{"product_id":"2940013746060","title":"Hans Frost","description":"No one perhaps in the United Kingdom was quite so frightened as was\u003cbr\u003eNathalie Swan on the third day of November, 1924, sitting in a\u003cbr\u003ethird-class carriage about quarter to five of a cold, windy,\u003cbr\u003edarkening afternoon.  Her train was drawing her into Paddington\u003cbr\u003eStation, and how she wished that she were dead!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe sat in a corner on the hard, dusty seat, her hands clenched,\u003cbr\u003eher heart beating with hot, thick, hammering throbs.  She wished\u003cbr\u003ethat she were dead.  She was an orphan.  No one in the world needed\u003cbr\u003eher.  The Proudies whom she was abandoning had been very, very good\u003cbr\u003eto her, but certainly did not need her.  The famous Mrs. Frost to\u003cbr\u003ewhom she was going would almost surely not be good to her--and as\u003cbr\u003eto needing her . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOpen upon her lap was a number of that shiny geographically\u003cbr\u003eillustrated paper the London News, and among other portraits was\u003cbr\u003eone of Hans Frost, and under it was written:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. Hans Frost, whose Seventieth Birthday occurs on November 3.\u003cbr\u003eHis friends and admirers are marking the occasion with a suitable\u003cbr\u003epresentation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKind Samuel Proudie had not known that the photograph was there,\u003cbr\u003ewhen at Polchester Station he had bought illustrated papers and\u003cbr\u003eflung them onto her lap.  She herself had, of course, not known it,\u003cbr\u003eand it had been with a kind of shock that she had recognized the\u003cbr\u003ewell-known features, the square rugged face with the deep,\u003cbr\u003epenetrating eyes, the round head with its short, thick, black hair,\u003cbr\u003ethe face austere like a priest's, the shoulders broad, the body\u003cbr\u003erather squat, the short sturdy legs, standing there in the\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful book-lined library--no man of seventy here surely.  Not\u003cbr\u003eeven a man of letters.  Rather priest plus prize-fighter plus (in\u003cbr\u003esome implied kindly geniality) Father Christmas without the beard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then at the last something enigmatic. . . .  Or did one imagine\u003cbr\u003ethat because one knew how great he was?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNathalie was nineteen years and no fool.  She had had this face in\u003cbr\u003efront of her, framed in a neat black frame for the last six years,\u003cbr\u003ehad carried it with her everywhere, had had it always in her\u003cbr\u003ebedroom wherever she might be.  For was he not her uncle, her\u003cbr\u003efamous, marvellous uncle whom she had never seen but had made her\u003cbr\u003ehero, her conception of God, indeed, ever since she could remember?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow tiny, but how defiant, she had been on that first morning at\u003cbr\u003ethe Polchester High School, when, hemmed in by tormentors, she had\u003cbr\u003eboasted:  \"You can do what you like, but I've got a grander uncle\u003cbr\u003ethan you have!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe name, Hans Frost, had meant nothing to them until they had\u003cbr\u003eenquired of fathers and mothers at home, but then, after those\u003cbr\u003eenquiries, she had received her coveted glory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mother says he's the most wonderful writer.  What's he like?  Does\u003cbr\u003ehe take you to theatres when you're in London?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then must come the sad confession that she had never seen him,\u003cbr\u003ethat he had perhaps never heard of her, that he was her uncle only\u003cbr\u003ebecause he had married her aunt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd yet some glory lingered.  The time had come at last when she\u003cbr\u003eread his books.  Always surreptitiously.  They were forbidden.\u003cbr\u003eMrs. Proudie thought them shocking.  All except the fairy stories,\u003cbr\u003eand they might also be shocking, did one understand what they\u003cbr\u003emeant. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNathalie read some of the fairy stories first: The Crystal Bell,\u003cbr\u003eThe Duchess of Paradis, The Palace of Ice.  She did not at the time\u003cbr\u003ebother about inner meanings.  She took the pictures for what they\u003cbr\u003ewere.  The Prince in The Crystal Bell crossing the Lake of Fire,\u003cbr\u003ethe Duchess of Paradis opening the casket of jade, the Dwarfs in\u003cbr\u003eGreen Parrots tying the tails of the monkeys together while they\u003cbr\u003eslept.  Then (she was seventeen now) she came to the novels.  She\u003cbr\u003esaved up her money and bought The Praddons, The Silver Tree, Joy\u003cbr\u003eHas Three Faces, and The Chinese Miracle.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070246535408,"sku":"2940013746060","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013746060_p0.jpg?v=1763589697","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013746060","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}