, the son, the ten-year-old and terrible

infant of the household, he always referred to as "that boy."

He was an abstracted, self-centred old man, with but two hobbies--

homoeopathy and the mechanism of clocks. But he had a strange way

of talking to himself in a low voice, keeping up a running, halfwhispered

comment upon his own doings and actions; as, for

instance, upon this occasion: "Nine o'clock--the clock's a little

fast. I think I'll wind my watch. No, I've forgotten my watch.

Watermelon this morning, eh? Where's a knife? I'll have a little

salt. Victorine's forgot the spoons--ha, here's a spoon! No, it's

a knife I want."