 The Sisters by James Joyce. There was no hope for him this time. It was the third stroke. Late after night I had passed the house, it was vacation time, and studied the lighted square of window, and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought. I would see the reflection of candles in the darkened blind, for I knew the two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me, I am not long for this world, and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears like the word nomen in the Euclid, and the word simony in the catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it, and to look upon its deadly work. Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out myster about, he said, as if returning to some former remark of his, no, I wouldn't say he was exactly. But there was something queer, there was something uncanny about him. I'll tell you my opinion. He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tired some old fool. When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms. But I soon grew tired of him, and his endless stories about the distillery. I have my own theory about it, he said. I think it was one of those peculiar cases, but it's hard to say. He began to puff at his pipe, without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring, and said to me, Well, so your old friend is gone, you'll be sorry to hear. Who? said I. Father Flynn. Is he dead? Mr. Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house. I knew that I was under observation, so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter, The youngster and he were great friends, the old chap taught him a great deal, mind you, and they say he had a great wish for him. God hath mercy on his soul, said my aunt piously. Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me, but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally sped rudely into the grate. I wouldn't like children of mine, he said, to have too much to say to a man like that. How do you mean, Mr. Cotter, asked my aunt? What I mean is, said old Cotter, it's bad for children. My idea is, let a young lad run about and play with the young lads of his own age and not be. Am I right, Jack? That's my principal too, said my uncle. Let him learn to box his corner. That's what I'm always saying to that arose a crucian there, take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that's what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large. Mr. Cotter might take a pic of that leg mutton, he added to my aunt. No, no, not for me, said old Cotter. My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table. But why do you think it's not good for children, Mr. Cotter, she asked? It's bad for children, said old Cotter, because their minds are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect. I crammed my mouth with stirabout, for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile. It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy gray face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas, but the gray face still followed me. It murmured, and I understood that a desire to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region. And there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice, and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of paralysis. And I felt that I too was smiling feebly, as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin. The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house on Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children's bouties and umbrellas, and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying, Umbrella's recovered. No notice was visible now, for the shutters were up. A crepe bouquet was tied to the door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crepe. I also approached and read. By first 1895 the Reverend James Flynn, formerly of St. Catherine's Church, Meath Street, aged sixty-five years, R.I.P. The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead. And I was disturbed to find myself at check. And he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his armchair by the fire, nearly smothered in his great coat. This mayad would have given me a packet of high toast for him, and this present would have roused him from his stupefied dose. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box, for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose, little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient priestly garments their green, faded look, for the red handkerchief, blackened as it always was with the snuff stains of a week, with which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite inefficacious. I wished to go in and look at him, but I had not the courage to knock. I walked away slowly, along the sunny side of the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop windows as I went. I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a morning mood, and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom, as if I had been freed from something by his death. I wondered at this, for, as my uncle had said the night before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish College in Rome, and he had taught me to pronounce Latin properly. He had told me stories about the catacombs and about Napoleon Bonaparte, and he had explained to me the meaning of the different ceremonies of the Mass, and of the different vestments worn by the priest. Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances, or whether such and such sins were mortal, or venial, or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts. The duties of the priest toward the Eucharist and toward the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them. And I was not surprised, when he told me that the Fathers of the Church had written books as thick as the Post Office directory, and as closely printed as the law notices in the newspaper, elucidating all these intricate questions. Often when I thought of this I could make no answer, or only a very foolish and halting one, upon which he used a smile and nod his head twice, or thrice. Sometimes he used to put me through the responses of the Mass, which he had made me learn by heart, and as I pattered he used a smile pensively and nod his head, now and then pushing huge pinches of snuff up each nostril alternately. When he smiled I used to uncover his big discolored teeth, and let his tongue lie upon his lower lip, a habit which had made me feel uneasy in the beginning of our acquaintance before I knew him well. As I walked along in the sun I remembered old Carter's words, and tried to remember what had happened afterwards in the dream. I remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains, and a swinging lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away in some land where the customs were strange, in Persia, I thought. But I could not remember the end of the dream. In the evening my aunt took me with her to visit the house of morning. It was after sunset. But the windowpains of the house that looked to the west reflected the tawny gold of a great bank of clouds. She received us in the hall, and as it would have been unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all. The old woman pointed upwards interrogatively, and on my aunt's nodding proceeded to toil up the narrow staircase before us, her bowed head being scarcely above the level of the banister rail. At the first landing she stopped and beckoned us forward encouragingly toward the open door of the dead room. My aunt went in, and the old woman, seeing that I hesitated to enter, began to beckon to me again repeatedly with her hand. I went in on tiptoe. The room, through the lace end of the blind, was suffused with dusky golden light, amid which the candles looked like pale, thin flames. He had been coffin'd. He gave the lead, and we three knelt down at the foot of the bed. I pretended to pray, but I could not gather my thoughts, because the old woman's mutterings distracted me. I noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back, and how the heels of her cloth-a-boots were trodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he laid there, in his coffin. But no. When we rose and went to the head of the bed I saw that he was not smiling. There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice. His face was very truculent, gray and massive, with black cavernous nostrils encircled by a scanty white fur. There was a heavy odor in the room, the flowers. We crossed ourselves and came away. In the little room downstairs we found Eliza, seated in his armchair in state. I groped my way towards my usual chair in the corner, while nanny went to the sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine-glasses. She set these on the table and invited us to take a little glass of wine. Then at her sister's bidding she filled out the sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also, but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them. She seemed to be somewhat disappointed in my refusal, and went over quietly to the sofa where she sat down behind her sister. No one spoke. We all gazed at the empty fireplace. My aunt waited until Eliza sighed and then said, Ah, well, he's gone to a better world. He lies aside again and bowed her head in ascent. My aunt fingered the stem of her wine-glass before sipping a little. Did he—peacefully, she asked. Oh, quite peacefully, ma'am, said Eliza. You couldn't tell when the breath went out of him. He had a beautiful death, God be praised. And everything? Father O'Rourke was in with him a Tuesday and anointed him and prepared him and all. He knew, then, he was quite resigned. He looks quite resigned, said my aunt. That's what the woman we had in to wash him said. She said he'd just looked as if he was asleep. He looked that peaceful and resigned. No one would think he'd make such a beautiful corpse. Yes, indeed, said my aunt. She sipped a little more from her glass and said, Well, Miss Flynn, at any rate, it must be a great comfort for you to know that you did all you could for him. You were both very kind to him, I must say. Eliza smoothed her dress over her knees. Ah, poor James, she said. God knows we've done all we could, as poor as we are. We wouldn't see him want anything while he was in it. Nanny had leaned her head against the sofa-pillar and seemed about to fall asleep. There's poor Nanny, said Eliza, looking at her. She's wore out. All the work we had, she and me, getting in the woman to wash him and then laying him out, and then the coffin and then arranging about the mass in the chapel. Only for Father O'Rourke I don't know what we'd done at all. It was him who brought us all them flowers and them two candlesticks out of the chapel, and wrote out the notice for the Freeman's general, and took charge of all the papers for the cemetery and poor James's insurance. Wasn't that good of him, said my aunt. Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. Ah, there's no friends like the old friends, she said, when all is said and done, no friends that a body can trust. Indeed, that's true, said my aunt. And I'm sure now that he's gone to his eternal reward he won't forget you when all your kindness to him. Ah, poor James, said Eliza. He was no great trouble to us. You wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now, still. I know he's gone and all to that. It's when it's all over that you'll miss him, said my aunt. I know that, said Eliza. I won't be bringing him in his cup of beef tea, any me, nor you, ma'am, sending him a snuff. Ah, poor James. She stopped, as if she were commuting with the past, and then said shrewdly, mind you, I notice there was something queer coming over him laterally. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair in his mouth open. She laid a finger against her nose and frowned. Then she continued, but still in all he kept on saying that before the summer was over he'd go out for a drive one fine day just to see the old house again, where we were all born down in Irish town, and take me and Nanny with him. If we could only get one of them new-fangled carriages it makes no noise that Father O'Rourke told them about, them with the romantic wheels, for the day cheap. He said that Johnny rushes over the way there and drive out the three of us together of a Sunday evening. He had his mind set on that. Poor James. The Lord of mercy on his soul, said my aunt. He lies at a cotter handkerchief and wiped her eyes with it. Then she put it back again in her pocket and gazed into the empty grate for some time, without speaking. He was too scrupulous always, she said. The duties of the priesthood was too much for him, and then his life was, you might say, crossed. Yes, said my aunt, he was a disappointed man, you could see that. A silence took possession of the little room. And under cover of it I approached the table and tasted my sherry, and then returned quietly to my chair in the cormor. Eliza seemed to have fallen into a deeper reverie. We waited respectfully for her to break the silence. And after a long pause she said, slowly, It was that shalless he broke. That was the beginning of it. Of course they say it was all right that it contained nothing, I mean, but still they say it was the boy's fault. But poor James was so nervous God be merciful to him. And was that it, said my aunt, I heard something, Eliza nodded. That affected his mind, she said. After that he began to mope by himself, talking to no one and wondering about by himself. So one night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn't find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down, and still they couldn't see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clock suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel, and the clock and Father O'Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him. And what do you think? But there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession box, wide awake and laughing like softly to himself. She stopped suddenly as if to listen. I too listened. But there was no sound in the house. And I knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death. An idle chalice on his breast. Eliza resumed, wide awake and laughing like to himself. So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him. End of The Sisters by James Joyce. The leaves were so still that even Bee Bee thought it was going to rain. Bobby Know, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child's attention to certain somber clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer's store and decided to remain there till the storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bee Bee was four years old and looked very wise. Mama will be afraid, yes, he suggested with blinking eyes. She'll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helping her this evening. Bobby Know responded reassuringly. No, she hadn't got Sylvie. Sylvie was helping her yesterday. Piped Bee Bee. Bobby Know arose and, going across to the counter, purchased a can of shrimps, of which Calixta was very fond. Then he returned to his perch on the keg and sat solidly holding the can of shrimps, while the storm burst. It shook the wooden store and seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant field. Bee Bee laid his little hand on his father's knee and was not afraid. Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side window, sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sack at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors. Out on the small front gallery she had hung Bobby Know's Sunday clothes to air, and she hastened out to gather them before the rain fell. As she stepped outside, Alsée Labellière rode in at the gate. She had not seen him very often since her marriage and never alone. She stood there with Bobby Know's coat in her hands, and the big raindrops began to fall. Alsée rode his horse under the shelter of the side projection, where the chickens had huddled, and there where plows and harrow piled up in the corner. May I come and wave in your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta, he asked. Come long in, Monsieur Alsée. His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobby Know's vest. Alsée, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and snatched Bee Bee's braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind. He expressed an intention to remain outside, but it was soon apparent that he might as well have been out in the open. The water beat in upon the boards and driving sheets, and he went inside, closing the door after him. It was even necessary to put something beneath the door to keep the water out. My! What a rain! Each good two years sends a rain like that, exclaimed Calixta, as she rolled up a piece of bagging, and Alsée helped her to thrust it beneath the crack. She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married, but she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her blue eyes still retained their melting quality, and her yellow hair, disheveled by the wind and rain, kinked more stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples. The rain beat upon the low shingled roof with a force and clatter that threatened to break an entrance and deluge them there. They were in the dining room, the sitting room, the general utility room. Of joining was her bedroom, with Bee Bee's couch alongside her own. The door stood open, and the room with its white monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious. Alsée flung himself into a rocker, and Calixta nervously began to gather up from the floor the lengths of a cotton sheet which she had been sewing. If this keeps up, just say, if the levee is going to stand it! She exclaimed, What have you to do with the levees? I've got enough to do, and there's Bobbino with Bee Bee out in the strong, if he only didn't laugh three timers. Let us hope, Calixta, that Bobbino's got sense enough to come in out of a cyclone. She went and stood at the window with a greatly disturbed look on her face. She wiped the frame that was clouded with moisture. It was stiflingly hot. Alsée got up and joined her at the window, looking over her shoulder. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring the view of far-off caverns and enveloping the distant wood in a gray mist. The playing of the lightning was incessant. A bolt struck a tall, Chinaberry tree at the edge of the field. It filled all visible space with a blinding glare, and the crash seemed to invade the very boards they stood upon. Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry staggered backwards. Alsée's arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her close and spasmodically to him. Bonte! She cried, releasing herself from his encircling arm and retreating from the window. The house will go next, if I only know where Bee Bee was. She would not compose herself. She would not be seated. Alsée clasped her shoulders and looked into her face. The contact of her warm, palpitating body, when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all the old time infatuation and desire for her flesh. Calixta. He said, Don't be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is too low to be struck, with so many tall trees standing about. There! Aren't you going to be quiet? Say, aren't you? He pushed her hair back from her face, that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him, the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes, and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of assumption. Do you remember? In assumption, Calixta? He asked in a low voice, broken by passion. Oh! She remembered. For in assumption he had kissed her and kissed her, until his senses would well nigh fall, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not in immaculate dove in those days, she was still in violet, a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now? Well. Now her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round white throat and her whiter breasts. They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in the dim, mysterious chamber, as white as the couch she lay upon, her firm elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world. The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found repose in depths of her own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached. When he touched her breasts, they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight, and when he possessed her they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery. He stayed cushioned upon her, breathless, dazed, enervated, with his heart beating like a hammer upon her. With one hand she clasped his head, her lips lightly touching his forehead. The other hand stroked with a soothing rhythm his muscular shoulders. The growl of the thunder was distant and passing away. The rain beat softly upon the shingles, inviting them to drowsiness and sleep. But they dare not yield. The rain was over. The sun was turning the glistening green world into a palace of gems. Calixta, on the gallery, watched Alcee right away. He turned and smiled at her with a beaming face, and she lifted her pretty chin in the air and laughed aloud. 3. Bobino and Bee Bee, trudging home, stopped without, at the cistern, to make themselves presentable. My Bee Bee, what will your mama say? You ought to be ashamed. You ought to put on those good pants. Look at them. And what mud on your collar! How you got there mud on your collar, Bee Bee? I never saw such a boy. Bee Bee was the picture of pathetic resignation. Bobino was the embodiment of serious solicitude, as he strove to remove from his own person and his sons the signs of their tramp over heavy roads and through wet fields. He scraped the mud off Bee Bee's bare legs and feet with a stick, and carefully removed all traces from his heavy brogons. Then, prepared for the worst, the meeting with an overscrupulous wife, they entered cautiously at the back door. Calixta was preparing supper. She had set the table and was dripping coffee at the hearth. She sprang up as they came in. Oh, Bobino, you're back! My eye was uneasy. Where have you been during the rain? And Bee Bee? He ain't wet. He ain't hurt. She had clasped Bee Bee and was kissing him effusively. Bobino's explanations and apologies, which he had been composing all along the way, died on his lips, as Calixta felt him to see if he were dry, and seemed to express nothing but satisfaction at their safe return. I brought you some shrimps, Calixta, offered Bobino, holding the can from his ample side pocket and laying it on the table. Shrimps all, Bobino, you took go for anything. And she gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek that resounded. Je vous rappons, we have a feast tonight. Bobino and Bee Bee began to relax and enjoy themselves. And when the three seated themselves at table, they laughed much and so loud that any one might have heard them as far away as Lavallier's. Four Alcè Lavallier wrote to his wife Calixta that night. It was a loving letter, full of tender solicitude. He told her not to hurry back. But if she and the babies liked it at Baloxie, to stay a month longer. He was getting on nicely, and though he missed them, he was willing to bear the separation a while longer, realizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be considered. Five As for Clarisse, she was charmed upon receiving her husband's letter. She and the babies were doing well. The society was agreeable. Many of her old friends and acquaintances were at the bay. And the first free breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days. Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while. So the storm passed and everyone was happy. End of The Storm by Kate Chopin This recording is in the public domain. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis-Strake. The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher by Beatrix Potter 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 James Dunlap The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher by Beatrix Potter Once upon a time, there was a frog called Mr. Jeremy Fisher. He lived in a little damp house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond. The water was all slippy-sloppy in the larder and in the back passage. But Mr. Jeremy liked getting his feet wet. Nobody ever scolded him and he never caught a cold. He was quite pleased when he looked out and saw large drops of rain splashing in the pond. I will get some worms and go fishing and catch a dish of minnows for my dinner, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. If I catch more than five fish, I will invite my friends, Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise and Sir Isaac Newton, the Alderman, however, eat salad. Mr. Jeremy put on a Macintosh and a pair of shiny galoshes. He took his rod and basket and set off with enormous hops to the place where he kept his boat. The boat was round and green and very like the other lily leaves. It was tied to a water plant in the middle of the pond. Mr. Jeremy took a reed pole and pushed the boat out into open water. I know a good place for minnows, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. Mr. Jeremy stuck his pole into the mud and fastened the boat to it. Then he settled himself cross-legged and arranged his fishing tackle. He had the dearest little red float. His rod was a tough stalk of grass. His line was a fine long white horsehair and he tied a little wriggling worm at the end. The rain trickled down his back and for nearly an hour he stared at the float. This is getting tiresome. I think I should like some lunch, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. He punted back again amongst the water plants and took some lunch out of his basket. I will eat a butterfly sandwich and wait till the shower is over, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. A great big water beetle came up underneath the lily leaf and tweaked the toe of one of his galoshes. Mr. Jeremy crossed his legs up shorter out of reach and went on eating his sandwich. Once or twice something moved about with a rustle and a splash amongst the rushes at the side of the pond. I trust that is not a rat, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. I think I had better get away from here. Mr. Jeremy shoved the boat out again a little way and dropped in the bait. There was a bite almost directly. The float gave a tremendous bobbit. A minnow, a minnow. I have him by the nose, cried Mr. Jeremy Fisher jerking up his rod. But what a horrible surprise. Instead of a smooth, fat minnow, Mr. Jeremy landed little jack sharp the stickleback covered with spines. The stickleback floundered about the boat, pricking and snapping until he was quite out of breath. Then he jumped back into the water and a shoal of other little fishes put their heads out and laughed at Mr. Jeremy Fisher. And while Mr. Jeremy sat disconsolately on the edge of his boat, sucking his sore fingers and peering down into the water, a much worse thing happened. A really frightful thing it would have been if Mr. Jeremy had not been wearing a Macintosh. A great big enormous trout came up, ker-flap-a-pup, with a splash, and it seized Mr. Jeremy with a snap. Ow, ow, ow! And then it turned and dived down to the bottom of the pond. But the trout was so displeased with the taste of the Macintosh that in less than half a minute it spat him out again. And the only thing it swallowed was Mr. Jeremy's galoshes. Mr. Jeremy bounced up to the surface of the water like a cork and the bubbles of a soda water bottle, and he swam with all his might to the edge of the pond. He scrambled out on the first bank he came to, and he hopped home across the meadow with his Macintosh all in tatters. What a mercy that was not a pike, said Mr. Jeremy Fisher. I have lost my rod and basket, but it does not much matter, for I am sure I should never have dared to go fishing again. He put some sticking plaster on his fingers, and his friends both came to dinner. He could not offer them fish, but he had something else in his larder. After Isaac Newton wore his black and gold waistcoat, and Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise brought a salad with him in a string bag. And instead of a nice dish of minnows, they had a roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce, which frogs consider a beautiful treat, but I think it must have been nasty. End of the tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher. Woman beater by Israel's Zangwell. 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 Alana Jordan. The Woman Beater by Israel Zangwell, Part 1. She came to meet John LaFalle. But John LaFalle did not know he was to meet Winifred Glamouries. He did not even know he himself was the meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in the publisher's Saturday Salon. For although a youthful minor poet, he was modest and lovable. Perhaps his Oxford tutorship was sobering. At any rate, his head remained unturned by his precocious fame. To meet these other young men and women, his reverent seniors on the slopes of Pernassus, gave him more pleasure than the receipt of royalties. Not that his publisher afforded him much opportunity of contrasting the two pleasures. The prophets of the muse went to provide this room of old furniture and roses, this beautiful garden a twinkle with Japanese lanterns. Gorgeous fire-flowers blossoming under the white crescent moon of early June. Winifred Glamouries was not literary herself. She was better than a poetess. She was a poem. The publisher always threw in a few realities, and some beautiful brainless creature would generally be found the nucleus of a crowd, while Cleo in spectacles languished in a corner. Winifred Glamouries, however, was reputed to have a tongue that matched her eye, paralleling with whimsies and epigrams, its freakish fires and witcheries, and assuredly, flitting in her white gown through the dark, balmy garden, she seemed the very spirit of moonlight, the subtle incarnation of night and roses. When John LaFalle met her, Cecilia was with her, and the first conversation was triangular. Cecilia fired most of the shots. She was a bouncing, rattling beauty, chock-full of confidence and high spirits, except when asked to do the one thing she could do, sing. Then she became, quite genuinely, a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing. However, the supple and hostess bore her off, and presently her rich contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and mystery, and through the open French windows John could see her standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes half closed, her creamy throat swelling in the very abandonment of artistic ecstasy. What a charming creature, he exclaimed involuntarily. That's what everybody thinks except her husband, when Afrid left. Is he blind then, John asked, with his cloisteral naivety? Blind, no, love is blind, marriage is never blind. The bitterness in her tone pierced John. He felt vaguely the passing of some icy current from unknown seas of experience. Cecilia's voice soared out enchantingly. Then marriage must be deaf, he said, or such music as that would charm it. She smiled sadly. Her smile was the tricksy play of moonlight among clouds of fairy. You have never been married, she said simply. Do you mean that you, too, are neglected? Something impaled him to exclaim? Worse, she murmured. It is incredible, he cried. You? Hush, my husband will hear you. Her warning whisper brought him into a delicious conspiracy with her, which is your husband, he whispered back. There near the casement, standing, gazing, open-mouthed at Cecilia. He always opens his mouth when she sings. It is like two toys moved by the same wire. He looked at the tall, stalwart, ready-haired Anglo-Saxon. Do you mean to say he? I mean to say nothing. But you said, I said worse. Why, what can be worse? She put her hand over her face. I am ashamed to tell you. How adorable was that half-divined blush! But you must tell me everything. He scarcely knew how he had leapt into this role of confessor. He only felt they were moved by the same wire. Her head dropped on her breast. He beats me. What? John forgot to whisper. It was the greatest shock his recluse life had known, compact as it was of horror at the revelation, shamed confusion at her candor, and delicious pleasure in her confidence. This fragile, exquisite creature, under the rod of a brutal bully. As he had gone to a wedding reception, and among the serious presents some grinning Philistine drew his attention to an uncouth club, a wife-beater he called it. The flippancy had jarred upon John terribly. This intrusive reminder of the customs of the slums. It grated like Billingsgate in a boudoir. Now that savage weapon recurred to him. For a lurid instant he saw Winifred's husband, wielding it. Oh, abomination of his sex! And did he stand there, in his immaculate evening dress, posing as an English gentleman? Even so might some gentleman burglar bear through a salon. His imperturbable swallowtail. Beat a woman. Beat that essence of charm and purity, God's best gift to man, redeeming him from his own grossness? Could such things be? John the Fall would as soon have credited the French legend that English wives are sold in Smithfield. No, it could not be real that this flower-like figure was thrashed. Do you mean to say he cried? The rapidity of her confidence alone made him feel it all of a dream-like unreality. Hush, Cecilia's singing. She admonished him with an unexpected smile as her fingers fell from her face. Oh, you have been making fun of me. He was vastly relieved. He beats you at chess or at law and tennis. Was one wear a high-neck dress to conceal the traces of chess or law and tennis? He had not noticed her dress before, save for its spiritual whiteness, susceptible, though he was, to beautiful shoulders, Winifred's enchanting face had been sufficiently distracting. Now the thought of physical bruises gave him a second spasm of righteous horror. That delicate, rosely flesh abraded and lacerated. The Ruffian, does he use a stick or a fist? Both, but as a rule he just takes me by the arms and shakes me like a terrier or a rat. I'm all black and blue now. Poor Butterfly, he murmured poetically. Why did I tell you, she murmured back with subtler poetry? The poet thrilled in every vein, love at first sight, of which he had often read and often written, was then a reality. It could be as mutual, too, as Romeo's and Juliet's, but how awkward that Juliet should be married and her husband a Bill Sykes in broadcloth. PART 2 Mrs. Glamouries herself gave at Holmes. Every Sunday afternoon, and so, on the morrow, after a sleepless night mitigated by propended sonnets, the lovesick young Tudor presented himself by invitation at the beautiful old house in Hampstead. He was enchanted to find his heart's mistress set in an eighteenth-century frame of small paint windows and of high oak paneling, and it once began to image her dancing minuets and playing on virginals. Her husband was absent, but a broad band of velvet round Winifred's neck was a painful reminder of his possibilities. Winifred, however, said it was only a touch of sore throat caught in the garden. Her eyes added that there was nothing in the pathological dictionary which she would not willingly have caught for the sake of those divine, if drowdy moments, but that, alas, it was more than a mere bodily ailment she had caught there. There were a great many visitors in the two delightfully quaint rooms, among whom he wandered disconsolate and admired, jealous of her scattered smiles, but presently he found himself seated by her side, on a cozy corner, near the open folding doors, with all the other guests huddled round a violinist in the inner room. How Winifred had managed it he did not know, but she sat plausibly in the outer room, waiting newcomers, and this particular niche was invisible, save to a determined eye. He took her unresisting hand, that dear, warm hand, with its bejemmed artistic fingers, and held it in uneasy beatitude. How wonderful! She, the beautiful and adored hostess, of whose sweetness and charm he heard even her own guests murmur to one another. It was her actual flesh-and-blood hand that lay in his, thrillingly tangible. Oh, adventure beyond all merit, beyond all hoping! But every now and then the outer door facing them would open on some newcomer, and John had hastily to release her soft, magnetic fingers and sit demure, and jealously overhear her effusive welcome to those innocent intruders, nor did his brow clear till she had shepherded them within the inner fold. Fortunately the refreshments were in this section, so that once therein few of the sheep strayed back, and the jiggling wail of the violin was succeeded by a shrill babble of tongues and the clatter of cups and spoons. Let me an ice, please, strawberry! She ordered John, during one of these forced intervals, in manual flirtation, and when he had steered laboriously to and fro, he found a young actor beside her in his cozy corner, and his jealous fancy almost saw their hands depart. He stood over them with a sickly smile, while Winifred ate her ice. When he returned from depositing the empty saucer, the player fellow was gone, and in remorse for his mad suspicion he stooped and reverently lifted her fragrant fingertips to his lips. The door behind his back opened abruptly. Good-bye, she said, rising in a flash. The words had the calm conventional cadence, and instantly extorted from him, amid all his dazedness, the corresponding good-bye. When he turned and saw it was Mr. Glamouries who had come in, his heart leapt wildly at the nearness of his escape. As he passed this masked ruffian he nodded, perfunctorily, and received a cordial smile. Yes, he was handsome and fascinating enough, externally this blonde savage. A man may smile and smile and be a villain, John thought. I wonder how he'd feel if he knew I knew he beats women. Already John had generalized the charge. I hope Celia will keep him at arm's length, he had said to Winifred, if only that she may not smart for it some day. He lingered purposely in the hall to get an impression of the brute who had begun talking loudly to a friend with irritating bursts of laughter, especially frank ringing. Golf, fishing, comic operas, ah, the B-ocean. These were the men who monopolized the ethereal divinities. But this brusque separation from his particular divinity was disconcerting. How to see her again? He must go up to Oxford in the morning, he wrote her that night, but if she could possibly let him call during the week he would manage to run down again. Oh, my dear dreaming poet, she wrote to Oxford. How could you possibly send me a letter to be laid on the breakfast table beside the Times with a poem in it, too? Fortunately my husband was in a hurry to get down to the city, and he neglected to read my correspondence. The unshivalous black guard, John commented, but what can be expected of a woman-beater? Never, never write to me again at the house. A letter, care of Mrs. Best, 8A Foley Street, W.C. will always find me. She is my maid's mother, and you must not come here either. My dear handsome head in the clouds, except to my at-homes, and then only at judicious intervals. I shall be walking round the pond in Kensington Gardens at four next Wednesday, unless Mrs. Best brings me a letter to the contrary. And now thank you for your delicious poem. I do not recognize my humble self in the dainty lines, but I shall always be proud to think I inspired them. Will it be in the new volume? I have never been in print before. It will be a novel sensation. I cannot pay you song for song, only feeling for feeling. Oh, John LaFolle! Why did we not meet when I had still my girlish dreams? Now I have grown to distrust all men, to fear the brute beneath the cavalier. Mrs. Best did bring her a letter, but it was not to cancel the appointment, only to say he was not surprised at her horror of the male sex, but that she must beware of false generalizations. Life was still a wonderful and beautiful thing, we day poem enclosed. He was counting the minutes till Wednesday afternoon. It was surely a popular mistake that only sixty went to the hour. This chronometrical reflection recurred to him even more poignantly in the hour that he circumambulated the pond in Kensington Gardens. Had she forgotten? And her husband locked her up. What could have happened? It seemed six hundred minutes, air, at ten past five, she came tripping daintily towards him. His brain had been reduced to insanely devising problems for his pupils. If a man walks two strides, of one-and-a-half feet, a second, round a late fifty acres in area, in how many turns will he overtake a lady who walks half as fast and isn't there? But the moment her pink parasol loomed on the horizon, all his long misery vanished in an effable peace and uplifting. He hurried bare-headed to clasp her little gloved hand. He had forgotten her unpunctuality, nor did she remind him of it. How sweet of you to come all that way was all she said. Then it was a sufficient reward for the hours in the train and the six hundred minutes among the nurse-maids and perambulators. The elms were in their glory, the birds were singing briskly, the water sparkled, the sun-lit swad stretched fresh and green. It was the loveliest, coolest moment of the afternoon. John instinctively turned down a leafy avenue, nature and love. What more could Poet ask? No, we can't have tea by the kiosk, Mrs. Glamoury's protested. Of course I love anything that savours of Paris, but it's become so fashionable. There will be heaps of people who know me. I suppose you've forgotten it's the height of the season. I know a quiet little place in the high street. She led him, unresisting but bemused, towards the gate, and into confectioners, conversation languished on the way. Tea he was about to instruct the pretty attendant. Strawberry ice, as Mrs. Glamoury's remarked gently, and some of those nice French cakes. The ice restored his spirits, it was really delicious, and he had got so hot and tired pacing round the pond. Decidedly, Winifred was a practical person and he was a dreamer. The pastry he dared not touch, being a genius, but he was charmed at the gaiety with which Winifred crammed cake after cake into her rosebud of a mouth. What an enchanting creature! How bravely she covered up her life's tragedy. The thought made him glance at her velvet band. It was broader than ever. He has beaten you again, he murmured furiously. Her joyous eyes saddened. She hung her head, and her fingers crumbled the cake. What is his pretext, he asked, his blood burning. Jealousy, she whispered. His blood lost its glow, ran cold. He felt the bully's blows on his own skin. His romance turning suddenly sorted. But he recovered his courage. He too had muscles. But I thought he just missed seeing me kiss your hand. She opened her eyes wide. It wasn't you, you darling dreamer. He was relieved and disturbed in one. Somebody else, he murmured. Somehow the vision of the player-fellow came up. She nodded. Isn't it lucky he has himself drawn a red herring across the track? I didn't mind his blows. You were safe. Then with one of her adorable transitions I am dreaming of another eyes. She cried with roguish wistfulness. I was afraid to confess my own greediness, he said, laughing. He beckoned the waitress. Two more. We haven't got any more strawberries, was her unexpected reply. There's been such a run on them today. Winifred's face grew overcast. Oh, nonsense, she pouted. To John the moment seemed tragic. Won't you have another kind, he queried. He himself liked any kind, but he could scarcely eat a second eyes without her. Winifred meditated. Coffee, she queried. The waitress went away and returned with a face as gloomy as Winifred's. It's been such a hot day, she said deprecatingly. There is only one eyes in the place, and that's Neapolitan. Well, bring two Neapolitans, John ventured. I mean, there is only one Neapolitan eyes left. We'll bring that. I don't really want one. He watched Mrs. Glamoury's daintily devouring the solitary eyes, and felt a certain pathos about the party-colored oblong, a something of the haunting sadness of the last rose of summer. It would make a graceful, cereal-comic triolet, he was thinking. But at the last spoonful, his beautiful companion dislocated his rhymes by her sudden up-springing. Goodness gracious, she cried. How late it is! Oh, you're not leaving me yet, he said. A world of things sprang into his brain. Things that he was going to say, to arrange. They had said nothing, not a word of their love even. Nothing but cakes and ices. Poet, she laughed. Have you forgotten I live at Hampstead? She picked up her parasol. Put me into a handsome, or my husband will be raving at his lonely dinner-table. He was so dazed as to be surprised when the waitress blocked his departure with a bill. When weirdofrid was spirited away, he remembered she might, without much risk, have given him a lift to Paddington. He held another handsome, and caught the next train to Oxford. But he was too late for his own dinner in Hall. Part III He was kept very busy for the next few days, and could only exchange a passionate letter or two with her. For some time the examination fever had been raging, and in every college poor patients sat with wet towels round their heads. Some who had neglected their tutor all the term, now strove to absorb his omniscience in a sitting. On the Monday John LaFalle was good-naturedly giving a special audience to a muscular dunce, trying to explain to him the political effects of the crusades, when there was a knock at the sitting-room door, and the scout ushered in Mrs. Glamouries. She was bewitchingly dressed in white, and stood in the open doorway, smiling, an embodiment of the summer he was neglecting. He rose, but his tongue was paralyzed. The dunce became suddenly important, a symbol of the decorum he had been outraging. His soul, torn so abruptly from history to romance, could not get up the right emotion. Why this imprudence of Winifred's? She had been so careful her to four. What a lot of books there are on your staircase, she said gaily. He laughed. The spell was broken. Yes, the heap to be cleaned is rather obtrusive, he said, but I suppose it is sort of a tradition. I think I've got hold of the thing pretty well now, sir. The dunce rose and smiled, and his tutor realized how little the dunce had to learn in some things. He felt quite grateful to him. Oh well, you'll come and see me again after lunch, won't you? If one or two points occur to you for elucidation, he said, feeling vaguely a liar and generally guilty. But when, on the departure of the dunce, Winifred held out her arms, everything fell from him, but the sense of the exquisite moment. Their lips met for the first time, but only for an instant. He had scarcely time to realize that this wonderful thing had happened before the mobile creature had darted to his bookshelves, and was examining a Thucydides upside down. How clever to know Greek, she exclaimed. And do you really talk it with the other dons? No, we never talk shop, he laughed, but Winifred, what made you come here? I had never seen Oxford. Isn't it beautiful? Nothing's beautiful here, he said, looking round his sober study. No, she admitted, there's nothing I care for here, and had left another celestial kiss on his lips before he knew it. And now you must take me to lunch and on the river. He stammered, I have work. She pouted, but I can't stay beyond to-morrow morning, and I want so much to see all your celebrated oarsmen practicing. You're not staying over the night, he gasped? Yes I am, and she threw him a dazzling glance. His heart went pit-a-pat, where, he murmured, O, some pokey little hotel near the station, the swell hotels are full. He was glad to hear she was not conspicuously quartered. So many people have come down already for commen, he said. I suppose they are anxious to see the generals get their degrees. But hadn't we better go somewhere and lunch? They went down the stone staircase, past the battalion of boots, and across the quad. He felt that all the windows were live with eyes, but she insisted on standing still and admiring their ivy picturesqueness. After lunch he shame-facedly borrowed the dunce's punt, the necessities of punting, which kept him far from her, and demanded much adroit labour, gradually restored his self-respect, and he was able to look the uncelebrated oarsmen they met in the eyes, except when they were accompanied by their parents and sisters, which subtly made him feel uncomfortable again. But Winifred, frequent under her pink parasol, was singularly at ease, and raptured with the changing beauty of the river, applauding with childish glee, the wild flowers on the banks, or the rippling reflections in the water. Look, look! She cried once, pointing skyward. He stared upwards, expecting a balloon at least. But it was only Keats, little rosy cloud, she explained. It was not her fault if he did not find the excursion unreservedly idyllic. How stupid she reflected, to keep all those nice boys cooped up reading dead languages in a spot made for life and love. I'm afraid they don't disturb the dead languages so much as you think, he reassured her, smiling. And there will be plenty of love-making during come-in. I am so glad. I suppose there are lots of engagements that week. Oh, yes, but not one percent come to anything. Really? Oh, how fickle men are! That seemed rather question-begging, but he was so thrilled by the implicit revelation that she could not even imagine, feminine in constancy, that he forbore to draw her attention to her inadequate logic. So childish and thoughtless indeed was she that day that nothing would content her but attending Aviva, which he had unconsciously informed her was public. She will notice us, she urged, with strange unconsciousness of her loveliness. Besides, they don't know I'm not your sister. The Oxford intellect is skeptical, he said, laughingly. It cultivates philosophical doubt. But putting a bold phase on the matter, and assuming a fraternal air, he took her to the torture chamber, in which candidates sat dolefully on a row of chairs against the wall, waiting their turn to come before the three grand inquisitors at the table. Fortunately, Winifred and he were the only spectators. But unfortunately, they blundered in at the very moment when the poor owner of the punt was on the rack. The central inquisitor was trying to extract from him information about Beckett, almost prompting him with the very words, but without penetrating through the duncical denseness. John LeFall breathed more freely when the crusades were broached. But alas, it very soon became evident that the dunce had, by no means, got hold of the thing. As the dunce passed out sadly, obviously plowed, John LeFall suffered more than he. So conscious-stricken was he that, when he had accompanied Winifred as far as her hotel, he refused her invitation to come in, pleading the compulsoriness of duty and dinner in the hall, but he could not get away without promising to call in during the evening. The prospect of this visit was with him all through dinner, at once tempting and terrifying. Assuredly, there was a skeleton at his feast, as he sat at the high table, facing the master. The venerable portraits round the hall seemed to rebuke his romantic waywardness. In the common room he sipped his port uneasily, listening, as in a days, to the discussion on free will, which an eminent stranger had stirred up. How academic it seemed, compared with the passionate realities of life! But somehow he found himself lingering on at the academic discussion postponing the realities of life. Every now and then he was impelled to glance at his watch, but suddenly murmuring, It is very late. He pulled himself together and took leave of his learned brethren. But in the street the sight of a telegraph office drew his steps to it, and almost mechanically he wrote out the message, Regret detained, will call early in morning. When he did call in the morning, he was told she had gone back to London the night before on receipt of a telegram. He turned away with a bitter pang of disappointment and regret. PART IV Their subsequent correspondence was only the more amorous. The reason she had fled from the hotel she explained, that she could not endure the night in those stuffy quarters. He consoled himself with the hope of seeing much of her during the long vacation. He did see her once at her own reception, but this time her husband wandered around the two rooms. The cozy corner was impossible, and they could only manage to gasp out a few mutual endearments amid the buzz of movement and to arrange a rendezvous for the end of July. When the day came he received a heartbroken letter stating that her husband had borne her way to Goodwood. In a post-script she informed him that Quicksilver was a sure thing. Much correspondence passed without another meeting being affected, and he lent her five pounds to pay a debt of honour incurred through her husband's absurd confidence in Quicksilver. A week later this horsey husband of hers brought her on to Brighton for the races there, and hither John LaFalle flew, but her husband shadowed her, and he could only lift his hat to her as they passed each other on the lawns. Sometimes he saw her sitting pensively on a chair while her lord and thrasher perused a pink sporting paper. Such tantalising proximity raised their correspondence through the Hove Post Office to fever heat. Life apart they felt was impossible, and removed from the sobering influences of his cap and gown, John LaFalle dreamed of throwing everything to the winds. His literary reputation had opened out a new career. The Winifred lyrics alone had brought in a tidy sum, and though he had expended that and more on dispatches of flowers and tribals to her, yet he felt this extravagance would become extinguished under daily companionship, and the poems provoked by her charms would go far towards their daily maintenance. Yes, he could throw up the university. He would rescue her from this bully, this gentleman bruiser. They would live openly and nobly in the world's eye. A poet was not even expected to be conventional. She, on her side, was no less ardent for the great step. She raged against the world's law, the injustice by which a husband's cruelty was not sufficient ground for divorce. But we finer souls must take the law into our own hands, she wrote. We must teach society that the ethics of a barbarous age are unfitted for our century of enlightenment. But somehow the actual time and place of the elopement could never get itself fixed. In September her husband dragged her to Scotland in October after the pheasants. When the dramatic day was actually fixed, Winifred wrote by the next post deferring it for a week. Even the few actual preliminary meetings they planned for Kensington Gardens or Hampstead Heath rarely came off. He lived in a whirling atmosphere of express letters of excuse and telegrams that transformed the situation from hour to hour. Not that her passion in any way abated, or her romantic resolution really altered. It was only that her conception of time and place and ways and means was dizzily mutable. But after nigh six months of palpitating negotiations with the adorable Mrs. Glamouries, the poet in a moment of dejection penned the prose apathem, it is of no use trying to change a changeable person. Part V. But at last she astonished him by a sketch plan of the elopement so detailed, even to bandboxes and the Paris night-route, via Dieppe, that no further room for doubt was left in his intoxicated soul, and he was actually further astonished when just as he was putting his handbag into the handsome, a telegram was handed to him saying, gone to Homburg, let her follows. He stood still for a moment on the pavement in utter distraction. What did it mean? Had she failed him again, or was it simply that she had changed the city of refuge from Paris to Homburg? He was about to name the new station to the cabman, but then, let her follows. Surely that meant he was to wait for it. Perplexed and miserable, he stood with the telegram crumpled up in his fist. What a ridiculous situation. He had wrought himself up to the point of breaking with the world and his past, and now it only remained to satisfy the cabman. He tossed feverishly all night, seeking to soothe himself, but really exciting himself the more by a hundred plausible explanations. He was now strung up to such a pitch of uncertainty that he was astonished for the third time when the letter did duly follow. Dearest, it ran. As I explained in my telegram, my husband became suddenly ill. If she had only put that in the telegram, he groaned, and was ordered to Homburg. Of course it was impossible to leave him in this crisis for both practical and sentimental reasons. You yourself, darling, would not like me to have aggravated his illness by my flight just at this moment, and thus possibly have his death on my conscience. Darling, you are always right, he said, kissing the letter. Let us possess our souls and patience a little longer. I need not tell you how vexatious it will be to find myself nursing him in Homburg. Out of the season even, instead of the prospect to which I had looked forward with my whole heart and soul. But what can one do? How true is the French proverb? Nothing happens, but they are unexpected. Write to me immediately, post restant, that I may at least console myself with your dear words. The unexpected did indeed happen. Despite droughts of Elizabeth Brunnan and promonades on the Kerr-House terrace, the stalwart woman-beater succumbed to his malady. The Kurt telegram from Winifred gave no indication of her motions. She sent a reply telegram of sympathy with her trouble. Although he could not pretend to grieve at the sudden providential solution of their life problem, still he did sincerely sympathize with the distress inevitable in connection with the death, especially on foreign soil. He was not able to see her till her husband's body had been brought across the North Sea and committed to the green repose of the old Hampstead churchyard. He found her pathetically altered, her face whan and spiritualized, and all in subtle harmony with the exquisite black gown. In the first interview he dare not speak of their love at all. They discussed the immortality of the soul, and she quoted George Herbert. But with the weeks the question of their future began to force its way back to his lips. We could not decently marry before six months, she said, when definitely confronted with the problem. Six months, he gasped. Well, surely you don't want to outrage everybody, she said, pouting. At first he was outraged himself. What? She who had been ready to flutter the world with a fantastic dance was now measuring her footsteps. But on reflection he saw that Mrs. Glamouries was right once more. Since Providence had been good enough to rescue them, why should they fly in its face? A little more patience, and a blameless happiness lay before them. Let him not blind himself to the immense relief he really felt had been spared social obliquy. After all, a poet could be unconventional in his work. He had no need of the practical outlet demanded for the less gifted. Part 6 They scarcely met it all during the next six months. She had, naturally, in this grateful reaction against the recklessness, become a sacred period, even more charged with tremulous emotion than the engagement periods of those who have not so nearly scorched themselves. Even in her presence he found a certain pleasure in combining distant adoration with the confident expectation of proximity, and thus she was restored to the sanctity which she had risked by her former easiness. And so all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. When the six months had gone by he came to claim her hand. She was quite astonished. You promised to marry me at the end of six months, he reminded her. Surely it isn't six months already, she said. He referred her to the calendar, recalled the date of her husband's death. You are strangely literal for a poet, she said. Of course I said six months, but six months doesn't mean twenty-six weeks by the clock. All I meant was that a decent period must intervene, but even to myself it seems only yesterday that poor Harold was walking beside me in the Kerr House Park. She burst into tears, and in the face of them he could not pursue the argument. Gradually, after several interviews and letters, it was agreed that they should wait another six months. She is right, he reflected again. We have waited so long we might as well wait a little longer and leave Malice no handle. The second six months seemed to him much longer than the first. The charm of respectful adoration had lost its novelty. And once again his breast was wracked by fitful fevers which could scarcely calm themselves even by conversation into sonnets. The one point of her pose was that shining fixed star of marriage, still smarting under Winifred's reproach of his unpoetic literality. He did not intend to force her to marry him exactly at the end of the twelve-month, but he was determined that she should have no later than this exact date for at least naming the day. Not the most punctilious stickler for convention, he felt, could deny that Mrs. Gundy's claim had been paid to the last minute. The publication of his new volume containing the Winifred lyrics had served to color these months of intolerable delay. Even the reaction of the critics against his poetry, that conventional revolt against every second volume, that parrot cry of overpraise from the very throats that had praised him, though it pained and perplexed him, was perhaps really helpful. At any rate, the long waiting was over at last. He felt like Jacob after his years of service for Rachel. The following morning dawned bright and blue, and as the towers of Oxford were left behind him he recalled that distant Saturday when he had first gone down to meet the literary lights of London in his publisher's salon. How much older he was now than then, and yet how much younger the nebulous melancholy of youth, the clouds of philosophy, had vanished before this beautiful creature of sunshine whose radiance cut out a clear line for his future through the confusion of life. At a florist's in the high street of Hampstead he bought a costly bouquet of white flowers, and walked airily to the house and rang the bell jubilantly. He could scarcely believe his ears when the maid told him her mistress was not at home. How dare did the girl stare at him so impassively? Did she not know by what appointment, on what errand he had come? Had he not written to her mistress a week ago, that he would present himself that afternoon? Not at home, he gasped, but when will she be home? I fancy she won't be long. She went out an hour ago, and has an appointment with her dressmaker at five. Do you know in what direction she'd have gone? Oh, she generally walks on the heath before tea. The world suddenly grew rosy again. I will come back again, he said. Yes, a walk in this glorious air, heathward, would do him good. As the door shut, he remembered he might have left flowers, but he would not ring again, and besides it was, perhaps, better he should present them with his own hand than let her find them on the hall table. Still, it seemed rather awkward to walk about the streets with a bouquet, and he was glad, accidentally, to strike the old Hampstead Church, and to seek a momentary seclusion in passing through its avenue of quiet gravestones on his heathward way. Mounting the few steps, he paused idly a moment on the verge of the screen, God's acre, to read a perpendicular slab on a wall, and his face broadened into a smile as he followed the absurdly elaborate biography of a rich, self-made merchant who had taught himself to read. Reader, go thou, and do likewise, was the delicious bull at the end. As he turned away, the smile still lingering about his lips. He saw a dainty figure tripping down the stony graveyard path, and though he was somehow startled to find her still in black, there was no mistaking Mrs. Glamoury's. She ran to meet him with a glad cry, which filled his eyes with happy tears. How good of you to remember, she said, as she took the bouquet from his unresisting hand, and turned again on her footsteps. He followed her wonderingly, across the uneven road, towards a narrow aisle of graves on the left. In another instant she has stooped before a shining white stone and laid his bouquet reverently upon it. As he reached her side he saw that his flowers were almost lost in the vast mass of floral offerings with which the grave of the woman beater was bestrune. How good of you to remember the anniversary, she murmured again. How could I forget it, he stammered, astonished. Is not this the end of the terrible twelve-month? The soft gratitude died out of her face. Oh, it is that what you were thinking of. What else, he murmured, pale with conflicting emotions. What else? I think decency demanded that this day, at least, should be sacred to his memory. Oh, what brutes men are! And she burst into tears. His patient breast revolted at last. You said he was the brute, he retorted, outraged. Is that your chivalry to the dead? Oh, my poor Harold! My poor Harold! For once her tears could not extinguish the flame of his anger. But you told me he beat you, he cried. And if he did, I daresay I deserved it. Oh, my darling, my darling! She laid her face on the stone and sobbed. On the fall stood by in silent torture. As he helplessly watched her white throat swell and fall with the sobs, he was suddenly struck by the absence of the black velvet band, the truer mourning she had worn in the lifetime of the so lamented. A faint scar, only perceptible to his conscious eye, added to his painful bewilderment. At last she rose and walked unsteadily forward. He followed her in mute misery. In a moment or two they found themselves on the outskirts of the deserted heath. How beautifully stretched in the gorsy rolling country, the sun was setting in great burning furrows of gold and green, a panorama to take one's breath away. The beauty and peace of nature passed into the poet's soul. With me, dearest, he begged, taking her hand. She drew it away sharply. I cannot forgive you. You have shown yourself in your true colors. Her unreasonableness angered him again. What do you mean? I only came in accordance with our long-standing arrangement. You have put me off long enough. It is fortunate I did put you off long enough to discover what you are. He gasped. He thought of all the weary months of waiting. All the long comedy of telegrams and express-letters, the far-off flirtations of the cozy corner, the baffled elopement to Paris. Then you won't marry me? I cannot marry a man I neither love nor respect. You don't love me. Her spontaneous kiss in his sober Oxford study seemed to burn on his angry lips. No, I never loved you. He took her by the arms and turned her round roughly. Look me in the face and dare to say you have never loved me. His memory was buzzing with passionate phrases from her endless letters. They stung like a swarm of bees. The sunset was like blood-red mist before his eyes. I have never loved you, she said obstinately. You, his grasp on her arms, tightened. He shook her. You are bruising me, she cried. His grasp fell from her arms as though they were red-hot. He had become a woman-beater. End of The Woman-Beater, recording by Alana Jordan and the United States.