Chapters 20
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1 01 - Aunt Kipp 40:52
And KIPP. Children and fools speak the truth. What's that sigh for, Polly, dear? "'I'm tired, mother, tired of working and waiting. If I'm ever going to have any fun, I want it now while I can enjoy it. You shouldn't wait another hour if I could have my way, but you know how helpless I am.' And poor Mrs. Snow sighed dolefully as she glanced about the dingy room and pretty Mary turning her faded gown for the second time. "'If Aunt Kip would give us the money she is always talking about, instead of waiting till she dies, we should be so comfortable.' She is a dreadful bore, for she lives in such terror of dropping dead with her heart complaint, that she doesn't take any pleasure in life herself, or let anyone else.
So the sooner she goes, the better for all of us, said Polly in a desperate tone, for things looked very black to her just then. "'My dear, don't say that,' began her mother, mildly shocked. But a bluff little voice broke in with the forcible remark. "'She's everlastingly telling me never to put off till tomorrow what can be done today.' Next time she comes, I'll remind her of that, and ask her, if she is going to die, why doesn't she do it? Toady, you're a wicked, disrespectful boy. Never let me hear you say such a thing again about your dear Aunt Kip. She isn't, dear. You know we all hate her, and you are more afraid of her than you are of spiders. So now. The young personage, whose proper name had been corrupted into Toady, was a small boy of ten or eleven, apple-cheeked, round-eyed, and curly-headed.
Arrayed in well-worn grey knickerbockers, profusely adorned with paint, glue, and shreds of cotton. Perched on a high stool at an isolated table in a state of chaos, he was absorbed in making a boat, entirely oblivious of the racking toothache which had been his excuse for staying from school. As cool, saucy, hard-handed, and soft-hearted a little specimen of young America was Toady as you would care to see. A tyrant at home, a rebel at school. A sworn foe to law, order, and antkip. This young person was regarded as a reprobate by all but his mother, sister, and sister's sweetheart, Van Barlam. Having been, through much anguish of flesh and spirit, taught that lying was a deadly sin, Toady rushed to the other extreme, and bolted out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, at all times and places, with a startling abruptness that brought wrath and dismay upon his friends and relatives.
It's wicked to fib. You've whipped that into me, and you can't rub it out," he was wont to say, with vivid recollection of the past tingling in the chubby portions of his frame. Mind your chips, Toadie, and take care what you say to Aunt Kip, or you'll be as poor as a little rat all the days of your life, said Polly, warningly. I don't want her old money, and I'll tell her so if she bothers me about it. I shall go into business with Van and take care of the whole lot. "'So don't you preach, Polly,' returned Toady, with as much dignity as was compatible with a great dab of glue on the end of his snub nose. "'Mother, did Aunt say anything about coming this week?' asked Polly, after a pause of intense thought over a breadth with three darns, two spots, and a burn.
"'Yes,' she wrote that she was too feeble to come at present, as she had such dreadful palpitations she didn't dare stir from her room. "'So we are quite safe for the next week at least, and, bless my soul, there she is now!' Mrs. Snow clasped her hands with a gesture of dismay, and sat as if transfixed by the spectacle of a ponderous lady in an awe-inspiring bonnet, who came walking slowly down the street. Polly gave a groan, and pulled a bright ribbon from her hair. Toady muttered, Oh, bother, and vainly attempted to polish up his countenance with a fragmentary pocket-handkerchief. Nothing but salt fish for dinner, wailed Mrs. Snow, as the shadow of the coming event fell upon her. "'Then we'll make a fool of himself and ruin everything,' sighed Polly, glancing at the ring on her finger.
"'I know she'll kiss me. She never will let a fellow alone,' growled Toadie, scowling darkly. The garden gate clashed, dust flew from the doormat, a heavy step echoed in the hall, an imperious voice called, "'Sophie!' and Aunt Kip entered with a flourish of trumpets, for Toadie blew a blast through his fingers which made the bows totter on her bonnet. "'My dear aunt, I'm very glad to see you,' murmured Mrs. Snow, advancing with a smile of welcome, for though as weak as water grew, she was as kind-hearted a little woman as ever lived." "'What a fib that was,' said Toadie, sadobache. "'We were just saying we were afraid you wouldn't,' began Mary, when a warning—mine now, Polly—caused her to stop short and busy herself with the newcomer's bag and umbrella.
I changed my mind.' "'Theatre, come and kiss me,' answered Aunt Kip briefly. "'Yes, um,' was the plaintive reply, and, closing his eyes, Toady awaited his fate with fortitude. But the dreaded salute did not come, for Aunt Kip exclaimed in alarm, "'Mercy on us! Has the boy got the plague?' "'No, omits paint and dirt and glue, and it won't come off,' said Toady, stroking his variegated countenance with grateful admiration for the stains that saved him. "'Go and wash this moment, sir. Thank heaven!' I've got no boys, cried Aunt Kip, as if boys were some virulent disease which she had narrowly escaped. With a hasty peck at the lips of her two elder relatives, the old lady seated herself and slowly removed the awful bonnet, which in shape and hue much resembled a hearse hung with black crepe.
I'm glad you are better, said Mary, reverently receiving the funeral headgear. I'm not better, cried Aunt Kip. I'm worse, much worse. My days are numbered. I stand on the brink of the tomb and may drop at any moment. Toadie's face was astudy as he glanced up at the old lady's florid continents, down at the floor, as if in search of the above-mentioned brink, and looked unaffectedly anxious to see her drop. Why don't you then was on his lips, but a frown from Polly restrained him, and he sat himself down on the rug to contemplate the corpulent victim. Have a cup of tea, aunt, said Mrs. Snow. I will. Lie down and rest a little, suggested Polly. I won't. Can we do anything for you? said both. Take my things away and have dinner early.
Both departed to perform these behests, and, leaning back in her chair, Aunt Kip reposed. I say, what's a boar? asked Toadie from the rug, where he sat rocking meditatively to and fro, holding on by his shoestrings. It's a kind of a pig, very fierce, and folks are afraid of him, said Aunt Kip. Whose knowledge of natural history was limited. Good for Polly. So you are, sang out the boy, with a hearty child's laugh so pleasant to most ears. What do you mean, sir? demanded the old lady, irefully poking at him with her umbrella. Why, Polly said you were a bore, explained Toadie, with artless frankness. You are fat, you know, and fierce sometimes, and folks are afraid of you. Good, wasn't it? Very.
Mary is a nice, grateful, respectful, loving niece, and I shan't forget her. She may depend on that," and Aunt Kip laughed grimly. May she? That's jolly now. She was afraid you wouldn't give her the money, so I'll tell her it's all right, and innocent Toady nodded approvingly. Oh, she expects some of my money, does she? Course she does. Ain't you always saying you remember us in your will, because father was your favorite nephew and all that? "'I'll tell you a secret if you won't let Polly know I spoke first. "'You'll find out tonight, for you'd see Van and she were sweethearts in a minute.' "'Sweethearts,' cried Aunt Kip, turning red in the face. "'Yes, m'm. Van settled last week, and Polly's been so happy ever since.
Mother likes it, and I like it, for I'm fond of Van. Though I do call him Baba, because he looks like a sheep. We all like it, and we'd all say so if we were not afraid of you.' Mother and Polly, I mean. Of course we men don't mind, but we don't want to fuss. You won't make one, will you now? Anything more expressive of brotherly goodwill, persuasive frankness, and a placid consciousness of having fixed it than Toadie's dirty little face it would be hard to find. Aunt Kip eyed him so fiercely that even before she spoke, a dim suspicion that something was wrong began to dawn on his too-confiding soul. I don't like it, and I'll put a stop to it. I won't have any ridiculous ba-ba's in my family.
If Mary counts on my money to begin housekeeping with, she'll find herself mistaken. For not one penny shall she have, married or single, and you may tell her so. Toady was so taken aback by this explosion that he let go his shoestrings, fell over with a crash, and lay flat, with shovel and tongs spread about him like a pall. In rushed Mrs. Snow and Polly to find the boy's spirits quite quenched for once, and Aunt Kip in towering passion. It all came out in one overwhelming flood of words, and Toady fled from the storm to wander round the house, a prey to the deepest remorse. The meekness of that boy at dinner-time was so angelic that Mrs. Snow would have feared speedy translation for him if she had not been very angry.
Polly's red eyes and Aunt Kip's griffonesque expression of continence weighed upon his soul so heavily that even roly-poly pudding failed to assuage his trouble, and taking his mother into the china closet, he anxiously inquired, if it was all up with Polly. "'I am afraid so, for Aunt vows she will make a new will to-morrow, and leave every penny to the charitable rag-bag society,' sighed Mrs. Snow. "'I didn't mean to do it. I truly didn't. I thought I'd just give her a hint, as you say. She looked all right and laughed when I told her about being a bore.' And I thought she liked it. If she was a man, I'd thrash her for making Polly cry. And Toadie shook his fist at Aunt Kip's umbrella, which was an immense relief to his perturbed spirit.
Bless the boy, I do believe he would, cried Mrs. Snow, watching the little turkey-cock with maternal pride. You can't do that, so just be careful and not make any more mischief, dear. I'll try, Mother, but I'm always getting into scraps with Aunt Kip. She's worse than measles any day. Such an old agrawater. Van's coming this afternoon. Won't he make her pleasant again? Oh, dear no. He will probably make things ten times worse. He's so bashful and queer. I'm afraid our last chance is gone, dearie, and we must rub along as we have done. One sniff of emotion burst from Toady, and for a moment he laid his head in the knife-tray, overcome with disappointment and regret. But scorning to yield to unmanly tears, he was soon himself again.
Thrusting his beloved jackknife with three blades and a file into Polly's hands, he whispered brokenly, "'Keep it forever and ever. I'm awfully sorry.' Then, feeling that the magnitude of this sacrifice atoned for everything, he went to watch for Van, the forlorn hope to which he now clung. Two. "'Sophie, I'm surprised at your want of judgment. Do you really mean to let your girl marry this lamb?' "'Why, the man's a fool,' began Aunt Kip after dinner. By way of opening a pleasant conversation with her relatives. "'Dear me, Aunt, how can you know that when you never saw him?' mildly returned Mrs. Snow. "'I've heard of him, and that's enough for me. I've a deal of penetration in judging character, and I tell you Van Barlam is a fool.' The amiable old lady thought this would rouse Polly, against whom her anger still burned hotly.
But Polly also possessed penetration, and well knowing that contradiction would delight Aunt Kip. She completely took the wind out of her sails by coolly remarking, "'I like fools.' "'Bless my heart, what does the girl mean?' ejaculated Aunt Kip. "'Just what I say. If Van is a fool, I prefer simpletons to wiseacres. I know he is shy and awkward, and does absurd things now and then. But I also know that he has the kindest heart that ever was, is unselfish, faithful, and loving, that he took good care of his old parents till they died, and never thought of himself while they needed him.' He loves me dearly, will wait for me a dozen years, if I say so, and work all his days to make me happy. He's a help and comfort to mother, a good friend to Tony, and I love and respect and am proud of him, though you do say he is a fool, cried Polly heartily.
And you insist on marrying him, demanded Aunt Kipp. Yes, I do. Then I wish a carriage immediately was the somewhat irrelevant reply. "'Why, aunts, you don't mean to go so soon,' cried Mrs. Snow with a reproachful glance at the rebellious Polly. "'Far from it. I wish to see Judge Banks about altering my will,' was the awful answer. Polly's face fell. Her mother gave a despairing sigh. Toadie, who had hovered about the door, uttered a suppressed whistle of dismay, and Mrs. Kipp looked about her with vengeful satisfaction. "'Get the big carry-all and old Bob so the boy can drive. And all of you come. The trip will do you good.' It was like Aunt Kip to invite her poor relations to go and nip their own noses off, as she elegantly expressed it.
It was a party of pleasure that just suited her, for all the fun was on her side. She grew affable at once, quite pressing in her invitation, regretted that Sophie was too busy to go, praised Polly's hat, and professed herself quite satisfied with that dear boy for a driver. The dear boy distorted his young countenance frightfully behind her back. but found a balm for every wound in the delight of being commander of the expedition. The big carryall appeared, and with much creaking and swaying Mrs. Kipp was got into the back seat, where the big body gloomed like a thunder-cloud. Polly, in a high state of indignation, which only made her look ten times prettier, sat in front with Toady, who was a sight to see as he drove off with his short legs planted against the boot, his elbows squared and the big whip scientifically cracking now and then.
Away they went, leaving poor Mrs. Snow to bewail herself dismally after she had smiled and nodded them out of sight. "'Don't go over any bridges or rail-crossings or by any sawmills,' said the old lady, as if the town could be suddenly remodelled to suit her taste. "'Yes, um,' returned Tony, with a crack which would have done honour to a French postilion. It was a fine day, and the young people would have enjoyed the ride, in spite of the breakers ahead, if Aunt Kip hadn't entertained the girl with a glowing account of the splendours of her own wedding.' and aggravated the boy by frequent pokes and directions in the art of driving, of which she was, of course, profoundly ignorant. Polly couldn't restrain a tear or two in thinking of her own poor little prospects, and Toadie was goaded to desperation.
"'I'll give her a regular shaking up. It'll make her hold her tongue and do her good,' he said to himself, as the stony hill sloped temptingly before him. The sly chuck and some mysterious maneuver with the reins, And Bob started off at a brisk trot, as if he objected to the old lady as much as her mischievous little nephew. "'Hold him in! Keep a taut rein! Lord, a mercy, he's running away!' shrieked Aunt Kip, or tried to shriek, for the bouncing and bumping jerked the words out of her mouth with ludicrous incoherency. "'I am holding him, but he will go,' said Toadie, with a wicked triumph in his eye as he glanced back at Polly. The next minute the words were quite true, for as he spoke—' Two or three distracted hens flew squalling over the wall and scattered about, over, under, and before the horse, as only distracted hens could do.
It was too much for Bob's nerves, and taking matters into his own hands, or feet, rather, he broke into a run and rattled the old lady over the stones with a velocity which left her speechless. Polly laughed and Toadie chuckled as they caught glimpses of the awful bonnet vibrating wildly in the background, and felt the frantic clutchings of the old lady's hands. But both grew sober as a shrill car whistle sounded not far off, and Bob, as if possessed by an evil spirit, turned suddenly into the road that led to the railroad crossing. "'That will do, Toadie. Now pull up, for we can't get over in time,' said Polly, glancing anxiously toward the rapidly approaching puffs of white smoke. "'I can't, Polly.
I really can't,' cried the boy, tugging with all his might and beginning to look scared. Polly lent her aid, but Bob scarcely seemed to feel it. For he had been a racer once, and when his blood was up he was hard to handle. His own good sense might have checked him if Aunt Kip hadn't unfortunately recovered her voice at this crisis and uttered a succession of the shrillest screams that ever saluted mortal ears. With a snort and a bound, Bob dashed straight on toward the crossing as the train appeared round the bend. "'Let me out! Let me out! Jump! Jump!' shrieked Aunt Kip. Thrusting her head out of the window while she fumbled madly for the door handle. Oh, Toadie, save us! Save us! gasped Polly, losing her presence of mind, and dropping the reins to cling to her brother with a woman's instinct of faith in the stronger sex.
But Toadie held on manfully, though his arms were nearly pulled off, for never say die was his motto, and a plucky little lad wouldn't show fear before the women. Don't howl! We'll do it! Hi, Bob! with a savage slash of the whip and exciting cry. And terrible reeling and rattling, they did do it, for Bob cleared the track at a breakneck pace just in time for the train to sweep swiftly by behind them. Aunt Kip dropped in a heap. Polly looked up at her brother with a look which he never forgot, and Toadie tried to say stoutly, it's all right, with lips that were white and dry in spite of himself. We shall smash up at the bridge, he muttered as they tore through the town, where everyone obligingly shouted, waved their hats, and danced about on the sidewalks.
Doing nothing but add to Bob's fright and the party's danger. But Toadie was wrong. They did not smash up at the bridge, for before they reached the perilous spot, one man had the sense to fly straight at the horse's head, and hold on till the momentary check enabled others to lend a hand. The instant they were safe, Polly, like a regular heroine, threw herself into the arms of her disheveled preserver, who of course was Van, and would have refreshed herself with hysterics if the sight of Toadie hadn't steadied her. The boy sat as stiff and rigid as a wooden figure till they took their reins from him. Then all the strength seemed to go out of him, and he leaned against his sister as white and trembling as she, whispering with an irrepressible sob, "'Oh, Polly, wasn't it horrid?
Tell mother I stood by you like a man. Do tell her that!' If anyone had had time or heart to laugh, they certainly would have done it when, after much groping, heaving, and hoisting, Mrs. Kipp was extricated and restored to consciousness. For a more ludicrously deplorable spectacle was seldom seen. Quite unheard, though much shaken, the old lady insisted on believing herself to be dying, and kept the town in a ferment till three doctors had pronounced her perfectly well able to go home. Then the perversity of her nature induced her to comply, that she might have the satisfaction of dying on the way, proving herself in the right. Unfortunately, she did not expire, but, having safely arrived, went to bed in high dungeon.
And led Polly and her mother a sad life of it for two weary days. Having heard of Toadie's gallant behavior, she solemnly ordered him up to receive her blessing. But the sight of Aunt Kipp's rubicund visage, surrounded by the stiff frills of an immense nightcap, caused the irreverent boy to explode with laughter in his handkerchief, and to be hustled away by his mother before Aunt Kipp discovered the true cause of his convulsed appearance. Ah, poor dear, his feelings are too much for him. He sees my doom in my face and is overcome by what you refuse to believe. I shan't forget that boy's devotion. Now leave me to the meditations befitting these solemn hours." Mrs. Snow retired, and Aunt Kip tried to sleep, but the murmur of voices and the sound of stifled laughter in the next room disturbed her repose.
They are rejoicing over my approaching end, knowing that I haven't changed my will. Mercenary creatures don't exult too soon. There's time yet, she muttered, and presently unable to control her curiosity. She crept out of bed to listen and peep through the keyhole. Van Barlam did look rather like a sheep. He had a blond curly head, a long face, pale mild eyes, a plaintive voice, and a general expression of innocent timidity strongly suggestive of animated mutton. But Ba-Ba was a trump, as Toady emphatically declared, and though everyone laughed at him, everyone liked him, and that is more than can be said of many saints and sages. He adored Polly, was dutifully kind to her mother, and had stood by T.
Snow, Jr. in many an hour of tribulation with fraternal fidelity. Though he had long blushed, sighed, and cast sheep's eyes at the idol of his affections, only till lately had he dared to bleat forth his passion. Polly loved him because she couldn't help it, but she was proud and wouldn't marry till Aunt Kip's money was hers, or at least a sure prospect of it. And now even the prospect of a prospect was destroyed by the irrepressible toady. They were talking of this as the old lady suspected, and of course the following conversation afforded her intense satisfaction. It's a shame to torment us as she does, knowing how poor we are and how happy a little of her money would make us. I'm tired of being a slave to a cruel old woman just because she's rich.
If it was not for mother, I declare I'd wash my hands of her entirely and do the best I could for myself. Hooray for Polly. I always said let her money go and be jolly without it, cried Toady, who, in his character of wounded hero, reposed with a lordly air on the sofa, enjoying the fragrance of the opa del doc with which his strained wrists were bandaged. It's on your account, children, that I bear with aunt's temper as I do. I don't want anything for myself, but I really think she owes it to your dear father, who was devoted to her while he lived, to provide for his children when he couldn't. After which remarkably spirited speech for her, Mrs. Snow dropped a tear, and stitched away on a small trouser leg which was suffering from a complicated compound fracture.
"'Don't you worry about me, mother. I'll take care of myself and you, too,' remarked Toady, with the cheery belief in impossibilities which makes youth so charming. "'Now, Van, tell us what to do, for things have come to such a pass that we must either break away altogether, or be galley slaves as long as Aunt Kip lives,' said Polly, who was a good deal excited about the matter. "'Well, really, my dear, I don't know,' hesitated Van, who did know what he wanted, but thought it might be selfish to urge it. "'Have you tried to soften your aunt's heart?' he asked after a moment's meditation. "'Good gracious, Van, she hasn't got any,' cried Polly, who firmly believed it. "'It's hossified,' thoughtfully remarked Toadie, quite unconscious of any approach to a joke to everyone eagled.
"'You've had hossification enough for one while,' my lad laughed Van. Well, Polly, if the old lady has no heart, you'd better let her go, for people without hearts are not worth much. That's a beautiful remark, Van, and a wise one. I just wish she could hear you make it, for she called you a fool, said Polly, irefully. Did she? Well, I don't mind. I'm used to it, returned Van placidly. And so he was, for Polly called him a goose every day of her life, and he enjoyed it immensely. Then you think, dear, if we stop worrying about Ant and her mother. and worked instead of waiting, that we shouldn't be any poorer and might be a great deal happier than we are now, asked Polly, making a pretty little tableau as she put her hand through Van's arm and looked up at him with as much love, respect, and reliance as if he had been six feet tall, with the face of an Apollo in the manners of a Chesterfield.
Yes, my dear, I do, for it has troubled me a good deal to see you so badgered by that very uncomfortable old lady. Independence is a very nice thing, and poverty isn't half as bad as this sort of slavery. But you are not going to be poor, nor worry about anything. We'll just be married and take Mother and Toady home and be as jolly as Griggs, and never think of Mrs. K. again. Unless she loses her fortune or gets sick, or comes to grief in any way. We'd lend her a hand then, wouldn't we, Polly?" And Van's mild face was pleasant to behold as he made the kindly proposition. "'Well, we'd think of it,' said Polly, trying not to relent, but feeling that she was going very fast." "'Let's do it,' cried Toady, fired with the thought of privy conspiracy and rebellion.
"'Mother would be so comfortable with Polly, and I'd help Van in the store when I've learned that confounded multiplication table,' he added with a groan. "'And if Aunt Kip comes a-visiting, we'll just say not at home and let her trot off again.' "'It sounds very nice, but Aunt will be dreadfully offended. And I don't wish to be ungrateful,' said Mrs. Snow, brightening visibly. "'There's no ingratitude about it,' cried Van." She might have done everything to make you love and respect and admire her, and been a happy, useful, motherly old soul. But she didn't choose to, and now she must take the consequences. No one cares for her because she cares for nobody. Her money's the plague of her life, and not a single heart will ache when she dies.
Poor Aunt Kip," said Polly softly. Mrs. Snow echoed the words, and for a moment all thought pitifully of the woman whose life had given so little happiness, whose age had won so little reverence. And whose death would cause so little regret. Even Toadie had a kind thought for her as he broke the silence, saying soberly, You'd better put tails on my jackets, mother, then the next time we get runaway with Aunt Kip will have something to hold on by. It was impossible to help laughing at the recollection of the old lady clutching at the boy till he had hardly a button left, and at the paternal air with which he now proposed a much desired change of costume, as if intent on Aunt Kip's future accommodation.
Under the cover of the laugh, the old lady stole back to bed, wide awake and with subjects enough to meditate upon now. The shaking up had certainly done her good, for somehow the few virtues she possessed came to the surface, and the mental shower-bath just received had produced a salutary change. Polly wouldn't have doubted her aunt's possession of a heart, if she could have known the pain and loneliness that made it ache as the old woman crept away. And Toady wouldn't have laughed if he had seen the tears on the face between the big frills as Aunt Kip laid it on the pillow, muttering drearily. "'I might have been a happy, useful woman, but I didn't choose to, and now it's too late.' It was too late to be all she might have been, for the work of seventy selfish years couldn't be undone in a minute.
But with regret rose the sincere wish to earn a little love before the end came, and the old perversity gave a relish to the Reformation. For even while she resolved to do the just and generous thing, she said to herself, "'They say I've got no heart. I'll show them that I have. They don't want my money. I'll make them take it. They turn their backs on me. I'll just render myself so useful and agreeable that they can't do without me.'" 3. Aunt Kip sat bolt upright in the parlour, hemming a small handkerchief adorned with a red ship, surrounded by a border of green monkeys. Toady suspected that this elegant article of dress was intended for him, and yearned to possess it. So, taking advantage of his mother's and Polly's absence, he strolled into the room, and seating himself on a high, hard chair, folded his hands, crossed his legs, and asked for a story with the thirsting-for-knowledge air which little boys wear in the moral story-books.
Now, Anne Kipp had one soft place in her heart, though it was partially ossified, as she very truly declared, and Toady was enshrined therein. She thought there never was such a child, and loved him as she had done his father before him, though the rack wouldn't have forced her to confess it. She scolded, snubbed, and predicted he'd come to a bad end in public. But she forgave his naughtiest pranks, always brought him something when she came, and privately intended to make his future comfortable with half of her fortune. There was a dash and daring, a generosity and integrity about the little fellow, that charmed her. Sophie was weak and low-spirited, Paulie pretty and headstrong. And Aunt Kip didn't think much of either of them.
But Toadie defied, distracted, and delighted her. And to Toadie she clung as one sunshiny thing to her sour, selfish old age. When he made his demure request, she looked at him, and her eyes began to twinkle, for the child's purpose was plainly seen in the loving glances cast upon the pictorial pocket-handkerchief. A story. Yes, I'll tell you one about a little boy who had a kind old, ahem, grandma. She was rich, and hadn't made up her mind who she'd leave her money to. She was fond of the boy, a deal fonder than he deserved, for he was as mischievous a monkey as any that lived in a tree with a curly tail. He put Pepper in her snuff-box. Here Toadie turned scarlet. He cut up her best frisette to make a mane for his rocking horse.
Toadie opened his mouth impulsively, but shuddered again without betraying himself. He repeated rude things to her and called her an old agrowater. Here, Toadie wriggled in his chair and gave a little gasp. If you are tired, I won't go on, observed Aunt Kip mildly. I'm not tired, I'm. It's a very interesting story, replied Toadie, with a gravity that nearly upset the old lady. Well, in spite of all this, that kind, good, forgiving grandma left that bad boy twenty thousand dollars when she died. What do you think of that? asked Aunt Kip, pausing suddenly with her sharp eye on him. I think she was a regular dear, cried Toadie. Holding on to the chair with both hands, as if that climax rather took him off his legs.
And what did the boy do about it? continued Aunt Kip, curiously. He bought a velocipede, and gave his sister half, and paid his mother's rent, and put a splendid marble cherikin over the old lady, and had a jolly good time, and— What in the world is a cherikin? laughed Aunt Kip, as Toadie paused for breath. Why don't you know? Is an angel crying, or pointing up, or flapping his wings? "'They have them over graves, and I'll give you the biggest one I can find when you die. But I'm not in a very great hurry to have you.' "'Thank you, dear. I'm in no hurry myself.' But Toadie the boy did wrong in giving his sister half. She didn't deserve any, and Grandma left word she wasn't to have a penny of it."
"'Really?' cried the boy with a troubled face. "'Yes, really. If he gave her any, he lost it all.' The old lady said so. "'Now, what do you think, asked Aunt Kip?' Who found it impossible to pardon Polly, perhaps because she was young and pretty and much beloved. Toadie's eyes kindled and his red cheeks grew redder still as he cried out defiantly, I think she was a selfish pig, don't you? No, I don't, sir, and I'm sure that little boy wasn't such a fool as to lose the money. He minded his grandma's wishes and kept it all. No, he didn't, roared Toadie, tumbling off his chair in great excitement. He just threw it out of winder and smashed the old chair in all to bits. Aunt Kip dropped her work with a shrill squeak, for she thought the boy was dangerous as he stood before her, sparring away at nothing as the only vent for his indignation.
"'It isn't an interesting story,' he cried, "'and I won't hear any more. And I won't have your money, if I mayn't go halves with Polly. And I'll work to earn more than that, and we'll all be jolly together, and you may give your twenty thousand to the old rag-bags, and I so tell you, Aunt Kip.' "'Why, Toadie, my dear, what's the matter?' cried a mild voice at the door. As young Lamb came trotting up to the rescue. Never you mind, Baba. I shan't do it, and it's a mean shame Polly can't have half. Then she could marry you and be so happy, blubbered Toadie, running to try to hide his tears of disappointment in the coat skirts of his friend. Mr. Lamb, I suppose you are that misguided young man, said Aunt Kip, as if it was a personal insult to herself.
Van Bar Lamb, ma'am, if you please. Yes, thank you, murmured Baba, bowing. blushing and rumpling his curly fleece in bashful trepidation. "'Don't thank me,' cried the old lady. "'I'm not going to give you anything. Far from it. I object to you altogether. What business have you to come courting my niece?' "'Because I love her, ma'am,' returned Van, with unexpected spirit. "'No, you don't. You want her money, or rather my money. She depends on it. But you'll both be disappointed, for she won't have a penny of it,' cried Aunt Kip." who, in spite of her good resolutions, found it impossible to be amiable all at once. I'm glad of it, burst out Van, indignant at her accusation. I didn't want Polly for the money.
I've always doubted if she got it, and I never wished her to make herself a slave to anybody. I've got enough for all, if we're careful, and when my share of the Van Barr property comes, we shall live in Clover. What's that? What property are you talking of? demanded Aunt Kip, pricking up her ears. The great Van Bar estate, ma'am. There has been a long lawsuit about it, but it's nearly settled, and there isn't much doubt that we shall get it. I am the last of our branch, and my share will be a large one. Oh, indeed, I wished you joy, said Aunt Kip, with sudden affability, for she adored wealth, like a few other persons in the world. But suppose you don't get it, how then? Then I shall try to be contented with my salary of two thousand, and make Polly as happy as I can.
Money doesn't always make people happy or agreeable, I find. And Van looked at Aunt Kip in a way that would have made her hair stand erect if she had possessed any. She stared at him a moment, then obeying one of the odd whims that made an irascible weathercock of her, she said abruptly, "'If you had capital, should you go into business for yourself, Mr. Lampkin?' "'Yes, ma'am, at once,' replied Van promptly. "'Suppose you lost the Van Bar money, and someone offered you a tidy little sum to start with. Would you take it?' "'It would depend upon who made the offer, ma'am,' said Van, looking more like a sheep than ever as he stood blinking in surprise. "'Suppose it was me. Wouldn't you take it?' asked Aunt Kip blandly, for the new fancy pleased her.
"'No, thank you, ma'am,' said Van decidedly. "'And why not pray?' cried the old lady, with a shrillness that made him jump, then toady back to the door precipitately. "'Because, if you'll excuse my speaking plainly, I think you owe anything you may have to spare to your niece, Mrs. Snow.' And having freed his mind, Van joined Toady, ready to fly if necessary. "'You're an idiot, sir,' began Aunt Kip, in a rage again. "'Thank you, ma'am.' And Van actually laughed and bowed in return for the compliment. "'Hold your tongue, sir,' snapped the old lady. "'You're a fool, and Sophie is another. She's no strength of mind, no sense about anything, and would make ducks and drakes of my money in less than no time if I gave it to her, as I thought of doing.
Mrs. Kip, you forget who you are speaking to.' Mrs. Snow's sons love and respect her if you don't, and they won't hear anything untrue or unkind said of a good woman, a devoted mother, and an almost friendless widow. Dan wasn't a dignified man at all, but as he said that with a sudden flash of his mild eyes, there was something in his face and manner that daunted Aunt Kip, more than the small fist belligerently shaken at her from behind the sofa. The poor old soul was cross and worried and ashamed of herself, and being as feeble-minded as Sophie in many respects, She suddenly burst into tears, and covering her face with the gay handkerchief, cried as if bent on floating the red ship in a sea of salt water without delay.
"'I'm a poor, lonely, abused old woman,' she moaned, with a green monkey at each eye. "'No one loves me or minds me or thanks me when I want to help them. My money's only a worriment and a burden, and I don't know what to do with it, for people I don't want to leave it to ought to have it, and people I do like won't take it.'" "'Oh, deary me, what shall I do? What shall I do?' "'Shall I tell you, ma'am?' asked Van gently, for though she was a very provoking old lady, he pitied and wished to help her. A nod and a gurgle seemed to give consent, and, boldly advancing, Van said, with a blush and a stammer but a very hearty voice, "'I think, ma'am, if you'd do the right thing with your money, you'd be at ease and find it saved a deal of worry all round.
Give it to Mrs. Snow.'" She deserves it, poor lady, for she's had a hard time, and done her duty faithfully. Don't wait till you are—that is, till you—will to you in point of fact die, ma'am. Give it now, and enjoy the happiness it will make. Give it kindly. Let them see you're glad to do it, and I am sure you'll find them grateful. I'm sure you won't be lonely any more, or feel that you are not loved and thanked. Try it, ma'am, just try it," cried Van, getting excited by the picture he drew. And I give you my word I'll do my best to respect and love you like a son, ma'am." He knew that he was promising a great deal, but for Polly's sake he felt that he could make even that Herculean effort. Aunt Kip was surprised and touched, but the contrary old lady couldn't make up her mind to yield so soon, and wouldn't have done it if Toady hadn't taken her by storm.
Having a truly masculine horror of tears, a very tender heart under his tailless jacket. And being much tumbled up and down in his own mind by the events of the week, the poor little lad felt nerve to attempt any novel enterprise, even that of voluntarily embracing Aunt Kip. First, a grimy little hand came on her shoulder, as she sat sniffing behind the handkerchief. Then, peeping out, she saw an apple-cheeked face very near her own, with eyes full of pity, penitence, and affection. And then she heard a choky little voice say earnestly, "'Don't cry, Auntie.' I'm sorry I was rude. Please be good to Mother and Polly, and I'll love and take care of you, and stand by you all my life. Yes, I'll...
I'll kiss you, I will, by George." And with one promiscuous plunge, the Spartan boy cast himself into her arms. That finished Aunt Kip. She hugged him close and cried out with a salute that went off like a pistol shot. Oh, my dear, my dear, this is better than a dozen Cherikins. When Toadie emerged, somewhat flushed and tumbled, Mrs. Snow, Polly, and Van were looking on with faces full of wonderment, doubt, and satisfaction. To be an object of interest was agreeable to Aunt Kip, and, as her old heart was really softened, she met them with a gracious smile, and extended the olive branch generally. Sophie, I shall give my money to you at once and entirely, only asking that you'll let me stay with you when Polly's gone.
"'I'll do my best to be agreeable, and you'll bear with me because I'm a cranky, solitary old woman and I loved your husband.' Mrs. Snow hugged her on the spot and gushed, of course, murmuring thanks, welcomes, and promises in one grateful burst. "'Polly, I forgive you. I consent to your marriage and will provide your wedding finery. Mr. Lamb, you are not a fool, but a very excellent young man. I thank you for saving my life, and I wish you well with all my heart.' "'You needn't say anything. I'm far from strong, and all this agitation is shortening my life.' Polly and Van shook her hand heartily and beamed upon each other like a pair of infatuated turtle doves with good prospects. "'Toady, you are as near an angel as a boy can be.
Put a name to whatever you most wish for in the world, and it's yours,' said Aunt Kip, dramatically waving the rest away. With his short legs wide apart, his hands behind him, and his rosy face as round and radiant as a rising sun, Toady stood before the fire, surveying the scene with the air of a man who has successfully carried through a difficult and dangerous undertaking, and wasn't proud. His face brightened, then fell, as he heaved a sigh and answered with a shake of his curly head. You can't give me what I want most. There are three things, and I've got to wait for them all. Gracious me, what are they? cried the old lady, good-naturedly, for she felt better already. A mustache, a beaver.
And a sweetheart," answered Toady, with his eyes fixed wistfully on Baba, who possessed all these blessings, and was particularly enjoying the latter at that moment. How Aunt Kip did laugh at this early budding of romance in her pet, and all the rest joined her, for Toady's sentimental air was irresistible. You precocious chick, I dare say you will have them all before we know where we are. Never mind, dearie, you shall have my little watch, and the silver-headed cane with a boar's head on it," answered the old lady in high good humor. You needn't blush, dear. I don't bear malice, so let's forget and forgive. I shall settle things to-morrow, and have a free mind. You are welcome to my money, and I hope I shall live to see you all enjoy it."
So she did, for she lived to see Sophie plump, cheery, and carefree, Polly surrounded by a flock of lambkins, then in possession of a generous slice of the Van Bar fortune. Toady reveling in the objects of his desire, and best of all, she lived to find that it is never too late to make oneself useful, happy, and beloved.
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2 02 - Baxter's Procrustes 27:41
Baxter's Procrustes by Charles W. Chestnut. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lucy Perry. Baxter's Procrestes is one of the publications of the Bodleian Club. The Bodleian Club is composed of gentlemen of culture who are interested in books and book collecting. It was named, very obviously, after the famous library of the same name, and not only became in our city a sort of shrine for local worshippers of fine bindings and rare editions, but was visited occasionally by pilgrims from afar. The Bodleian has entertained Mark Twain, Joseph Jefferson, and other literary and histrionic celebrities.
It possesses quite a collection of personal mementos of distinguished authors, among them a paperweight which once belonged to Goethe, a lead pencil used by Emerson, an autographed letter of Matthew Arnold, and a chip from a tree felled by Mr. Gladstone. Its library contains a number of rare books, including a fine collection on chess, of which game several of the members are enthusiastic devotees. The activities of the club are not, however, confined entirely to books. We have a very handsome clubhouse, and much taste and discrimination have been exercised in its adornment. There are many good paintings, including portraits of the various presidents of the club, which adorn the entrance hall.
After books, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the club is our collection of pipes. In a large rack in the smoking room, Indeed, it is an unwritten rule of the club that no one is eligible for membership who cannot produce a new variety of pipe, which is filed with his application for membership, and, if he passes, deposited with the club collection, he, however, retaining the title in himself. Once a year, Upon the anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh, who, it will be remembered, first introduced tobacco into England, the full membership of the club, as a rule, turns out. A large supply of the very best smoking mixture is laid in. At nine o'clock sharp, each member takes his pipe from the rack, fills it with tobacco, and then the whole club, with the president at the head, all smoking furiously, march in solemn procession from room to room.
Upstairs and downstairs, making the tour of the clubhouse and returning to the smoking room. The president then delivers an address, and each member is called upon to say something, either by way of a quotation or an original sentiment, in praise of the virtues of nicotine. This ceremony, facetiously known as hitting the pipe, being thus concluded, the membership pipes are carefully cleaned out and replaced in the club rack. As I have said, however, the raison d'etre of the club, and the feature upon which its fame chiefly rests, is its collection of rare books, and of these by far the most interesting are its own publications. Even its catalogues are works of art, published in numbered editions, and sought by libraries and book collectors.
Early in its history, it began the occasional publication of books, which should meet the club's standard. Books in which emphasis should be laid upon the qualities that make a book valuable in the eyes of collectors. Of these, age could not, of course, be imparted, but in the matter of fine and curious bindings, of handmade linen papers, of uncut or decolledges, of wide margins and limited editions, the club could control its own publications. The matter of contents was, it must be confessed, a less important consideration. At first it was felt by the publishing committee that nothing but the finest products of the human mind should be selected for enshrinement in the beautiful volumes which the club should issue.
The length of the work was an important consideration. Long things were not compatible with wide margins and graceful slenderness. For instance, we brought out Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, an essay by Emerson, and another by Thoreau. Our Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was Heron Allen's translation of the original manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which, though less poetical than Fitzgerald's, was not so common. Several years ago, we began to publish the works of our own members. Bascombe's essay on pipes was a very creditable performance. It was published in a limited edition of 100 copies, and since it had not previously appeared elsewhere and was copyrighted by the club, it was sufficiently rare to be valuable for that reason.
The second publication of Local Origin was Baxter's Procrestes. I have omitted to say that once or twice a year, at a meeting of which notice has been given, an auction is held at the Bodleian. The members of the club send in their duplicate copies, or books they, for any reason, wish to dispose of, which are auctioned off to the highest bidder. At these sales, which are well attended, the club's publications have, of recent years, formed the leading feature. Three years ago, number three of Bascom's essay on pipes sold for $15. The original cost of publication was $1.75. Later in the evening, an uncut copy of the same brought $30. At the next auction, the price of the cut copy was run up to $25, while the uncut copy was knocked down at $75.
The club had always appreciated the value of uncut copies, but this financial endorsement enhanced their desirability immensely. This rise in the essay on pipes was not without a sympathetic effect upon all the club publications. The Emerson essay rose from $3 to $17, and the Thoreau, being by an author less widely read and, by his own confession, commercially unsuccessful, brought a somewhat higher figure. The prices, thus inflated, were not permitted to come down appreciably. Since every member of the club possessed one or more of these valuable editions, they were all manifestly interested in keeping up the price. The publication, however, which brought the highest prices, And, but for the sober second thought, might have wrecked the whole system, was Baxter's procrustes.
Baxter was, perhaps, the most scholarly member of the club. A graduate of Harvard, he had travelled extensively, had read widely, and while not so enthusiastic a collector as some of us, possessed as fine a private library as any man of his age in the city. He was about thirty-five when he joined the club, and apparently some bitter experience, some disappointment in love or ambition, had left its mark upon his character. With light curly hair, fair complexion, and grey eyes, one would have expected Baxter to be genial of temper, with a tendency toward wordiness of speech. But though he had occasional flashes of humour, his ordinary demeanour was characterised by a mild cynicism, which... With his gloomy, pessimistic philosophy, so foreign to the temperament that should accompany his physical type, could only be accounted for upon the hypothesis of some secret sorrow such as I have suggested.
He had means and social position, and was an uncommonly handsome man. The fact that he remained unmarried at thirty-five furnished some support for the theory of a disappointment in love. Though this, the several intimates of Baxter, who belonged to the club, were not able to verify. It had occurred to me, in a vague way, that perhaps Baxter might be an unsuccessful author, that he was a poet we knew very well, and typewritten copies of his verses had occasionally circulated among us. But Baxter had always expressed such a profound contempt for modern literature. had always spoken in terms of such unmeasured pity for the slaves of the pen, who were dependent upon the whim of an undiscriminating public, for recognition and a livelihood, that no one of us had ever suspected him of aspirations toward publication, until, as I have said, it occurred to me one day that Baxter's attitude with regard to publication might be viewed in the light of effect as well as of cause.
That his scorn of publicity might as easily arise from failure to achieve it, as his never having published might be due to his preconceived disdain of the vulgar popularity, which one must share with the The notion of publishing Baxter's Procrustes did not emanate from Baxter. I must do him the justice to say this. But he had spoken to several of the fellows about the theme of his poem, until the notion that Baxter was at work upon something fine had become pretty well disseminated throughout our membership. He would occasionally read brief passages to a small coterie of friends in the sitting-room or library, never more than ten lines at once, or to more than five people at a time, and these excerpts gave at least a few of us a pretty fair idea of the motive and scope of the poem.
As I, for one, gathered, it was quite along the line of Baxter's philosophy. Society was the Procrustes which, like the Greek bandit of old, caught every man born into the world and endeavoured to fit him to some preconceived standard, generally to the one for which he was least adapted. The world was full of men and women who were merely square pegs in round holes, and vice versa. Most marriages were unhappy because the contracting parties were not properly mated. Religion was mostly superstition, science for the most part sialism, popular education merely a means of forcing the stupid and repressing the bright, so that all the youth of the rising generation might conform to the same dull, dead level of democratic mediocrity.
Life would soon become so monotonously uniform and so uniformly monotonous as to be scarce worth the living. It was Smith, I think, who first proposed that the club publish Baxter's Procrustease. The poet himself did not seem enthusiastic when the subject was broached. He demurred for some little time, protesting that the poem was not worthy of publication. But when it was proposed that the edition be limited to 50 copies, he agreed to consider the proposition. When I suggested, having in mind my secret theory of Baxter's failure in authorship, that the edition would at least be in the hands of friends, that it would be difficult for a hostile critic to secure a copy, And that if it should not achieve success from a literary point of view, the extent of the failure will be limited to the size of the edition, Baxter was visibly impressed.
When the Literary Committee at length decided to request formally of Baxter the privilege of publishing his procrustes, he consented, with evident reluctance, upon condition that he should supervise the printing, binding, and delivery of the books, merely submitting to the committee in advance the manuscript and taking their views in regard to the bookmaking. The manuscript was duly presented to the literary committee. Baxter, having expressed the desire that the poem be not read aloud at a meeting of the club, as was the custom, since he wished it to be given to the world clad in suitable garb, the committee went even farther. Having entire confidence in Baxter's taste and scholarship, they, with great delicacy, refrained from even reading the manuscript, contenting themselves with Baxter's statement of the general theme and the topics grouped under it.
The details of the bookmaking, however, were gone in too thoroughly. The paper was to be of handmade linen from the Kelmscott mills, the type black letter with rubricated initials. The cover, which was Baxter's own selection, was to be of dark green Morocco with a cap and bells border in red inlays, and de Blors of maroon Morocco with a blind tool design. Baxter was authorised to contract with the printer and superintend the publication. The whole edition of 50 numbered copies was to be disposed of at auction, in advance, to the highest bidder, only one copy to each, the proceeds to be devoted to paying for the printing and binding, the remainder, if any, to go into the club treasury, and Baxter himself to receive one copy by way of remuneration.
Baxter was inclined to protest at this, on the ground that his copy would probably be worth more than the royalties on the edition, at the usual 10%, would amount to. But was finally prevailed upon to accept an author's copy. While the Procrustes was under consideration, someone read, at one of our meetings, a note from some magazine which stated that a sealed copy of a new translation of Campanella's sonnets, published by the Grollier Club, had been sold for $300. This impressed the members greatly. It was a novel idea. A new work might thus be enshrined in a sort of holy of holies, which... If the collector so desired, could be forever sacred from the profanation of any vulgar or unappreciative eye.
The possessor of such a treasure could enjoy it by the eye of imagination, having at the same time the exaltation of grasping what was for others the unadvanced. The literary committee was so impressed with this idea that they presented it to Baxter in regard to the Procrustees. Baxter making no objection, the subscribers who might wish their copies delivered sealed were directed to notify the author. I sent in my name. A fine book, after all, was an investment, and if there was any way of enhancing its rarity, and therefore its value, I was quite willing to enjoy such an advantage. When the Becrustes was ready for distribution, each subscriber received his copy by mail, in a neat pasteboard box.
Each number was wrapped in a thin and transparent, but very strong paper, through which the cover design and tooling were clearly visible. The number of the copy was endorsed upon the wrapper, the folds of which were securely fastened at each end with sealing-wax, upon which was impressed, as a guarantee of its inviolateness, the monogram of the club. At the next meeting of the Bodleian, a great deal was said about the Procrustees, and it was unanimously agreed that no finer specimen of bookmaking had ever been published by the club. By a curious coincidence, no one had brought his copy with him, and the two club copies had not yet been received from the binder. Who, Baxter had reported, was retaining them for some extra fine work.
Upon resolution, offered by a member who had not subscribed for the volume, a committee of three was appointed to review the Procrustes at the next literary meeting of the club. Of this committee, it was my doubtful fortune to constitute one. In pursuance of my duty in the premises, it of course became necessary for me to read the Procrustes. In all probability, I should have cut my own copy for this purpose, had not one of the club auctions intervened between my appointment and the date set for the discussion of the Procrustees. At this meeting, a copy of the book, still sealed, was offered for sale, and bought by a non-subscriber for the unprecedented price of $150. After this, a proper regard for my own interests would not permit me to spoil my copy by opening it, and I was therefore compelled to procure my information concerning the poem from some other source.
As I had no desire to appear mercenary, I said nothing about my own copy, and made no attempt to borrow. I did, however, casually remark to Baxter that I should like to look at his copy of the proof-sheets, since I wished to make some extended quotations for my review, and would rather not trust my copy to a typist for that purpose. Baxter assured me, with every evidence of regret, that he had considered them of so little importance that he had thrown them into the fire. This indifference of Baxter to literary values struck me as just a little overdone. The proof sheets of Hamlet, corrected in Shakespeare's own hand, would be well-nigh priceless. At the next meeting of the club, I observed that Thompson and Davis, who were with me on the reviewing committee, very soon brought up the question of the Procrestes in conversation in the smoking room, and seemed anxious to get from the members their views concerning Baxter's production.
I supposed, upon the theory, that the appreciation of any book review would depend more or less upon the degree to which it reflected the opinion of those to whom the review should be presented. I presumed, of course, that Thompson and Davis had each read the book. They were among the subscribers, and I was desirous of getting their point of view. What do you think, I inquired, of the passage on social systems? I have forgotten to say that the poem was in blank verse, and divided into parts, each with an appropriate title. Well... replied Davis. It seemed to me a little cautiously. It is not exactly Spenserian, although it squints at the Spenserian view, with a slight deflection toward Hegelianism.
I should consider it an harmonious fusion of the best views of all the modern philosophers, with a strong Baxterian flavour." Yes, said Thompson. The charm of the chapter lies in this very quality. The style is an emanation from Baxter's own intellect. He has written himself into the poem. By knowing Baxter, we are able to appreciate the book, and after having read the book, we feel that we are so much the more intimately acquainted with Baxter. The real Baxter. Baxter had come in during this colloquy, and was standing by the fireplace, smoking a pipe. I was not exactly sure whether the faint smile which marked his face was a token of pleasure or cynicism. It was Baxterian, however, and I had already learned that Baxter's opinions upon any subject were not to be gathered always from his facial expressions.
For instance, when the club porter's crippled child died, Baxter remarked, it seemed to me, unfeelingly, that the poor little devil was doubtless better off, and that the porter himself had certainly been relieved of a burden. And only a week later, the porter told me, in confidence, that Baxter had paid for an expensive operation undertaken in the hope of prolonging the child's life. I therefore drew no conclusions from Baxter's somewhat enigmatical smile. He left the room at this point in the conversation, somewhat to my relief. "'By the way, Jones,' said Davis, addressing me, "'are you impressed by Baxter's views on degeneration?' Having often heard Baxter express himself upon the general downward tendency of modern civilisation, I felt safe in discussing his views in a broad and general manner.
"'I think,' I replied, "'that they are in harmony with those of Schopenhauer.'" Without his bitterness. With those of Nordau, without his flippancy. His materialism is hackles, presented with something of the charm of Omar Khayyam. Yes, chimed in Davis, it answers the strenuous demand of our day, dissatisfaction with an unjustified optimism, and voices for us the courage of human philosophy facing the unknown. I had a vague recollection of having read something like this somewhere, but so much has been written that one can scarcely discuss any subject of importance without unconsciously borrowing now and then the thoughts or the language of others. Quotation, like imitation, is a superior grade of flattery.
The procrustes, said Thompson, to whom the metrical review had been apportioned, is couched in sonorous lines of haunting melody and charm, and yet so closely interrelated as to be scarcely quotable with justice to the author. To be appreciated, the poem should be read as a whole. I shall say as much in my review. What shall you say of the letterpress? he concluded, addressing me. I was supposed to discuss the technical excellence of the volume from the connoisseur's viewpoint. The setting, I replied judicially, is worthy of the gem. The dark green cover, elaborately tooled, the old English lettering, the heavy linen paper, mark this as one of our very choicest publications. The letterpress is, of course, Divini's best.
There is nothing better on this side of the Atlantic. The text is a beautiful slender stream, meandering gracefully through a wide meadow of margin. For some reason, I left the room for a minute. As I stepped into the hall, I almost ran into Baxter, who was standing near the door, facing a hunting print of a somewhat humorous character, hung upon the wall, and smiling with an immensely pleased expression. "'What a ridiculous scene,' he remarked. "'Look at that fat old squire on that tall hunter. I'll wager dollars to donuts that he won't get over the first fence.' It was a very good bluff, but did not deceive me. Under his mask of unconcern, Baxter was anxious to learn what we thought of his poem, and had stationed himself in the hall that he might overhear our discussion without embarrassing us by his presence.
He had covered up his delight at our appreciation by this simulated interest in the hunting prince. When the night came for the review of the Procrustes, there was a large attendance of members and several visitors, among them a young English cousin of one of the members, on his first visit to the United States. Some of us had met him at other clubs and in society, and had found him a very jolly boy, with a youth-flictuberance of spirits and a naive ignorance of things American that made his views refreshing and, at times, amusing. The critical essays were well considered, if a trifle vague. Baxter received credit for poetic skill of a high order. "'Our brother Baxter,' said Thompson, "'should no longer bury his talent in a napkin.
This gem, of course, belongs to the club.'" But the same brain from which issue this exquisite emanation can produce others to inspire and charm an appreciative world. The author's view of life, said Davis, as expressed in these beautiful lines, will help us to fit our shoulders for the heavy burden of life, by bringing to our realization those profound truths of philosophy which find hope in despair and pleasure in pain. When he shall see fit to give the wider world, in fuller form, the thoughts of which we have been vouchsafed this foretaste, let us hope that some little ray of his fame may rest upon the Bodleian, from which can never be taken away the proud privilege of saying that he was one of its members.
I then pointed out the beauties of the volume as a piece of bookmaking. I knew, from conversation with the publication committee, the style of type and rubrication, and could see the cover through the wrapper of my sealed copy. The dark green Morocco, I said in summing up, typified the author's serious view of life as a thing to be endured as patiently as might be. The Cap'n Bell's border was significant of the shams by which the optimist sought to delude himself into the view that life was a desirable thing. The intricate blind tooling of the de Blure shadowed forth the blind fate which left us in ignorance of our future and our past, or of even what the day itself might bring forth. The black-letter type, with rubricated initials, signified a philosophic pessimism enlightened by the conviction that, in duty, one might find, after all, an excuse for life, and a hope for humanity.
Applying this test to the club, This work, which might be said to represent all that the Bodleian stood for, was in itself sufficient to justify the club's existence. If the Bodleian had done nothing else, if it should do nothing more, it had produced a masterpiece. There was a sealed copy of the Procrestes belonging, I believe, to one of the committee, lying on the table by which I stood, and I had picked it up and held it in my hand for a moment, to emphasise one of my periods, but had laid it down immediately. I noted, as I sat down, that young Hunkin, our English visitor, who sat on the other side of the table, had picked up the volume and was examining it with interest. When the last review was read, and the generous applause had subsided, there were cries for Baxter.
Baxter! Baxter! Author! Author! Baxter had been sitting over in a corner during the reading of the reviews. And had succeeded remarkably well, it seemed to me, in concealing, under his mask of cynical indifference, the exultation which I was sure he must feel. But this outburst of enthusiasm was too much even for Baxter, and it was clear that he was struggling with strong emotion when he rose to speak. Gentlemen and fellow members of the Bodleian, it gives me unaffected pleasure, sincere pleasure. Someday you may know how much pleasure. I cannot trust myself to say it now. To see the evident care with which your committee have read my poor verses, and the responsive sympathy with which my friends have entered into my views of life and conduct.
I thank you again, and again, and when I say that I am too full for utterance, I am sure you will excuse me from saying any more." Baxter took his seat, and the applause had begun again, when it was broken by a sudden exclamation. "'By Jove!' exclaimed our English visitor, who still sat behind the table. "'What an extraordinary book!' Everyone gathered around him. "'You see,' he exclaimed, holding up the volume, "'you fellows said so much about the Bally book that I wanted to see what it was like, "'so I untied the ribbon and cut the leaves with the paper knife lying here, "'and found, and found that there wasn't a single line in it, don't you know?' Blank consternation followed this announcement, which proved only too true.
Everyone knew instinctively, without further investigation, that the club had been badly sold. In the resulting confusion Baxter escaped, but later was waited upon by a committee, to whom he made the rather lame excuse that he had always regarded uncut and sealed books as Tommy-rot, and that he had merely been curious to see how far the thing could go, and that the result had justified his belief that a book with nothing in it was just as useful to a book collector as one embodying a work of genius. He offered to pay all the bills for the Shambra Crusties, or to replace the blank copies with the real thing, as we might choose. Of course, after such an insult, the club did not care for the poem.
He was permitted to pay the expense, however, and it was more than hinted to him that his resignation from the club would be favourably acted upon. He never sent it in, and, as he went to Europe shortly afterwards, the affair had time to blow over. In our first disgust at Baxter's duplicity, most of us cut our copies of the Procrustes. Some of us mailed them to Baxter with cutting notes, and others threw them into the fire. A few wiser spirits held on to theirs, and this fact leaking out, it began to dawn upon the minds of the real collectors among us that the volume was something unique in the way of a publication. Baxter, said our president one evening, to a select few of us who sat around the fireplace, was wiser than we knew, or than he perhaps appreciated.
His procrustes, from the collector's point of view, is entirely logical and might be considered as the acme of bookmaking. To the true collector, A book is a work of art, of which the contents are no more important than the words of an opera. Fine binding is a desideratum, and, for its cost, that of the Procrustes could not be improved upon. The paper is above criticism. The true collector loves wide margins, and the Procrustes, being all margin, merely touches the vanishing point of the perspective. The smaller the edition, the greater the collector's eagerness to acquire a copy. There are but six uncut copies left, I am told, of the Procrustes, and three sealed copies, of one of which I am the fortunate possessor.
After this deliverance, it is not surprising that, at our next auction, a sealed copy of Baxter's Procrustes was knocked down, after spirited bidding, for $250, the highest price ever brought by a single volume published by the club. Charles W. Chestnut. End of Baxter's Procrustes by Charles W. Chestnut.
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3 03 - Beyond the Spectrum 47:09
Beyond the Spectrum by Morgan Robertson. Read by Joe DeNoia, Chesterfield, New Jersey. September 28th, 2021. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Beyond the spectrum.
The long-expected crisis was at hand, and the country was on the verge of war.
Jingoism was rampant. Japanese laborers were mobbed on the western slope. Japanese students were hazed out of colleges, and Japanese children stoned away from playgrounds.
Editorial pages sizzled with burning words of patriotism. Pulpits thundered with invocations to the god of battles, and prayers for the perishing of the way of the ungodly.
Schoolboy companies were formed and paraded with wooden guns. Amateur Drone Corps beat time to the throbbing of the public pulse.
Militia regiments, battalions, and separate companies of infantry and artillery drilled, practiced, and paraded. While the regular army was rushed to the posts and garrisons of the Pacific coast. And the navy, in three divisions, guarded the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines, and the larger ports of Western America. For Japan had a million trained men, with transports to carry them, battleships to guard them, with the choice of objective when she was ready to strike. And she was displaying a national secrecy about her choice, especially irritating to molders of public opinion and lovers of fair play.
War was not yet declared by either side, though the Japanese minister at Washington had quietly sailed for Europe on private business, and the American minister at Tokyo, with several consuls and clerks scattered around the ports of Japan, had left their jobs hurriedly for reasons connected with their general health.
This was the situation when the cabled news from Manila told of the staggering interport of the scout cruiser Salem, with a steward in command, a stoker at the wheel, the engines in charge of firemen, and the captain, watch officers, engineers, seamen gunners, The cruiser was temporarily out of commission and had stricken men in the hospital. But by the time the specialist had diagnosed the trouble as amblyopia, from some sudden shock of the optic nerve, followed in cases by complete atrophy resulting in amaurosis. Another ship came into Honolulu in the same predicament.
Like the other craft four thousand miles away, her deck force had been stricken suddenly at night.
Still another, a battleship, followed into Honolulu, with fully five hundred more or less blind men groping about her decks, and the admiral on the station called in all the outriders by wireless.
They came as they could, some hitting sandbars or shoals on the way, and everyone crippled and helpless to fight.
The diagnosis was the same. Ambyopia, atrophy of the nerve, and incipient amaurosis, which in plain language meant dimness of vision increasing to blindness.
Then came more news from Manila. Ship after ship came in, or was towed in, with fighting force sightless, and the work being done by the Black Gang or the Idlers, and each with the same report. The gradual dimming of lights and outlines as the night went on, resulting in partial or total blindness by sunrise.
And now it was remarked that those who escaped were the lower-deck workers, those whose duties kept them off the upper deck and away from the gun-boards and dead-lights.
It was also suggested that the cause was some deadly attribute of the night air in those tropical regions, to which the Americans succumbed. For, so far, the Coast Division had escaped.
In spite of the efforts of the government, The associate press got to facts, and the newspapers of the country changed the burden of their pronouncements.
Bombastic utterances gave way to bitter criticism of an inefficient naval policy that left the ships short of fighters in a crisis.
The merging of the line and the staff, which had excited much ridicule when inaugurated, now received more intelligent attention.
Former critics of the change not only condoned it, but even demanded the wholesale granting of commissions to skippers and mates of the merchant service, and insisted that surgeons, engineers, haymasters, and chaplains, provided that they could still see to box the compass, should be given command of the torpedo craft and smaller scouts.
All of which may young surgeon Metcalfe on waiting orders at San Francisco, smiled sweetly and darkly to himself, for his last appointment had been the command of a hospital ship, in which position, though a seaman, navigator, and graduate of Annapolis, he had been made the subject of newspaper ridicule and official controversy, and had even been caricatured as going into battle in a ship armored with court-plaster and armed with hypodermic syringes.
Metcalfe had resigned as ensign to take up the study and practice of medicine, but at the beginning of the war scare had returned to his first love, relinquishing a lucrative practice as eye specialist to tender his services to the government.
And the government had responded by ranking him with his class as junior lieutenant, and giving him the aforesaid command. which he was glad to be released from.
But his classmates and brother officers had not responded so promptly with their welcome, and Metcalfe found himself combating a naval etiquette that was nearly as intolerant of him as of other appointees from civil life.
It embittered him a little, but he pulled through, for he was a likable young fellow, with a cheery face, And pleasant voice, and even the most hidebound product of Annapolis could not long resist his personality.
So he was not entirely barred out of official gossip and speculations, and soon had an opportunity to question some convalescence sent home from Honolulu.
All told the same story, and described the same symptoms, but one added an extra one.
An itching and burning of the face had accompanied the attack, such as is produced by sunburn. "'And where were you that night when it came?' asked Metcalfe eagerly.
"'On the bridge, with the captain and watch officers.' It was all hands that night. We had made a curious light to the northern, and were trying to find out what it was." "'What kind of a light?' Well, it was rather faint, and seemed to be about a mile away. Sometimes it looked red, then green, or yellow or blue.
And then it disappeared?
Yes, and though we steamed toward it with all the searchlights at work, we never found where it came from.
What form did it take? A beam or a glow?
It wasn't a glow, radiation, and it didn't seem to be a beam. It was an occasional flash, and in this sense was like a radiation.
That is, like the spokes of a wheel. Each spoke with its own color.
But that was at the beginning. In three hours, None of us could have distinguished colors.
Metcalfe soon had an opportunity to question others. The first batch of invalid officers arrived from Manila, and these, on being pressed, admitted that they had seen colored lights at the beginning of the night.
These, Metcalfe remarked, were watch officers, whose business was to look for strange lights and investigate them.
But one of them added this factor to the problem.
And it was curious about Brainerd, the most useless and utterly incompetent man ever graduated. He was so near-sighted that he couldn't see the end of his nose without glasses.
But it was he that took the chip in, with the rest of us eating with our fingers and asking our way to the sickbay.
And Brainerd wore his glasses that night. asked Mecheth. Yes, he couldn't see without him. It reminds me of Nydia, the blind girl who piloted a bunch out of Pompeii because she was used to the darkness.
Still, Brainerd is hardly a parallel.
Were his glasses the ordinary kind, or Pebble's?
Don't know. Which is the cheapest? That's the kind.
The ordinary kind.
Well, he had the ordinary kind, like himself. And he'll get special promotion. Oh, Lord, he'll be jumped up a dozen numbers.
Well, said Metcalf mysteriously, perhaps not. Just wait.
Metcalf kept his counsel, and in two weeks there came Japan's declaration of war in a short curt note to the powers at Washington.
Next day, the papers burned with news, cabled via St. Petersburg in London, of the sailing of the Japanese fleet from its home station.
But for wear was not given. In all probability, either the Philippines or the Hawaiian Islands.
But when, next day, the torpedo-bug came into San Francisco in command of the cook, with his mess-boy at the wheel, conservatism went to the dogs, and bounties were offered for enlistment at the various naval yards, while commissions were made out as fast as they could be signed, and given to any applicant who could even pretend to a knowledge of yachts.
And Sergeant George Metcalfe, with the rank of junior lieutenant, was ordered to the torpedo-boat above mention, and with him as executive officer a young graduate of the academy, Ensign Smith, who with the enthusiasm and courage of youth combined the mediocrity of inexperience and the full share of the service prejudice against civilians.
This prejudice remained in full force, unmodified by the desperate situation of the country. And the unstricken young officers filling subordinate positions of the big craft, while congratulating him, openly denied his moral right to a command that others had earned a better right to by remaining in the service.
And the old jokes, jives, and satirical references to syringes and sticking-plaster whirled about his head as he went to and fro, fitting out his boat and laying in supplies.
But when they learned from young Mr. Smith that among these supplies was a large assortment of plain glass spectacles, of no magnifying power whatever, the ridicule was unanimous and heartfelt.
Even the newspapers taking up the case from the old standpoint and admitting that the line ought to be drawn at lunatics and foolish people.
But Lt. Metcalf smiled and went quietly ahead, asking for and receiving orders to scout.
He received them the more readily, and as all the scouts in the squadron, including the torpedo flotilla and two battleships, had come in with blinded crews.
Their stories were the same. They had all seen the mysterious colored lights, had gone blind, and a few had felt the itching and tingling of sunburn.
And the Admiral gleaned one crew of whole men from the fleet, and with it manned his best ship, the Delaware.
Metcalfe went to sea, and was no sooner outside the Golden Gate than he opened his case of spectacles, and scandalized all hands, even his executive officer, by stern and explicit orders to wear them night and day, putting on a pair himself as an example.
A few of the men attested good eyesight, but this made no difference, he explained. They were to wear them, or take the consequences, and as the first man to take the consequences was Mr. Smith, whom he sent to his room for twenty-four hours for appearing on deck without them five minutes afterwards, the men concluded that he was in earnest, and obeyed the order, though with smiles and silent ridicule.
Another explicit command they received more readily, to watch out for curious-looking craft, and for small objects such as floating casks, capsized tubs or boats, etc.
And this brought results the day after the penitent smith was released.
They sighted the craft without spars, steaming along on the horizon, and ran down to her.
She was a sealer, The skipper explained when hailed, homeward bound under the auxiliary.
She had been on fire, but the cause of the fire was a mystery.
A few days before, a strange-looking vessel had passed them, a mile away. She was a whaleback sort of a hull, with sloping ends, without spars or funnels, only a slim pole amidships. And near its base, A projection that looked like a liner's crow's nest.
While they watched, their foremast burst into flames, and while they were rigging their hoes, the mainmast caught fire.
Before this ladder was well under way, they noticed a round hole burn deeply into the mast, of about four inches diameter.
Next. The topsides caught fire, and they had barely saved their craft, letting their masks burn to do so.
Was it a bright, sunshiny day? asked Metcalf.
Sure. Four days ago, he was heading about southwest and going slow.
Anything happen to your eyesight? Say, yes. One of my men's gone stone-blind. Thinks he must have looked squarely at the sun when he thought he was looking at the fire up aloft.
It wasn't the sun. Keep him in utter darkness for a week at least. He'll get well. What was your position when you met that fellow?
About 600 miles due to northwest from here.
All right. Look out for Japanese craft. War is declared.
Metcalfe plotted a new course, designed to intercept that of the mysterious craft, and went on, so elated by the news he had heard, that he took his gaspy young executive into his confidence.
Mr. Smith, he said. That sailor described one of the new sea-going submersibles of the Japanese, did he not?
Yes, sir. I think he did. A larger submarine, without any conning tower and the old-fashioned periscope.
They have seven thousand miles cruising radius, enough to cross the Pacific.
By asking questions of various craft, and by diligent use of a telescope, Metcalfe found his quarry three days later. A log-like object on the horizon, with the slim white pole amidships and the excrescence near its base. "'Wait till I get his bearing by compass,' said Metcalfe to the chief officer. "'Then we'll smoke up our specs and run down on him.
Signal him by the international code to put out his light, and to heave to, or we'll sink him.' Mr. Smith bowed to his superior, and found the numbers of these commands in the code-book, and with a string of small flags at the signal yard, and every man aboard viewing the world darkly through a smoky film, the torpedo-boat approached the stranger at thirty knots. But there was no blinding glare of light in their eyes, and when they were within a hundred yards of the submersible, Metcalfe removed his glasses for a moment's distinct vision.
Head and shoulders out of a hatch near the tube was a man waving a white handkerchief.
He rang the stopping bell.
"'He surrenders, Mr. Smith,' he said joyously, "'and without firing a torpedo.' He examined the man through the telescope and laughed.
"'I know him,' he said. Then, funneling his hands, he hailed. Do you surrender to the United States of America?" I surrender, answered the man. I am helpless.
Then come aboard without arms. I'll send a boat.
A small dinghy-like boat was dispatched, and it returned with the man, a Japanese in lieutenant's uniform, whose beady eyes twinkled in alarm as Metcalf greeted him.
Well, Sixi, you perfected it, didn't you? My invisible searchlight that I had money to go on with.
The Japs' eyes sought the deck, then resumed their Asiatic steadiness.
Metcalf. This you, he said, in command?
I investigated and heard you had resigned to become a doctor.
But I came back to the service, Sixi, thanks to you and your light. My light, rather. I am in command here in place of men you blinded.
Sixi, you deserve no consideration from me, in spite of our rooming together at Annapolis.
You took—I don't say stole—my invention, and turned it against the country that educated you.
You, your confreres, did this before declaration of war.
You are a pirate, and I could string you up to my signal yard and escape criticism.
I was under orders from my superiors, Captain Metcalfe.
They shall answer to mine. You shall answer to me.
How many boats have you equipped with my light?
There are but three. It is very expensive.
One for our Philippine squadron, one for the Hawaiian, and one for the coast.
You overdid things, Zigzy. If you hadn't set fire to the sailor the other day, I might not have found you. It was a senseless piece of work that did you no good.
Oh. You are a sweet character. How did you get your ultraviolet rays? By filtration or prismatic dispersion?
By filtration.
Sixie, you are a liar as well as a thief. The colored lights you use to attract attention are the discarded rays of the spectrum.
No wonder you investigated me before you dared flash such a decoy.
Well, I'm back in the Navy, and I've been investigating you.
As soon as I heard the first symptoms of sunburn, I knew it was caused by the ultraviolet rays, the same as from the sun. And I knew that nothing but my light could produce those rays at nighttime.
And as a physician, I knew what I did not know as an inventor. The swift amblyopia that follows the impact of this light on the retina.
As a physician, too, I can inform you that your country has not permanently blinded a single American seaman or officer. The effects wear off.
The Jap gazed stolidly before him while Metcalf delivered himself of this, but did not reply.
Where is the Japanese fleet bound? he asked sternly.
I do not know.
Then would you tell whether you knew or not?
But you said you were helpless. What has happened to you? You can tell that.
A simple thing, Captain Metcalfe. My supply of oil leaked away, and my engines must work slowly. Your signal was useless. I could not have turned on the light.
You have answered the first question. You are far from home, without a mothership, or she would have found you and furnished oil before this.
You have come thus far, expecting the fleet to follow and strike a helpless coast before your supplies ran out.
Again, the Jap's eyes dropped in confusion, and Metcalfe went on.
I can refurnish your boat with oil. My engineer and my men can handle her, and I can easily learn to manipulate your—or shall I say our—invisible searchlight.
Hail your craft in English, and order all hands on deck, unarmed, ready for transshipment to this boat.
I shall join your fleet myself.
A man was lounging in the hatchway of the submersible. And this man's sakes he hailed.
Ehi, ehi, Matsu. We surrender. We are prisoner. Call up all men on to the deck. Leave arms behind. We are prisoner.
They mustered 18 in all, and in half an hour they were ironed in a row along the stanchion rail of the torpedo boat.
You too, Saixi, said Metcalfe, coming toward him with a pair of jingling handcuffs.
Is it not customary, Captain Metcalfe, said the Jap, to parole a surrendered commander?
Not the surrendered commander of a craft that uses new and deadly weapons of war unknown to her adversary, and before the declaration of war.
Hold up your hands. You're going into irons with your men.
All Japs look alike to me now.
So Lieutenant Sikese of the Japanese Navy was ironed beside his cook, and meekly sat down on the deck. With a difference of dress, they really did look alike.
Metcalfe had 30 men in his crew. With the assistance of his engineer, a man of mechanics, he picked 18 of his crew. and took them and a barrel of oil aboard the submersible.
Then, for three days, the two craft lay together, while the engineer and the men familiarized themselves with their internal economy. The torpedo tubes, gasoline engines, storage batteries and motors, and the vast system of pipes, valves and wires that gave life and action to the boat.
And while Metcalfe experimented with the mysterious searchlight attached to the periscope tube, invented by himself, but perfected by others.
Part of his investigation extended into the night.
Externally, the light resembled a huge cup about two feet in diameter, with a thick disc fitted around it in a vertical plane.
This disc removed. Then, hailing Smith to rig his fire hose and get off the deck, he descended the hatchway and turned on the light, viewing its effects through the periscope.
This, be it known, is merely a perpendicular, not magnifying telescope that, by means of a reflector at its upper end, gives a view of the seascape when a submarine boat is submerged.
And in the eyepiece at its base, McCaff beheld a thin thread of light, of such dazzling brilliance as to momentarily blind him, stretch over the sea. But he put on his smoked glasses, and turned the apparatus, tube and all, until a thin pencil of light touched the end of the torpedo boat's signal yard.
He did not need to bring the two-inch beam to a focus. It burst into flame, and he quickly shut off the light and shouted to Smith to put out the fire, which Smith probably did, with open comment to his handful of men on the destruction of government property. "'Good enough,' he said to Smith, when next they met.
"'Now, if I'm any good, I'll give the Japs a taste of their own medicine.' "'Take me along, Captain.' burst out Smith in sudden surrender.
I don't understand all this, but I want to be in it.
No, Mr. Smith. The Chief might do your work, but I doubt that you can do his. I need him, so you can take the prisoners home. You will undoubtedly retain command.
Very good, sir, answered the disappointed youngster. Trying to conceal his chagrin.
I don't want you to feel badly about it. I know how you all felt toward me, but I'm on a roving commission. I have no wireless apparatus, and no definite instructions. I've been lampooned and ridiculed in the papers, and I'm going to give them my answer. That is, as I said, if I'm any good. If I'm not, I'll be sunk.
So when the engineer had announced his mastery of his part of the problem, and that there was enough gasoline to cruise for two weeks longer, Smith departed with the torpedo boat, and Metcalfe began his search for the expected fleet.
It was more by good luck than by any possible calculation that Metcalfe finally found the fleet. A steamer out of San Francisco reported that it had not been heard from, and one bound in from Honolulu said it was not far behind. In fact, had sent a shot or two.
Metcalfe shut off gasoline, waited the day, and saw the smoke on the horizon. Then he submerged to the awash condition, which in this boat just floated the searchlight out of water. And thus balanced, neither floating nor sinking nor rolling, but rising and falling with the long pulsing of the ground swell, he watched through the periscope the approach of the enemy.
It was an impressive spectacle, and to a citizen of the threatened country, a disquieting one.
Nine high-sided battleships of ten-gun type Nine floating forts, each one unopposable, able to reduce to smoking ruin a city out of sight of its gunners, each one impregnable to the shell-fire of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest torpedo yet constructed.
They came silently along in line-ahead formation, like Indians on a trail.
There were no compromises in this fleet. Like the intermediate batteries of the ships themselves, cruisers had been eliminated, and it consisted of extremes, battleships and torpedo boats, the latter far to the rear.
But between the two were half a dozen colliers, repair, and supply ships.
Night came down before they were near enough for operations. And Metcalfe turned on his invisible light, expanding the beam to embrace the fleet in its light, and moved the boat to a position about a mile away from its path.
It was a weird picture now showing the periscope. Each gray ship a bluish-green against a background of black, marked here and there by the green crests of a breaking sea.
Within Metcalfe's reach were the levers, cranks, and worms that governed the action of the periscope and the light.
Just before him were the vertical and horizontal steering wheels.
Under these, a self-illuminating compass, and at his ear, a system of push-buttons, speaking tubes, and telegraph dials that put him in communication with every man on the boat, each one of whom had his part to play at the proper moment. But not one of whom could see or know the result.
The work to be done was in Metcalfe's hands and brain, and, considering its potentiality, it was a most undramatic performance.
He waited until the leading flagship was within a half-mile of being abreast. Then, turning on a hanging electric bulb, he held it close to the eyepiece of the periscope. Knowing that the light would go up the tube, through the lenses, and be visible to the fleet.
And in a moment, he heard faintly through the steel walls the sound transmitted by the sea of a bugle-call to quarters.
He shut off the bulb, watched a wandering shaft of light from the flagship seeking him, then contracted his own invisible beam to a diameter of about three feet. to fall upon the flagship, and played it back and forth, seeking gunports and apertures and groups of men, painting all with that blinding light that they could not see, nor immediately sense.
There was nothing to indicate that he had succeeded. The faces of the different groups were still turned his way, and the feudal searchlights still wandered around, Unable to bring to their view the white tube with its cup-like base.
Still waving the wandering beam of white light, the flagship passed on, bringing along the second in line. And again Metcalfe turned on his bulb.
He heard her bugle call, and saw, in varied shades of green, the twinkling red and blue lights of her masthead signals received from the flagship and passed down the line.
And again he played that green disk of deadly light upon the faces of her crew.
This ship, too, was seeking him with her searchlight, and soon, from the whole nine, a moving network of brilliant beams flashed and scintillated across the sky, but not one settled upon the cause of their disquiet.
Ship after ship passed on, each with his bugle called to quarters, each with its muster of all hands to meet the unknown emergency, the menace on a hostile coast of a faint white light on the port beam, but not one firing a shot or a shell.
There was nothing to fire at, and with the passing of the last of the nine, Metcalfe listened to a snapping and a buzzing overhead. that told of the burning out of the carbons and the like.
Good work for the expenditure, he murmured wearily. Let's see. Two carbons and about twenty amperes of current, against nine ships at ten millions apiece.
Well, we'll soon know whether or not it worked.
While an electrician rigged new carbons, He rested his eyes and his brain, for the mental and physical strain had been severe.
Then he played delight upon the colliers and supply-ships as they charged by, disposing of them in the same manner, and looked for other craft of larger menace.
But there were none, except the torpedo contingent, and these he decided to leave alone.
There were fifteen of them, each as speedy and as easily handled as his own craft. And already, apprised by the signal instructions from ahead, they were spreading out into a fan-like formation and coming on nearly abreast.
The jig's up, Chief, he called through a tube to the engineer. We'll get forty feet down until the mosquitoes get by. I'd like to take a chance at them, but there are too many. We'd get torpedoed, surely.
Down went the diving rudder, and, with a kick ahead of the engine, the submersible shot under, heading on a course across the path of the fleet, and in half an hour came to the surface.
There was nothing in sight close by. Either through the periscope or by direct vision, and Metcalfe decided to make for San Francisco and report.
It was a wise decision, for at daylight he was floundering in a heavy sea and a howling gale from the northwest that soon forced him to submerge again for comfort.
Before doing so, however, he enjoyed one good look at the Japanese fleet, far ahead. and to port.
The line of formation was broken, staggered, and disordered. And, though the big ships were making good weather of it, they were steering badly. And on one of them, halfway to the signal yard, was the appeal for help that ships of all nations use and recognize. The ensign, upside down.
Under the lee of each ship was snugged a torpedo-boat, plunging, rolling, and swamped by the breaking seas that even the mighty bulk to windward could not protect them from.
And even as Metcalfe looked, one twisted in two, her after-funnels pointing to port, her forward to starboard, and in ten seconds had disappeared.
Metcalfe submerged and went on at lesser speed, but in comfort and safety. Through the periscope, he saw one after the other of the torpedo craft give up the fight that they were not designed for, and ship after ship hoist that silent prayer for help.
They yawed badly, but in some manner or other managed to follow the flagship, which, alone with that armada, steered fairly well. She kept on the course of the Golden Gate.
Even submerged, Metcalfe outran the fleet before noon, and at night had dropped it, entering the Golden Gate before daylight, still submerged, not only on account of the troublesome turmoil on the surface, but to avoid the equally troublesome scrutiny of the forts, whose searchlights might have caught him. Had he presented more to their view than a slid tube painted white.
Avoiding the mines, he picked his way carefully up to the Man-of-War anchorage, and arose to the surface, alongside the Delaware, now the flagship, as the light of day crept upward in the eastern sky.
We knew they were on the coast, said the Admiral, a little later. when Metcalfe had made his report on the quarter-deck of the Delaware. But about this light, are you sure of all this?
Why, if it's so, the President will rank you over us all.
Mr. Smith came in with the prisoners, but he said nothing of an invisible light, only of a strong searchlight with which you set fire to the signal yard.
I did not tell him all, Admiral, answered Metcalfe, a little hurt at the persistence of the feeling.
But I'm satisfied now. That fleet is coming on with incompetence on the bridge.
Well, we'll soon know. I've only one ship, but it's my business to get out and defend the United States against invaders. And as soon as I can steam into this gale and sea... I'll go. And I'll want you, too. I'm short-handed.
Thank you, sir. I should be glad to go with you. But wouldn't you like to examine the light?" Most certainly," said the Admiral, and, accompanied by his staff, he followed Metcalfe aboard the submersible.
It is very simple," explained Metcalfe. Showing a rough diagram he had sketched. You see, he has used my system of reflectors about as I designed it.
The focus of one curve coincides with the focus of the next, and the result is a thin beam containing nearly all the radiations of the arc.
Very simple, remarked the Admiral, dryly. Very simple, indeed. But... Admitting this strong beam of light that, as you said, could set fire to that sealer and be invisible in the sunshine. How about the beam that is invisible by night? That is what I am wondering about.
Here, sir, removing the thick disk from around the light.
This contains the prisms, which refract the beam entirely around the lamp. and disperse it into the seven colors of the spectrum. All the visible light is cut out, leaving only the ultraviolet rays. And these travel as fast and as far, and return by reflection, as though accompanied by visible rays.
But how can you see it? asked an officer. How is the ship it is directed at made visible?
By fluorescence, answered Metcalfe.
The observer is the periscope itself. Any of the various fluorescing substances placed in the focus of the object glass, or at the optical image in front of the eyepiece, will show the picture in the color perpendicular to the fluorescing material. The color does not matter.
More simple still, laughed the Admiral. But how about the colored lights they saw?
Simply the discarded light of the spectrum. By removing this cover on the disc, the different colored rays shoot up. That was to attract attention. I used only white light through the periscope.
And it was this invisible light that blinded so many men, which in your hands blinded the crews of the Japanese? asked the Admiral.
Yes, sir. The ultraviolet rays are beneficial as a germicide, but are deadly if too strong."
Lieutenant Metcalfe, said the Admiral, seriously. Your future in the service is secure. I apologize for laughing at you. But now that it's over and you've won, tell us about the spectacles.
Why, Admiral, responded Metcalfe. That was the simplest proposition of all. The whole apparatus—prisms, periscope, lenses, and the fluorescing screen—are made of rock crystal, which is permeable to the ultraviolet light. But common glass, of which spectacles are made, is opaque to it. That is why nearsighted men escape the blindness.
Then... Unless the Japs are near-sighted, I expect an easy time when I go out.
But the Admiral did not need to go out and fight.
Those nine big battleships that Japan had struggled for years to obtain, an auxiliary fleet of supply and repair ships to keep them in life and health away from home, caught on a lee shore in a hurricane, against which the mighty Delaware could not steam to sea. piled up one by one on the sands below Fort Point, and, each with a white flag replacing the reversed ensign, surrendered to the transport or collier sent out to take off the survivors.
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4 04 - Her Birthday 7:12
Her Birthday by Algonon Blackwood. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
Her birthday. It was her birthday on the morrow, and I'd set forth to find a suitable and worthy present. My means, judged by the standards of the big merchants, Seemed trivial. Yet, could I but discover the right gift, no matter how insignificant? I felt sure it would please her, and so make me doubly happy. And the kind of gift I already knew, for I had a specimen of it in my humble lodgings, only of so poor a type that I was ashamed to offer it. I must find somewhere a much, much better one, if possible. Perfect and without a single flaw. I went, therefore, into the great shops, and saw a thousand wonderful and lovely things. So particular was I, however, and so difficult to suit, that I wearied the salesfolk and began to feel despondent.
All that they showed me was so wrong, so cheap. In the matter of actual expense there was no disagreement, for I mentioned plainly beforehand The price that I would pay, or, rather, that I was prepared to pay. But, in the nature and quality of the goods, there was no satisfying me at all. Everything that they spread before my eyes seemed ordinary, trifling, even spurious. Marvelously fashioned, and of the most costly description, they yet seemed somewhere counterfeit. The goods were sham. Already she possessed far better. There was nowhere, and I went to the very best emporiums where the rich and favorite of the world bought their offerings. There was nowhere the little genuine thing I sought.
The finest that was set before me seemed unworthy. I compared one and all with the specimen, broken yet authentic, that I had at home. And even the cleverest of salesfolk was unable to deceive me because I knew. And this, for instance, I asked at length, Far from content, yet thinking it might just do, perhaps in place of anything better I could find. How much is this magnificent jeweled thing, with its ingenuous little surprise for each day and the entire year? You mentioned? Ten million pounds, sir, said the man obsequiously, while he eyed me with a close and questioning glance. Ten million only, and I laughed in his face. "'That was the price you named, sir,' he murmured. I drew myself up, looking disdainfully, pitying him, and though he met my eye, he hesitated.
Over his tired features there stole a soft and marvellous expression, something more tender than starlight shone in his eyes, and he answered in a gentle voice that was almost a whisper. "'I saw him smile, as a man may smile.' When he understands a divine, unutterable thing. Glory touched him for an instant with high radiance, and a hint of delicious awe hid shyly in his voice. I barely caught the words, so low he murmured them. I fear, sir, that what you want is not to be had at all in our establishment. You'll hardly find it. It's not in the market. He seemed to bow his head in a reverence moment. It's not... For sale. And so I went back to my dingy lodgings, having made no single purchase.
I looked fondly at my own little specimen, trying to imagine it had somehow gained in value, in beauty, almost in splendor. At least, I said to myself, it's not spurious. It's real. And, sitting down to my table, I dipped my broken pen into a penny bottle of inferior ink. And began my birthday letter. This is your birthday, dear, and I send you all my love. Being young, I underlined the words describing my little present, thinking to increase its value thus. But I did not complete the sentence, for there was another thing that I must find to send her, or she would be disappointed. And a birthday comes but once a year, but again. Though I already possessed a tiny specimen of this other thing I sought, it did not seem to me nearly good enough to offer.
Though genuine, it was worn by frequent use. Its luster had dimmed a little, for I touched it daily. It seemed too ordinary and common for a special present. I was ashamed to send it. So I set out again and searched and searched, in every likely and unlikely place. Even groping in the dark about the altars of the churches, where I found by chance the doors ajar, and penetrating into those secret shrines where those who seek the truth, it is said, go in to pray. For I knew that there was this other little present for me that she would look for because she had need of it. And my search was wonderful and full of high adventure. Yet so long that the moon had drawn the hood over the door of her silver tent, and the stars were fading in the east beyond the towers of the night.
Before I returned home, footsore, aching, empty-handed, and very humble in my heart, for nowhere had I been able to find this other little thing that she would be pleased to have from me. To my amazement, Yet to my secret joy I found nothing better than what I had at home. Nothing, that is, indutibly genuine. In quantity it was not anywhere for sale. It was more rare than I had guessed, and I felt a delicious triumph in me. I sat down, humble, reverent, but incommunicably proud and happy, to finish my letter. Unless I posted it immediately, She would not get it when she woke upon her birthday morning. I finished it. I posted it just as it was, brief, the writing a little shaky, the paper cheap, blot, smudge and all, and my worship.
And then, like a scrap of paper that enclosed the other gifts, yet need not be noticed unless she wished it, I added, above the little foolish name she knew me by, Another tiny present. All that I had brought into the world or could take out with me again when I left it. Yours, ever faithfully.
End of her birthday
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5 05 - A Bit of Wood 11:21
A Bit of Wood by Algernon Blackwood. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read Polly Vogler. A Bit of Wood. He found himself in Mirren with some cousins, who had various slight ailments, but being rich and imaginative, Had gone to a sanatorium to be cured. But for its sanatoria, Marin might be a cheerful place. Their ambiguity reminds a healthy man too often that the air is really good. Being well enough himself, except for a few mental worries, he went to Goss' house in the neighborhood. In the sanatorium, his cousins complained bitterly of the food, the ignorant sisters, the inattentive doctors, And the idiotic regulations generally, which proves that people should not go to a sanatorium unless they're really ill.
However, they paid heavily for being there, so felt that something was being accomplished, and were annoyed when he called each day for tea and told them cheerfully how much better they looked, which proved again that their ailments were slight and quite curable by the local doctor at home. With one of the ailing cousins, a rich and pretty girl, He believed himself in love. It was three weeks' business, and he spent his mornings walking in the surrounding hills, his mind reflective, analytical, and ambitious. As with a man in love, he thought of thousands of things. He mooned. Once, for instance, he paused beside a rivulet to watch the buttercups dip and asked himself, Will she be like this when we're married?
So anxious to be well that she thinks fearfully all the time of getting ill? For if so, he felt that he would be bored. He knew himself accurately enough to realize that he could never stand that. Yet, money was a wonderful thing to have, and he already, thirty-five, had little enough. Am I influenced by her money then, he asked himself, and so went on to ask and wonder about many things besides. For he was of a reflective temperament, and his father had been a minor poet, and doubt crept in. He felt chill. He was not much of a man, perhaps thin-blooded and unsuccessful, rather a dreamer too in the bargain. He had a pound a year of his own and a position in the philanthropic institution, due to influence, with a nominal salary attached.
He meant to keep the latter after marriage. He would work just the same. Nobody should ever say that of him. And as he sat on the fallen tree beside the rivulet, idly knocking stones into the rushing water with his stick, he reflected upon those banal truisms that epitomized two-thirds of his life. The way little unimportant things can change a person's whole existence was the one his thought just now had fastened on. His cousin's chill and headache, for instance, caught at a gloomy picnic on the Campania, Three weeks before, had led to her going into a sanatorium and being advised that her heart was weak, that she had a tendency to asthma, that gout was in her system, and that a treatment of x-rays, radium, sun bath, and light baths, violent rays, no meat, complete rest, with big daily feasts to experts with European reputations, were imperative.
From that chill. Sitting a moment too long in the shadow of a forgotten patrician's tomb, he reflected, has come all this, all this, including his doubt as to whether it was herself or her money that he loved, whether he could stand living with her always, whether he need really keep his work on after marriage. In a word, his entire life and future, and her own as well, all from that tiny chill three weeks ago. And he knocked with his stick a little piece of sawn-off board that lay beside the rushing water. Upon that bit of wood his mind, his mood, then fastened itself. It was triangular, a piece of sawn-off wood, brown with age and ragged. Once it had been part of a triumphant, hopeful sapling on the mountains.
Yet, when thirty years of age, the men had cut it down. The rest of it stood somewhere now, at this very moment, in the walls of the house. This extra bit was cast away as useless. It served no purpose anywhere. It was slowly rotting in the sun, but each tap of the stick, he noticed, turned it sideways without sending it over the edge into the rushing water. It was obstinate. It doesn't want to go in, he laughed, his father's little talent cropping out in him. But by Jove it shall, and he pushed it with his foot, but again it stopped, stuck endways against a stone. He then stooped, picked it up, and threw it in. It plopped and splashed, and went scurrying away downhill with the bubbling water.
Even that scrap of useless wood, he reflected, rising to continue his aimless walk, and still idly dreaming. Even that bit of rubbish may have a purpose, and may change the life of someone, somewhere, and then went strolling through the fragrant pine woods, crossing a dozen similar streams, and hitting scores of stones and scraps and fur cones as he went, till he finally reached his ghost house an hour later, and found a note from her. We shall expect you about three o'clock. We thought of going for a drive. The others feel so much better. It was a revealing touch, the way she put it on the others. He made his mind up then and there, thus tiny things divide the course of life, that he could never be happy with such an affected creature.
He went for that drive, sat next to her consuming beauty, proposed to her passionately on the way back, and was accepted before he could change his mind, and is now the father of several healthy children. And just as much afraid of getting ill, or of their getting ill, as she was fifteen years before. The female, of course, matures long, long before the male, he reflected, thinking the matter over in his study once. And that scrap of wood he idly set in motion out of impulse also went its destined way upon the hurrying water that never dared to stop. Proud of its new motion, It bobbed down merrily, spinning and turning for a mile or so, dancing gaily over sunny meadows, brushing the dipping buttercups as it passed, through vineyards, woods, and under dusty roads in neat, cool gutters, and tumbling headlong over little waterfalls until it neared the plain.
And so finally it came to a wooden trough that let off some precious water to a sawmill. Where bare-armed men did practical and necessary things. At the parting of ways, its angles delayed for a moment, undecided which way to take. It wobbled, and upon that moment's wobbling hung tragic issues, issues of life and death. Unknowingly, yet assuredly not unknown, it chose the trough. It swung light-heartedly into the tearing sluice. It whirled with the gush of water toward the wheel, banged, spun, trembled, caught fast in the side where the cogs just chanced to be, and abruptly stopped the wheel. At any other spot the pressure of the water must have smashed it into pulp, and the wheel have continued as before.
But it was caught in the one place where the various tensions held it fast and moveably. It stopped the wheel, and so the machinery of the entire mill, it jammed like iron. The particular angle at which the double-handed saw, held by two weary and perspiring men, had cut it off a year before, just enabled it to fit and wedge itself with irresistible exactitude. The pressure of the tearing water, combined with the weight of the massive wheel, to fix it tight and rigid, and in due course a workman. It was the foreman of the mill. Came from his post inside to make investigations. He discovered the irritating item that caused the trouble. He put his weight in a certain way. He strained his hefty muscles.
He swore, and the scrap of wood was easily dislodged. He fished the morsel out and tossed it on the bank and spat on it. The great wheel started with a mighty groan. But it started a fraction of a second before he expected it would start. He overbalanced, clutching the revolving framework with a frantic effort, swore, shouted, leaped at nothing, and fell into the pouring flood. In an instant, he was turned upside down, sucked under, drowned. He was engaged to be married, and had put by a thousand kronen in the Tiroler's spar bank. He was a sober. And hard-working man. There is a paragraph in the local paper two days later. The Englishman, asking the porter of his ghost house for something to wrap up a present he was taking to his cousin in the sanatorium, used that very issue as he folded its crumpled and recalcitrant sheets with sentimental care about the precious object.
His eyes fell carelessly upon the paragraph. Being of an idle and reflective temperament, He stopped to read it. It was headed, on Luxhannon, and his poetic eye, inherited from his foolish rhyming father, caught the pretty expression, Blazand's Fazer, he read the first few lines. Some fellow with a picturesque, tireless name had been drowned beneath the mill-will. He was popular in the neighborhood, it seemed. He had saved some money, and was just going to be married. He was very sad. Our reader's sympathy was with him, and, being of reflective temperament, the Englishman thought for a moment, while he went on wrapping up the parcel. He wondered if the man had really loved the girl, whether she, too, had money, and whether they would have had lots of children and been happy ever afterwards.
And then he hurried out toward the sanatorium. I shall be late, he reflected. Such little, unimportant things delay one. End of a bit of wood.
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6 06 - Enemies translated by Constance Garnett 35:56
Enemies by Anton Chekhov, 1869-1904, translated by Constance Garnett. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information for a volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Between nine and ten on a dark September evening, The only son of the district doctor, Kirilov, a child of six, called Andrei, died of diphtheria. Just as the doctor's wife sank on her knees by the dead child's bedside and was overwhelmed by the first rush of despair, there came a sharp ring at the bell in the entry. All the servants had been sent out of the house that morning on account of the diphtheria. Kirilov went to open the door, just as he was, without his coat on, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, without wiping his wet face or his hands, which was scalded with carbolic.
It was dark in the entry, and nothing could be distinguished in the man who came in, but medium height, a white scarf, and a large, extremely pale face, so pale that its entrance seemed to make the passage lighter. Is the doctor at home? the newcomer asked quickly. "'I am at home,' answered Kirillov. "'What do you want?' "'Oh, it's you.' "'I am very glad,' said the stranger, in a tone of relief, and he began feeling in the dark for the doctor's hand, found it and squeezed it tightly in his own. "'I am very, very glad. We are acquainted. My name is Abogin, and I had the honour of meeting you in the summer at Gnutchev's.' I'm very glad to have found you at home. For God's sake, don't refuse to come back with me at once.
My wife has been taken dangerously ill, and the carriage is waiting. From the voice and gestures of the speaker, it could be seen that he was in a state of great excitement, like a man terrified by a house on fire or a mad dog. He could hardly restrain his rapid breathing, and spoke quickly in a shaking voice. and there was a note of unaffected sincerity and childish alarm in his voice. As people always do when they are frightened and overwhelmed, he spoke in brief jerky sentences and uttered a great many unnecessary irrelevant words. "'I was afraid I might not find you in,' he went on. "'I was in the perfect agony as I drove here. Put on your things and let us go, for God's sake!' This is how it happened.
Alexander Semyonovich Papchinsky, whom you know, came to see me. We talked a little, and then we sat down to tea. Suddenly my wife cried out, clutched at her heart, and fell back on her chair. We carried her to bed, and I rubbed her forehead with ammonia and sprinkled her with water. She lay as though she were dead. I'm afraid it is aneurysm. Come along. Her father died of aneurysm. Kirov listened and said nothing, as though he did not understand Russian. When Abozhin mentioned again Papchinsky and his wife's father, and once more began feeling in the dark for his hand, the doctor shook his head and said apathetically, dragging out each word, "'Excuse me. I cannot come.' My son died. Five minutes ago.
Is it possible? whispered Abogin, stepping back a pace. My God, at what an unlucky moment I have come. A wonderfully unhappy day. Wonderfully. What a coincidence. It's as though it were on purpose. Abogin took hold of the door-handle and bowed his head. He was evidently hesitating and did not know what to do, whether to go away or to continue entreating the doctor. "'Listen,' he said fervently, catching hold of Kirilov's sleeve. "'I well understand your position. God is my witness that I am ashamed of attempting at such a moment to intrude on your attention. But what am I to do? Only think, to whom can I go?' There is no other doctor here, you know. For God's sake, come. I am not asking you for myself.
I am not the patient. A silence followed. Kirilov turned his back on Aburgin, stood for a moment, and slowly walked into the drawing-room. Judging from his unsteady mechanical step, from the attention with which he set straight the fluffy shade of the unlighted lamp in the drawing-room and glanced into a thick book lying on the table, At that instant he had no intention, no desire, was thinking of nothing, and most likely did not remember that there was a stranger in the entry. The twilight and stillness of the drawing-room seemed to increase his numbness. Going out of the drawing-room into his study, he raised his right foot higher than was necessary, and felt for the door-post with his hands, and as he did so there was an air of perplexity about his whole figure, as though he were in somebody else's house, or were drunk for the first time in his life, and were now abandoning himself with a surprise to the new sensation.
A broad streak of light stretched across the bookcase on one wall of the study. This light came together with the close heavy smell of carbolic and ether from the door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open. The doctor sank into a low chair in front of the table. For a minute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the light on them, then got up and went into the bedroom. Here, in the bedroom, reigned a dead silence. Everything to the smallest details eloquent of the storm that had been passed through, of exhaustion, and everything was at rest. A candle standing among a crowd of bottles, boxes and pots on a stool and a big lamp on the chest of drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room.
On the bed under the window lay a boy with open eyes and a look of wonder on his face. He did not move, but his open eyes seemed every moment growing darker and sinking further into his head. The mother was kneeling by the bed with her arms on his body, And her head hidden in the bedclothes. Like the child, she did not stir, but what throbbing life was suggested in the curves of her body and in her arms. She leaned against the bed with all her being, pressing against it greedily with all her might, as though she were afraid of disturbing the peaceful and comfortable attitude she had found at last for her exhausted body. The bedclothes, the rags and bowls, the splashes of water on the floor, the little paintbrushes and spoons thrown down here and there, the white bottle of lime-water, the very air, heavy and stifling, were all hushed and seemed plunged in repose.
The doctor stepped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, and, slanting his head on one side, fixed his eyes on his son. His face bore an expression of indifference, and only from the drops that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had just been crying. The repellent horror which is thought of when we speak of death was absent from the room. In the numbness of everything, in the mother's attitude, in the indifference on the doctor's face, there was something that attracted and touched the heart. That subtle, almost elusive beauty of human sorrow, which men will not for a long time learn to understand and describe, and which it seems only music can convey. There was a feeling of beauty, too, in your dear stillness.
Kirilov and his wife were silent and not weeping, as though besides the bitterness of their loss they were conscious, too, of all the tragedy of their position, just as once their youth had passed away, so now together with this boy their right to have children had gone forever to all eternity. The doctor was forty-four, his hair was gray, and he looked like an old man. His faded and invalid wife was thirty-five. Andrei was not merely the only child, but also the last child. In contrast to his wife, the doctor belonged to the class of people who, at times of spiritual suffering, feel a craving for movement. After standing for five minutes by his wife, he walked. Raising his right foot high from the bedroom into a little room, which was half filled up by a big sofa.
From there he went into the kitchen. After wandering by the stove and the cook's bed, he bent down and went by a little door into the passage. There he saw again the white scarf and the white face. At last, sighed Abigin, reaching towards the door handle. Let us go, please. The doctor started, glanced at him, and remembered. Why, I have told you already that I can't go, he said, growing more animated. How strange! Doctor, I am not a stone. I fully understand your position. I feel for you, Abagin said in an imploring voice, laying his hand on his scarf. "'But I am not asking you for myself. My wife is dying. If you had heard that cry, if you had seen her face, you would understand my pertinacity.
My God, I thought you had gone to get ready. Doctor, time is precious. Let us go, I entreat you.' "'I cannot go,' said Kirilov emphatically, and he took a step into the drawing-room. Apertin followed him and caught hold of his sleeve. "'You are in sorrow, I understand, but I am not asking you to a case of toothache or to a consultation, but to save a human life.' He went on in treating like a beggar. "'Life comes before any personal sorrow. Come, I ask you, for courage, for heroism, for the love of humanity.' "'Humanity, that cuts both ways,' Kirov said irritably. In the name of humanity, I beg you not to take me. And how queer it is, really. I can hardly stand and you talk to me about humanity.
I am fit for nothing just now. Nothing will induce me to go, and I can't leave my wife alone. No, no." Kirilov waved his hand and staggered back. And—and don't ask me, he went on in a tone of alarm—excuse me, By number thirteen of the regulations, I am obliged to go, and you have the right to drag me by my collar. Drag me if you like, but I am not fit. I can't even speak. It skews me. There is no need to take that tone to me, doctor," said Abidjan, again taking the doctor by his sleeve. What do I care about number thirteen? To force you against your will, I have no right whatever. If you will, come. If you will not, God forgive you, but I am not appealing to your will but to your feelings. A young woman is dying.
You were just speaking of the death of your son. Who should understand my horror if not you? Aborigin's voice quivered with emotion. That quiver and his tone were far more persuasive than his words. Abergene was sincere, but it was remarkable that whatever he said his words sounded stilted, soulless, and inappropriately flowery, and even seemed an outrage on the atmosphere of the doctor's home and on the woman who was somewhere dying. He felt this himself, and so, afraid of not being understood, did his utmost to put softness and tenderness into his voice, So that the sincerity of his tone might prevail if his words did not. As a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects the indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or unhappy.
That is why dumbness is most often the highest expression of happiness or unhappiness. Lovers understand each other better when they are silent, and a fervent, passionate speech delivered by the grave only touches outsiders, while to the widow and the children of the dead man it seems cold and trivial. Kirillov stood in silence. When Aborigin uttered a few more phrases concerning the noble calling of a doctor, self-sacrifice, and so on, the doctor asked sullenly, "'Is it far?' Something like eight or nine miles. I have capital horses, doctor. I give you my word of honour that I will get you there and back in an hour. Only one hour. These words had more effect on Kirilov than the appeals of humanity, or the noble calling of the doctor.
He thought a moment and said with a sigh, "'Very well. Let us go.' He went rapidly with a more certain step to his study, and afterwards came back in a long frock-coat. Aborigin, greatly relieved, visited round him and scraped with his feet as he helped him on with his overcoat, and went out of the house with him. It was dark out of doors, though lighter than in the entry. The tall, stooping figure of the doctor, with his long, narrow beard and aquiline nose, stood out distinctly in the darkness. Aborigin's big head and the little student's cap that barely covered it, could be seen now as well as his pale face. The scarf showed white only in front. Behind it was hidden by his long hair. Believe me, I know how to appreciate your generosity, Abigin muttered as he helped the doctor into the carriage.
We shall get there quickly. Drive as fast as you can, Luca. There's a good fellow. Please. The coachman drove rapidly. At first there was a row of indistinct buildings that stretched alongside the hospital yard. It was dark everywhere except for a bright light from a window that gleamed through the fence into the furthest part of the yard, while three windows of the upper story of the hospital looked paler than the surrounding air. Then the carriage drove into dense shadow. Here there was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and the sound of rustling trees. The crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels, stirred among the foliage, and uttered prolonged plaintive cries as though they knew the doctor's son was dead, and that Abigin's wife was ill.
Then came glimpses of separate trees, of bushes, a pond on which great black shadows were slumbering, gleamed with a sudden light, and the carriage rolled over a smooth level ground. The clamour of the crow sounded dimly far away, and soon ceased altogether. Kirillov and Abijin were silent almost all the way. Only once Abijin heaved a deep sigh and muttered, "'It's an agonising state. One never loves those who are near one so much as when one is in danger of losing them.' And when the carriage slowly drove over the river, Kirilov started all at once, as though the splash of the water had frightened him, and made a movement. Listen, let me go, he said miserably. I'll come to you later. I must just send my assistant to my wife.
She is alone, you know. Abishin did not speak. The carriage, swaying from side to side and crunching over the stones, drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its way. Kirillov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. Behind them, in the dim light of the stars, the row could be seen and the riverside willows vanishing into the darkness. On the right lay a plain as uniform and as boundless as the sky. Here and there in the distance, Probably on the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering. On the left, parallel with the road, ran a hill tufted with small bushes, and above the hill stood motionless a big, red half-moon, slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds, which seemed to be looking round at it from all sides and watching that it did not go away.
In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of spring and summer, and apathetically waiting for the inevitable winter. Wherever one looked on all sides, nature seemed like a dark, infinite, deep, cold pit from which neither Kirilov nor Aburgin nor the red half-moon could escape. The nearer the carriage got to its goal, the more impatient Abidjan became. He kept moving, leaping up, looking over the coachman's shoulder, and when at last the carriage stopped before the entrance, which was elegantly curtained with striped linen, and when he looked at the lighted windows of the second story, there was an audible catch in his breath.
If anything happens, I shall not survive it, he said. Going into the hall with the doctor and rubbing his hands in agitation. But there is no commotion, so everything must be going well so far, he added, listening in the stillness. There was no sound in the hall of steps or voices, and all the house seemed asleep in spite of the lighted windows. Now the doctor and Abigine, who till then had been in darkness, could see each other clearly. The doctor was tall and stooped. was untidily dressed and not good-looking. There was an unpleasantly harsh, morose, and unfriendly look about his lips, thick as a negro's, his aquiline nose and listless, apathetic eyes, his unkempt head and sunken temples, the premature greyness of his long, narrow beard, through which his chin was visible.
The pale grey hue of his skin and the careless, uncouth manners, the harshness of all this was suggestive of years of poverty, of ill-fortune, of weariness with life and with men. Looking at his frigid figure, one could hardly believe that this man had a wife, that he was capable of weeping over his child. Abidin presented a very different appearance. He was a thick-set, sturdy-looking, fair man with a big head and large, soft features. He was elegantly dressed in the very latest fashion. In his carriage, his closely buttoned coat, his long hair and his face, there was a suggestion of something generous—Leonine. He walked with his head erect and his chest squared. He spoke in an agreeable baritone.
And there was a shade of refined, almost feminine elegance in the manner in which he took off his scarf and smoothed his hair. Even his paleness and the childlike terror with which he looked up at the stairs as he took off his coat did not detract from his dignity, nor diminish the air of sleekness, health, and aplomb which characterised his whole figure. "'There is nobody and no sound,' he said, going up the stairs. There is no commotion. God grant all is well. He led the doctor through the hall into a big drawing-room, where there was a black piano and a chandelier in a white cover. From there they both went into a very snug, pretty little drawing-room, full of an agreeable rosy twilight. Well, sit down here, doctor, and I will be back directly.
I will go and have a look and prepare them. Kirilov was left alone. The luxury of the drawing-room, the agreeably subdued light, and his own presence in the stranger's unfamiliar house, which had something of the character of an adventure, did not apparently affect him. He sat in a low chair and scrutinised his hands, which were burnt with carbolic. He only caught a passing glimpse of the bright red lampshade, and the violoncello case, and glancing in the direction where the clock was ticking, he noticed a stuffed wolf, as substantial and sleek-looking as Ebergin himself. It was quiet. Somewhere far away in the adjoining room, someone uttered a loud exclamation. Aha! There was a clang of a glass door, probably of a cupboard, and again all was still.
After waiting five minutes, Kirillov left off scrutinizing his hands and raised his eyes to the door by which Abuzhin had vanished. In the doorway stood Abuzhin, but he was not the same as when he had gone out. The look of sleekness and refined elegance had disappeared. His face, his hands, his attitude were contorted by a revolting expression of something between horror and agonizing physical pain. His nose, his lips, his moustache, All his features were moving and seemed trying to tear themselves from his face. His eyes looked as though they were laughing with agony. Avergine took a heavy stride into the drawing-room, bent forward, moaned, and shook his fists. "'She has deceived me!' he cried, with a strong emphasis on the second syllable of the verb.
Deceived me. Gone away. She fell ill and sent me for the doctor, only to run away with that clown, Pachinsky. My God! Averjyn took a heavy step towards the doctor, held out his soft white fist in his face, and, unshaking them, went on yelling, "'Gone away! Deceive me!' But why this deception? My God, my God, what need of this dirty, scoundrelly trick, this diabolical, snakish farce? What have I done to her? Gone away! Tears gushed from his eyes. He turned on one foot and began pacing up and down the drawing-room. Now, in his short coat, his fashionable narrow trousers, which made his legs look disproportionately slim, with his big head and long mane, he was extremely like a lion. A gleam of curiosity came into the apathetic face of the doctor.
He got up and looked at Aburgin. "'Excuse me, where is the patient?' he said. "'The patient! The patient!' cried Aborigin, laughing, crying, and still brandishing his fists. "'She is not ill, but accursed. The baseness, the vileness, the devil himself could not have imagined anything more loathsome. She sent me off that she might run away with a buffoon, a dull-witted clown, an Alphonse. Oh, God! Better she had died. I cannot bear it.' I cannot bear it. The doctor drew himself up. His eyes blinked and filled with tears. His narrow beard began moving to right and to left together with his jaw. Allow me to ask what's the meaning of this, he asked. Looking round him with curiosity. My child is dead.
My wife is in grief, alone in the whole house. I myself can scarcely stand up. I have not slept for three nights. And here I am forced to play a part in some vulgar farce, to play the part of a stage property. I don't, don't understand it. A vajin unclenched one fist. Flung a crumpled note on the floor, and stamped on it as though it were an insect he wanted to crush. And I didn't see, didn't understand, he said through his clenched teeth, brandishing one fish before his face with an expression as though someone had trodden on his corns. I did not notice that he came every day. I did not notice that he came today in a closed carriage. What did he come in a closed carriage for? And I did not see it.
Noodle! I don't understand, muttered the doctor. Why, what's the meaning of it? Why, it's an outrage on personal dignity, a mockery of human suffering. It's incredible. It's the first time in my life I've had such an experience. With the dull surprise of a man who has only just realised that he has been bitterly insulted, the doctor shrugged his shoulders, flung wide his arms, and not knowing what to do, Orsay sank helplessly into a chair. If you have ceased to love me and love another, so be it. But why this deceit, why this vulgar, treacherous trick? Aburgin said in a tearful voice. What is the object of it, and what is there to justify it? And what have I done to you? Listen, doctor, he said hotly, going up to Kirilov.
You have been the involuntary witness of my misfortune, and I am not going to conceal the truth from you. I swear that I loved the woman, loved her devotedly, like a slave. I have sacrificed everything for her. I have quarrelled with my own people. I have given up the service and music. I have forgiven her what I could not have forgiven my own mother or sister. I have never looked askance at her. I have never gainsayed her in anything. Why this deception? I do not demand love. But why this loathsome duplicity? If she did not love me, why did she not say so openly, honestly, especially as she knows my views on the subject? With tears in his eyes, trembling all over, Aburgin opened his heart to the doctor with perfect sincerity.
He spoke warmly, pressing both hands on his heart, exposing the secrets of his private life without the faintest hesitation, and even seemed to be glad that at last these secrets were no longer pent up in his breast. If he had talked in this way for an hour or two, and opened his heart, he would undoubtedly have felt better. Who knows, if the doctor had listened to him and had sympathized with him like a friend, he might perhaps, as often happens, have reconciled himself to his trouble without protest, without doing anything needless and absurd. But what happened was quite different. While Abergene was speaking, the outraged doctor perceptibly changed. The indifference and wonder on his face gradually gave way to an expression of bitter resentment, indignation, and anger.
The features of his face became even harsher, coarser, and more unpleasant. When Abagin held out before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a handsome face as cold and expressionless as a nun's, and asked him whether, looking at that face, one could conceive that it was capable of duplicity. The doctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said, rudely wrapping out each word, "'What are you telling me all this for? I have no desire to hear it. I have no desire to.' He shouted and brought his fist down on the table. "'I don't want your vulgar secrets.' Damnation take them. Don't dare to tell me of such vulgar doings. Do you consider that I have not been insulted enough already? That I am a flunkey whom you can insult without restraint?
Is that it? Apojin staggered back from Kirillov and stared at him in amazement. "'Why did you bring me here?' the doctor went on, his beard quivering. "'If you are so puffed up with good living that you go and get married, and then act a farce like this, how do I come in? What have I to do with your love affairs? Leave me in peace. Go on squeezing money out of the poor in your gentlemanly way. Make a display of humane ideas. Play,' the doctor looked sideways at the violoncello case. Play the bassoon and the trombone. Grow as fat as capons, but don't dare to insult personal dignity. If you cannot respect it, you might at least spare it your attention. Excuse me, what does all this mean? Abidjan asked, flushing red.
It means that it's base and low to play with people like this. I am a doctor. You look upon doctors and people generally who work, and don't stink of perfume and prostitution as your menials and mauvais tons. Well, you may look upon them so, but no one has given you the right to treat a man who is suffering as a stage property. How dare you say that to me? Abidin said quietly, and his face began working again, and this time unmistakably from anger. "'No. How dared you, knowing of my sorrow, bring me here to listen to these vulgarities?' shouted the doctor, and he again banged on the table with his fist. "'Who has given you the right to make a mockery of another man's sorrow?' "'You have taken leave of your senses,' shouted Abidjan.
"'It is ungenerous. I am intensely unhappy myself, and—' "'Unhappy,' said the doctor, with a smile of contempt, Don't utter that word. It does not concern you. The spendthrift who cannot raise a loan calls himself unhappy, too. The capon sluggish from overfeeding is unhappy, too. Worthless people." "'Sir, you forget yourself,' shrieked Aborigin. "'For saying things like that, people are thrashed. Do you understand?' Aborigin hurriedly felt in his side pocket. Pulled out a pocketbook, and extracting two notes, flung them on the table. Here is the fee for your visit, he said, his nostrils dilating. You are paid. How dare you offer me money, shouted the doctor, and he brushed the notes off the table, on to the floor.
An insult cannot be paid for in money. Abishin and the doctor stood face to face, and in their wrath, Continued flinging undeserved insults at each other. I believe that never in their lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that was unjust, cruel, and absurd. The egoism of the unhappy was conspicuous in both. The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together, but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings. "'Kindly let me go home,' shouted the doctor, breathing hard.
Abidjian ran the bell sharply. When no one came to answer the bell, he rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor. It fell on the carpet with a muffled sound and uttered a plaintive note as though at the point of death. A footman came in. "'Where have you been hiding yourself? The devil take you?' his master flew at him, clenching his fists. "'Where were you just now? Go and tell them to bring the Victoria round for this gentleman and order the clothes carriage to be got ready for me.' Stay, he cried, as the footman turned to go out. I won't have a single traitor in the house by tomorrow. Away with you all. I will engage fresh servants. Reptiles. Avergine and the doctor remained in silence, waiting for the carriage.
The first regained his expression of sleekness and his refined elegance. He paced up and down the room, tossed his head arrogantly, and was evidently meditating on something. His anger had not cooled, but he tried to appear not to notice his enemy. The doctor stood, leaning with one hand on the edge of the table, and looked at Abugin with that profound and somewhat cynical ugly contempt only to be found in the eyes of sorrow and indigence when they are confronted with well-nourished comfort and elegance. When a little later the doctor got into the Victoria and drove off, there was still a look of contempt in his eyes. It was dark, much darker than it had been an hour before. The red half-moon had sunk behind the hill, and the clouds that had been guarding it lay in dark patches near the stars.
The carriage with red lamps rattled along the road and soon overtook the doctor. It was Abigin driving off to protest to do absurd things. All the way home the doctor thought not of his wife nor of his andrei, but of Abouzhin and the people in the house he had just left. His thoughts were unjust and inhumanly cruel. He condemned Abouzhin and his wife and Pachinsky and all who lived in rosy, subdued light among sweet perfumes, and all the way home he hated and despised them till his head ached. And a firm conviction concerning those people took shape in his mind. Time will pass, and Kirilov's sorrow will pass, but that conviction, unjust and unworthy of the human heart, will not pass, but will remain in the doctor's mind to the grave.
End of Enemies by Anton Chekhov
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7 07 - A Happy Ending translated by Constance Garnett 12:14
A happy ending by Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904. Translated by Constant Garnet. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peter Tomlinson. A substantial buxom lady of forty, who undertook matchmaking and many other matters, of which it is usual to speak only in whispers, had come to see Steichkin, the head guard, on a day when he was off duty. Steichkin, somewhat embarrassed, but, as always, grave practical. and severe, was walking up and down the room, smoking a cigar, and saying, "'Very pleased to make your acquaintance. Semyon Ivanovitch recommended you on the ground that you may be able to assist me in a delicate and very important matter affecting the happiness of my life.
I have, Louisie Bob Grudyrievna, Reach the age of fifty-two. That is a period of life in which very many have already grown up children. My position is a secure one. Though my fortune is not large, yet I am in a position to support a beloved being and children at my side. I may tell you between ourselves that apart from my salary, I have also money in the bank, which my manner of living has enabled me to save. I am a practical and sober man. I lead a sensible and consistent life, so that I may hold myself up as an example to many. But one thing I lack, a domestic heart of my own and a partner in life, and I live like a wandering Magyar, moving from place to place without any satisfaction. I have no one with whom to take counsel.
And when I am ill, no one to give me water. And so on. Apart from that, Lubav Grigorevna, a married man has always more weight in society than a bachelor. I am a man of the educated class, with money, but if you look at me from a point of view, what am I, a man with no kiss and kin, no better than some Polish priest? And therefore I should be very desirous to be united in the bonds of hymen, that is, to enter into matrimony with some worthy person.
An excellent thing," said the matchmaker with a sigh. I am a solitary man, and in this town I know no one. Where can I go, and to whom can I apply, since all the people here are strangers to me? That is why Semyon Ivanovitch advised me to address myself to a person who is a specialist in this line, and makes the arrangement of the happiness of others her profession. And therefore I most earnestly beg you, Laiyubov Grigoryevna, to assist me in ordering my future. You know all the marriageable young ladies in the town, and it is easy for you to accommodate me. I can. A glass of wine, I beg you? With a habitual gesture the matchmaker raised her glass to her mouth and tossed it off without winking.
I can, she repeated. And what sort of bride would you like, Nikolai Nikolaevich? Should I like? The bride fate sends me. Well, of course, it depends on your fate, but everyone has his own taste, you know. One likes dark ladies, the other prefers fair ones. You see, Nabiol Grigoryevna, said Stritchkin, sighing sedately, I am a practical man and a man of character. For me, beauty and external appearance generally take a secondary place, for, as you know yourself, Beauty is neither bowl nor platter, and a pretty wife involves a great deal of anxiety. The way I look at it is, what matters most in a woman is not what is external, but what lies within, that is, that she should have soul and all the qualities.
A glass of wine? I beg? Of course, it would be very agreeable that one's wife should be rather plump. But for mutual happiness it is not of great consequence. What matters is the mind. Properly speaking, a woman does not need mind either, for if she has brains she will have too high an opinion of herself, and take all sorts of ideas into her head. One cannot do without education nowadays, of course, but education is of different kinds. It would be pleasing for one's wife to know French and German, to speak various languages, very pleasing, but what's the use of that if she can't sew on one's buttons, perhaps? I'm a man of the educated class. I am just as much at home, I may say, with Prince Canetellen as I am with you here now.
But my habits are simple. And I want a girl who is not too much a fine lady. Above all, she must have respect for me, and feel that I have made her happiness. To be sure. Well, now, as regards the essential, I do not want a wealthy bride. I would never condescend to anything so low as to marry for money. I desire not to be kept by my wife, but to keep her, and that she may be sensible of it. But I do not want a poor girl, neither. Though I am a man of means, and am marrying not from mercenary motives, but from love, yet I cannot take a poor girl, for, as you know yourself, prices have gone up so, and there will be children. One might find one with a dowry," said the matchmaker. A glass of wine, I beg.
Those are pause of five minutes. The matchmaker heaved a sigh, took a sidelong glance at the guard, and asked, "'Well, now, my good sir, do you want anything in the bachelor line?' "'I have some fine bargains. One is a French girl, and one is a Greek. Well worth the money.' The guard thought for a moment and said, "'No, I thank you.' In view of your favourable disposition, allow me to inquire now how much you asked for your exertions in regard to a bride. I don't ask much. Give me twenty-five rubles and the stuffer a dress, as is usual, and I will say thank you. But for the dowry, that's a different account. Stitchkin folded his arms over his chest, And fell to pondering in silence. After some thought he heaved a sigh and said, That's dear.
It's not at all dear, Nikolai Nikolayevich. In old days when there were lots of weddings one did do it cheaper, but nowadays what are our earnings? If you make fifty roubles in a month, that is not a fast, you may be thankful. "'It is not on weddings we make our money, my good sir.' Stitchkin looked at the matchmaker in amazement and shrugged his shoulders. "'Mam, do you call fifty roubles little?' he asked. "'Of course it is little. In old days we sometimes made more than a hundred.' "'Herm, I should never have thought it was possible to earn such a sum.' By these jobs. Fifty rubles! It is not every man that earns as much. Pray drink your wine. The matchmaker drained her glass without winking.
Stitchkin looked her over from head to foot in silence, then said, Fifty rubles! Why, that is six hundred rubles a year! Please take some more. With such dividends, you know, Lubov Grigoryevna, You would have no difficulty making a match for yourself. For myself," laughed the matchmaker, I am an old woman. Not at all. You are such a figure, and your face is plump and fair, and all the rest of it. The matchmaker was embarrassed. Stitchkin was also embarrassed, and sat down beside her. "'You are still very attractive,' said he. "'If you met with a practical, steady, careful husband, with his salary and your earnings, you might even attract him very much, and you'd get on very well together.' "'Goodness knows what you are saying, Nikolai Nikolaitch!' "'Well, I meant no harm.' A silence followed.
Sitchkin began loudly blowing his nose. While the matchmaker turned crimson and, looking bashfully at him, asked, "'And how much do you get, Nikolai Nikolaevich?' "'Aye, seventy-five roubles, besides tips. Apart from that, we make something out of candles and hares.' "'You go hunting, then?' "'No. Passengers who travel without tickets are called hares with us.' Another minute passed in silence. Stitchkin got up and walked about the room in excitement. "'I don't want a young wife,' said he. "'I am a middle-aged man, and I want someone who, as it might be like you, stayed and settled, and a figure something like yours.' "'Goodish knows what you are saying,' giggled the matchmaker, hiding her crimson face in her kerchief.
There is no need to be long thinking about it. You are after my own heart, and you suit me in your qualities. I am a practical, sober man, and if you like me, what could be better? Allow me to make you a proposal. The matchmaker dropped a tear, laughed, and, in token of her consent, clinked glasses with Stitchkin. Well, said the happy railway guard, now allow me to explain to you the behaviour and manner of life I desire from you. I am a strict, respectable, practical man. I take a gentlemanly view of everything, and I desire that my wife should be strict also, and should understand that to her I am a benefactor and the foremost person in the world. He sat down and, heaving a deep sigh, began expounding to his bride-elect his views on domestic life and a wife's duties.
End of A Happy Ending by Anton Chekhov
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8 08 - How the Widow Won the Deacon 19:25
How the Widow Won the Deacon by William James Lampton. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by William Jones, Benita Springs, Florida. How the Widow Won the Deacon Of course the widow Stimson never tried to win Deacon Hawkins, or any other man for that matter. A widow doesn't have to try to win a man. She wins without trying. Still, the widow Stimson sometimes wondered why the deacon was so blind, as not to see how her fine form Adjoining his equally fine place on the outskirts of the town might not be brought under one management with mutual benefit to both parties at interest.
Which one that management might become was a matter of future detail. The widow knew how to run a farm successfully, and a large farm is not much more difficult to run than one of half the size. She had also had one husband, and knew something more than running a farm successfully, of all of which the deacon was perfectly well aware, and still he had not been moved by the merging spirit of the age to propose consolidation. This interesting situation was up for discussion at the Wednesday afternoon meeting of the Sisters Sewing Society. "'For my part,' Sister Susan Spicer, wife of the messinous miniature remarked, as she took another tuck in a fourteen-year-old girl's skirt for a ten-year-old, "'for my part, I can't see why Deacon Hawkins and Kate Simson don't see the error of their ways and depart from them.' "'I'd rather guess she has,' smiled Sister Petite.
The grocer's better half, who had taken an afternoon off from the store in order to be present. "'Or he is willing to,' and his sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster still possessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been on the waiting list a long time ago. "'Really now?' exclaimed little sister Green, the doctor's wife. Do you think it is the deacon who needs urging? It looks that way to me, Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm. Well, I heard Sister Clark say that she had heard him call her Kitty one night when they were eating ice cream at the Mite Society. Sister Candish, the druggist's wife, added to the fund of reliable information on him. Kitty, indeed. protested Sister Spicer, the idea of anybody calling Kate Simpson Kitty.
The deacon will talk that way to most any woman, but if she let him say it to her more than once, she must be getting mighty anxious, I think. Oh, Sister Cavendish hastened to explain. Sister Clark didn't say she had heard him say it twice. Well, I don't think she heard him say it twice. Sister Spicer answered with confidence. I don't know about that, Sister Petitarche. From all I can see and hear, I think Kate Stimson wouldn't object to most anything, the deacon would say to her, knowing as she does that he ain't going to say anything he shouldn't say. And isn't saying what he should, added Sister Green. with a sly snicker, which went around the room softly. "'But as I was saying,' Sister Spicer began, "'when Sister Petit, whose rocker near the window commanded to view the front gate, interrupted with a warning, "'Shh!
Why shouldn't I say what I wanted to when—' Sister Spicer began. "'There she comes now,' explained Sister Petit, "'and as I lived, the deacon drove her here in his sleigh. And he's waiting while she comes in. I wonder what next? And Sister Poteet, in conjunction with the entire society, gasped and held their eager breaths, waiting for the entrance of the subject of conversation. Sister Spicer went to the front door to let her in, and she was greeted with the greatest cordiality by everybody. "'We were just talking about you and wondering why you were so late coming,' cried Sister Petit. "'Now take off your things and make up for a lost time. There's a pair of pants over there to be cut down to fit that poor little Snithers boy.' The excitement and curiosity of the society were almost more than could be borne.
But never a sister let on that she knew the deacon was at the gate waiting. Indeed, as far as the winner could discover, there is not the slightest indication that anybody had ever heard through such a person as the deacon in existence. Oh, she chirped in the liveliest of humors. You will have to excuse me for today. Deacon Hawkins overtook me on the way here, and said I had simply got to go sleigh-riding with him. He is waiting at the gate now. Is that so? exclaimed the society unanimously, and rushed the window to see if it were really true. Well, did you ever? commented Sister Poteet, generally. Hardly ever, laughed the widow, good-naturedly, and I don't want to lose the chance. You know that Deacon Hawkins isn't asking somebody every day to go slaying with him.
I told him I'd go if he would bring me around here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now, good-bye, and I'll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have to hurry, because he'll get fidgeted. The widow ran away like a lively schoolgirl. All the sisters watched her get into the sleigh with the deacon, and resumed the previous discussion with greatly increased interest. But little wrecked the window, and less wrecked the deacon. He had brought a new horse, and he wanted the widow's opinion of it, for the widow Stimson was a competent judge of fine horse-fresh. If Deacon Hawkins had one insatiable ambition, it was to own a horse which could fling its heels in the face of the best that Squire Hopkins drove.
In his early manual, The deacon was no deacon by a great deal, but as the years gathered in behind him, he put off the most frivolities of youth, and held now only to the one of driving a fast horse. No other man in the county drove anything faster, except Squire Hopkins, and him the deacon had not been able to throw the dust over. The deacon would get good ones, but somehow Never could he find one that the squire didn't get a better. The squire had also, in the early days, beaten the deacon in the race for a certain pretty girl he had dreamed about. But the girl and the squire had lived happily ever after, and the deacon, being a philosopher, might have forgotten the squire's superiority had it been manifested in this one regard only.
But in horses, too, that graveled the deacon. How much did you give for him? Was the widow's first quarter, after they had reached a stretch of road that was good going, and the deacon had let him out for a length or two? Oh, what do you suppose? You're a judge. For more than I would give, I'll bet a cookie. Not if you was as anxious as I am. to show Hopkins that he can't drive everything on the pike. "'I thought you loved a good horse because he was a good horse,' said the widow, rather disapprovingly. "'I do, but I could love him a good deal harder if he would stay in front of Hopkins' best.' "'Does he know you've got this one?' "'Yes, and he's been blowing around town.'" He is waiting to pick me up on the road some day and make my five hundred dollars look like a pewter quarter."
"'So you gave five hundred dollars for him, did you?' laughed the widow. "'Is it too much?' "'No,' hesitated the widow, glancing along the graceful lines of the powerful trotter. "'I suppose not, if you can beat this choir.' "'Right you are.' called the deacon, and I'll show him a thing or two in getting over the ground, he added with a swelling pride. Well, I hope he won't be out looking for you today, with me in your sleigh, said the widow, almost apprehensively. Because, you know, deacon, I've always wanted you to beat Squire Hopkins. The deacon looked at her sharply. There was a softness in her tones that appealed to him. Even if she had not expressed such agreeable sentiments. Just what the deacon might have said or done after the impulse had been set going must remain unknown.
For at the crucial moment a sound of militant bells, bells of defiance, jangled up behind them, disturbing their personal absorption, and they looked around, simultaneously, behind the bells, was the squire, in his sleigh, joined by his fastest stepper, and he was alone, as the deacon was not. The widow weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, net, which is weighing a horse in a race more than the law allows. But the deacon never thought of that. Forgetting everything except his cherished ambition, he braced himself for a contest, took a twist-hole on the lines, sent a sharp-click call to his horse, and let him out for all that was in him. The squire followed suit, and the deacon. The road was wide, and the snow was worn down smooth.
The track couldn't have been in better condition. The Hopkins scholars were not five rods behind the Hopkins scholars as they got away. For half a mile it was nipped and tucked, The deacon encouraging his horse, and the widow encouraging the deacon, and the squire began creeping up. The deacon's horse was a good one, but he was not accustomed to hauling freight in a race. A half-mile of it was as much as he could stand, and he weakened under the strain. Not handicapped? The squire's horse forged ahead, and as his toes pushed up to the dashboard, of the deacon's sleigh, that good man groaned in agonized disappointment and bitterness of spirit. The widow was mad all over that Squire Hopkins should take such a mean advantage of his rival.
Why didn't he wait until another time when the deacon was alone as he was? If she had her way, she would never speak to Squire Hopkins again, nor to his wife, either. But the resentment was not helping the deacon's horse win. Slowly the squire pulled closer to the front. The deacon's horse, realizing what it meant to his master and to him, spurted bravely. But struggled as gamely as he might, the odds were too many for him, and he dropped to the rear. The squire shouted in triumph as he drew past the deacon and the deacon. Jacket Hawkins shrivelled into a heap on the seat, with only his hands sufficiently alive to hold the lines. He had been beaten again, humiliated before a woman, and that, too, was the best choice that he could hope to put against the ever-conquering squire.
Here sank his fondest hopes. Here ended his ambition. From this on he would drive a mule or an automobile. The fruit of his desire had turned to ashes in his mouth. But no! What of the widow? She realized, if the deacon did not, that she, not the squire's horse, had beaten the deacon's, and she was ready to make what atonement she could. As the squire passed ahead of the deacon's, She was stirred by a noble resolve. A deep bed of drifted snow lay close by the side of the road, not far in front. It was soft and safe, and she smiled as she looked at it as though waiting for her. Without a hint of her purpose, or sign to disturb the deacon in his final throes, she rose as the sleigh ran near its edge, and with a spring, which had many a time sent her, Lightly from the ground to the bareback of a horse in the meadow, she cleared the robes and lit plump in the drift.
The deacon's horse knew before the deacon did that something had happened in his favor, and was quick to respond. With his first jump of relief, the deacon suddenly revived. His hopes came fast again, his blood re-tingled, and he gathered himself, and cracking his lines, he shot forward, and three minutes later he had passed the squire as though he were hitched to the fence. For a quarter of a mile the squire made heroic efforts to recover his vanished prestige, but the effort was useless, and finally, concluding that he was practically left standing, He veered off from the main road down a farm lane to find some spot in which to hide the humiliation of his defeat. The deacon, still going at a clipping gait, had one guy over his shoulder, as weary dryers always have on such occasions, and when he saw the squire was off the track, he slowed down and jogged along with the apparent intention of continuing indefinitely.
Presently, and I did struggle, and he looked around for the widow. She was not where he had seen her last. Where was she? In the enthusiasm of victory, he had forgotten her. He was so dejected at the moment she had leaped that he did not realize what she had done, and two minutes later he was so elated. Shame on him! He did not care. With her all was lost, without her all was won, and the deacon's greatest ambition was to win. But now, with victory perched on his horse-collar, success his at last, he thought of the widow, and he did care. He cared so much that he almost threw his horse off his feet by the abrupt turn he gave him and backed down the pike he flew as if a legion of squires were after him.
He did not know what injury she might have sustained. She might have been seriously hurt, if not actually killed. And why, simply to make it possible for him to win? The deacon shivered as he thought of it, and urged his horse to greater speed. The squire down the lane saw him whizzing along. and accepted it profanely as an exhibition for his especial benefit. The deacon now had forgotten, Esquire, as he had only so shortly before forgotten the widow. Two hundred yards from the drift into which she had jumped, there was a turn in the road, where some trees shut off from the site, and the deacon's anxiety increased momentarily until he reached this point. From there they could see ahead, and down there, in the middle of the road, stood the widow, waving her shawl as a banner of triumph, though she could only guess at results.
The deacon came on with a rush and pulled up alongside of her in a condition of nervousness he didn't think possible to him. "'Hurray! Hurray!' shouted the widow, tossing her shawl in the air. You beat him. I know you did, didn't you? I saw you pulling ahead at the turn yonder. Where is he and his old plug? Oh, bother, take him, and his horse, and the race and everything. Are you hurt? gasped the deacon, jumping out, but mindful to keep the lines in his hand. Are you hurt? he repeated anxiously, though she looked anything but a hurt woman. If I am, she chirped cheerily. I'm not hurt half as bad as I would have been if the squire had beat you, deacon. Now don't you worry about me. Let's hurry back to town so the squire won't get another chance with no place for me to jump.
And the deacon? Well, when with the lines in the crook up his elbow, the deacon held out his arm to the widow, The sisters at the next meeting of the sewing society were unanimously of the opinion that any woman who would risk her life like that for husband was mighty anxious.
End of How the Widow Won the Deacon
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9 09 - In the Valley of the Shadow 39:30
In the Valley of the Shadow by Morgan Robertson. Read by Joe Denoya, Chesterfield, New Jersey. January 8, 2022. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
In the Valley of the Shadow.
There are few facilities for cooking aboard submarine torpedo boats, and that is why Lieutenant Ross ran his little submarine up alongside the flagship at noon, and made fast to the boat boom, the horizontal spar extending from warships, which boats ride when in water. And, as familiarity breeds contempt, after the first Tentative trial, he had been content to let her hang by one of the small, fixed painters depending from the boom, for his boat was small and the tide weak, bringing little strain on painter or boom.
Besides, this plan was good, for it kept the submarine from bumping the side of the ship, and paint below the waterline is as valuable to a warship as paint above.
Thus Mord, the little craft, with only her deck and conning tower showing, rode lightly at the end of her tether, while Ross and his men, all but one to watch, climbed aboard and ate their dinner.
Ross finished quickly and sought the deck, for on going down to the wardroom, he had seen among the visitors from shore the one girl in the world to him. The girl he had met at Newport, Washington and New York, whom he wanted as he wanted life, but whom he had not asked for yet because he had felt so sure of her.
And now this surety was jolted out of his consciousness, for she was there escorted by a man she had often described, and whom Ross recognized from the description. A tall, dark, cappinish-looking fellow, with a large mustache. But who, far from being a captain or other kind of Superman, was merely a photographer, yet a wealthy and successful photographer, whose work was unusual and artistic.
Ross, though an efficient naval officer, was anything but captainish. He was simply a clean-shaven, clean-cut young fellow, with a face that mirrored every emotion of his soul.
Knowing this infirmity, if such it is, he resolutely put down the jealous thoughts that surged through his brain, and when the visitors, guests of the captain, reached the deck, he met them, and was introduced to Mr. Foster with as pleasant a face as the girl had ever seen.
Then, with the captain's permission, he invited them down to inspect his submarine.
A plank from the lower grating of the gangway to the deck of the smaller craft was all that was needed. And along this they went, the girl ahead, supported by Mr. Foster, and Ross following, with the messenger boy from the bridge following him.
At the hatch, the girl paused and shrank back, for the wide eyes of the caretaker were looking up at her.
Ross surmised this, and called to the man to come up and get his dinner.
Then, as the man passed him and stepped onto the plank, the messenger got his attention. The officer of the deck desired to speak with him, he said.
Ross explained the manner of dissent, admonished his guest to touch nothing until he returned, and followed the messenger back to the officer of the deck.
It was nothing of importance, simply a matter pertaining to the afternoon drill, and, somewhat annoyed, Ross returned.
But he paused at the end of the plank. A loud voice from below halted him and did not care to interrupt. Nor did he care to go back, leaving him alone in the submarine.
I mean it! Foster was saying vehemently. I hope this boat does go to the bottom.
Why, Mr. Foster, cried the girl. What a sentiment.
I tell you I mean it. You have made life unbearable. I make your life unbearable?
Yes, you, Irene. You know I've loved you from the beginning, and you've coquetted with me, played with me. As a cat plays with a mouse. When I have endeavored to escape, you have drawn me back by smiles and favor, and given me hope. Then it is coldness and disdain. I am tired of it.
I am sorry, Mr. Foster, if anything in my attitude has caused such an impression. I have given you no special smiles or favors, no special coldness or disdain.
But I love you. I want you. I cannot live without you.
You lived a long time without me before we met.
Yes, before we met. Before I fell under the spell of your personality. You have hypnotized me, made yourself necessary to me. I am heart-sick all the time thinking of you.
Then you must get over it, Mr. Foster. I must think of myself.
Then you do not care for me at all?
I do, but only as an acquaintance.
Not even as a friend?
I do not like to answer such pointy questions, sir. But since you ask, I will tell you. I do not like you even as a friend. You demand so much. You are very selfish, never considering my feelings at all, and you often annoy me with your moods.
Frankly, I am happier away from you."
My moods? Foster repeated bitterly. You caused my moods, but I know what the real trouble is. I was all right until Ross came along.
You have no right, Mr. Foster, said the girl angrily, to bring Lieutenant Ross's name into this discussion.
Oh, I understand. Do you think he can marry you on his pay?
Mr. Ross's pay would not influence him, nor me. Well, I'll tell you this, and Foster's voice became a snarl.
You two won't be married. I'll see to it. I want you, and if I can't have you, no one else shall.
Whew, whistled Ross softly, while he smiled sweetly, and danced a mental jig in the air.
Then he danced a few steps of a real jig to apprise them of his coming.
Time to end this, he said, then called out cheerily, Look out below, and entered the hatch.
Got a bad habit, he said, as he descended, of coming down this ladder by the run.
Must break myself before I break my neck.
Well, how are you making out? Been looking around?
The girl's face, pale, but for two red spots on her cheeks. was turned away from him as he stepped off the ladder, and she trembled visibly.
Foster, though flushed and scowling, made a better effort at self-control.
Why, no, Lieutenant, he said with a sickly smile.
It's all strange and new to us. We were waiting for you, but I have become slightly interested in this.
He indicated a circular window. Fixed in the steel side of the boat.
Isn't it a new feature in submarines?
Yes, it is, answered Ross. But it has long been known that glass will stand a stress equal to that of steel. So they've given us deadlights.
See the side of the ship out there? We can see objects about 20 feet away near the surface. Deeper down, it is darker.
And I suppose you see some interesting sights under the water," pursued Foster, now recovered in poise.
Yes, very interesting, and some very harrowing. I saw a man drowning not long ago. We were powerless to help him.
Heavens, what a sight! exclaimed Foster. The expression on his face must have been tragic.
Pitiful. The most pitiful I ever looked at. They seemed to be calling to us. Such agony and despair. But it did not last long.
But while it did last, did you have a camera? What a chance for a photographer! That is my line, you know. Did ever a photographer get a chance to photograph the expression on the face of a drowning man? What a picture it would be.
Don't, said the girl with a shudder. For mercy's sake, do not speak of such things.
I beg your pardon, Miss Fleming, said Ross gently. It was very tactless in me. And I, Miss Fleming, said Foster with a bow, was led away by professional enthusiasm. Please accept my apology, too.
Still, Lieutenant, I must say that I would like the chance.
Sorry, Mr. Foster, answered Ross coldly. We do all sorts of things to men in the Navy, but we don't drown them for the sake of their pictures.
Suppose I show you around, for at two bells the men will be back from their dinner.
Now, aft here is the gasoline engine which we use to propel the boat on the surface. We can't use it submerged, however, on account of the exhaust. So, for underwater work, we use a strong storage battery to work a motor.
You see the motor back there, and under this deck is the storage battery. Large jars of sulfuric acid and lead.
It is a bad combination if salt water floods it.
How? What happens? asked Foster.
Battery gas, or in chemical terms, chlorine gas, is formed. It is one of the most poisonous and suffocating of all gases.
That is the real danger in submarine boats. Suffocation from chlorine. It will remain so until we get a better form of motive power. Liquid or compressed air, perhaps. And here, Ross led them to a valve wheel amid ships. As though to invite such disaster, they've given us a seacock.
What's it for? asked Foster.
To sink the boat in case of fire. It's an inheritance from steamboats. Pure precedent, and useless, for a submarine cannot catch fire.
Why? A few turns of that wheel when in the awash trim would admit enough water in two minutes to sink the boat. I've applied for permission to abolish it.
Two minutes, you say? Does it turn easy? Would it be possible to accidentally turn it?
Very easy, and very possible. I caution my men every day.
And in case you do sink... And do not immediately suffocate. How do you rise?
By pumping out the water, there's a strong pump connected with that motor aft there that will force out water against the pressure of the sea at 50 fathoms down. That is 10 atmospheres. Pretty hard pressure. But if the motor gets wet, it is useless to work the pump. So we can be satisfied that... If we sink by means of the seacock, we will stay sunk.
There is a hand pump to use on the surface with dead batteries, but it is useless at any great depth."
What do you mean by the awash trim, Lieutenant? asked Foster, who was now looking out through the dead leg.
The diving trim, that is, submerged. All but the conning tower.
I'll show you, so that you can say that you've really been underwater.
Ross turned a number of valves similar to the seacock, and the girl's face took on a look of doubt and sudden apprehension.
You're not going to sink the boat, are you, Mr. Ross? She asked.
Oh no. Just filling the tanks. Went full. We still have 300 pounds reserve buoyancy. We'll have to go ahead and steer down. But we won't go ahead.
Come forward, and I'll show you the torpedo tube.
Foster remained, moodily staring through the deadlight, while the other two went forward.
Ross noticed his abstraction, and, ascribing it to weariness of technical detail, Did not press him to follow, and continued his lecture to Miss Fleming in a lower tone and an evident embarrassment.
Now, here is the tube, he said. See this rear door? It is watertight. When a torpedo is in the tube, as it is now, we admit water as well.
And, to expel the torpedo, we only have to open the forward door. Apply compressed air, and out it goes. Then it propels and steers itself.
We have a theory. No, not a theory now, for it has been proved that in case of accident, a submarine crew can all be ejected through the tube except the last man. He must remain to die, for he cannot eject himself.
That man... Ross smiled and bowed low to the girl. Must be the commander.
How terrible, she answered, interested, but looking back abstractly at Foster.
Why do you remain at this work? Your life is always in danger.
And on that account, promotion is more probable. I want promotion and more pay. He lowered his voice and took her hand, so that I may ask with a love and a life companionship of the dearest and best girl in the world.
She took her gaze off Foster, cast one fleeting glance into the young lieutenant's pleading face, then dropped her eyes to the deck, while her face flushed rosily. But she did not withdraw her hand.
Must you wait for promotion? she said length.
No, Irene, no, exclaimed Ross excitedly, squeezing the small hand in his own. Not if you say so. But I have nothing but my pay.
I have always been poor, she said, looking him frankly in the face.
But, John, that is not it. I am afraid. He, Mr. Foster, threatened us. Vowed he would never... Oh, and he turned something back there after you started. He did it so quickly, I just barely saw him as I turned to follow you.
I did not know what it was. I did not understand what you were describing.
He turned something? What?
It was a wheel of some kind.
Ross looked at Foster. He was now on the conning tower ladder, halfway up, looking at his open watch, with a lurid, malevolent twist to his features.
Say your prayers, yelled Foster insanely. You two are going to die, I say. Die, both of you.
He sprang up the ladder, and Ross abounded aft, somewhat bewildered by the sudden turn of events. He was temporarily at his wits' end, but when Foster floundered down to the deck in a deluge of water from above, and the conning tower hatched closed with a wringing clang, he understood. One look at the depth indicator was enough. The boat was sinking. He sprang through the seacock valve. It was wide open.
Blast your wretched black heart and soul, he growled, and he hoved the wheel around.
Did you open this valve? Hey, answer me! You did, didn't you? And thought to escape yourself. You coward!
Oh, God, cried Foster, running about distractedly. We're sinking, and I can't get out.
Ross tightened the valve and sprang towards him, the murder impulse strong in his soul.
In imagination, he felt his fingers on the throat of the other, and every strong muscle on his arms closing more tightly his grip.
Then their plight dominated his thoughts. He really struck out silently and knocked the photographer down.
Get up, he commanded. As the prostrate man rolled heavily over to his hands and knees. Get up. I may need you.
Foster arose and seeped himself on a torpedo amidships, where he sank his head in his hands.
With a glance at him and a reassuring look at the girl who still remained forward, Ross went aft to connect up the pump.
But as he went, He noticed that the deck inclined more and more with each passing moment.
He found the depressed engine room full of water, and the motor flooded. It was useless to start it. It was short circuit at the first contact. And he halted, wondering at the boat's being down by the stern so much, until a snapping sound from forward apprised him of the reason.
The painter at the boom had held her nose up until the weight was too much for it, and with its parting, the little craft assumed nearly an even keel, while the water rushed forward among the battery jars beneath the deck.
Then a strong, astringent odor arose through the seams in the deck, and Ross became alive. "'Battery gas!' he exclaimed as he ran amidships, tumbling Foster off the torpedo with a kick. For he was in his way.
He reached up and turned valve after valve, admitting compressed air from the flasks to the filled tanks to blow out the water.
This done, he looked at the depth indicator. It registered 70 feet. But, before he could determine the speed of descent, there came a shock that permeated the whole boat.
They were on the bottom.
And Lord only knows, groaned Ross, how much we've taken in. But it's only three atmospheres, thank God.
Here, you, he commanded to the nerveless Foster, who had again found a seat.
Lend a hand on this pump. I'll deal with your case when we get up.
What must I do? asked Foster plaintively, as he turned his face. An ashy green now. Toward Ross.
Pump, yelled Ross in his ear. Pump till you break your back if necessary. Ship that break.
He handed Foster his pump break, and they shipped them in the hand pump. But, heave as they might, they could not move it, except in jerks of about an inch.
With an old-fashioned force pump, rusty from disuse. A three-inch outlet and three atmospheres of pressure. Pumping was useless. And they gave it up, even though the girl added her little weight and strength to the task.
Ross had plenty of compressed air in the numerous air flasks scattered about. And, as he can blow out no more tanks, he expended a jet into the choking atmosphere of the boat.
It sweetened the air a little. But there was enough of the powerful, poisonous gas generated to keep them all coughing continually.
However, he seated the girl close to the airjet, so that she need not suffer more than was necessary.
Are we in danger, John? She asked. Real danger, I mean? Yes, dear, we are, he answered tenderly.
And it is best that you should know. I have driven out all the water possible, and we cannot pump at this depth. Higher up we could. But I can eject the torpedo from the tube, and perhaps the others. That will lighten us a good deal."
He went forward, driving Foster before him, for he did not care to leave him too close to the girl, and pushed him bodily into the cramped space between the tube and the trimming tanks.
Stay there, he said incisively, until I want you.
What can I do? whimpered the photographer, a brave bully before the girl when safe. A stricken poltroon now.
I'll do anything you say to get to the surface.
You'll get to the surface in time, answered Ross significantly. How much do you weigh?
Two hundred pounds. Two hundred more than we want. However, I'll get rid of this torpedo.
Ross drove the water out of the tube, opened the breach door, and, reaching in with a long, heavy wire, lifted the starting lever and water-tripper that gave motion to the torpedo's engine.
The exhaustive air into the tube was driven out into the boat by the rapidly moving screws, and in a few moments, the engine ran down.
Then Ross closed the door, flooded the tube, opened the forward door or port, and sent out the torpedo, confident that, with a dead engine, it would float harmlessly to the surface, and perhaps locate their position to the fleet. For there could be little doubt that the harbor above was dotted with boats, dragging for the sunken submarine.
As the torpedo went out, Ross noticed that the nose of the boat lifted a little, then settled as the tube filled with water.
This was encouraging, and he expelled the water.
The nose again lifted, but the stern still held to the bottom.
There were two other torpedoes, one each side amidships, and though the dragging to the tube with these heavy weights was a job for all hands, Ross assated.
They were mounted on trucks, and with what mechanical aids and purchases he can bring to bear, he and the subdued foster labored at the task, and in an hour had the starboard torpedo in the tube.
As he was expending weights, He had not taken to the midship's tank an equal weight of water, as was usual to keep the boat in trim. And when the torpedo, robbed of motive power and detonator, went out, the bow lifted still higher, though the stern held, as was evidenced by the grating sound from aft. The tide was drifting the boat along the bottom.
Another hour of hard, perspiring work rid them of the other torpedo. And the boat now inclined at an angle of thirty degrees. Down by the stern because of the water in the engine room, but not yet at the critical angle that caused the flooding of the after-battery jars as the boat sank.
Ross looked at the depth indicator, but found small comfort. It ran off a depth of about sixty feet, but this only meant the lift of the bow.
However, The propeller guard only occasionally struck the bottom now, proving to Ross that, could he expend a very little more weight, the boat would rise to the surface, where, even though he might not pump, his periscope and conning tower could be seen.
He panted after his labors until he ever gained breath, then said to Foster, you next.
I next. What do you mean?
You want to get to the surface, don't you? said Ross grimly. You expressed yourself as willing to do anything I might say in order to get to the surface.
Well, strip off your coat, vest, and shoes, and crawl into that tube.
What? To drown? No, I will not.
Yes, you will. Can you swim?
I can swim, but not when I'm shot out of a gun. Then you'll drown. Peel off.
I cannot. I cannot. Would you kill me?
Don't care much, answered Ross quietly, if I do.
Only I don't want your dead body in the boat. Come now," he added, his voice rising. I'm giving you a chance for your life. I can swim, too, and would not hesitate at going out that tube if I was sure that the boat, deprived of my weight, would rise. But I am not sure. So I send you. Not only because you're heavier than I am, but because as Miss Fleming must remain, I prefer to remain, too. To live or die with her. Understand?
But Miss Fleming, cackled Foster, she can swim. I've heard her say so.
You cowardly scoundrel, said Ross, his eyes ablaze with scorn and rage. He had already shed his coat and vest, and now he rolled up his shirt sleeves. Will you go into that tube of your own volition, conscious? "'Somthing me take a long breath before I flood the tube? Or unconscious, and pushed in like a bag of meal, to drown before you know what ails you?' "'Which?' "'No,' shrieked Foster, as the menacing face and fists of Ross drew close to him. "'I will not. Do something else. You're a sailor. You know what to do. Do something else.' Ross's reply was a crashing blow in the face that sent Foster reeling toward the tube. But he arose and returned. The animal fear in him changed to courage. He was a powerfully built man, taller, broader, and heavier than Ross.
And what he lacked in skill with his fists, he possessed in the momentum of his lunges and his utter indifference to pain.
Ross was a trained boxer, strong and agile, and where he struck the larger man, he left his mark, but in the contracted floor space of the submarine, he was at a disadvantage.
But he fought on, striking, ducking, dodging, striving not only for his life, but that of the girl whom he loved, who, seated on the midship's trimming tank, Was watching the fight with pale face and wide-open, frightened eyes.
Once, Ross managed to trip him as he lunged, and Foster fell headlong. But before Ross could secure a weapon or implement to aid him in the unequal combat, he was up and coming back, with nose bleeding and swollen, eyes black and half closed. His contusions plentily sprinkled over his whole face.
He growled incoherently. He was reduced by fear and pain to the level of a beast. And, beast-like, he fought for his life, with hands and feet, only the possession of the prehensile thumb, perhaps, preventing him from using his teeth.
For Ross, Unable to avoid his next blind lunge, went down, with the whole two hundred pounds of foster on top of him, and felt the stricture of his clutch on his throat.
A man being choked quickly loses power of volition, entirely distinct from the inhibition coming of suppressed breathing.
After a few moments, his movements are involuntary.
Ross with flashes of light before his eyes, soon took his hands from the iron fingers at his throat, and, with the darkening of his faculties, his arms and legs went through flailing-like motions, rising and falling, thumping the deck with rhythmic regularity.
Something in this exhibition must have affected the girl at the air jet, for Ross soon began to breathe convulsively, then to see, more or less distinctly. While his limbs ceased their flapping.
And the first thing he saw was the girl standing over him, her face white as the whites of her distended eyes. Her lips pressed tightly together, and poised aloft in her hands one of the pump brakes, ready for another descent upon the head of Foster, who, still and inert, lay by the side of Ross.
As Ross moved and endeavored to rise, she dropped the club and sank down, crying his name and kissing him.
Then she incontentedly fainted.
Ross struggled to his feet and, though still weak and nerveless, found some spun yarn in the locker, with which he tied the unconscious victim's hands behind his back and lashed his ankles together.
Thus secured, he was harmless when he came to his senses, which happened before Ross had revived the girl.
But there were no growling threats coming from him now. Conquered and bound, his courage changed to fear again, and he complained and prayed for release.
Not much, said Ross, busy with the girl.
When I get my win, I'm going to jam you into that tube like a dead man. I'll release you inside.
When Miss Fleming was again seated on the tank, breathing fresh air from the jet, Ross went to work with the practical methods of a sailor.
He first, by a mighty exercise of all his strength, loaded the frightened Foster onto one of the torpedo trucks, face downward. Then he wheeled him to the tube. so that his uplifted face could look squarely into it.
Then he passed a strap of rope around under his shoulders, to which he applied the big end of the ship's handspike, which happened to be aboard. And to the other end of this, as it lay along the back of Foster, he secured a single block of small tackle, one of the purchases he had used in handling the torpedoes.
And when he had secured the double block to an eye-bolt in the bow, He steadied the handspike between his knees, hauled on the fall with no word to the screaming wretch, and launched him, head and shoulders, into the tube.
As his hands tied behind him went in, Ross carefully cut one turn of the spun yarn, hauled away, and as his feet disappeared, he cut the bonds on his ankles.
Then he advised him to shake his hands and feet clear. Pulled out the handspike, slammed the breech door to, and waited.
The protest from within had never ceased, but at last Ross got from the information, interlarded with pleadings for life, and his hands and feet were free.
All right. Take a good breath, and I'll flood you, called Ross. When you're outside, swim up.
The voice from within ceased.
Ross threw over the lever that admitted water to the tube, opened the forward door, and applied the compressed air.
There was a slight jump to the boat's nose, but with the inrush of water as Foster went out, it sank.
However, when Ross closed the forward door and expelled this water, it rose again. And he anxiously inspected the depth indicator.
At first he hardly dared believe it, but in a few moments he was sure.
The indicator was moving, hardly faster than the mid-hand of a clock.
The boat, released at the last few pounds necessary, was seeking the surface.
We're rising. We'll be afloat before long, and they'll rescue us. Even though we can't pump, they'll see our periscope and tow us somewhere where they can lift the hatch out of water.
It's all over, girl. All over but the shouting.
Stand up and look at the indicator. Only 55 feet now.
She stood beside him, supported by his arm, and together they watched a slowly moving indicator.
Then Ross casually glanced at the deadlight and violently forced the girl to recede.
Sit still, he commanded, almost harshly. Sit still and rest.
For, looking in through the deadlight, was the white face of Foster, washed clean of blood. But filled with the terror and agony of the dying. His hands clutched weakly at the glass, his eyes closed, his mouth open, and he drifted out of sight.
End of In the Valley of the Shadow by Morgan Robertson.
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10 10 - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 29:51
And a curtains at Owl Creek Bridge.
By Ambrose Bierce. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross timber above his head, and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the tie supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners. Two private soldiers of the Federal Army, directed by a sergeant, who in civil life may have been a deputicier, at a short remove upon the same temporary platform, was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel, at each end of the bridge, stood with his rifle in the position known as support.
That is to say, vertical, in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm, thrown straight across the chest. A formal and unnatural position. Enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge. They merely blockaded two ends the foot-planking that traversed it. Beyond one of the sentinels, nobody was in sight. The railroad ran straightway into the forest for a hundred yards. Then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless, there was an outpost far along. The other bank of the stream was open ground. A gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree-trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge.
Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators, a single company of infantry in line at parade rest. The butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, at the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Expecting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge. Staring stonerly, motionless. The sentinels facing the banks of the stream might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign.
Death is a dignitary who, when he comes announced, is to be received with formal manifestations of respect. Even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette, silence and fixivity are forms of deference. The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good. Straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers. His eyes were large, dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp.
Evidently, This was no virgil assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded. The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside, and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted, and placed himself immediately Behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end, upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain.
It was now Held in place by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former, the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt, and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement condemned itself to his judgment, as simple and effective.
His face had not been covered, nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his unstuck fast footing. Then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention, and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move. What a sluggish dream!
He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts on his wife and children. The water touched by gold, by the early sun. The brooding mist under the banks at some distant down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, a piece of drift, all had distracted him, and now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand. A sharp, distinct, metallic percussion Like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil. It had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby. It seemed both. Its reoccurrence was regular, but as slow as the toiling of a death-kneel. He awaited each new stroke with impatience, and he knew not why.
Apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer. The delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency, the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They heard his ear like the thrust of a knife. He feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch. He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. If I could free my hands, he thought, I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving, I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods, and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines. My wife and little ones are still beyond the invaders' farthest advance. As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain.
Rather than involved, from its captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside. Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planner of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave-owner, and like other slave-owners, a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist, and ardently devoted to the southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth. And he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies. The larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction, that opportunity, he felt, would come as it comes to all in wartime.
Meanwhile, he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South. No adventure too perilous for him to undertake, if consistent with the character of a civilian. who is at heart a soldier, and who, in good faith and without too much qualification, assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war. One evening, while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a grey-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water, her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.
"'The Yanks are repairing the railroad,' said the man, "'and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek Bridge. Put it in order and build a stockade on the north bank.' The Commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains, will be similarly hanged. I saw the order. "'How far is it to the Owl Creek Bridge?' Farquhar asked. "'About thirty miles.' "'Is there no force on this side of the creek?' Only a picket-post half a mile out on the road, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge. Suppose a man, a civilian, and student of hanging, would elude the picket-post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel, said Farquhar, smiling.
What could happen?
The soldier reflected. I was there a month ago, he replied. I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and will burn like tender.
The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband, and rode away. An hour later, after a nightfall, He repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal Scout.
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge, he lost consciousness, and was as one already dead. From this date he was awakened, ages later, it seemed to him, by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat. Followed by a sense of suffocation, keen, pugnant agnes seemed to shoot from his neck downward through the ever fibre of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivable rapid curiosity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire, heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness, of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought.
The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced. He had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion, encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely The fiery heart. Without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then, all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward, with the noise of a loud splash. A frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored. He knew that the rope had broken, and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation. The noose about his neck was already suffocating him, and kept the water from his lungs.
To dive hanging at the bottom of a river, the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light. But how distant? How inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter, until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface. Knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. To be hanged and drowned, he thought. That is not so bad. But I do not wish to be shot. No. I will not be shot. That is not fair.
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feet of a juggler without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! What magnificent, what superhuman strength. Ah, that was a fine endeavor. Bravo! The cord fell away. His arms parted and floated upward. The hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest, as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at the neck. They tore it away, and thrust it fiercely aside, its undilutions resembling those of a water-snake. Put it back! Put it back! He thought. He shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pain that he had yet experienced.
His neck ached horribly. His brain was on fire. His heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out. at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an unsupportable anguish, but his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge. His eyes were blinded by the sunlight. His chest expanded convulsively. With a supreme and crowning agony, his lungs engulfed a great drought of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek. He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, pre-naturedly keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived.
He felt the ripples upon his face, and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf. He saw the very insects upon them, the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon the million blades of grass, the humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragonfly's wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs like oars which had lifted their boat. All these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes, and he heard the rush of its body.
Parting over the water. He had become, to the surface, facing down the stream. In a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself a pivotal point. And he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioner. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gestulated. Pointing at him, the captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire. The others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic. Suddenly he heard a sharp report, and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the Sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder.
A light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge, gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye, and remembered, having read that gray eyes were the keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed. A counterswirl had caught Farquhar, and turned him half round. He was again looking at the forest, on the bank opposite the fork. The sound of a clear, high voice and a monotonous sing-song now rang out behind him, and came across the water with a distinctiveness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps, enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant.
The lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning's work. How coldly and pitilessly! With what an even, calm, ennotation, presaging, and enforcing tranquillity in the men, with what accurately measured interval fell those Cruel words. Company. Attention. Shoulder arms. Ready. Aim. Fire. Farquhar dived. Dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears, like the voice of Niagara. Yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley, and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened. oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck. It was uncomfortably warm, and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water. He was perceptibly further downstream. Nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading. The metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually. The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder. He was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs. He thought with the rapidity of lightning. The officer, he reasoned, will not make that marionette's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot.
He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me. I cannot dodge them all. An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, Demiandu, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort, and died in an explosion, which stirred the very river to its deeps. A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him, The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head, free from the commotion of the smitten water, he heard the deflective shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond. They will not do that again, he thought. The next time they will use a charge of grape.
I must keep my eye upon the gun. The smoke will apprise me. The report arrives too late. It lags behind the missile. That is a good gun. Suddenly, he felt himself whirled round and round, spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forest, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only. Circular, horizontal streaks of color. That was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex, and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream, the southern bank, and behind a projecting point. which concealed him from his enemies.
The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls, and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds. He could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants. He noted a definite order in their arrangement, and held the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks, and the wind made in their branches the music of Aeolion harps. He had not wished to perfect his escape. He was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken. A whizz and a rattle of grape-shot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream.
The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest. All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable. Nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman's road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in this revelation. By nightfall he was fatigued, foot-sore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him, and what he knew, to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it. No dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation.
The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram and a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars, looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which, once, twice, and again, He distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue. His neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested. He could go no longer close to them.
His tongue was swollen with thirst. He relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue! He could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet. Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene. Perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide, white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments. His wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him.
At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her, he feels a stunning blow upon the back of his neck. A blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound. Like the shock of a cannon. Then all is darkness and silence. Peyton Farquhar was dead. His body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge.
End of an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Read by Melody Maria, Lebanon, Kentucky. 5-21-22.
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11 11 - Old Age translated by Constance Garnett 15:02
Old Age by Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, translated by Constant Garnet. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peter Tomlinson. Yuzelkov, an architect with the rank of civil counsellor, arrived in his native town, to which he had been invited to restore the church in the cemetery. He had been born in the town, had been at school, had grown up, and married in it. But when he got out of the train, he scarcely recognized it. Everything was changed. Eighteen years ago, when he had moved to Petersburg, The street boys used to catch marmots, for instance, on the spot where now the station was standing.
Now, when he drove into the chief street, a hotel of four storeys stood facing one. In old days there was an ugly grey fence just there. But nothing, neither fences nor houses, had changed as much as the people. From his inquiries of the hotel waiter, Yuzelkov learned that more than half of the people he remembered were dead, reduced to poverty, forgotten. And do you remember Yuzelkov? he asked the old waiter about himself. Yuzelkov, the architect who divorced his wife. He used to have a house in Serebievsky Street. You must remember. "'I don't remember, sir.' "'How is it you don't remember?' "'The case made a lot of noise. Even the cabman all knew about it. Think now.' "'Shapkin, the attorney, managed my divorce for me.' "'The rascal.
The notorious card-sharper. The fellow who got a thrashing at the club.' "'Ivan Nikolaevich?' "'Yes, yes.' Well, is he alive? Is he dead? Alive, sir, thank God. He is a notary now and has an office. He is very well off. He has two houses in Kerpichny Street. His daughter was married the other day. Yuzelkov paced up and down the room, thought a bit, and in his boredom made up his mind to go and see Shapkin at his office. When he walked out of the hotel and sauntered slowly towards Capichney Street, it was midday. He found Shapkin at his office and scarcely recognized him. From the once well-made adroit attorney, with a mobile, insolent, and always drunken face, Shapkin had changed into a modest, grey-headed, decrepit old man.
"'You don't recognize me. You have forgotten me,' began Yuzelkov. "'I am your old client, Yuzelkov.' "'Yuzelkov? What, Yuzelkov?' "'Ah!' Chapkin remembered, recognized, and was struck all of a heap. There followed a shower of exclamations, questions, recollections. "'This is a surprise. This is unexpected,' crackled Chapkin. What can I offer you? Do you care for champagne? Perhaps you would like oysters. My dear fellow, I have had so much from you in my time that I can't offer you anything equal to the occasion. Please don't put yourself out," said Yuzelkov. I have no time to spare. I must go at once to the cemetery and examine the church. I have undertaken the restoration of it. "'That's capital.
We'll have a snack and a drink and drive together. I have capital horses. I'll take you there and introduce you to the churchwarden. I will arrange it all. But why is it, my angel, you seem to be afraid of me and hold me at arm's length? Sit a little nearer. There is no need for you to be afraid of me nowadays.' He-he-he. At one time, it is true, I was a cunning blade, a dog of a fellow. No one dared approach me, but now I am stiller than water and humbler than the grass. I have grown old. I am a family man. I have children. It's time I was dead. The friends had lunch, had a drink, and with a pair of horses drove out of the town to the cemetery. "'Yes, those were the times,' Chaplin recalled as he sat in the sledge.
"'When you remember them you simply can't believe in them. Do you remember how you divorced your wife?' "'It's nearly twenty years ago, and I dare say you have forgotten it all, but I remember it as though I'd divorced you yesterday. Good Lord!' What a lot of worry I had over it. I was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. Sometimes I was burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your case. What did you pay me then? Five or six thousand. That was worth taking trouble for, wasn't it? You went off to Petersburg and left the whole thing in my hands to do the best I could, and, though Sophia Milainovna, your wife, came only of a merchant family, she was proud and dignified.
To bribe her to take the guilt on herself was difficult, awfully difficult. I would go to negotiate with her, and as soon as she saw me she called to her maid. "'Masha, didn't I tell you not to admit that scoundrel?' "'Well, I tried one thing and another. I wrote her letters and contrived to meet her accidentally. It was no use. I had to act through a third person. I had a lot of trouble with her for a long time, and she only gave in when you agreed to give her ten thousand. She couldn't resist ten thousand. She couldn't hold out. She cried—' She spat in my face, but she consented. She took the guilt on herself. "'I thought it was fifteen thousand she had from me, not ten,' said Yudelkov. "'Yes, yes, fifteen.
I made a mistake,' said Shapkin, in confusion. "'It's all over and done with, though. It's no use concealing it. I gave her ten and the other five. I collared for myself. I deceived you both.' It's all over and done with. It's no use to be ashamed. And indeed, judge for yourself, Boris Petrovich, weren't you the very person for me to get money out of? You were a wealthy man and had everything you wanted. Your marriage was an idle whim, and so was your divorce. You were making a lot of money. I remember you made a scoop of twenty thousand over one contract. Whom should I have pleased if not you? And I must own I envied you. If you grabbed anything, they took off their caps to you, while they would thrash me for a rouble and slap me in the face at the club.
But there, why recall it? It is high time to forget it. Tell me, please, how did Sofia Milenovna get on afterwards? With her ten thousand? Very badly. God knows what it was. She lost her head, perhaps, or maybe her pride and her conscience tormented her at having sold her honour. Or perhaps she loved you. But, do you know, she took to drink. As soon as she got her money she was off driving about with officers. It was drunkenness, dissipation, debauchery. When she went to a restaurant with officers, she was not content with port or anything light. She must have strong brandy, fiery stuff to stupify her. Yes, she was eccentric. I had a lot to put up with from her. Sometimes she would take offence at something and begin being hysterical.
And what happened afterwards? One week passed, and then another. I was sitting at home, writing something. All at once the door opened, and she walked in, drunk. Take back your cursed money, she said, and flung a roll of notes in my face, so she could not keep it up. I picked up the notes and counted them. It was five hundred short of ten thousand, so she had only managed to get through five hundred. Where did you put the money? It's all ancient history. There's no reason to conceal it now. In my Pocket, of course. Why do you look at me like that? Wait a bit for what will come later. It's a regular novel, a pathological study. A couple of months later, I was going home one night in a nasty, drunken condition.
I lighted a candle, and lo and behold, Sofia Milelova was sitting on my sofa. And she was drunk, too, and in a frantic state. As wild as though she had run out of bedlam. "'Give me back my money,' she said. "'I have changed my mind. If I must go to ruin, I won't do it by halves. I'll have my fling. Be quick, you scoundrel. Give me my money.' A disgraceful scene. "'And you gave it her?' I gave her, I remember, ten roubles. "'Oh, how could you?' cried Yuzelkov, frowning. If you couldn't or wouldn't have given it her, you might have written to me. And I didn't know. I didn't know. My dear fellow, what use would it have been for me to write, considering that she wrote to you herself when she was lying in the hospital afterwards?
Yes, but I was so taken up then with my second marriage. I was in such a whirl that I had no thoughts to spare for letters. But you were an outsider. You had no antipathy for Sofia. Why didn't you give her a helping hand? You can't judge by the standards of today, Boris Petrovich. That's how we look at it now, but at the time we thought very differently. Now maybe I'd give her a thousand roubles, but then even that ten-rouble note I did not give her for nothing. It was a bad business. We must forget it. But here we are. The sledge stopped at the cemetery gates. Yuzelkov and Shapkin got out of the sledge, went in at the gate, and walked up a long, broad avenue. The bare cherry trees and acacias, the grey crosses and tombstones, were silvered with hoar-frost.
Every little grain of snow reflected the bright, sunny day. There was the smell there always is in cemeteries, the smell of incense and freshly dug earth. "'Our cemetery is a pretty one,' said Yuzelkov. "'Quite a garden.' "'Yes, but it is a pity Thebes steal the tombstones, and over there, beyond that iron monument on the right, Sofia Milianova is buried. Would you like to see?' The friends turned to the right and walked through the deep snow to the Iron Monument. "'Here it is,' said Shapkin, pointing to a little slab of white marble. A lieutenant put the stone on her grave. Yuzelkov slowly took off his cap and exposed his bald head to the sun. Shapkin, looking at him, took off his cap, too, and another bald patch gleamed in the sunlight.
There was the stillness of the tomb all around, as though the heir, too, were dead. The friends looked at the grave, pondered, and said nothing. She sleeps in peace, said Shapkin, breaking the silence. It's nothing to her now that she took the blame on herself and drank brandy. You must own Boris Petrovich. Own what? Yuzelkov asked gloomily. Why? However hateful the past, it was better than this, and Shapkin pointed to his grey head. I used not to think about the hour of death. I fancied I could have given death points, and won the game if we had had an encounter. But now, but what's the good of talking? Yuzelkov was overcome with melancholy. He suddenly had a passionate longing to weep. As once he had longed for love, and he felt those tears would have tasted sweet and refreshing.
A moisture came into his eyes, and there was a lump in his throat, but Shepkin was standing beside him, and Yuzelkov was ashamed to show weakness before a witness. He turned back abruptly and went into the church. Only two hours later, after talking to the churchwarden and looking over the church, he seized a moment when Shapkin was in conversation with the priest, and hastened away to weep. He stole up to the grave secretly, furtively, looking round him every minute. The little white slab looked at him pensively, mournfully and innocently, as though a little girl lay under it instead of a dissolute, divorced wife. To weep, to weep, thought Yuzelkov. But the moment for tears had been missed. Though the old man blinked his eyes, though he worked up his feelings, the tears did not flow, nor the lump come in his throat.
After standing for ten minutes with a gesture of despair, Yuzelkov went to look for Shepkin. End of Old Age by Anton Chekhov
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12 12 - The Last Dream of the Old Oak 16:23
The Last Dream of the Old Oak by Hans Christian Andersen. The last dream of the old oak. In the forest, high up on the steep shore, and not far from the open sea coast, stood a very old oak tree. It was just three hundred and sixty-five years old, but that long time was to the tree as the same number of days might be to us. We wake by day and sleep by night, and then we have our dreams. It is different with the tree. It is obliged to keep awake through three seasons of the year, and does not get any sleep until winter comes. Winter is its time for rest, its night after the long day of spring, summer, and autumn. During many a warm summer, the ephemeras, which are flies that exist for only a day, had fluttered about the oak, enjoyed life, and felt happy.
And if, for a moment, one of the little creatures rested on the large fleshy leaves, the tree would always say, poor little creature, your whole life consists of but a single day. How very short! It must be quite melancholy. Melancholy? What do you mean? the creature would always reply. Why do you say that? Everything around me is so wonderfully bright and warm and beautiful that it makes me joyous. But only for one day, and then it is all over." "'Over?' repeated the fly. What is the meaning of all over? Are you all over, too?" "'No. I shall very likely live for thousands of your days, and my day is whole seasons long.' Indeed, it is so long that you could never reckon it up. No? Then I don't understand you.
You may have thousands of my days, but I have thousands of moments in which I can be merry and happy. Does all the beauty of the world cease when you die? No, replied the tree. It will certainly last much longer, infinitely longer than I can think of. "'Well, then,' said the little fly, "'we have the same time to live, only we reckon it differently.' And the little creature danced and floated in the air, rejoicing in its delicate wings of gauze and velvet, rejoicing in the balmy breezes laden with the fragrance from the clover-fields and wild roses, elder-blossoms, and honeysuckle, and from the garden hedges of wild thyme, primroses, and mint. The perfume of all these was so strong that it almost intoxicated the little fly.
The long and beautiful day had been so full of joy and sweet delights that when the sun sank, the fly felt tired of all its happiness and enjoyment. Its wings could sustain it no longer, and gently and slowly it glided down to the soft, waving blades of grass, nodded this little head as well as it could, and slept peacefully and sweetly. The fly was dead. "'Poor little ephemera,' said the oak, "'what a short life!' And so on every summer day the dance was repeated. The same questions were asked, and the same answers given, and there was the same peaceful falling asleep at sunset." This continued through many generations of ephemeris, and all of them felt merry and happy. The oak remained awake through the morning of spring, the noon of summer, and the evening of autumn.
Its time of rest, the night, grew near. Its winter coming. Here fell a leaf, and there fell a leaf. Already the storms were singing, Good night, good night, we will rock and lull you. Go to sleep, go to sleep. We will sing you to sleep and shake you to sleep, and it will do your old twigs good. They will even crackle with pleasure. Sleep sweetly, sleep sweetly. It is your three hundred and sixty-fifth night. You are still very young in the world. Sleep sweetly. The clouds will drop snow on you, which will be your coverlid, warm and sheltering to your feet. Sweet sleep to you, and pleasant dreams.
And there stood the oak, stripped of all its leaves, left to rest during the fall of a long winter, and to dream many dreams of events that had happened, just as men dream. The great tree had once been small. Indeed, in its cradle it had been an acorn. According to human reckoning, it was now in the fourth century of its existence. It was the largest and best tree in the forest. Its summit towered above all the other trees, and could be seen far out to sea, so that it served as a landmark to the sailors. It had no idea how many eyes looked eagerly for it. In its topmost branches the wood-pigeon built her nest, and the cuckoo sang its well-known song, the familiar notes echoing among the boughs.
And in autumn, when the leaves looked like beaten copper plates, the birds of passage came and rested on the branches before beginning their flight across the sea. But now that it was winter, The tree stood leafless, so that every one could see how crooked and bent were the branches that sprang forth from the trunk. Crows and rooks came by turns and sat on them, and talked of the hard times that were beginning, and how difficult it was in winter to obtain a living. It was just at the holy Christmas-time that the tree dreamt a dream. The tree had doubtless a feeling that the festive time had arrived, and in its dream fancy it heard the bells of the churches ringing. And yet it seemed to be a beautiful summer's day, mild and warm.
The tree's mighty summit was crowned with spreading fresh green foliage, the sunbeams played among its leaves and branches, and the air was full of fragrance from herb and blossom. Painted butterflies chased each other, the summer flies danced around it as if the world had been created merely, that they might dance and be merry. All that had happened to the tree during all the years in its life seemed to pass before it as if in a festive pageant. It saw the knights of olden times and noble ladies ride through the wood on their gallant steeds, with plumes waving in their hats, with falcons on their wrists, while the hunting-horn sounded and the dogs barked. It saw hostile warriors, in colored dress and glittering armor, with spear and halberd, pitching their tents and again taking them down.
The watch-fires blazed, and men sang, and slept under the hospitable shelter of the tree. It saw lovers meet in quiet happiness, near it in the moonshine, and carve the initials of their names in the grayish-green bark of its trunk. It saw lovers meet in quiet happiness near it in the moonshine. Once, but long years had passed since then, guitars and aeolian harps had been hung on its bowels by merry travelers. Now they seemed to hang there again, and their marvelous notes sounded again. The wood-pigeon cooed as if to express the feelings of the tree, and the cuckoo called out to tell it how many summer days it had yet to live. Then it appeared to it that new life was thrilling through every fiber of root and stem and leaf, rising even to its highest branches.
The tree felt itself stretching and spreading out, while through the root beneath the earth ran the warm vigor of life. As it grew higher and still higher, and its strength increased, the topmost boughs became broader and fuller, and in proportion to its growth its self-satisfaction increased, and there came a joyous longing to grow higher and higher, to reach even to the warm, bright sun itself.
Already had its topmost branches pierced the clouds, which floated beneath them like troops of birds of passage or large white swans, every leaf seemed to be gifted with sight as if it possessed eyes to see. The stars became visible in broad daylight, large and sparkling, like clear and gentle eyes. They brought to the trees memory the light that it had seen in the eyes of a child, and in the eyes of lovers who had once met beneath the branches of the old oak. These were wonderful and happy moments for the old oak, full of peace and joy. And yet, amidst all this happiness, the tree felt a yearning desire that All the other trees, bushes, herbs, and flowers beneath it, be able to rise higher, to see all this splendor and experience the same happiness.
The grand majestic oak could not be quite happy in its enjoyment until all the rest, both great and small, could share it. And this feeling of yearning trembled through every branch, through every leaf, as warmly and fervently as through a human heart. The summit of the tree waved to and fro, and bent downwards, as if in its silent longing it sought something. Then there came to it the fragrance of time, and the more powerful scent of honeysuckle and violets, and the tree, fancying it, heard the notes of the cuckoo. At length its longing was satisfied. Up through the clouds came the green summits of the forest trees, and the oak watched them rising higher and higher. Bush and herb shot upward, and some even tore themselves up by the roots to rise more quickly.
The quickest of all was the birch tree. Like a lightning flash, the slender stem shot upward in a zigzag line, the branches spreading round it like green gauze and banners. Every native of the wood, even to the brown and feathery rushes, grew with the rest, while the birds ascended with the melody of song. On a blade of grass that fluttered in the air, like a long green ribbon, sat a grasshopper cleaning its wings with its legs. Many beetles hummed, bees murmured, birds sang, each in its own way. The air was filled with the sounds of song and gladness. But where is the little blue flower that grows by the water, and the purple bell-flower, and the daisy? asked the oak. I want them all. Here we are!
here we are! came the reply in words and in song. But the beautiful time of last summer! Where is that, and where are the lilies of the valley, which last year covered the earth with their bloom, and the wild apple-tree with its fragrant blossoms, and all the glory of the wood, which has flourished year after year? And where is even what may have but just been born? We are here, we are here, sounded the voices high up in the air, as if they had flown there beforehand. "'Why, this is beautiful, too beautiful to be believed,' cried the oak in a joyful tone. "'I have them all here, both great and small. Not one has been forgotten. Can such happiness be imagined? It seems almost impossible.' "'In heaven, with the eternal God, it can be imagined, for all things are possible,' sounded the reply through the air.
And the old tree, as it still grew upwards and onwards, felt that its roots were loosening themselves from the earth. "'It is right, so. It is best,' said the tree. "'No fetters hold me now. I can fly up to the very highest point in light and glory, and all I love are with me, both small and great. All, all are here.' Such was the dream of the old oak at the holy Christmas time. And while it dreamed, a mighty storm came rushing over the land and sea. The sea rolled in great billows toward the shore. A cracking and crushing was heard in the tree. Its roots were torn from the ground, just at the moment when, in its dream, it was being loosened from the earth.
It fell. Its three hundred and sixty-five days were ended like the single day of the ephemera. On the morning of Christmas Day, when the sun rose, the storm had ceased. From all the churches sounded the festive bells, and from every hearth, even of the smallest hut, rose the smoke into the blue sky like the smoke from the festive thank-offerings on Druid's altars. The sea gradually became calm, and on board a great ship that had withstood the tempest during the night, all the flags were displayed as a token of joy and festivity. The tree is down, the old oak, our landmark on the coast, exclaimed the sailors. It must have fallen in a storm last night. Who can replace it? Alas, no one. This was the old tree's funeral oration, brief but well said.
There it lay, stretched on the snow-covered shore, and over it sounded the notes of a song from the ship, a song of Christmas joy, of the redemption of the soul of man, and of eternal life through Christ. Sing aloud on this happy morn, All is fulfilled, for Christ is born. With songs of joy let us loudly sing, Halleluiahs to Christ our King. Thus sounded the Christmas carol, and every one on board the ship felt his thoughts elevated through the song and the prayer, even as the old tree had felt lifted up in its last beautiful dream. on that Christmas morn.
End of The Last Dream of the Old Oak
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13 13 - Poisoned 27:09
Poisoned by Farnsworth Wright. From Weird Tales, November 1923. Poisoned. It was a trifling quarrel indeed. That broke the lifelong friendship of Aubrey Charles, the lawyer, and Aubrey Leclerc, the apothecary. Look for the woman, says the old proverb. It was not a woman that caused the quarrel between the two Aubreys, but it was because of a woman that the breach widened, and the friendship turned to hate. Thereby, the proverb justifies itself once more. Board is play, Aubrey, said Charles, as Leclerc threw down a king upon the first player's ace. Don't be a fool, Aubrey, said Leclerc. I meant to play my deuce. Anyone in his right senses would know I would never play my king on your ace. Board is play, Aubrey, repeated Charles, with a rising inflection in his voice.
It's not my fault you play like a dunce.
Leclare threw his cards into the air, seized his hat, opened his mouth as if to speak, then stamped out of the lawyer's office without a word, slamming the door behind him. There had been petulant outbursts before, due always to Leclare's habit of taking back his cards after he had played them. Charles had frequently vowed to himself that he would never play with Leclerc again. But the pair were inseparable, and they were always at it again next day, the apothecary taking back his plays as carelessly as ever. Leclerc stormed out into the street, distressed beyond measure that Aubrey Charles placed so little value on their friendship as to insist on such an obviously ridiculous play. Aubrey Charles sat in his inner office, berating himself for his irritability, and prepared once more to swallow his dignity, as he had done on several occasions before.
He had been unreasonable, and he knew it. But I was right, the idiot! He exclaimed aloud, striking the desk with a fury of resentment. Board is always play. Good God! Must I be always babying him to keep his friendship? There the quarrel might have ended, had it not been for Maisie Lennox, who had nursed both Auberys through the flue, and was engaged to marry Aubery the attorney. Aubery Charles, ready to unbend and eat humble pie, Yet full of his wrongs, pulled the telephone to him to call up the other Aubrey and apologize, when it struck him that the apothecary would hardly have had time to reach his drug store. So he telephoned to Maisie instead. In lieu, therefore, of the contrite apology over the telephone from Aubrey Charles, the apothecary got a severe dressing-down from Maisie Lennox.
It was Maisie who called him first, before the attorney got the wire. What under the sun did you mean by stamping out of Aubrey's office and scattering your cards all over the place? She stormed. Aubrey, I am downright ashamed of you. Have you no more sense than to let a disagreement over a card game lead to a quarrel between you and Aubrey? What on earth was the matter with you? But Aubrey wanted me to throw away my king on his ace. Aubrey, the apothecary exclaimed, scandalized. To the sense of injury that he had nursed against Charles was now added a sense of personal outrage, because Charles had told Maisie about the quarrel. Leclere did not know that at that very moment the other Aubrey was trying to reach him on the telephone to beg his pardon and repair the breach between them.
He treated me as if I were a naughty child, and got angry because I didn't want to throw the game to him by letting the wrong play stand. He called me a dunce. What if he did, said Maisie? I can't let the two best friends I have in the world quarrel. Now, listen, Aubrey. I am going to Clickibus tonight over the weekend. You and Aubrey, both of you, are to follow me tomorrow and forget your differences. I simply won't have you quarreling. That's flat." With that she rang off, leaving Aubrey, the apothecary, jiggling the telephone, and trying to get her back, wiping the perspiration from his brow as he waited for her to answer. But Maisie was on her way over to the office of the other Aubrey to go out with him to dinner before she left for Clinkimus.
Too proud to refuse Maisie's invitation. Too angry to call up Aubrey Charles. Aubrey, the apothecary, arranged to be absent from his drug store over Sunday. And the next noon, he took the train to Clichimus. A word or two on the telephone from Aubrey, the attorney, who was undoubtedly in the wrong, Would have applied bomb to his hurt feelings and averted all the tragedy that followed. But Aubrey the lawyer hated to be put in a false light. Dignity to him was a fetish before which he worshipped. It was his principal stock in trade. There was not in the whole country a man who made a more impressive appearance in court. Always expensively But conservatively dressed, with upright carriage, serious and noble countenance, heightened by a close-cropped mustache that made him look older than he was, he impressed the juries by his very appearance.
Even his games of cards with Aubrey the apothecary were always conducted in the lawyer's inner office, for Aubrey Charles did not wish the public to see him in his moments of relaxation, when he stooped to so trivial a pastime as playing cards. Before, Aubrey the lawyer, who, in the first flush of contrition over the quarrel, had sought to call up Aubrey the apothecary, now waited for Aubrey the apothecary to make the first move toward reconciliation. He would apologize then, But his dignity would be saved if Leclerc called him up first. He could not go to Cliqueamus. If he telephoned the apothecary and told him this, he knew very well that the apothecary would also stay away from Cliqueamus.
But it would seem an admission that he feared to leave Maxine with Leclerc over the weekend. Would not Leclerc think that it was this reason alone? That prompted him to will up and apologize? Reasoning thus, Aubrey the lawyer refrained from telephoning his friend, and Aubrey the apothecary went to Clichimus alone. Aubrey Leclerc, as the closest friend and confidant of the other Aubrey, regarded Maisie as a pal, but nothing closer, for she was the future wife of his friend. He liked Maisie immensely, and used to follow her about the room with his eyes, feasting them on her well-fitted nurse's garb and her mobile mouth and mysterious brown eyes, when he was recovering from the flu. But from the beginning she and the other Aubrey had taken to each other.
They had gone together after the two Aubreys were out of the hospital. Aweber, the apothecary, was the third party, the friend of both, and he had accepted the love of his two friends for each other as a matter of course. He was loyal to his friend, Awebery Charles, and glad to see him win so sterling a girl as Maisie. But that night everything seemed different. The spell of the moonlight and the water Worked him into a spring madness, and he desired the girl for himself. His eyes invited confidences, and her tone was one of tender friendship. Her face was near his. The sense of loyalty to his friend, the friend who had injured him, dissolved, like one of his own drugs, in the water and the moonlight.
His lips met hers. Maisie drew away and laughed softly, nervously. "'By proxy,' she said, "'I enjoyed that. Did you give that to me for Aubrey Charles or Aubrey Leclerc?' He had hardly brushed her lips with his own, but the thrill and promise of the slight kiss intoxicated him, and the warmth of her lips heated his blood. "'That may have been Aubrey Charles!' he exclaimed in a voice half-choked with sudden emotion. "'But this is from Aubrey Leclerc.' He pressed her tightly to his breast. Again and again he kissed her on the throat, the lips, the eyes. She did not struggle, but lay limply in his arms, speechless, powerless, amazed by this treachery of her friend to her friend. As in burning words, he declared the strength of his own love.
"'Not Aubrey Charles, but Aubrey Leclerc,' he repeated. "'I was loyal to Aubrey while he was loyal to me, but he has broken with me for nothing at all. I refuse to yield you to him.' "'Aubrey!' Maisie's voice rang out, at once angry and beseeching. "'Aubrey, do you realize what you're doing?' She held out her hand in front of his eyes. A large diamond sparkled in the moonlight. Aubrey, the lawyer, had placed it upon her finger. The sparkle of the betrothal diamond was to Aubrey Leclerc like a piece of ice laid across his heart. The spring madness still possessed him, but it had been touched by the rigor of winter. "'Maisie!' he exclaimed. His voice sounded far away and distant, like some sinister whispering from evil lips.
Maisie, I cannot allow you to marry Aubrey Charles. You, with your purity, your sweetness. You must not. I have stood by Aubrey despite my knowledge of certain events he has kept hidden from the world, because a man looks on such lapses quite differently from a woman. Did you ever hear of Lena May? Maisie clapped her hands roughly over Aubrey's mouth, as if to silence him. Then she shrank from him and shook herself free of his embrace. Lena May? she exclaimed, standing up and confronting Aubrey desperately. Even in the moonlight, Aubrey noticed how pale she was. What has Lena May to do with Aubrey? Ask him, replied Aubrey Leclerc. He can't deny it. He wouldn't give her fifty dollars each month for the support of her child, unless it were true.
I have delivered the money to her each month as Aubrey's errand boy, for he wants no checks made out to her by which he can be blackmailed later on. You are wearing Aubrey's ring, but it is Lena May who should be wearing it. A strong shiver of revulsion shook Maisie. "'You beast!' she exclaimed. "'You filthy beast! And you call yourself his friend?' She fled the house. Unbending pride on the one hand, resentment and spring madness on the other, the breach was accomplished in the long friendship of the two Auberys. Maisie Lennox ceased to wear Aubrey Charles' ring. A year later she was married to Dr. Armitage, who had been a friend of her youth. Both Aubrey Charles and Aubrey LeClaire were silent guests at the wedding.
Neither had spoken a word to the other since the day when Aubrey LeClaire stormed out of Aubrey Charles' office, scattering the cards about the room as he went. The tall, dignified lawyer had never seemed so frigid and reserved as on the day when his heart's treasure was given to another. The usually jovial apothecary was as unsmiling and reserved as the other Aubrey. His face was a sober mask. Aubrey Charles, the lawyer, left immediately after the minister spoke the words that made Dr. Armitage and Maisie Lennox man and wife. Aubrey Leclerc, the apothecary, was even more downcast than the other Aubrey. He had not only lost the girl himself, but his treachery to Aubrey, the attorney, had lost him the friendship that he valued above anything that had ever come into his life.
He felt that he was to blame for the whole tragedy. A senseless quarrel that had raffled the smooth surface of his comradeship with Aubrey Charles, and he, Aubrey Leclerc, Instead of steering for untroubled waters, had deliberately wrecked the craft of friendship and overturned the boat. He hated the other Aubrey with all the animus of his nature, venomously with a hate that would stop at nothing. But at this moment he wanted air. He was choking in the festival atmosphere of the wedding, drowning in a whirlpool of his own emotions. He left the house of mirth, Abruptly. Stepped into his car, and left the little city behind him. Backed by his thoughts, tortured by regrets, stung by hatred, he hardly noticed where he went until he heard his name called.
He drew up beside the curb. He found himself in the streets of a city twenty miles from his own. It was a friend, a fellow apothecary, who was calling to him. Aubrey got out of his car and wandered arm-in-arm into the drug store with the friend who had called him. He welcomed the brief respite from the torment of his thoughts, and here he learned news that smote him first with a pang of conscience, and then made him glow with pleasure. For the apothecary told him, confidentially, that Aubrey the lawyer had bought a strong poison to kill a large dog. Or so, at least, he had told the druggist when he bought it. A dog? exclaimed Aubrey in some surprise. A great Dane he has had for several years, explained the druggist.
It has a tumor, he said, and he finds it necessary to kill the dog. I sold the poison to him because he is a close friend of yours. But I wonder he did not go to you. Perhaps," said Aubrey musingly, perhaps he was afraid I was so much attached to the dog that I would insist on trying to cure it. Much obliged. For what? asked the apothecary. For selling the poison to my friend.
Aubrey Leclerc had something new to occupy his thoughts as he motored slowly back. Aubrey, the lawyer, had never possessed a dog. He evidently did not want Aubrey the apothecary to know that he wanted poison, so he came to this other city to get it. He wanted it, then, for himself. He was very despondent, although his face and demeanor in public showed no relaxation of his habitual dignity and reserve. Aubrey Charles had indeed bought the poison to slay himself, But his sense of dignity prevented him from carrying out his intention. He found it easier to support the pangs of despondency than to let the world peep into his heart at a coroner's inquest. That inevitable scene was enacted in his mind a hundred times.
Always it cost him a shudder to picture the curiosity of his little world of acquaintances. For he had no close friends now that Aubrey Leclerc had forsaken him, as they learned how Maisie Lennox had cast him aside because of his clandestine affair with Lena May. Aubrey would be dead when these revelations were made, but even his soul must shrink in shamed humiliation when the world saw the sorry figure he had cut. So he lived with his bitter thoughts, and the poison remained unused in the cupboard of his inner office. Aubrey Leclerc, the apothecary, cheated of the suicide of Aubrey Charles, felt that fate had treated him cruelly. Like the lawyer, he had been robbed of his chum and his girl. Even revenge was denied to him.
So when a trivial legal matter that involved his interests made it necessary for him to sign certain papers, He went to the office of Aubrey the lawyer to arrange the matter. This visit would give him the opportunity to see for himself just how deeply the lawyer was suffering from their mutual disaster. No figure of bronze could have been more unbending than Aubrey Charles when Aubrey Leclerc entered the lawyer's office, except that this figure opened its mouth and spoke. "'I will not shake hands, Aubrey,' said the figure slowly. "'I do not wish to revive old friendships. "'But because we were once friends, you and I, "'I will offer you a glass of wine, "'pre-prohibition vintage.' "'The figure moved majestically into the inner office.
"'Aubrey, the apothecary, "'imitating the lawyer's soft reserve, "'stood with folded arms, awaiting his return. "'Aubrey, the apothecary, "'imitating the lawyer's soft reserve, "'stood with folded arms, awaiting his return. Behind the closed door of the inner office, the lawyer's haughtiness dropped from him like a mantle. Feverishly he hunted for a white powder he had placed there some weeks before, at the time of Maisie Lennox's marriage to Dr. Armitage. Finding it, he poured it into a wineglass, filled the glass with wine, and poured out another glass for Aubrey. Returning to the outer office, He placed one glass before Aubrey Leclerc. Before himself, he carefully put the poisoned glass. His hand shook so that he spilled some of the wine.
His brow was damp with perspiration. His icy reserve had melted utterly. Aubrey, the apothecary, still stood with folded arms. Slowly, he shook his head. "'You drink too much, Aubrey,' said the apothecary. "'Not for the love of liquor, Aubrey,' replied the lawyer, "'but to forget sorrow. "'You have hurt me, Aubrey. "'But you have hurt yourself equally. "'Let us drink.' "'You began it,' said Aubrey, the apothecary, coldly. "'I will not drink with you.' "'Perhaps the wine is too strong,' persisted Aubrey, the lawyer. "'You are not a drinking man like me. "'I will get you some water.' Aubrey, the apothecary, did not answer. The lawyer seemed perplexed and unwilling to leave the room. The apothecary still stood, an icy statue.
Anyone knowing the two, knowing the dignified reserve of the lawyer and the genial good-fellowship of the apothecary, would have thought Aubrey Leclerc was the lawyer, and Aubrey Charles the apothecary. The lawyer suddenly left the outer office and went quickly into the inner room. Aubrey Leclerc heard him turn on the tap. In a minute he returned with a pitcher of water and another glass. The apothecary stood, with folded arms, as before. Apparently the glasses had not been moved, but Aubrey Leclerc's face showed a trace of agitation, which seemed to satisfy Aubrey the lawyer. No water, please, said Aubrey, the apothecary. I will drink it as it stands. To the health of Basie Lennox, said Aubrey Charles in ringing tones, looking with a strange expression of shrewdness and triumph at Aubrey, the apothecary.
Without an instant's hesitation, he lifted his own glass, clinked it against the glass of Aubrey Leclerc, and carried it to his lips. Both men drained the last drop. Aubrey Charles then snapped the stem of his glass and tossed it into the wastebasket. And now to business, Aubrey. The lawyer had resumed his habitual calm. The two men sat down. Aubrey Charles read aloud very slowly the paper that he wanted Aubrey Leclerc to sign. From time to time he cast a quick glance at the apothecary. Always he found the eyes of the other fixed on his face. He grew nervous at this unwavering stare, and his glances at the apothecary became more frequent. Aubrey Leclerc's gaze never faltered. A sense of impending tragedy held Aubrey Charles in a vice.
His face twitched spasmodically. Why was this? He tried to fight off the dreadful doubt that had clutched him. He reasoned with himself thus. Aubrey Leclerc had changed the wine-glasses, thereby taking for himself the poison glass. He thinks that I gave him the poison glass, and that he has given it back to me. If it were not so, why would he watch me thus? He is looking for symptoms of poisoning, but it is he who drank the poison. Why should I be afraid? Again his face twitched. He sprang to his feet. A sharp pain shot through his heart. He saw Aubrey the apothecary relax from his intense stare and settle back in his chair, satisfied. A horrible suspicion set the lawyer's brain on fire. Had Aubrey been watching him through the chink in the door?
But— That could hardly be. Another pang shot through his heart. A strong shudder racked his body. He clutched at the table, missed it, and fell to the floor. Aubrey Leclerc smiled at him. Aubrey! It was the lawyer who spoke. His whole body was convulsing from the poison. Yes, Aubrey? The apothecary smiled again. Aubrey! "'Did—did you—did you change the glasses?' The smile vanished from the lips of Aubrey the apothecary as he leaned over his dying enemy. His brows were knit in anger, and hate sat on his face like a dark cloud. "'Yes, Aubrey, I changed the glasses.' The apothecary's voice trilled with triumph. You are caught in your own death trap, he continued. I could not drink your wine, for I knew you had poisoned it.
While you were in the inner office, I changed glasses. I not only gave you the glass you intended for me, but I poisoned your wine myself, to make sure. I took no chances. Now it was Aubrey the lawyer who smiled as he lay in convulsions on the floor. Then we shall meet again, he said weakly. Au revoir, aubry. But not goodbye. Au revoir.
He made a final attempt to rise, but suddenly pitched forward on his face. His body slowly stiffened. Aubry Leclerc did not see him die, for he had suddenly gone blind. He groped toward the table. His foot caught on the head of Aubrey Charles. With a half-smothered cry, he fell across the body of the lawyer, and a moment later he was dead. The End of Poisoned by Farnsworth Wright.
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14 14 - A Pair of Silk Stockings 12:28
A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Little Mrs. Summers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old portemonnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had not enjoyed for years. The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly. For a day or two she walked about, apparently in a dreamy state, but really absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret.
But it was during the still hours of the night, when she lay awake revolving plans in her mind, that she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of the money. A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for Janie's shoes, which would ensure their lasting and appreciable time longer than they usually did. She would buy so-and-so many yards of percale for new shirtwaists for the boys and Janie and Mag. She had intended to make the old ones do by skillful patching. Meg should have another gown. She had seen some beautiful patterns, veritable bargains in the shop windows, and still there would be left enough for new stockings. Two pairs apiece. And what darning that would save for a while.
She would get caps for the boys and sailor hats for the girls. The vision of her little brood looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation. The neighbors sometimes talked of certain better days that little Mrs. Summers had known before she had ever thought of being Mrs. Summers. She herself indulged in no such morbid retrospection. She had no time, no second of time to devote to the past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes appalled her, but luckily, tomorrow never comes. Mrs. Summers was one who knew the value of bargains, who could stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired object that was selling below cost.
She could elbow her way if need be. She had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came. But that day, she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light luncheon. No, when she came to think of it. Between getting the children fed and the place righted, and preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten to eat any luncheon at all. She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging breastworks of shirting and figured lawn. An all-gone, limp feeling had come over her, and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter.
She wore no gloves. By degrees she grew aware that her hand had encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A placard nearby announced that they had been reduced in price from $2.50 to $1.98, and a young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery. She smiled, just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny, luxurious things. With both hands now. Holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers. Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks.
She looked up at the girl. Do you think there are any eights and a half among these? There were any number of eights and a half. In fact, there were more of that size than any other. Here was a light blue pear. There were some lavender, some all black. And various shades of tan and gray. Mrs. Summers selected a black pair and looked at them very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their texture, which, the clerk assured her, was excellent. A dollar and ninety-eight cents, she mused aloud. Well, I'll take this pair. She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel it was. It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping bag.
Mrs. Summers after that did not move in the direction of the bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just bought. She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function, and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility. How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh?
She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together, and thrust them into her bag. After doing this, she crossed straight over to the shoe department and took her seat to be fitted. She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out. He could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not too easily pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize that they belonged to her and were a part of herself.
She wanted an excellent and stylish fit. She told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got what she desired. It was a long time since Mrs. Summers had been fitted with gloves. On rare occasions, when she had bought a pair, they were always bargains, so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand. Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter. And a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed kid over Mrs. Summers' hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand.
But there were other places where money might be spent. There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Summers bought two high-priced magazines, such as she had been accustomed to read in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them without wrapping. As well as she could, she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well-fitting gloves had worked marvels in her bearing, had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude. She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available.
But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought. There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors. From the outside, she had sometimes caught glimpses of spotless damask and shining crystal. And soft-stepping waiters serving people of fashion. When she entered, her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion. She craved a nice and tasty bite. A half-dozen blue points. A plump chop with cress. A something sweet. A creme frappe, for instance, a glass of Rhine wine, and after all, a small cup of black coffee.
While waiting to be served, she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with the blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray.
Whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood. There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented itself in the shape of a matinee poster. It was a little later when she entered the theater. The play had begun, and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant seats here and there. And into one of them she was ushered between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Summers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the hole, stage and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it.
She laughed at the comedy and wept. She and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the tragedy, and they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy perfumed lace and passed little Mrs. Summers her box of candy. The play was over. The music ceased. The crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Summers went to the corner and waited for the cable car. A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing, unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish. A powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
End of A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin
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15 15 - The Jesting of Arlington Stringham 10:13
The jesting of Arlington Stringham by Saki, H. H. Munro, 1870-1916. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Peter Tomlinson. Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin house, and a very thin joke, something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional, but a fellow member, who did not wish it to be supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. One or two of the papers noted a laugh in brackets, and another, which was notorious for the carelessness of its political views, mentioned laughter.
Things often begin in that way. Arlington made a joke in the house last night, said Eleanor Stringham to her mother. In all the years we have been married, neither of us has made jokes. I don't like it now. I'm afraid it's the beginning of the rift in the lute." What lute? said her mother. It's a quotation, said Eleanor. To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method in Eleanor's eyes for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you could always defend indifferent lamb late in the season by saying, it's mutton. And, of course, Arlington Stringham continued to tread the thorny path of conscious humour into which fate had beckoned him. The country's looking very green, but, after all, that's what it's there for, he remarked to his wife two days later.
That's very modern, and, I dare say, very clever, but I'm afraid it's wasted on me, she observed coldly. She had known How much effort it had cost him to make the remark. She might have greeted it in a kinder spirit. It is a tragedy of human endeavour that it works so often unseen and unguessed. Arlington said nothing, not from injured pride, but because he was thinking hard for something to say. Elinor mistook his silence for an assumption of tolerant superiority. And her anger prompted her to a further jibe. You had better tell it to Lady Isabel. I've no doubt she would appreciate it. Lady Isabel was seen everywhere with a fawn-coloured collie at a time when everyone else kept nothing but Pekingese, and she had once eaten four green apples at an afternoon tea, in the botanical gardens, so she was widely credited with a rather unpleasant wit.
The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understood Yeats's poems, but her family denied both stories. "'The rift is widening to an abyss,' said Eleanor to her mother that afternoon. "'I should not tell that to anyone,' remarked her mother, after long reflection." Naturally, I should not talk about it very much, said Eleanor, but why shouldn't I mention it to anyone? Because you can't have an abyss in a lute. There isn't room. Eleanor's outlook on life did not improve as the afternoon wore on. The pageboy had brought from the library by mere and wold instead of by mere chance. The book which everyone denied having read. The unwelcome substitute appeared to be a collection of nature-notes contributed by the author to the pages of some northern weekly, and when one had to be prepared to plunge with disapproving mind into a regrettable chronicle of ill-spent lives, it was intensely irritating to read, "'The dainty yellow hammers are now with us.' and flaunt their jaundiced livery from every bush and hillock.
Besides, the thing was so obviously untrue. Either there must be hardly any bushes or hillocks in those parts, or the country must be fearfully overstocked with yellow hammers. The thing scarcely seemed worth telling such a lie about. And the page-boy stood there with his sleekly brushed and parted hair, and his air of chaste and callous indifference to the desires and passions of the world. Elinor hated boys, and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own. She turned at random to another paragraph. Lie quietly concealed in the fern and bramble, in the gap by the old rowan-tree, and you may see— almost every evening during early summer, a pair of lesser white-throats creeping up and down the nettles, and hedge-growth that mask their nesting-place.
The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation. Elinor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty's Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances. And to be asked to watch lesser white-throats creeping up and down a nettle almost every evening during the height of the season struck her as an imputation on her intelligence that was positively offensive. Impatiently, she transferred her attention to the dinner menu, which the boy had thoughtfully brought in as an alternative to the more solid literary fare. Rabbit curry met her eye, and the lines of disapproval deepened on her already puckered brow. The cook was a great believer in the influence of environment, and nourished an obstinate conviction that if you brought rabbit and curry powder together in one dish, a rabbit curry would be the result.
And Clovis and the odious Bertie Van Tann, were coming to dinner. Surely, thought Eleanor, if Arlington knew how much she had had that day to try her, he would refrain from joke-making. At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name of a certain statesman, who may be decently covered under the disguise of X. X, said Arlington Stringham, has the soul of a meringue. It was a useful remark to have on hand because it applied equally well to four prominent statesmen of the day, which quadrupled the opportunities for using it. "'Merengues haven't got souls,' said Eleanor's mother. "'It's a mercy that they haven't,' said Clovis. "'They would always be losing them, and people like my aunt would get up missions to meringues and say it.' It was wonderful how much one could teach them, and how much more one could learn from them.
"'What could you learn from a meringue?' asked Elinor's mother. "'My aunt has been known to learn humility from an ex-Viceroy,' said Clovis. "'I wish Cook would learn to make curry, or has the sense to leave it alone,' said Arlington, suddenly and savagely. Elinor's face softened. It was like one of his old remarks in the days when there was no abyss between them. It was during the debate on the Foreign Office's vote that Stringham made his great remark that the people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally. It was not brilliant, but it came in the middle of a dull speech, and the House was quite pleased with it. Old gentlemen with bad memories said it reminded them of Disraeli.
It was Eleanor's friend, Gertrude Lipton, who drew her attention to Arlington's newest outbreak. Eleanor in these days have worded the morning papers. "'It's very modern, and I suppose very clever,' she observed." "'Of course it's clever,' said Gertrude. All Lady Isabel's sayings are clever, and luckily they bear repeating. Are you sure it's one of her sayings? asked Eleanor. My dear, I've heard her say it dozens of times. So that is where he gets his humour, said Eleanor slowly, and the hard lines deepened round her mouth. The death of Eleanor Stringham from an overdose of chloral Occurring at the end of a rather uneventful season excited a certain amount of unobtrusive speculation. Clovis, who perhaps exaggerated the importance of curry in the home, hinted at domestic sorrow.
And, of course, Arlington never knew. It was the tragedy of his life that he should miss the fullest effect of his jesting. End of The Jestling of Arlington Stringham by Sarky
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16 16 - A Substitute Journalist 16:23
A Substitute Journalist by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Yoganan. A Substitute Journalist. Clifford Baxter came into the sitting room Where Patty was darning stalkings and reading a book at the same time. Patty could do things like that. That stalkings were well-done too, and Patty understood and remembered what she read. Clifford flung himself into a chair with a sigh of weariness. Tired, queried Patty sympathetically. Yes, rather. I've been tramping about the vows all day gathering long-show items. But Patty, I've got a chance at last. Tonight, as he was leaving the office, Mr.
Harmer... Gave me a real assignment for tomorrow. Two of them, in fact, but only one of importance. I am to go and interview Mr. Keefe on his new railroad bill that's up before the legislature. He's in town visiting his old college friend, Mr. Reid, and he's quite big game. I wouldn't have had the assignment, of course, if there had been anyone else to send, but most of the staff will be away all day tomorrow to see about that mine explosion at Midbury or the Teamsters strike at Bainesville, and I'm the only one available. Harmer gave me a pretty broad hint that it was my chance to win my spurs, and that if I worked up a good article out of it, I'd stand a fair show of being taken on permanently next month when Alssop leaves.
There'll be a shuffle all round then, you know. Everybody on the staff will be pushed up a peg, and that will leave a vacant space at the foot. Patty threw down a darning needle and clapped her hands with delight. Clifford gazed at her admiringly, thinking that he had the prettiest sister in the world. She was so bright, so eager, so rosy. Oh, Clifford, how splendid," she exclaimed. Just as we had begun to give up hope, too. Oh, you must get the position. You must hand in a good write-up. Think what it means to us. Yes, I know. Clifford dropped his head on his hand and stared rather moodily at the lamp. But my joy is chastened, Patty. Of course, I won't get the permanency, since it seems to be the only possible thing, but you know my heart isn't really in newspaper work.
The plain truth is, I don't like it, although I do my best. You know, father always said I was a born mechanic. If I only could get a position somewhere among machinery, that would be my choice. There's one vacant in the steel and ironworks at Bancroft, but of course I have no chance of getting it. I know, it's too bad," said Patty, returning to her stockings with a sigh. I wish I were a boy with a foothold on the Chronicle. I firmly believe that I would make a good newspaper woman if such a thing had ever been heard of in Ailma. That you would. You have twice as much knack in that line as I have. You seem to know by instinct just what to leave out and put in. I never do, and Hama has to blue pencil my copy mercilessly.
Well, I'll do my best with this, as it is very necessary I should get the permanency, for I fear our family purse is growing very slim. Mother's face is a new wrinkle of worry every day. It hurts me to see it. And me, sighed Patty. I do wish I could find something to do too. If only we both could get positions, everything would be alright. Mother wouldn't have to worry so. Don't say anything about this chance to her until you see what comes of it. She'd only be doubly disappointed if nothing did. What is your other assignment? Oh, I've got to go out to Bancroft on the morning train. And write up Old Moorland's birthday celebration. He is 100 years old, and there is going to be presentations and speeches and that sort of thing.
Nothing very exciting about it. I'll have to come back on the 3 o'clock train and hurry out to catch my politician before he leaves at 5. Take a stroll down to meet me, trained Patty. We can go out as far as Mr. Reid's house together, and the walk will do you good. The Baxter's lived in Islema, a lively little town with two newspapers, The Chronicle and The Ledger. Between these two was a sharp journalistic rivalry in the matter of beats and scoops. In the preceding spring, Clifford had been taken on the Chronicle on trial as a sort of general handyman. There was no pay attached to the position, but he was getting trained and there was the possibility of a permanency in September if he proved his mettle.
Mr. Baxter had died two years before, and the failure of the company in which Mrs. Baxter's money was invested had left the little family dependent on their own resources. Clifford, who had cherished dreams of a course in mechanical engineering, knew that he must give them up and go to the first work that offered itself, which he did staunchly and uncomplainingly. Patty, who hitherto had had no designs on her career, but had been sunnily content to be a homegirl and mother's right hand, also realized that it would be well to look about her for something to do. She was not really needed so far as the work of the little house went, and the whole burden must not be allowed to fall on Clifford's 18-year-old shoulders.
Patty was in a senior by a year and ready to do her part unflinchingly. The next afternoon, Patty went down to meet Clifford's train. When it came, no Clifford appeared. Patty stared about her at the hurrying throngs in bewilderment. Where was Clifford? Hadn't he come on the train? Surely he must have. For there was no other until 7 o'clock. She must have missed him somehow. Patty waited until everybody had left the station. Then she walked slowly homeward. As the chronicloffies was on her way, she dropped in to see if Clifford had reported there. She found nobody in the editorial offices except the office boy Larry Brown who promptly informed her that not only had Clifford not arrived but that there was a telegram from him saying that he had missed his train.
Patty gasped in dismay. It was dreadful. Where is Mr. Harmer? She asked. He went home as soon as the afternoon edition came out. He left before the telegram came. He'll be furious when he finds out that nobody has gone to interview the foxy old politician, said Larry, who knew all about Clifford's assignment and its importance. Isn't there anyone else here to go? queried Patty desperately. Larry shook his head. No, there isn't a soul in. We were mighty shorthanded just now on account of the explosion and the strike. Patty went downstairs and stood for a moment in the hall, wrapped in reflection. If she had been at home, she verily believed she would have sat down and cried. Oh, it was too bad, too disappointing.
Clifford would certainly lose all chance of permanency, even if the red news editor did not discharge him at once. What could she do? Could she do anything? She must do something. If I only could go in his place, moaned Patty softly to herself. Then she started. Why not? Why not go and interview the big man herself? To be sure, she did not know a great deal about interviewing, still less about railroad bills, and nothing at all about politics. But if she did her best, it might be better than nothing and might at least save Clifford his present hold. With Patty to decide was to act, she flew back to the reporter's room, pounced on a pencil and tablet, and hurried off, her breath coming quickly and her eyes shining with excitement.
It was quite a long walk out to Mr. Reed's place, and Patty was tired when she got there, but her courage was not a bit abated. She mounted the steps and drank the bell undauntedly. Can I see Mr. Mr. Mr. Patty paused for a moment in dismay. She had forgotten the name. The maid who had come to the door looked her over so super-sealously that Patty flushed with indignation. The gentleman who is visiting Mr. Reid, she said crisply. I can't remember his name, but I have come to interview him on behalf of the Chronicle. Is he in? If you mean Mr. Reefer, he is, said the mate quite respectfully. Evidently, the Chronicle's name carried weight in the Reid establishment. Please come into the library. I'll go and tell him.
Patty had just time to seat herself at the table, spread out her paper imposingly, and assume a business-like heir when Mr. Reefer came in. He was a tall, handsome old man with white hair, jet-black eyes, and a mouth that made Patty hope she wouldn't stumble on any question he wouldn't want to answer. Patty knew she would waste her breath if she did. A man with a mouth like that would never tell anything that he didn't want to tell. Good afternoon. What can I do for you, madam? inquired Mr. Reefer with the air and tone of a man who means to be courteous but has no time or information to waste. Patty was almost overcome by the madam. For a moment, she quailed. She couldn't ask that masculine swinx questions.
Then the thought of her mother's pale, careworn face flashed across her mind, and all her courage came back with an inspiring rush. She bent forward to look eagerly into Miss Reefer's carved granite face and said with a frank smile, I've come to interview you on behalf of the Chronicle about the railroad bill. It was my brother who had the assignment, but he has missed his train, and I've come in his place because, you see, It is so important to us. So much depends on this assignment. Perhaps Mr. Harmer will give Clifford a permanent place on the staff if he turns in a good article about you. He is only handyman now. I just couldn't let him miss the chance. He might never have another. And it means so much to us and Mother.
Are you a member of the Chronicle staff yourself? inquired Mr. Reefer with a shade more geniality in his tone. Oh no, I have nothing to do with it. So you won't mind my being inexperienced, will you? I don't know just what I should ask you, so won't you please just tell me everything about the bill, and Mr. Harmer can cut out what doesn't matter? Mr. Reefer looked at Patty for a few moments with a face about as expressive as a graven image. Perhaps he was thinking about the bill, and perhaps he was thinking what a bright, vivid, plucky little girl this was, with a waiting pencil and her air that strove to be businesslike and only succeeded in being eager and hopeful and anxious. I'm not used to being interviewed myself, he said slowly, so I don't know very much about it.
We are both green hands together, I imagine, but I'd like to help you out, so I don't mind telling you what I think about this bill and its bearing on certain important interests. Mr. Reefer proceeded to tell her, and Patty's pencil flew as she scribbled down his terse, pithy sentences. She found herself asking questions too, and enjoying it. For the first time, Patty thought she might rather like politics, If she understood them, and they did not seem so hard to understand when a man like Mr. Reefer explained them. For a half an hour, he talked to her, and at the end of that time, Patty was in full possession of his opinion on the famous railroad bill in all its aspects. There now, I am talked out, said Mr.
Reefer. You can tell your news editor that you know as much about the railroad bill as Andrew Reefer knows. I hope you will succeed in pleasing him, and that your brother will get the position he wants. But he shouldn't have missed that train. You tell him that. Boys with important things to do mustn't miss trains. Perhaps it is just as well he did in this case, though, but tell him not to let it happen again. Patty went straight home, wrote up her interview in ship-shape form, and took it down to the Chronicle office. There she found Mr. Harmer scowling blackly. The little news editor looked to be in a rather bad temper, but he nodded not unkindly to Patty. Mr. Harmer knew the Baxters well and liked them, although he would have sacrificed them all without a qualm for a scoop.
Good evening, Patty. Take a chair. That brother of yours hasn't turned up yet. The next time I give him an assignment, he'll manage to be on hand in time to do it. Oh, cried Patty breathlessly. Please, Mr. Harmer, I have the interview here. I thought perhaps I could do it in Clifford's place, and I went out to Mr. Reed's and saw Mr. Reefa. He was very kind and... Mr. Who? Fairly shouted Mr. Harmer. Mr. Reefer, Mr. Andrew Reefer, he told me to tell you that this article contained all you knew or thought about the railroad bill, and Mr. Harmer was no longer listening. He had snatched the neatly written sheets of Patty's report and was skimming over them with a practiced eye. Then Patty thought he must have gone crazy.
He danced around the office, waving the sheets in the air, and then he dashed frantically up the stairs to the composing room. Ten minutes later, he returned and shook the mystified Patty by the hand. Patty, it's the biggest beat we have ever had. We have scooped not only the ledger, but every other newspaper in the country. How did you do it? How did you ever beguile a Bivach Andrew reefer into giving you an interview? Why, said Patty, in utter bewilderment. I just went out to Mr. Reeds and asked whether the gentleman was visiting there. I had forgotten his name, and Mr. Reefer came down, and I told him my brother had been detailed to interview him on behalf of the Chronicle about the bill, and that Clifford had missed his train, and wouldn't he let me interview him in this place and excuse my inexperience?
And he did. It wasn't Andrew Reefer I told Clifford to interview, laughed Mr. Harmer. It was John C. Keefe. I didn't know Reefer was in town. But even if I had, I wouldn't have thought it a particle of use to send a man to him. He has never consented to be interviewed before on any known subject, and he has been especially close-mouthed about this bill, although men from all the big papers in the country have been after him. He is notorious on that score. Why, Patty? It's the biggest journalistic fish that has ever been landed in this office. Andrew Raffer's opinion on the bill will have a tremendous influence. We'll run the interview as a leader in a special edition that is underway already.
Of course, he must have been ready to give the information to the public, or nothing would have induced him to open his mouth. But to think that we should be the first to get it, Patty, you are a brick. Clifford came home on the 7 o'clock train, and Patty was there to meet him, brimful of a story. But Clifford also had a story to tell, and got his word in first. Now Patty. Don't scold until you hear why I missed the train. I met Mr. Peabody of the Steel & Iron Company at Mr. Moreland's and got into conversation with him. When he found out who I was, he was greatly interested and said father had been one of his best friends when they were at college together. I told him about wanting to get the position in the company, and he had me go right out to the works and see about it.
And Patty, I have the place. Goodbye to the grind of newspaper items and fillers. I tried to get back to the station at Bancroft in time to catch the train, but I couldn't. And it was just as well, for Mr. Keefer suddenly summoned home this afternoon, and when the 3.30 train from town stopped at Bancroft, he was on it. I found that out, and I got on, going to the next station with him and getting my interview after all. It's here in my notebook, and I must hurry up to the office and hand it in. I suppose Mr. Harmer will be very much vexed until he finds that I have it. Oh no, Mr. Harmer is in a very good humor, said Patty with dancing eyes. Then she told a story. The interview with Mr. Reefer came out with glaring headlines, and the Chronicle had its hour of fame and glory.
The next day, Mr. Harmer sent word to Patty that he wanted to see her. So Clifford is leaving, he said abruptly when she entered the office. Well, do you want this place? Mr. Harmer, are you joking? demanded Patty in amazement. Not I. That stuff you handed in was splendidly written. I didn't have to use the pencil more than once or twice. You have the proper journalistic instinct, all right. We need a lady on the staff anyhow, and if you'll take the place, it's yours for saying so and the permanency next month. I'll take it, said Patty promptly and joyfully. Good. Go down to the Symphony Club rehearsal this afternoon and report it. You have just ten minutes to get there. And Patty joyfully and promptly departed.
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17 17 - The Bet translated by Thomas Seltzer 15:29
The Bet by Anton Chekhov. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by caveat. One. It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party, and much interesting conversation. They talked, among other things, of capital punishment. The guests among them, not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian state, and immoral.
Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced universally by life imprisonment. I don't agree with you, said the host. I myself have experienced neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment, but if one may judge a priory, then, in my opinion, capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly. Life imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner? One who kills you in a few seconds, or one who draws the life out of you incessantly for years? They are both equally immoral, remarked one of the guests, because their purpose is the same, to take away life. The state is not God. It has no right to take away from you that which it cannot give back, if you should so desire.
Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said, Capital punishment and life imprisonment are equally immoral, but if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. It's better to live somehow than not to live at all. There ensued a lively discussion. The banker, who was then younger and more nervous, suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the table, and turned to the young lawyer, crying out, It's a lie. I bet you two millions you wouldn't stick in a cell even for five years. If you mean it seriously, replied the lawyer, then I'll bet I'll stay not five, but fifteen. Fifteen. Done, cried the banker. Gentlemen, I stake two millions.
Agreed. You stake two millions. I my freedom, said the lawyer. So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The banker, who at that time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was beside himself with a rapture. During supper, he said to the lawyer jokingly, come to your senses, young Roan, before it's too late. Two millions are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of your best years of your life. I say three or four, because you'll never stick it out any longer. Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment. The idea that you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the whole of your life in the cell.
I pity you." And now the banker was pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this, and asked himself, why did I make that bet? What's the good? The lawyer loses fifteen years of his life, and I throw away two millions. Will it convince people that capital punishment is worse or better imprisonment for life? No, no, all to stuff and rubbish. On my part, it was caprice of a well-fed man and the lawyer's pure greed of gold. He recollected further what happened after the evening party. It was decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the stricter's observation in the garden wing of the banker's house. It was agreed that during the period, he would be deprived of the right to cross the threshold.
To see living people, to hear human voices, and to receive letters and newspapers. He was permitted to have a musical instrument to read books, to write letters, to drink wine and smoke tobacco. By the agreement, he could communicate, but only in silence with the outside world, through a little window specially constructed for this purpose. Everything necessary, books, music, wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the window. The agreement provided for all the minutest details which made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to remain exactly 15 years from 12 o'clock of November 14, 1870 to 12 o'clock of November 14, 1885. The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before the time, freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions.
During the first year of imprisonment, The lawyer, as far as was possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from loneliness and boredom. From his wing day and night came the sound of the piano. He rejected wine and tobacco. Wine, he wrote, excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner. Besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone, and tobacco spoils the air in his room. During the first year, the lawyer was sent books of a light character, novels with a complicated love interest. Stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on. In the second year, the piano was heard no longer, and the lawyer asked only for classics. In the fifth year, music was heard again, and the prisoner asked for wine.
Those who watched him said that during the whole of that year, he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his bed. He yawned often to talk angrily to himself. Books he did not read. Sometimes at night, he would sit down to write. He would write for a long time, tear it all up in the morning. More than once, he was heard to weep.
In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to study languages, philosophy, and history. He fell on this subject so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for him. In the space of four years, about 600 volumes were bought at his request. It was while that passion lasted that the banker received the following letter from the prisoner. My dear jailer, I am writing these lines in six languages. Show them to experts. Let them read them. If they do not find one single mistake, I beg you to give orders to have a gun fired off in the garden. By the noise, I shall know that my efforts have not been in vain. The geniuses of all ages and countries speak in different languages, but in them all burnt the same flame.
Oh, if you knew my heavenly happiness, now that I can understand them! The prisoner's desire was fulfilled. Two shots were fired in the garden by the banker's order. Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his table and read only the New Testament. The banker found it strange that a man who had in four years massed 600 erudite volumes should spend nearly a year in reading one book. Easy to understand, and by no means thick. The New Testament was then replaced by the history of religions and theology. During the last two years of his confinement, the prisoner read an extraordinary mind, quite haphazard. Now he would apply himself to the natural sciences. Then he would read Byron or Shakespeare.
Notes used to come from him in which he has to be sent at the same time, a book on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel, some treatise on philosophy or theology. He read as though he was swimming in the sea among broken pieces of wreckage, and his desire to save his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.
Two. The banker recalled all this and thought, tomorrow at 12 o'clock he receives his freedom. Under the agreement, I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay him, it's all over with me. I am ruined forever. 15 years before, he had too many millions to count, but now he was afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts. Gambling on the stock exchange, risky speculation, and the recklessness of which he could not rid himself even in old age, had gradually brought his business to decay, and the fearless, self-confident, proud man of business had become an ordinary banker, trembling at every rise and fall in the market. "'But cursed bet,' murmured the old man, clutching his head in despair.
"'Why didn't the man die? He's only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing. Marry, enjoy life, gamble on the exchange, and I will look on like an envious.' Beggar, and hear the same words from him every day. I'm obliged to you for the happiness of my life. Let me help you. No, it's too much. The only escape from bankruptcy of his disgrace is that the man should die. The clock had struck three. The banker was listening. In the house, everyone was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees whining outside the windows, trying to make no sound. He took out of his safe the key of the door, which had not been opened. For fifteen years, put on his overcoat and went out of the house.
The garden was dark and cold. It was raining. A damp, penetrating wind howled in the garden and gave the trees no rest. Though he strained his eyes, the banker could see neither the ground nor the white statues, nor the garden wing, nor the trees. Approaching the garden wing, he called the watchman twice. There was no answer. Evidently, the watchman had taken shelter from the bad weather and was now asleep somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse. If I have the courage to fulfil my intention, thought the old man, the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all. In the darkness he groped through the steps, and the door, and entered the hall of the garden wing, and then poked his way into a narrow passage and stuck a match.
Not a soul was there. Someone's bed with no bedclothes on it stood there, and an iron stove loomed in the dark corner. The seals on the door that led into the prisoner's room were unbroken. When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation, peeked into the little window. In the prisoner's room, a candle was burning dimly. The prisoner himself sat by the table. Only his back, the hair on his head, and his hands were visible. Open books were strewn about on the table, and the chairs on the carpet near the table. Five minutes passed, and the prisoner never once stirred. Fifteen years' confinement had told him to sit motionless. The banker tapped on the window with his finger, but the prisoner made no movement in reply.
Then the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door, put the key into the lock. The rusty lock gave a hoarse groan, and the door creaked. The banker expected instantly to hear a cry of surprise and the sound of steps. Three minutes passed, and it was as quiet inside as it had been before. He made up his mind to enter. Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being. It was a skeleton with tight-drawn skin, with long curly hair like a woman's, and a shaggy beard. The colour of his face was yellow, an earthy shade. The cheeks were sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look upon. His hair was already silvering with grey, and no one who glanced at the senile emaciation of the face would have believed that he was only forty years old.
On the table, before his bended head, And a sheet of paper on which something was written in her tiny hand.
Poor devil, thought the banker. He's asleep and probably seeing millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead thing on the bed, smother him for a moment with the pillow, and the most careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But first, let us read what he has written here. The banker took the sheet from the table and read. Tomorrow at 12 o'clock midnight, I shall obtain my freedom. And the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see the sun, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear conscience and before God who sees me, I declare to you that I despise freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the blessings of the world.
For 15 years, I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books, I drank fragrant wine. Sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests. Loved women. And beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created by the magic of your poet's genius, visited me by night, and whispered to me wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your box I climbed the mountains of Urbruts and Mont Blanc, and saw from there how the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening suffused the sky, the ocean and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from there how above me lightnings glimmered cleaving the sky. I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities.
I heard sirens singing and the playing of the pipes of Pan. I touched the wings of beautiful devils who came flying to me to speak of God. In your books, I cast myself into bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities to the ground, preached new religions, conquered whole countries. Your books. Gave me wisdom. All that unwearying human thought created in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I know that I am cleverer than you all, and I despise your books, despise all worldly blessings and wisdom. Everything is void, frail, visionary, and delusive as a mirage. Though you'd be proud and wise and beautiful, yet... Will death wipe you from the face of earth like the mice underground, and your posterity, your history, and the immorality of the men of genius will be as frozen slag, burnt down together with the terrestrial globe.
You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take falsehood for truth and ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if suddenly an apple and orange trees should bear frogs and lizards instead of fruit, and if roses should begin to breathe the odor of a sweating horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bartered heaven for earth, but I do not want to understand you. That I may show you indeed my contempt for that by which you live. I waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as a paradise, and which I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them, I shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and thus violate the agreement."
When he had read The banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing, never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses on the exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home, he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him a long time from sleeping.
The next morning, the poor watchman came running to him and told him that he had seen the man who lived in the wing climb through the window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared. The banker instantly went with his servants to the wing, and established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumours, he took the paperwork with his renunciation from the table, and on his return, locked it in his safe.
End of The Bet by Anton Chekhov
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18 18 - The Kiss 6:54
The Kiss by Kate Chopin. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org. Read by Leigh Vogler. The Kiss. It was still quite light out of doors, but inside, with the curtains drawn and the smoldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows. Bertan sat in one of these shadows. It had overtaken him, and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eyes fastened, as ardently as he liked, upon the girl who sat in the firelight. She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy, brune type. She was quite composed, as she idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap.
And she occasionally sent a slow glance into the shadow where her companions sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which plainly were not the things that occupied their thoughts. She knew that he loved her, a frank, blustering fellow, without guile enough to conceal his feelings, and no desire to do so. For two weeks past, he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was confidently waiting for him to declare himself, and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Bretagne was enormously rich, and she liked and required the entourage which wealth could give her. During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea and the next reception, the door opened, and the young man entered, whom Bretagne knew quite well.
The girl turned her face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and bending over her chair, before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize he had not seen her visitor. He pressed an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips. Bertrand slowly arose, so did the girl arise, but quickly, and the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and some defiance struggling with the confusion in his face. I believe, stammered Bertan, I see that I have stayed too long. I had no idea. That is, I must wish you goodbye. He was clutching his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was extending her hand to him. Her presence of mind had not completely deserted her, but she could not have trusted herself to speak.
Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Natty. I know it's too stockard for you. But I hope you'll forgive me this once, this very first break. Why, what's the matter? Don't touch me and don't come near me, she returned angrily. What do you mean by entering the house without ringing? I came in with your brother, as I often do, he answered coldly, in self-justification. We came in the sideway. He went upstairs, and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is simple enough and ought to satisfy you. That the misadventure was unavoidable. But do say you'll forgive me, Natalie, he entreated, softening. Forgive you? You don't know what you're talking about. Let me pass. It depends upon a good deal whether I ever forgive you.
At the next reception, which she and Bertin had been talking about, she approached the young man with a delicious frankness of manner when she saw him there. Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Bertin? She asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He seemed extremely unhappy, but when she took his arm and walked away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression. She was apparently very outspoken. Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr. Bratton, but oh, oh, I have been very uncomfortable. Almost miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed things, hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Bertin's round, guileless face.
Of course, I know it's nothing to you, but for my own sake, I do want you to understand that Mr. Harry is an intimate friend of long-standing. Why, we have always been like cousins, like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother's most intimate associate, and almost fancies that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it's absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this, undignified even. She was almost weeping, but it makes so much difference to me what you think of me. Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had all disappeared from Bachan's face. Then you really do care what I think, Miss Natalie? May I call you Miss Natalie? They turned into a long, dim quarter that was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants.
They walked slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to retrace their steps, Bertan's face was radiant, and hers was triumphant. Harvey was among the guests at the wedding, and he sought her out in a rare moment when she stood alone. Your husband, he said, smiling. has sent me over to kiss you. A quick blush suffused her face and round, polished throat. I suppose it's natural for a man to feel and act generously on an occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn't want his marriage to interrupt wholly with that pleasant intimacy which has existed between you and me. I don't know what you've been telling him, with an insolent smile, but he has sent me here to kiss you. She felt like a chess player.
Who, by the clever handling of his pieces, seized the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his, and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited. But you know, he went on quietly, I didn't tell him so, for it would have seemed ungrateful. But I can tell you, I've stopped kissing women. It's dangerous. Well... She had Bertan and his million left. A person can't have everything in this world, and it was a little unreasonable of her to expect it. End of the kiss.
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19 19 - The Kiss 16:29
Uncanny Tales by Various Authors. The Kiss. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Leigh Vogler. The Kiss. The quiet of the deserted building encircled the little glowing room as the velvet encircles the jewel in its case. Occasionally faint sounds came from the distance, the movements of cleaners at work, a raised voice, the slamming of a door. The man sat at his desk as he had sat through the busy day, but he had turned sideways in his seat, the better to regard the other occupant of the room. She was not beautiful, had no need to be. Her call to him had been the saner call of mind to mind.
That he desired, besides, the passing benediction of her hands, the fragrance of her corn-gold hair, the slight of her slenderness. This she had guessed and gloried in. Till now he had touched her physical self neither in word nor deed. Tonight, She knew the barriers would be down. Tonight they would kiss. Her quiet eyes, held by his during the spell that had bound them speechless, did not flinch at the breaking of it. The Lord made the world, and then he made this rotten old office, the man said quietly. Into it he put you and me. What before that day? The one who has gone to the making and marring of me, and the making and perfecting of you is not to the point. It is enough that we have realized heart and soul and body that you are mine and I am yours.
Yes, she said. He fell silent again, his eyes on her hungrily. She felt them and longed for his touch, but there came only his voice. I want you. The first moment I saw you, I wanted you. I thought then that, whatever the cost, I would have you. That was in the early days of our talks here, before you made it so courageously clear to me that it would never be possible for you to ignore my marriage and come to me. That is still so, isn't it?
She moved slightly, like a dreamer in pain. As again she faced the creed she had hated through many a sleepless night. It is so, she agreed, and because it is so, you are going away tomorrow. Yes. They looked at each other across the foot or two of intervening space. It was a look to bridge death with, but even beneath their suffering her eyes voiced the tremulous waiting of her lips. At last he found words. You are the most wonderful woman in the world, the pluckiest, the most understanding. You have the widest charity. I suppose I ought to thank you for it all. I can't. It's not my way. I have always demanded of you, demanded enormously, and received my measure pressed down and running over.
Now I'm going to ask this last thing of you. Will you? Of your goodness. Go away. Upstairs. Anywhere. And come back in ten minutes' time. By then, I shall have cleared out. She looked at him almost incredulously, lips parted. Suddenly, she seemed a child. You, I... she stammered, then rising to her feet with superb simplicity. But you must kiss me before you go. You must. You... simply must. For the space of a flaming moment, it seemed that in one stride he would have crossed to her side, caught her, and held her. For God's sake, he muttered, in almost ludicrous fear of himself. Then, with a big effort, he regained his self-control. Listen, he said hoarsely, I want to kiss you so much that I daren't even get to my feet.
Do you understand what this means? Think of it, just for a moment, then realize... That I'm not going to kiss you. And I have kissed many women in my time, too, and shall kiss more, no doubt. But it's not because of that... that I'm holding back. No. Neither is it because I funk the torture of kissing you once and letting you go. It's because I'm afraid. For you. For me? Listen. You've unfolded your beliefs to me, and though I don't hold them... Don't attempt to live up to your light. The realization of them has given me reverence for you that you don't dream of. I have put you in a shrine and knelt to you every time you have sat in that chair and talked with me. I have worshipped you." It would not alter all that, the girl said faintly, if you kissed me.
I don't believe that, and neither do you. No, you don't. In your heart of hearts, you admit that a woman like you is not kissed for the first and last time by a man like me. Suppose I kissed you now. I should awaken something in you yet half asleep. You're young and pulsing with life, and there are, thank heaven, a few layers of that damnable young girl's shyness over you. The world would call you primitive, I suppose. But I don't. Oh Lord, you must see that it's all or nothing. You surely understand that after I left you, you would not go against your morality, but you would adjust to it, in spite of yourself, to meet your desires. I cannot safely kiss you. But you're going away for good. For good?
Child, do you think my going will be your safeguard? If you wanted me so much that you came to think it was right, And good to want me. Wouldn't he find me? Send for me? Call for me? And I should come. God, I can see the look in your eyes, and now, when the want had been satisfied, you could not drug your creed anymore. Her breath came in a long sigh. Then she tried to speak. Tried again. It's so, isn't it? He asked. She nodded. His speech was too difficult. With the movement, a strand of corn-gold hair came tumbling down the side of her face. Then, that being the case, said the man, with infinite gentleness, his eyes on the little tumbling lock, I shall not attempt so much as to touch your hand before you leave the room.
At the door she turned. Tell me once again, she said, you want? To kiss me? He gripped the arms of his chair from where she stood. She could see the veins standing out on his hands. I want to kiss you, he said fiercely. I want to kiss you. If there were any way of cutting off tomorrow, all the tomorrows, the danger they hold for us, I would kiss you. I would kiss you and kiss you and kiss you.
Two. Where her feet took her during the thousand, thousand years that was his going, she could never afterwards say, but she found herself at last at the top of the great building, at an open window, leaning out, with the rain beating into her eyes. Far below her the lights wavered, and later she remembered the echoes of a far-off talmud had reached her as she sat. But her ears held only the memory of a man's footsteps, the eager tread that had never lingered so much as a second space on its way to her, that had often stumbled slightly on the threshold of her presence, that she had heard and welcomed in her dreams, that would not come again. The raindrops lay like tears upon her face. She brushed them aside and, rising, put her hands to fill the wet.
Lying heavy on her hair. The coldness of her limbs surprised her faintly. Downstairs she went again, the echoes mocking every step. She closed the door of the room behind her and idly cleared a scrap of paper from a chair. Mechanically, her hands went to the litter on his desk, and she had straightened it all before. She realized there was no longer any need. Tomorrow would bring a voice she did not know. Would usher a stranger into her room to take her measure from behind a barrier of formality. For the rest there would be work, and food, and sleep. These things would make life. Life that had been love. She put on her hat and coat. The room seemed smaller, somehow, and shabbier. The shaded lights that had invited now merely irritated.
And the whimsical disorder of books and papers spoke only of an uncompleted task. Gone was the glamour and promise and the good comradeship. He had taken them all. She faced tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow empty-handed, in her heart the memory of words that had seared and healed in a breath, and the dead dream of a kiss. Her throat ached with the pain of it. And then suddenly she heard him coming back. She stiffened for one instant. Mind and body, she was rigid with the sheer wonder of it. Then, as the atmosphere of the room surged back, tensed with vitality, her mind leapt forward in welcome. He was coming back, coming back. The words hammered themselves out to the rhythm of the eager tread.
That never lingered so much as a second space on its way to her that stumbled slightly on the threshold of her presence. By some queer, reflex twist of memory, her hands brushed imaginary raindrops from her face, and strayed uncertainly to where the wet had lain on her hair. The door opened and closed behind him. I've come back. I've come back to kiss you. Dear, dear. Her outflung hand checked him in his stride toward her. Words came stammering to her lips. Why, but this is... I don't understand. All you said... It was true, surely. It was cruel of you to make me know it was true, and then come back? Let me kiss you. Let me... let me... He was overwhelming her, ignoring her resistance. I must kiss you.
I must kiss you. He said it again and again. No, no, you shan't. You can't play with me. You said you were afraid for me, and you made me afraid too, of my weakness, of the danger, of my longing for you. Let me kiss you. Yes, you shall let me. You shall let me. His arms held her. His face touched hers. Aren't you afraid anymore? Has a miracle happened? May we kiss in spite of tomorrow? Inch by inch she was relaxing. All thought was slipping away into a great white light that held no tomorrows, nor any fear of them, nor of herself, nor of anything. The light crept to her feet, rose to her heart, her head. Through the radiance came his words. Yes, a miracle. Oh, my dear, my little child. I've come back to kiss you, little child.
Kiss me then, she said against his lips. Three. Hazily, she was aware that he had released her, that she had raised her head, that against the rough tweed of his shoulder there lay a long, corn-gold hair. She laughed shakily, and her hand went up to remove it, but he caught her fingers and held them to his face. And with the movement and his look there came over her a wave of the shame of her surrender, a shame that was the glory, a diadem of pride. She turned blindly away. Please, she heard herself saying, let me go now. I want to be alone. I want to. Please don't tell me tonight. Tomorrow. She was at the door, groping for the handle. Behind her she heard his voice. It was very tender. I shall always kneel to you in your shrine.
Then she was outside, and the chilly passages were cool to her burning face. She had left him in the room behind her, and she knew he would wait there long enough to allow her to leave the building. Almost immediately, it seemed, she was downstairs in the hall, had reached the entrance. She confronted a group of white-faced, silent men. Why is anything the matter? What has happened? Odell? The porter stood forward. He cleared his throat twice, but for all that, his words were barely audible. Yes, Miss Carroll. Good night. You best be going on, miss, if you'll excuse. Behind Odell stood a policeman. Behind him again, a grave-eyed man stooped to an unusual task. It arrested her attention like the flash of red danger.
Why is the door to your room being locked, Odell? She knew her curiosity was indecent, but some powerful premonition was stirring in her, and she could not pass on. Has there been an accident? Who was in there? Then, almost under her feet, she saw a dark pool lying sluggishly against the tiles near the door. Another. On the pavement, outside another, and yet another. She gasped, drew back, felt horribly sick, and as she turned, she caught Odell's muttered. Aside to the policeman. Young lady's secretary, she must be the last that's seen him alive. All told, ain't more than half an hour since he left. Good night, Odell. It's easy. Miss Carol's still working. Don't lock her in. It's easy. Would I have as a joke?
Must have gone round the corner and slapped into the car. Wish to God the ambulance. Her cry cut into his words as she flung herself forward. Her fingers wrenched at the key of the locked door and turned it, in spite of the detaining hands that seemed light as leaves upon her shoulder, and as easily shaken off. Unhearing, unheeding, she forced her way to the glare of the electric light flooding the little room, beating down on the table and its sheeted burden. Before she reached it, knowledge had dropped upon her like a mantle. Her face was gray as the one from which she drew the merciful coverings, but her eyes went fearlessly to that which she sought, against the rough tweed of his shoulder.
Corn-gold hair.
End of The Kiss
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20 20 - The Lumber Room 14:30
The Lumber Room by Saki, otherwise known as H. H. Munro. Short Story Collection 102. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Andrew Stevenson.
The children were to be driven. As a special treat to the Sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party. He was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread and milk on the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread and milk, and that he was not to talk nonsense. He continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the colouration and markings of the alleged frog. The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Nicholas's basin of bread and milk. He had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it.
The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome bread and milk. was enlarged on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the mind of Nicholas, was that the older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance. "'You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread and milk.' "'There was a frog in my bread and milk,' he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician, Who does not intend to shift from favourable ground. So, his boy cousin and girl cousin and his quite uninteresting younger brother were to be taken to Jagborough Sands that afternoon, and he was to stay at home.
His cousin's aunt, who insisted by an unwarranted stretch of imagination in styling herself his aunt also. had hastily invented the Jagborough Expedition in order to impress on Nicholas the delights that he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast table. It was her habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender would be rigorously debarred. If all the children sinned collectively, they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town. A circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day. A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Nicholas when the moment for the departure of the expedition arrived.
As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by his girl-cousin, who scraped her knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as she was scrambling in. How she did howl, said Nicholas cheerfully, as the party drove off, without any of the elation of high spirits that should have characterised it. She'll soon get over that, said the soi-disant aunt. It will be a glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy themselves. Bobby won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race much either, said Nicholas, with a grim chuckle. His boots are hurting him. They're too tight. Why didn't he tell me they were hurting? asked the aunt with some asperity. He told you twice, but you weren't listening.
You often don't listen when we tell you important things. You are not to go into the Gooseberry Garden, said the aunt, changing the subject. Why not? demanded Nicholas. Because you are in disgrace, said the aunt loftily. Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning. He felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the gooseberry garden only, as she remarked to herself, because I have told him he is not to.
Now, the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered. And once a small person like Nicholas could slip in there, he could effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry canes and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial gardening operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could keep a watchful eye on the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. She was a woman of few ideas. With immense powers of concentration. Nicholas made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a moment to evade the aunt's watchful eye.
As a matter of fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the Gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that his aunt should believe that he had. It was a belief that would keep her on self-imposed sentry duty for the greater part of the afternoon. Having thoroughly confirmed and fortified her suspicions, Nicholas slipped back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his brain. By standing on a chair in the library, one could reach a shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important as it looked. It was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the lumber room secure from unauthorised intrusion, which opened a way only for aunts and such-like privileged persons.
Nicholas had not had much experience of the art of fitting keys into keyholes and turning locks, but for some days past he had practised with the key of the schoolroom door. He did not believe in trusting too much to luck and accident. The key turned stiffly in the lock. But it turned. The door opened, and Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the Gooseberry Garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure. Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber-room might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up to his expectations. In the first place, it was large and dimly lit, one high window opening onto the Forbidden Garden being its only source of illumination.
In the second place, it was a storehouse of unimagined treasures. The aunt, by assertion, was one of those people who think that things spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way of preserving them. Such parts of the house as Nicholas knew best were rather bare and cheerless. But here there were wonderful things for the eye to feast on. First and foremost, there was a piece of framed tapestry that was evidently meant to be a fire screen. To Nicholas, it was a living, breathing story. He sat down on a roll of Indian hangings, glowing in wonderful colours beneath a layer of dust, and took in all the details of the tapestry picture. A man, dressed in the hunting costume of some remote period, Had just transfixed a stag with an arrow.
It could not have been a difficult shot, because the stag was only one or two paces away from him. In the thickly growing vegetation that the picture suggested it would not have been difficult to creep up to a feeding stag, and the two spotted dogs that were springing forward to join in the chase had evidently been trained to keep to heel till the arrow was discharged. That part of the picture was simple, if interesting. But... Did the huntsman see what Nicholas saw? That four galloping wolves were coming in his direction through the wood. There might be more than four of them hidden behind the trees, and in any case, would the man and his dogs be able to cope with the four wolves if they made an attack?
The man had only two arrows left in his quiver, and he might miss with one or both of them. All one knew about his skill in shooting. Was that he could hit a large stag at a ridiculously short range. Nicholas sat for many golden minutes, revolving the possibilities of the scene. He was inclined to think that there were more than four wolves, and that the man and his dogs were in a tight corner.
But there were other objects of delight and interest claiming his instant attention. There were quaint, twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes. And a teapot, fashioned like a china duck, out of whose open beak the tea was supposed to come. How dull and shapeless the nursery teapot seemed in comparison. And there was a carved sandalwood box packed tight with aromatic cotton wool, and between the layers of cotton wool were little brass figures, hump-necked bulls and peacocks and goblins, delightful to see and to handle. Less promising an appearance was a large square book with plain black covers. Nicholas peeped into it, and behold, it was full of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds!
In the garden and in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds, of which the largest were an occasional magpie or woodpigeon. Here were herons and bustards, kites. Toucans, tiger-bitterns, brush-turkeys, ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of creatures. And as he was admiring the colouring of the mandarin duck and assigning a life history to it, the voice of his aunt, in shrill vociferation of his name, came from the Gooseberry Garden without. She had grown suspicious at his long disappearance, and had leapt to the conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screen of the lilac bushes. She was now engaged in energetic and rather hopeless search for him among the artichokes and raspberry canes.
"'Nicholas! Nicholas!' she screamed. "'You are to come out of this at once. It's no use trying to hide there. I can see you all the time.' It was probably the first time for twenty years that anyone had smiled in that lumber room.
Presently, the angry repetitions of Nicholas's name gave way to a shriek and a cry for somebody to come quickly. Nicholas shut the book, restored it carefully to its place in a corner, and shook some dust from a neighbouring pile of newspapers over it. Then he crept from the room, locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where he had found it. His aunt was still calling his name when he sauntered into the front garden. "'Who's calling?' he asked. "'Me,' came the answer from the other side of the wall. "'Didn't you hear me? I've been looking for you in the Gooseberry Garden, and I've slipped into the rainwater tank. Luckily there's no water in it, but the slides are slippery, and I can't get out.
Fetch the little ladder from under the cherry tree.' "'I was told I wasn't to go into the Gooseberry Garden,' said Nicholas promptly. "'I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may,' came the voice from the rainwater tank, rather impatiently. "'Your voice doesn't sound like Aunt,' objected Nicholas. "'You may be the evil one, tempting me to be disobedient. "'Aunt often tells me that the evil one tempts me, and that I always yield. "'This time I'm not going to yield.' "'Don't talk nonsense,' said the prisoner in the tank. "'Go and fetch the ladder.' "'Will there be strawberry jam for tea?' asked Nicholas innocently. "'Certainly there will be,' said the aunt, privately resolving that Nicholas should have none of it.
"'Now I know that you're the evil one, and not aunt,' shouted Nicholas gleefully. "'When we asked aunt for strawberry jam yesterday, she said there wasn't any. "'I know there are four jars of it in the store cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it's there, but she doesn't, because she said there wasn't any.'" Oh, devil, you have sold yourself. There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to an aunt as though one was talking to the evil one, but Nicholas knew with childish discernment that such luxuries were not to be overindulged in. He walked noisily away, and it was a kitchen maid in search of parsley who eventually rescued the aunt from the rainwater tank. Tea that evening.
was partaken of in a fearsome silence. The tide had been at its highest when the children had arrived at Jagborough Cove, so there had been no sands to play on, a circumstance that the aunt had overlooked in the haste of organising her punitive expedition. The tightness of Bobby's boots had had disastrous effect on his temper the whole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have been said to have enjoyed themselves. The aunt maintained the frozen muteness of one who has suffered undignified and unmerited detention in a rain-water tank for thirty-five minutes. As for Nicholas, he too was silent in the absorption of one who has much to think about. It was just possible, he considered, that the huntsman would escape with his hounds while the wolves feasted on the stricken stag.
End of The Lumber Room by Saki Recorded by Andrew Stevenson in Somerset, UK 2022