He
and Fanny were pretty thoroughly buried away within the bigness of the
city.
One of his Sunday walks, that spring, he made into a sour pilgrimage.
It was a misty morning of belated snow slush, and suited him to a
perfection of miserableness, as he stood before the great dripping
department store which now occupied the big plot of ground where once
had stood both the Amberson Hotel and the Amberson Opera House. From
there he drifted to the old "Amberson Block," but this was fallen into
a back-water; business had stagnated here. The old structure had not
been replaced, but a cavernous entryway for trucks had been torn in
its front, and upon the cornice, where the old separate metal letters
had spelt "Amberson Block," there was a long billboard sign: "Doogan
Storage."
To spare himself nothing, he went out National Avenue and saw the
piles of slush-covered wreckage where the Mansion and his mother's
house had been, and where the Major's ill-fated five "new" houses had
stood; for these were down, too, to make room for the great tenement
already shaped in unending lines of foundation.
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