As Max Saw It Read Online Free PDF

father. A great man, and dangerous like all great men.
    Here Charlie reached past Rodney, grasped Toby’s chin, and rotated his face first toward Laura and me, and then toward the California woman, so that we could all see for ourselves, until Toby, tossing his head like a rebellious colt, managed to free himself. I observed with astonishment not only these proceedings but also Charlie’s fingers. These being on his right hand, they were almost brown from nicotine, and they ended in uncared-for, long cracked nails. Earlier, Charlie had mopped his plate clean of the pasta sauce with a little piece of bread. I would not have liked to have these fingers on my face.
    I have made him angry! That too is a risk—the affection of an older comrade misunderstood, taken for unbecoming familiarity. Forgive me, Toby. The risk I had in mind was much more grave: that of an unworthy choice. Time and attention wasted, like seed the villein scatters on rocky soil. Fair is as fair does! Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds! Luckily you are like the mysterious youth: unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow. May it ever be thus! For you have talent—promise that I will turn into fulfillment and plenitude. That is, my dear Toby, why I beg you not to speak of newsrooms and copyboys or meetings with Florentine adolescents—though surely Laura’s niece, like her beautiful aunt, is most distinguished. A high calling awaits you: be a builder, maker, artist! Live in solitude! My studio will be your Harvard and your Yale!
    Charlie paused and raised his glass again, this time toToby. There was no reason to think the tirade would not continue after he had drained it. A vast blush covered Toby’s cheeks.
    The California woman tittered. That sure will save a lot of tuition. Mr. Swan, you are too much!
    Or the rest of us are too little, obliged the Rockefeller villa director. Apprenticeship is a noble tradition, the key to creating elites, especially the one we have been discussing. If only the custom could be revived!
    I N L AURA’S BED that night, lying on my back, careful not to move lest I wake her—she was gripping me with her hand—myself at first quite unable to find sleep in that position, I chuckled at the liberating effect Arthur’s choice of words had had on me. They were no accident. He had my number. Later, already in that state where thought drifts into dream, I listened to the furious, whistling noise outside the window, which I recognized as a gale that must have risen suddenly, and marveled at the day’s other encounters and the change in Charlie. At college, like many former boarding-school heroes, he had the sort of assurance that is conferred by success on the river and with the faster debutantes, and a pomposity about the worldly and cultural advantages he had derived from weekends in New York and long vacations in Europe. Since then he had become a busy, powerful celebrity. But these declamatory passions, the insistent familiarity? Was he taking drugs? I was curious how much time would pass before I saw him again. My sleep was interrupted by Laura. She was shaking me by the shoulder and asking whether I could hear the screams. After a moment,over the wind and the desperate clapping of some open shutter, I distinguished a man’s voice, howling as though life were leaving his lungs together with the air. I said to Laura, Let’s go to the window. We spoke in whispers, although the villa’s walls were thick and the noise outside unbearable.
    We could see crisscrossing beams of light at the edge of the water. That was where the screams were coming from. I told Laura I would go to look, and quickly put on my clothes. Outside the house, the force of the wind astonished me. It was blowing down the lake from the Alps, in brutal, cold spasms. I ran toward the lights. Rodney was there, and Arthur and Edna and some Italian men who looked as though they worked on the place. It was they and Rodney who held the flashlights,