VANDOVER AND THE BRUTE

By

Frank Norris

1914







Chapter One


It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall
so little of his past life. With the exception of the most recent events
he could remember nothing connectedly. What he at first imagined to be
the story of his life, on closer inspection turned out to be but a few
disconnected incidents that his memory had preserved with the greatest
capriciousness, absolutely independent of their importance. One of these
incidents might be a great sorrow, a tragedy, a death in his family; and
another, recalled with the same vividness, the same accuracy of detail,
might be a matter of the least moment.

A certain one of these wilful fillips of memory would always bring
before him a particular scene during the migration of his family from
Boston to their new home in San Francisco, at a time when Vandover was