 under the knife by H. G. Wells, 1866 to 1946. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, auto-volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Peter Tomlinson. What if I die under it? The thought recurred again and again as I walked home from Haddon's. It was a purely personal question. I was spared the deep anxieties of a married man, and I knew there were few of my intimate friends, but would find my death troublesome, chiefly on account of their duty of regret. I was surprised indeed and perhaps a little humiliated as I turned the matter over to think how few could possibly exceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped of glamour in a clear, dry light during that walk from Haddon's house over Primrose Hill. There were the friends of my youth. I perceived now that our affection was a tradition which we foregathered rather laboriously to maintain. There were the rivals and the helpers of my later career. I suppose I had been cold-blooded or undemonstrative. One perhaps implies the other. It may be that even the capacity for friendship is a question of physique. There had been a time in my own life when I agreed bitterly enough at the loss of a friend, but as I walked home that afternoon the emotional side of my imagination was dormant. I could not pity myself nor feel sorry for my friends, nor conceive of them as grieving for me. I was interested in this deadness of my emotional nature, no doubt a concomitant of my stagnating physiology, and my thoughts wandered off along the line it suggested. Once before in my hot youth I had suffered a sudden loss of blood and had been within an ace of death. I remembered now that my affections as well as my passions had drained out of me, leaving scarce anything but a tranquil resignation, a drag of self-pity. It had been weeks before the old ambitions and tendernesses and all the complex moral interplay of a man had reasserted themselves. It occurred to me that the real meaning of this numbness might be a gradual slipping away from the pleasure, pain, guidance of the animal man. It had been proven, I take it, as thoroughly as anything can be proven in this world, that the higher emotions, the moral feelings, even the subtle unselfishness of love, are evolved from the elemental desires and fears of the simple animal. They are the harness in which man's mental freedom goes, and it may be that as death overshadows us, as our possibility of acting diminishes, this complex growth of balanced impulse, propensity and aversion, whose interplay inspires our acts, goes with it, leaving what? I was suddenly brought back to reality by an imminent collision with the butcher boy's tray. I found that I was crossing the bridge over the Regent's Park canal, which runs parallel with that in the zoological gardens. The boy in blue had been looking over his shoulder at a black barge advancing slowly, towed by a gaunt white horse. In the gardens a nurse was leading three happy little children over the bridge. The trees were bright green, the spring hopefulness was still unstained by the dust of summer. The sky in the water was bright and clear, but broken by long waves by quivering bands of black as the barge drove through. The breeze was stirring, but it did not stir me as the spring breeze used to do. Was this dullness of feeling in itself an anticipation? It was curious that I could reason and follow out a network of suggestion, as clearly as ever, so at least it seemed to me. It was calmness rather than dullness that was coming upon me. Was there any ground for the relief in the presentiment of death? Did a man near to death begin instinctively to withdraw himself from the meshes of matter and sense, even before the cold hand was laid upon his? I felt strangely isolated, isolated without regret from the life and existence about me. The children playing in the sun and gathering strength and experience for the business of life, the parkkeeper gossiping with a nursemaid, the nursing mother, the young couple intent upon each other as they passed me, the trees by the wayside spreading new pleading leaves to the sunlight, the stir in their branches. I had been part of it all, but I had nearly done with it now. Some way down the broad walk I perceived that I was tired and that my feet were heavy. It was hot that afternoon and I turned aside and sat down on one of the green chairs that lined the way. In a minute I had dozed into a dream and the tide of my thoughts washed up a vision of the resurrection. I was still sitting in the chair, but I thought myself actually dead, withered, tattered, dried. One eye, I saw, pecked out by birds. Awake! cried a voice, and incontinentally the dust of the path and the mould under the grass became insurgent. I had never before thought of Regent's Park as a cemetery, but now, through the trees stretching as far as I could see, I beheld a flat plain of rising graves and healing tombstones. There seemed to be some trouble. The rising dead appeared to stifle as they struggled upward. They bled in their struggles. The red flesh was torn away from the white bones. Awake! cried a voice, but I determined I would not rise to such horrors. Awake! they would not let me alone. Wake up! said an angry voice. A cockney angel, the man who sells the tickets, was shaking me, demanding my penny. I paid my penny, pocketed my ticket, yawned, stretched my legs, and, feeling now rather less torpid, got up and walked on towards Langham Place. I speedily lost myself again in a shifting maze of thoughts about death. Going across Marlivan Road into that crescent at the end of Langham Place, I had the narrowest escape from the shaft of a cave and went on my way with a palpitating heart and a bruised shoulder. It struck me that it would have been curious if my meditations on my deaths on the morrow had led to my death that day. But I will not weary you with more of my experiences that day and the next. I knew more and more certainly that I should die under the operation. At times I think I was inclined to pose to myself. The doctors were coming at eleven and I did not get up. It seemed scarce worthwhile to trouble about washing and dressing, and though I read my newspapers and the letters that came by the first post, I did not find them very interesting. There was a friendly note from Addison, my old school friend, calling my attention to two discrepancies and a printer's error in my new book, with one from Langridge venting some vexation over Minton. The rest were business communications. I breakfasted in bed. The glow of pain at my side seemed more massive. I knew it was pain and yet, if you can understand, I did not find it very painful. I had been awake and hot and thirsty in the night, but the morning bed felt comfortable. In the night time I had lain thinking of things that were past. In the morning I dozed over the question of immortality. Addison came punctual to the minute with a neat black bag, and Mowbray soon followed. Their arrival stirred me up a little and began to take a more personal interest in the proceedings. Addison moved the little octagonal table close to the bedside, and, with his broad back to me, began taking things out of his bag. I heard the light click of steel upon steel. My imagination, I found, was not altogether stagnant. Will you hurt me much? I said in an off-hand tone. Not a bit had an answered over his shoulder. We shall chloroform you. Your hearts are sound as a bell. And as he spoke, I had a whiff of the pungent sweetness of the anaesthetic. They stretched me out with a convenient exposure of my side, and almost before I realised what was happening, the chloroform was being administered. It stings the nostrils, and there is a suffocating sensation at first. I knew I should die, that this was the end of consciousness for me. And suddenly I felt that I was not prepared for death. I had a vague sense of a duty overlooked. I knew not what. What was it I had not done? I could think of nothing more to do, nothing desirable left in life, and yet I had the strangest disinclination to death, and the physical sensation was painfully oppressive. Of course the doctors did not know they were going to kill me. Possibly I struggled. Then I felt motionless, and a great silence, a monstrous silence, and an impenetrable blackness came upon me. There must have been an interval of absolute unconsciousness, seconds or minutes. Then with a chilly, unemotional clearness, I perceived that I was not yet dead, and was still in my body. But all the multitudinous sensations that came sweeping from it to make up the background of consciousness had gone, leaving me free of it all. No, not free of it all, for as yet something still held me to the poor stark flesh upon the bed, held me yet so closely that I did not feel myself external to it, independent of it, straining away from it. I do not think I saw, I do not think I heard, but I perceived all that was going on, and it was as if I had both heard and saw. Hadn't was bending over me, mobré behind me, the scalpel, it was a large scalpel, was cutting my flesh at the side under the flying ribs. It was interesting to see myself cut like cheese, without a pang, without even a qualm. The interest was much of a quality with that one might feel in a game of chess between strangers. Hadn't's face was firm and his hands steady, but I was surprised to perceive, how I know not, that he was feeling the gravest doubt as to his own wisdom in the conduct of the operation. Mobré's thoughts, too, I could see, he was thinking that Hadn't's manner showed too much of the specialist. New suggestions came up like bubbles through a stream of frothing meditation and burst one after another in the little bright spot of his consciousness. He could not help noticing and admiring Hadn't's swift dexterity in spite of his envious quality and his disposition to detract. I saw my liver exposed, I was puzzled at my own condition. I did not feel that I was dead, but I was different in some way from my living self. The great depression that had weighed on me for a year or more and coloured all my thoughts was gone. I perceived and thought without any emotional tinge at all. I wondered if everyone perceived things in this way under chloroform and forgot it again when he came out of it. It would be inconvenient to look into some heads and not forget. Although I did not think that I was dead, I still perceived quite clearly that I was soon to die. This brought me back to the consideration of Hadn't's proceedings. I looked into his mind and saw that he was afraid of cutting a branch of the portal vein. My attention was distracted from details by the curious changes going on in his mind. His consciousness was like the quivering little spot of light which is thrown by the mirror of a galvanometer. His thoughts ran under it like a stream, some through the focus bright and distinct, some shadowy in the half-light of the edge. Just now the little glow was steady, but the least movement in Mobres' part, the slightest sound from outside, even the faint difference in the slow movement of the living flesh he was cutting, set the light spot shivering and spinning. A new sense impression came rushing up through the flow of thoughts and, lo, the light spot jerked away towards it, swifter than a frightened fish. It was wonderful to think that upon that unstable, fitful thing depended all the complex motions of the man that for the next five minutes, therefore, my life hung upon its movements. And he was growing more and more nervous in his work. It was as if a little picture of a cut vein grew brighter and struggled to out from his brain another picture of a cut falling short of the mark. He was afraid his dread of cutting too little was dattling with his dread of cutting too far. Then suddenly, like an escape of water from under a lock-gate, a great up-rush of horrible realisation set all his thoughts swirling and simultaneously I perceived that the vein was cut. He started back with a horse exclamation and I saw the brown-purple blood gather in a swift bead and run trickling. He was horrified. He pitched the red-stained scalpel onto the octagonal table and instantly both doctors flung themselves upon me making hasty and ill-conceived efforts to remedy the disaster. "'Eyes!' said Mowbray, gasping, "'but I knew I was killed, though my body still clung to me. "'I will not describe their belated endeavours to save me, "'though I perceived every detail. "'My perceptions were sharper and swifter "'than they had ever been in life. "'My thoughts rushed through my mind with incredible swiftness "'but with perfect definition. "'I can only compare their crowded clarity "'to the efforts of a reasonable dose of opium. "'In a moment it would all be over, and I should be free. "'I knew I was immortal, but what would happen I did not know. "'Should I drift off presently, like a puff of smoke from a gun, "'in some kind of half-material body, "'an attenuated version of my material self? "'Should I find myself suddenly among the innumerable hosts "'of the dead and know the world about me "'for the phantasmagoria it had always seemed? "'Should I drift to some spiritualistic seance "'and there make foolish incomprehensible attempts "'to effect a purblind medium? "'It was a state of unemotional curiosity, "'of colourless expectation, "'and then I realised a growing stress upon me, "'of feeling as though some huge human magnet "'was drawing me upward out of my body. "'The stress grew and grew. "'I seemed an atom for which monstrous forces were fighting. "'For one brief terrible moment sensation came back to me. "'That feeling of falling headlong which comes in nightmares, "'that feeling a thousand times intensified. "'That and a black horror swept across my thoughts "'in a torrent. "'Then the two doctors, the naked body with its cut side, "'the little room, swept away from under me and vanished "'as a speck of foam vanishes down an eddy. "'I was in mid-air. "'Far below was the west end of London receding rapidly, "'for I seemed to be flying swiftly upward, "'and as it receded passing westward like a panorama. "'I could see through the faint haze of smoke "'the innumerable roofs chimney-set, "'the narrow roadways stippled with people and conveyances. "'The little specks of squares and the church steeples "'like thorns sticking out of the fabric. "'But it spun away as the earth rotated on its axis, "'and in a few seconds, as it seemed, "'I was over the scattered clumps of town about ealing, "'the little Thames a thread of blue to the south, "'and the Chilton Hills and the North Downs "'calling up like the rim of a basin, "'far away in faint with haze. "'Up I rushed, and at first I had not the faintest conception "'what this headlong rush upward could mean. "'Every moment the circle of scenery beneath me "'grew wider and wider, and the details of town and field "'of hill and valley got more and more hazy and pale "'and indistinct. "'A luminous grey was mingled more and more "'with the blue of the hills "'and the green of the open meadows, "'and a little patch of cloud, low and far to the west, "'shown ever more dazzingly white. "'Above, as the veil of atmosphere between myself "'and outer space grew thinner, "'the sky which had been a fair springtime blue at first "'grew deeper and richer in colour, "'passing steadily through the intervening shades "'until presently it was as dark as the blue sky of midnight "'and presently as black as the blackness of a frosty starlight, "'and at least as black as no blackness I had ever beheld. "'And first one star and then many, "'and at last an innumerable host broke out upon the sky "'more stars than any one has ever seen "'from the face of the earth, "'for the blueness of the sky in the light of the sun "'and stars sifted and spread abroad blindingly. "'There is diffuse light even in the darkest skies of winter "'and we do not see the stars by day "'only because of the dazzling irradiation of the sun. "'But now I saw things, I know not how, "'assuredly with no mortal eyes, "'and that defect of bedazzlement blinded me no longer. "'The sun was incredibly strange and wonderful. "'The body of it was a disk of blinding white light, "'not yellowish, as it seems to those who live upon the earth, "'but livid white, all streaked with scarlet streaks "'and rimmed about with a fringe of writhing tongues of red fire. "'And shooting half way across the heavens, "'from either side of it, and brighter than the Milky Way, "'were two pinions of silver white "'making it look more like those winged globes "'I've seen in Egyptian sculptures "'than anything else I can remember upon earth. "'These I knew for the solar corona, "'though I'd never seen anything of it "'but a picture during the days of my earthly life. "'When my attention came back to the earth again, "'I saw that it had fallen very far away from me. "'Field and town were long since indistinguishable, "'and all the varied hues of the country "'were merging into a uniform bright grey, "'broken only by the brilliant white of the clouds "'that they scattered in flocculent masses over Ireland "'and the west of England. "'For now I could see the outlines of the north of France "'and Ireland, and all this island of Britain, "'save where Scotland passed over the horizon to the north, "'or where the coast was blurred or obliterated by cloud. "'The sea was of dull grey and darker than the land, "'and the whole panorama was rotating slowly towards the east. "'All this had happened so swiftly "'that until I was some thousand miles or so from the earth "'I had no thought for myself. "'But now I perceived I had neither hands nor feet, "'neither parts nor organs, "'and that I felt neither alarm nor pain. "'All about me I perceived that the vacancy, "'for I'd already left the air behind, "'was cold beyond the imagination of man, "'but it troubled me not. "'The sun's rays shot through the void, "'powerless to light or heat, "'until they should strike on matter in their course. "'I saw things with a serene self-forgetfulness, "'even as if I were God, "'and down below there, rushing away from me, "'countless miles in a second, "'where a little dark spot on the grey "'marked the position of London, "'two doctors were struggling to restore life "'to the poor hacked and outworn shell I had abandoned. "'I felt then much release. "'Such serenity as I can compare to no mortal delight "'I have ever known. "'It was only after I'd perceived all these things "'that the meaning of the headlong rush of the earth "'grew into comprehension. "'Yet it was so simple, so obvious, "'that I was amazed at my never anticipating the thing "'that was happening to me. "'I had suddenly been cut adrift from matter. "'All that was material of me was there upon earth, "'wurling away through space, "'held to the earth by gravitation, "'partaking of the earth's inertia, "'moving in its wreaths of epicycles round the sun, "'and with the sun and the planets "'on their vast march through space. "'But the immaterial has no inertia, "'feels nothing of the pull of matter for matter, "'where it parts from its garment of flesh. "'There it remains, so far as space concerns "'it any longer, immovable in space. "'I was not leaving the earth. "'The earth was leaving me, and not only the earth, "'but the whole solar system was streaming past. "'And about me in space, invisible to me, "'scutted in the wake of the earth upon its journey, "'there must be an innumerable multitude of souls "'stripped like myself of the material, "'stripped like myself of the passions of the individual "'and the generous emotions of the gregarious brute, "'naked intelligences, things of newborn wonder and thought, "'marvelling at the strange release "'that had suddenly come on them. "'As I receded faster and faster "'from the strange white sun in the black heavens, "'and from the broad and shining earth "'upon which my being had begun, "'I seemed to grow in some incredible manner vast, "'as regards this world I had left, "'vast as regards the moments and periods of a human life. "'Very soon I saw the full circle of the earth "'slightly givers, like the moon when she nears her full, "'but very large, and the silvery shape of America "'was now in the noonday blaze wherein, as it seemed, "'Little England had been basking but a few minutes ago. "'At first the earth was large and shone in the heavens, "'filling a great part of them, "'but every moment she grew smaller and more distant. "'As she shrank, the broad moon in its third quarter "'crept into view over the rim of her disc. "'I looked for the constellations, "'only that part of air is directly behind the sun "'and the lion, which the earth covered, were hidden. "'I recognised the torturous, tuttured band "'of the milky way with vague or very bright between sun and earth, "'and Cyrus and Orion shone splendid against the unfathomable "'blackness in the opposite quarter of the heavens. "'The pole star was overhead, "'and the great bear hung over the circle of the earth "'and away beneath and beyond the shining corona of the sun "'were strange groupings of stars I had never seen in my life. "'I was actually a dagger-shaped group that I knew for the Southern Cross. "'All these were no larger than when they had shone on earth, "'but the little stars that one scarce sees shone now "'against the setting of black vacancy "'as brightly as the first magnitudes had done, "'while the larger worlds were points "'of indescribable glory and colour. "'Older Baron was a spot of blood-red fire, "'indense to one point the light of innumerable sapphires, "'and they shone steadily, they did not scintillate, "'they were calmly glorious. "'My impressions had a man-time hardness and brightness. "'There was no blurring softness, no atmosphere, "'nothing but infinite darkness set with the myriads "'of the acute and brilliant points and specks of light. "'Presently when I looked again "'the little earth seemed no bigger than the sun, "'it turned as I looked until in a second space, "'as it seemed to me, it was halved. "'And so it went on swiftly dwindling, "'far away in the opposite direction, "'a little pinkish pin's head of light shining steadily "'was the planet Mars. "'I swam motionless in vacancy, "'and without a trace of terror or astonishment "'watched the speck of cosmic dust we call the world "'fall away from me. "'Presently it dawned upon me "'that my sense of duration had changed, "'that my mind was moving not faster "'but infinitely slower, "'that between each separate impression "'there was a period of many days. "'The moon spun once round the earth, "'as I noted this, "'and I perceived clearly the motion of Mars "'in his orbit. "'Moreover, it appeared as if the time between thought "'and thought grew steadily greater "'until at last a thousand years "'but a moment in my perception.' "'At first the constellations had shone motionless "'against the black background of infinite space, "'but presently it seemed as though the group of stars "'about Hercules and the scorpion was contracting, "'while Orion and Aldevan and their neighbours "'were scattering apart. "'Flashing suddenly out of the darkness "'there came a flying multitude of particles of rock, "'glittering like dust specks in a sunbeam "'and encompassed in a faintly luminous cloud. "'They swore all about me and vanished again "'in a twinkling far behind. "'Then I saw that a bright spot of light "'that shone a little to one side of my path "'was growing very rapidly larger "'and perceived that it was the planet Saturn "'rushing towards me. "'Larger and larger it grew, "'swallowing up the heavens behind it "'and hiding every moment a fresh multitude of stars. "'I perceived its flattened whirling body, "'its dislike belt and seven of its little satellites. "'It grew and grew till it towered enormous "'and then I plunged amid a streaming multitude "'of clashing stones and dancing dust particles "'and gas eddies and saw for a moment "'the mighty triple belt "'like three concentric arches of moonlight above me. "'It's black shadow on the boiling tumult below. "'These things happen in one-tenth of the time "'it takes to tell them. "'The planet went by like a flash of lightning. "'For a few seconds it blotted out the sun "'and there and then became a mere black "'dwindling winged patch against the light. "'The earth, the mother moat of my being, "'could no longer see. "'So, with a stately swiftness, "'in the profoundest silence, "'the solar system fell from me "'as if it had been a garment "'until the sun was a mere star "'amid the multitude of stars, "'with its eddy of planet specks "'lost in the confused glittering of the remote alight. "'I was no longer a denizen of the solar system. "'I come to the outer universe. "'I seem to grasp and comprehend "'the whole world of matter. "'Ever more swiftly the stars closed in about the spot "'where Antares and Vega had vanished "'in a phosphorescent haze "'until that part of the sky "'had the semblance of a swirling mass of nebula "'and ever before me yawned "'vaster gaps of vacant blackness "'and the stars shone fewer and fewer. "'It seemed as if I moved towards a point "'between Orion's belt and sword "'and the void about the region "'opened faster and faster every second, "'an incredible gulf of nothingness "'into which I was falling. "'Faster and ever faster the universe rushed by, "'a hurry of whirling moats at last, "'speeding silently into the void. "'Stars glowing brighter and brighter "'with their circling planets "'catching the light in a ghostly fashion "'as I neared them, shone out "'and vanished again into inexistence. "'Faint comets, clusters of meteorites, "'winking specks of matter, "'eddying light points with paths, "'some perhaps a hundred millions of miles or so from me, "'at most, few nearer, "'travelling with unimaginable rapidity. "'Shooting constellations, momentary darts of fire "'through that black enormous night. "'More than anything else it was like a dusty draft. "'Some beam lit. "'Broader and wider and deeper grew the starless space, "'the vacant beyond "'into which I was being drawn. "'At last a quarter of the heavens was black and blank "'and the whole headlong rush "'of stellar universe closed in behind me "'like a veil of light that is gathered together. "'It drove away from me "'like a monstrous jack-o'-lantern "'driven by the wind. "'I'd come out into the wilderness of space, "'ever the vacant blackness grew broader "'until the hosts of the stars seemed only like "'a swarm of fiery specks hurrying away from me, "'inconceivably remote, "'and the darkness, the nothingness and emptiness "'was about me on every side. "'Soon the little universe of matter, "'the cage of points in which I'd begun to be, "'was dwindling, "'now to a whirling disc of luminous glitterings, "'and now to one minute disc of hazy light. "'In a little while it would shrink to a point "'and at last would vanish altogether. "'Suddenly feeling came back to me, "'feeling in the shape of overwhelming terror. "'Such a dread of those stark vastitudes "'as no words can describe. "'A passionate resurgence of sympathy and social desire. "'Were there any other souls, "'invisible to me, as I to them, "'about me in the blackness? "'Or was I indeed, even as I felt, alone? "'Had I passed out of being into something "'that was neither being nor not being? "'The covering of the body, the covering of matter "'had been torn from me "'and the hallucinations of companionship and security. "'Everything was black and silent. "'I had ceased to be and I was nothing. "'There was nothing save only that infinitesimal dot of light "'that dwindled in the gulf. "'I strained myself to here and see "'and for a while there was nought but infinite silence, "'intolerable darkness, horror and despair. "'Then I saw that about the spot of light "'into which the whole world of matter had shrunk, "'there was a faint glow "'and in a band on either side of that "'the darkness was not absolute. "'I watched it for ages as it seemed to me "'and through the long-waiting the haze "'grew imperceptibly more distinct "'and then about the band appeared an irregular cloud "'of the faintest palest brown. "'I felt a passionate impatience "'but the things grew brighter so slowly "'that they scarce seemed to change. "'What was unfolding itself? "'What was this strange reddish dawn "'in the interminable night of space?' "'The cloud's shape was grotesque. "'It seemed to be looped along its lower side "'into four projecting masses "'and above it ended in a straight line. "'What phantom was it? "'I felt assured I had seen that figure before. "'But I could not think what, nor where, nor when it was. "'Then the realisation rushed upon me. "'It was a clenched hand. "'I was alone in space, "'alone with this huge shadowy hand "'upon which the whole universe of matter lay "'like an unconsidered speck of dust. "'It seemed as though I watched it through "'vast periods of time on the forefinger glittered a ring, "'and the universe from which I had come "'was but a spot of light upon the ring's curvature. "'And the thing that the hand gripped "'had the likeness of a black rod. "'Through a long eternity I watched this hand "'with the ring and the rod, marvelling and fearing "'and waiting helplessly on what might follow. "'It seemed as though nothing could follow, "'that I should watch for ever, seeing only the hand "'and the thing it held, "'and understanding nothing of its import. "'Was the whole universe but a refracting speck "'upon some greater being? "'Were our worlds but the atoms of another universe "'and those again of another, "'and so on through an endless progression? "'And what was I? "'Why indeed, in material, "'a vague persuasion of a body gathering about me "'came into my suspense? "'If business darkness about the hand "'filled with impalpable suggestions, "'with uncertain fluctuating shapes, "'then suddenly came a sound "'like the sound of a tolling bell, "'faint as if infinitely far, "'muffled as though heard through thick "'swardings of darkness, a deep vibrating resonance "'with vast gulfs of silence between each stroke "'and the hand appeared to tighten on the rod. "'And I saw far above the hand, "'toward the apex of the darkness, "'a circle of dim phosphorescence, "'a ghostly sphere, "'whence these sounds came throbbing. "'And at the last stroke the hand vanished, "'for the hour had come, "'and a heard a noise of many waters, "'but the black rod remained "'as a great band across the sky. "'And then a voice, which seemed to run "'to the uttermost parts of space, "'spote, saying, there will be no more pain. "'At that's an almost intolerable gladness, "'and radiance rushed in upon me, "'and I saw the circle shining white and bright, "'and the rod black and shining, "'and many things else distinct and clear. "'And the circle was the face of the clock, "'and the rod the rail of my bed. "'Haddon was standing at the foot against the rail "'with a small pair of scissors on his fingers, "'and the hands of my clock on the mantle over the shoulder "'were clasped together over the hour of twelve. "'Mowbray was washing something in a basin "'at the octagonal table, "'but at my side I felt a subdued feeling "'that could scarce be spoken of as pain. "'The operation had not killed me, "'and I perceived suddenly that the dull melancholy "'of half a year was lifted from my mind. "'End of Under the Knife by H.G. Wells, "'Recording by Peter Tomlinson.' The Writer by Max Simgolki 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 Neslihan Stamboli. The Writer There once lived a very ambitious writer. When he was abused, it seemed to him that he was abused too much and unjustly. When he was praised, he thought that they neither praised him enough nor wisely. He lived in a state of perpetual discontent until the time came for him to die. The writer laid down on his bed and began grumbling, "'That's just how it is. "'What do you think of it? "'Two novels are not yet finished, "'and altogether I have enough material for ten years. "'The devil take this law of nature and every other law. "'What nonsense! "'The novels might have turned out well. "'Why have they invented this idiotic compulsory service "'as if things could not have been arranged differently? "'And it always comes at the wrong time. "'The novels are not finished yet.'" He was angry, but disease was eating into his bones and whispering into his ears. "'You tremble, eh? "'Why did you tremble? "'You don't sleep at night, eh? "'Why don't you sleep? "'You have drunk of sorrow, eh? "'And of joy, too.'" He kept knitting his brows, but realized at last that nothing could be done. With a wave of the arm he dismissed the thought of his novels and died. It was very disagreeable, but he died. So far, so good. They washed him, dressed him according to custom, combed his hair and placed him on the table, straightened stiff like a soldier, heels together, toes apart. He lay very still, his nose drooped, and the only feeling he had was surprise. How strange it is that I feel nothing at all. It's the first time in my life. Ah, my wife is crying. Well, now you cry. But before, when anything went wrong, you flew into a rage. My little son is crying, too. No doubt he will grow up a good from nothing fellow, the sons of writers I have noticed always do. No doubt that also is in accordance with some law of nature. What an infernal number of such laws there are. So he lay and thought and thought and wandered at his composure. He was not accustomed to it. They started for the cemetery, but as he was being born along, he suddenly felt there were not enough mourners. No matter, said he to himself. Though I may not be a very great writer, literature must be respected. He looked out of the coffin and so that, as a matter of fact, without counting his relations, only nine people accompanied him, among whom were two beggars and a lamp lighter with a ladder over his shoulder. At this discovery he became quite indignant. What swine! The slight so incensed him that he immediately became resurrected and, being a small man, jumped unperceived out of his coffin. He ran into a barbers, had his mustache and beard shaved off and burrowed a black coat with a patch under the armpit, leaving his own coat in its stead. Then he made his face look solemn and aggrieved and became like a living man. It was impossible to recognize him. With the curiosity natural to his profession, he asked the barber, Are you not astonished at this strange incident? The letter stroked his mustache can be sendingly and replied, Well, we live in Russia and we're used to all kinds of things. But then I'm a deceased person and suddenly I change my attire. It is the fashion of the times and in what way are you a deceased person? Only externally. As far as the general run of people goes, it would be better if God made them all like you. At the present time, living people don't look half so natural. Don't I look rather yellowish? Quite in the spirit of the epoch, as you should be. It is Russia, everyone here differs from one ear or another. It is well known that barbers are flutters of the first order and the most obliging people on earth. He made them goodbye and ran to overtake the coffin, moved by a keen desire to show, for the last time, his reverence for literature. He caught up with the procession and the number of those who accompanied the coffin became ten. Respect for the writer increased correspondingly, passes by, exclaimed, astonished. Just look, a writer's funeral. Ah, ah. And people who knew what was taking place thought with a sort of pride as they went about their business. It is plain that the importance of literature is being understood better and better by the country. The writer was now following his own coffin as if he were an admirer of literature and a friend of the deceased. He addressed the lamp-lighter. Did you know the deceased person? Certainly, I made use of him in a small way. I'm very pleased to hear it. Yes, our work is like that of the sparrow where something drops, we pick it up. How am I to understand that? Take it in a very simple manner, sir. In a simple manner? Yes, certainly. Of course, it's a sin if one looks at it from a certain point of view. One cannot, however, get on in this world without using one's wits. Hmm, are you sure of that? Quite sure, sir. There was a lamp right against his window and every night he set up till sunrise. Well, I did not like that lamp because enough light streamed from his window. So this one lamp was a net profit to me. He was a very useful man. So, talking quietly to this one and that, the writer reached the cemetery and it came to pass that he had to make a speech about himself because all those who accompanied him on that day had too fake. This happened in Russia and there people always have an ache of one sort or another. He made a rather good speech. One paper went so far as to praise it in the following terms. One of the followers, who, from his appearance, we judge to be an actor, made a warm and touching oration over the grave. Obeyed from our point of view, he no doubt overestimated and exaggerated the rather modest merits of the deceased. He was a writer of the old school who made no effort to rid himself of its defects. The naive didecticism, namely, and the over insistence on the so-called civic duties which to us nowadays have become so tiresome. Nevertheless, the speech was delivered with a feeling of unquestionable love for the written word. When the speech had been duly made, the writer lay down in the coffin and thought, quite satisfied with himself, there, we're ready now. Everything has gone well and with dignity. At this point, he became quite dead, thus should one's calling be respected, even though it be literature. End of the writer by Maxim Gorky, recording by Neslihan Stamboli.