The curious case of Benjamin Button E-Book

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

• Herausgeber: Edicions Perelló
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Universals
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 47

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In the city of Baltimore in 1860, Benjamin Button is born with a strange condition: instead of arriving as a baby, he is an old man of seventy. As time passes, Benjamin grows younger instead of aging, experiencing love, war, and society in a completely unique way. His unusual existence forces him to navigate a world that follows the natural course of time while he moves in reverse. With elegant and melancholic prose, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a fascinating reflection on time, identity, and the inevitability of fate, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Leseprobe

This collection treasures the most important works of universal literature, each one in its original language.

In the English Letters Series, the following stand out: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde; Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol; A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens; The Autobiography, by Benjamin Franklin; The Best Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle; Self-Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; The finest story in the world, by Rudyard Kipling; Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain; Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley; The shadow over Innsmouth, by H.P. Lovecraft; The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London; Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu...

Robert Louis Stevenson

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

© Ed. Perelló, SL, 2025

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I.S.B.N.: 978-84-10227-20-0

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Chapter I

As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anaesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.

I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself.

The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both social and financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore. They were related to the This Family and the That Family, which, as every Southerner knew, entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy. This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies—Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of “Cuff.”

On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o’clock, dressed himself, adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital, to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in new life upon its bosom.

When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene, the family physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with a washing movement—as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession.

Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period. “Doctor Keene!” he called. “Oh, Doctor Keene!”

The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face as Mr. Button drew near.

“What happened?” demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush. “What was it? How is she? A boy? Who is it? What—”

“Talk sense!” said Doctor Keene sharply. He appeared somewhat irritated.

“Is the child born?” begged Mr. Button.

Doctor Keene frowned. “Why, yes, I suppose so—after a fashion.” Again he threw a curious glance at Mr. Button.

“Is my wife all right?”

“Yes.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Here now!” cried Doctor Keene in a perfect passion of irritation, “I’ll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous!” He snapped the last word out in almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering: “Do you imagine a case like this will help my professional reputation? One more would ruin me—ruin anybody.”

“What’s the matter?” demanded Mr. Button appalled. “Triplets?”

“No, not triplets!” answered the doctor cuttingly. “What’s more, you can go and see for yourself. And get another doctor. I brought you into the world, young man, and I’ve been physician to your family for forty years, but I’m through with you! I don’t want to see you or any of your relatives ever again! Good-bye!”

Then he turned sharply, and without another word climbed into his phaeton, which was waiting at the curbstone, and drove severely away.

Mr. Button stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied and trembling from head to foot. What horrible mishap had occurred? He had suddenly lost all desire to go into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen—it was with the greatest difficulty that, a moment later, he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door.

A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall. Swallowing his shame, Mr. Button approached her.

“Good-morning,” she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly.

“Good-morning. I—I am Mr. Button.”

At this a look of utter terror spread itself over the girl’s face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most apparent difficulty.

“I want to see my child,” said Mr. Button.

The nurse gave a little scream. “Oh—of course!” she cried hysterically. “Upstairs. Right upstairs. Go—up!”