After a time he discovered that this
happened only when he tried to open his eyes and look about him; so he
kept his eyes shut, and his thoughts were clearer.
He thought of Eugene Morgan and of the Major; they seemed to be the
same person for awhile, but he managed to disentangle them and even to
understand why he had confused them. Long ago his grandfather had
been the most striking figure of success in the town: "As rich as
Major Amberson!" they used to say. Now it was Eugene. "If I had
Eugene Morgan's money," he would hear the workmen day-dreaming at the
chemical works; or, "If Eugene Morgan had hold of this place you'd see
things hum!" And the boarders at the table d'hote spoke of "the
Morgan Place" as an eighteenth-century Frenchman spoke of Versailles.
Like his uncle, George had perceived that the "Morgan Place" was the
new Amberson Mansion. His reverie went back to the palatial days of
the Mansion, in his boyhood, when he would gallop his pony up the
driveway and order the darkey stable-men about, while they whooped and
obeyed, and his grandfather, observing from a window, would laugh and
call out to him, "That's right, Georgie.
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