 Well, Mabel, and what are you going to do with yourself, Mars Joe, with foolish flippancy? He felt quite safe himself. Without listening for an answer he turned aside, worked a grain of tobacco to the tip of his tongue and spat it out. He did not care about anything since he felt safe himself. The three brothers and the sister sat round the desolate breakfast table attempting some sort of desultery consultation. The morning's post had given the final tap to the family fortunes and all was over. The dreary dining-room itself, with its heavy mahogany furniture, looked as if it were waiting to be done away with. But the consultation amounted to nothing. There was a strange air of ineffectuality about the three men as they sprawled at table, smoking and reflecting vaguely on their own condition. The girl was alone, a rather short, sun-looking young woman of twenty-seven. She did not share the same life as her brothers. She would have been good-looking, safe for the impassive fixity of her face, bulldog, as her brothers called it. There was a confused tramping of horses' feet outside. The three men all sprawled round in their chairs to watch. Beyond the dark hollybushes that separated the strip of lawn from the high road, they could see a cavalcade of shire horses swinging out of their own yard, being taken for exercise. This was the last time. These were the last horses that would go through their hands. The young men watched with critical, callous look. They were all frightened at the collapse of their lives, and the sense of disaster in which they were involved left them no inner freedom. Yet they were three fine, well-set fellows enough. Joe, the eldest, was a man of thirty-three, broad and handsome in a hot, flushed way. His face was red. He twisted his black moustache over a thick finger. His eyes were shallow and restless. He had a sensual wave uncovering his teeth when he laughed, and his bearing was stupid. Now he watched the horses with a glazed look of helplessness in his eyes, a certain stupor of downfall. The great draught horses swung past. They were tied head to tail, four of them, and they heaved along to where a lane branched off from the high road, mounting their great hoofs floutingly in a fine black mud, swinging their great rounded haunches sumptuously and trotting a few sudden steps as they were led into the lane round the corner. Every movement showed a massive, slumberous strength and a stupidity which held them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope, and the cavalcade moved out of sight up the lane. The tail of the last horse bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a motion like sleep. Joe watched with glazed, hopeless eyes. The horses were almost like his own body to him. He felt he was done for now. Luckily he was engaged to a woman as old as himself, and therefore her father, who was steward of a neighbouring estate, would provide him with a job. He would marry and go into harness. His life was over. He would be a subject animal now. He turned uneasily aside, the retreating steps of the horses echo in his ears. Then with foolish restlessness he reached for the scraps of bacon rind from the plates, and making a faint whistling sound flung them to the terrier that lay against the fender. He watched the dog swallow them, and waited till the creature looked into his eyes. Then a faint grin came on his face, and in a high, foolish voice he said, You won't get much more bacon, shall you, you little bee? The dog faintly and dismally wagged its tail. Then lowered its haunches, circled round, and lay down again. There was another helpless silence at the table. Joe sprawled uneasily in his seat, not willing to go till the family conclave was dissolved. Fred Henry, the second brother, was erect, clean-limbed, alert. He had watched the passing of the horses with more sang froid. If he was an animal like Joe, he was an animal which controls, not one which is controlled. He was master of any horse, and he carried himself with a well-tempered air of mastery. But he was not master of the situations of life. He pushed his course round the starch upwards, off his lip, and glanced irritably at his sister, who sat in passive and inscrutable. You'll go and stop with Lucy for a bit, shall't you? he asked. The girl did not answer. I don't see what else you can do, persisted Fred Henry. Go as a skivvy, Joe interpolated laconically. The girl did not move a muscle. If I was her, I should go in for training for a nurse, said Malcolm, the youngest of them all. He was the baby of the family, a young man of twenty-two, with a fresh, jaunty museau. But Mabel did not take any notice of him. They had talked at her and round her for so many years that she hardly heard them at all. The marvel-clock on the mantle-piece softly chimed the half-hour. The dog rose uneasily from the hearth-rug and looked at the party at the breakfast-table. But still they sat on in ineffectual conclave. Oh, all right, said Joe suddenly. A propose of nothing. I'll get a move on. He pushed back his chair, straddled his knees with the downward jerk to get them free in horsey fashion, and went to the fire. Still he did not go out of the room. He was curious to know what the others would do or say. He began to charge his pipe, looking down at the dog and saying in a high affected voice, Going with me, going with me, Arthur. Start going farther than thou, Council, just now. Dust here. The dog faintly wagged its tail. The man stuck out his jaw and covered his pipe with his hands, and puffed intently, losing himself in the tobacco, looking down all the while at the dog with an absent brown eye. The dog looked up at him in mournful distrust. Joe stood with his knees stuck out in real horsey fashion. Have you had a letter from Lucy, Fred Henry asked of his sister? Last week came the neutral reply. And what does she say? There was no answer. Does she ask you to go and stop there, persisted Fred Henry? She says I can if I like. Well then you'd better tell her you'll come on Monday. This was received in silence. That's what you'll do then, is it? said Fred Henry in some exasperation. But she made no answer. There was a silence of futility and irritation in the room. Malcolm grinned factuously. You'll have to make up your mind between now and next Wednesday, said Joe loudly, or else find yourself lodgings on the kerbstone. The face of the young woman darkened, but she sat on immutable. Here's Jack Ferguson, it's claimed Malcolm, who was looking aimlessly out of the window. Where, it's claimed Joe loudly. Just gone past. Coming in, Malcolm craned his neck to see the gate. Yes, he said. There was a silence. Mabel sat on like one condemned at the head of the table. Then the whistle was heard from the kitchen. The dog got up and barked sharpening. Joe opened the door and shouted, Come on! After a moment a young man entered. He was muffled up in overcoat and a purple woolen scarf, and his tweed cap, which he did not remove, was pulled down on his head. He was of a medium height. His face was rather long and pale. His eyes looked tired. Hello, Jack. Well, Jack, it's claimed Malcolm and Joe. Fred Henry merely said, Jack. What's doing after newcomer evidently addressing Fred Henry? Same. We've got to be out by Wednesday. Got a cold? I have. Got it bad, too. Why don't you stop in? Me? Stop in. When I can't stand on my legs, perhaps I shall have a chance. The young man spoke huskily. He had a slight scotch accent. It's a knockout, isn't it? said Joe boisterously. If a doctor goes round croaking with a cold, looks bad for the patients, doesn't it? The young doctor looked at him slowly. Anything the matter with you, then, he asked sarcastically? Not as I know of. Damn your eyes, I hope not. Why? I thought you were very concerned about the patients. Wondered if you might be one yourself. Damn it, no. I'd never been patient to no flaming doctor, and hope I never shall be, returned Joe. At this point Mabel rose from the table, and they all seemed to become aware of her existence. She began putting the dishes together. The young doctor looked at her, but did not address her. He had not greeted her. She went out of the room with the tray, her face impassive and unchanged. When are you off, then, all of you? asked the doctor. I'm catching the eleven forty, replied Markham. Are you going down with that trap, Joe? Yes, I told you I'm going down with the trap, haven't I? We'd better be getting her in, then. So long, Jack. If I don't see you before I go, said Markham, shaking hands. He went out, followed by Joe, who seemed to have his tail between his legs. Well, this is the devil's own, exclaimed the doctor, when he was left alone with Fred Henry. Going before Wednesday, are you? That's the orders, replied the other, where, to Northampton, that's it, the devil, exclaimed Ferguson, with quiet chagrin. And there was a silence between the two. All settled up, are you? asked Ferguson, about. There was another pause. Well, I shall miss you, Freddie Boy, said the young doctor. And I shall miss thee, Jack, returned the other. Miss you like hell, used the doctor. Fred Henry turned aside. There was nothing to say. Mabel came in again, to finish clearing the table. What are you going to do, then, Miss Pervin, asked Ferguson? Going to your sisters, are you? Mabel looked at him with her steady, dangerous eyes, that always made him uncomfortable, unsettling his superficial ease. No, she said. Well, what in the name of fortune are you going to do? Say what you mean to do, cried Fred Henry, with futile intensity. But she only averted her head and continued her work. She folded the white tablecloth and put on the Chanel cloth. The sulkiest bitch that ever trod, muttered her brother. But she finished her task with perfectly impassive face, the young doctor watching her, interestingly, all the while. Then she went out. Fred Henry stared after her, clenching his lips, his blue eyes fixing in sharp antagonism, as he made a grimace of sour exasperation. You could break her into bits, and that's all you'd get out of her, he said in a small, narrow tone. The doctor smiled faintly. What is she going to do, then, he asked. Strike me if I know, returned the other. There was a pause, then the doctor stirred. I'll be seeing you tonight, shall I, he said to his friend. I, where's it to be? I'll be going over to Jessdale. I don't know. I've got such a cold on me. I'll come round to the moon and stars, anyway. Let Lizzie and May miss their night for once, eh? That's it, if I feel as I do now. All's one. The two young men went through the passage and down to the back door together. The house was large, but it was servantless now, and desolate. At the back was a small, bricked house-yard, and beyond that a big square, graveled fine and red, and having stables on two sides. Sloping dank winter-dark fields stretched away on the open sides. But the stables were empty. Joseph Purvin, the father of the family, had been a man of no education, had become a fairly large horse-dealer. The stables had been full of horses. There was a great turmoil and come and go of horses, and of dealers, and grooms. Then the kitchen was full of servants, but of late things had declined. The old man had married a second time to retrieve his fortunes. Now he was dead and everything was gone to the dogs. There was nothing but death and threatening. For months Mabel had been servantless in the big house, keeping the home together in penury for her ineffectual brothers. She had kept house for ten years, but previously it was with unstinted means. Then, however brutal and coarse everything was, the sense of money had kept her proud, confident. The men might be foul-mouthed. The women in the kitchen might have bad reputations. Her brothers might have illegitimate children. But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself established, and brutally proud, reserved. No company came to the house, saved dealers and coarse men. Mabel had no associates of her own sex, after her sister went away. But she did not mind. She went regularly to church. She attended to her father, and she lived in the memory of her mother, who had died when she was fourteen, and whom she had loved. She had loved her father too in a different way, depending upon him, and feeling secure in him, until at the age of fifty-four he married again. And then she had set hard against him. Now he had died and left them all hopelessly in debt. She had suffered badly during the period of poverty. Nothing, however, could shake the curious sullen animal pride that dominated each member of the family. Now, for Mabel, the end had come. Still she would not cast about her. She would follow her own way just the same. She would always hold the keys of her own situation. Mindless and persistent she endured from day to day. Why should she think? Why should she answer anybody? It was enough that this was the end, and there was no way out. She need not pass any more darkly along the main street of the small town, avoiding every eye. She need not demean herself any more, going into the shops and buying the cheapest food. This was at an end. She thought of nobody, not even of herself. Mindless and persistent, she seemed in a sort of ecstasy to becoming nearer to her fulfilment, her own glorification approaching her dead mother, who was glorified. In the afternoon she took a little bag with shears and sponge, and a small scrubbing brush and went out. It was a grey wintery day with saddened dark green fields and an atmosphere blackened by the smoke of foundries not far off. She went quickly darkly along the causeway, heeding nobody through the town to the churchyard. There she always felt secure, as if no one could see her, as though as a matter of fact she was exposed to the stare of everyone who passed along under the churchyard wall. Nevertheless, once under the shadow of the great looming church among the graves, she felt immune from the world, reserved within the thick churchyard wall, as in another country. Carefully she clipped the grass from the grave and arranged the pinky-white, small chrysanthemms in the tin cross. When this was done she took an empty jar from a neighbouring grave, brought water and carefully, most scrupulously, sponged the marble headstone and the coping stone. It gave her sincere satisfaction to do this. She felt in immediate contact with the world of her mother. She took minute pains, went through the park in a state bordering on pure happiness, as if in performing this task she came into a subtle, intimate connection with her mother. For the life she followed here in the world was far less real than the world of death she inherited from her mother. The doctor's house was just by the church. Ferguson, being a mere hide assistant, was slaved to the countryside. As he hurried now to attend to the outpatients in the surgery, glancing across the graveyard with a quick eye, he saw the girl at her task at the grave. She seemed so intent and remote it was like looking into another world. Some mystical element was touched in him. He slowed down as he walked, watching her as if spellbound. She lifted her eyes, feeling him looking. Their eyes met, and each looked again at once, each feeling in some way found out by the other. He lifted his cap and passed on down the road. There remained distinct in his consciousness, like a vision, the memory of her face lifted from the tombstone in the churchyard and looking at him with slow, large, potentious eyes. It was potentious her face. It seemed to mesmerize him. There was a heavy power in her eyes which laid hold of his whole being, as if he had drunk some powerful drug. He had been feeling weak and done before. Now the life came back into him. He felt delivered from his own threaded, daily self. He finished his duties at the surgery as quickly as might be, hastily filling up the bottles of the waiting people with cheap drugs. Then in perpetual haste he set off again to visit several cases in another part of his round before tea-time. At all times he preferred to walk, if he could, but particularly when he was not well. He fancied the motion, restored him. The afternoon was falling. It was grey, deadened and wintry, with a slow, moist, heavy coldness, sinking in and deadening all the faculties. But why should he think or notice? He hastily climbed the hill and turned across the dark green fields, following the black cinder track. In the distance, across a shallow dip in the country, the small town was clustered like smouldering ash. A tower, a spire, a heap of low, raw, extinct houses. And on the nearest fringe of the town, sloping into the dip, was Old Meadow, the Pervin's house. He could see the stables and the outbuildings distinctly as they lay towards him on the slope. While he would not go there many more times, another resource would be lost to him, another place gone. The only company he cared for in the alien, ugly little town he was losing. Nothing but work, drudgery, constant hastening from dwelling to dwelling among the colliers and the iron workers. It wore him out, but at the same time he had a craving for it. It was a stimulant to him to be in the homes of working people, moving as it were through the innermost body of their life. His nerves were excited and gratified. He could come so near into the very lives of the rough, inarticulate, powerfully emotional men and women. He grumbled. He said he hated the hellish whole. But as a matter of fact it excited him. The contact with the rough, strongly feeling people, was a stimulant applied directly to his nerves. Below Old Meadow, in the green, shallow, soddened hollow of fields, lay a square, deep pond. Roving across the landscape, the doctor's quick eye detected a figure in black, passing through the gate of the field down towards the pond. He looked again. It would be Mabel Pervin. His mind suddenly became alive and attentive. Why was she going down there? He pulled up on the path on the slope above and stood staring. He could just make sure of the small black figure moving in the hollow of the failing day. He seemed to see her in the midst of such obscurity that he was like a clairvoyant, seeing rather with the mind's eye than with ordinary sight. Yet he could see her positively enough, whilst he kept his eye attentive. He felt, if he looked away from her, in the thick, ugly falling dusk, he would lose her altogether. He followed her minutely as she moved, direct and intent, like something transmitted, rather than stirring involuntary activity, straight down the field towards the pond. There she stood on the bank for a moment. She never raised her head. Then she waded slowly into the water. He stood motionless as the small black figure walked slowly and deliberately towards the centre of the pond, very slowly gradually moving deeper into the motionless water and still moving forward as the water got up to her breast. Then he could see her no more in the dusk of the dead afternoon. There, he exclaimed, would you believe it? And he hastened straight down, running over the wet, sodden fields, pushing through the hedges, down into the depression of callous wintry obscurity. It took him several minutes to come to the pond. He stood on the bank, breathing heavily. He could see nothing. His eyes seemed to penetrate the dead water. Yes, perhaps that was the dark shadow of her black clothing beneath the surface of the water. He slowly ventured into the pond. The bottom was deep, soft clay. He sank in and the water clasped dead cold round his legs, as he stood he could smell the cold, rotten clay that felled up into the water. It was objectionable in his lungs. Still repelled and yet not heeding, he moved deeper into the pond. The cold water rose over his thighs, over his loins, upon his abdomen, though lower part of his body was all sunk in the hideous cold element. And the bottom was so deeply soft and uncertain, he was afraid of pitching with his mouth underneath. He could not swim and was afraid. He crouched a little, spreading his hands under the water and moving them round, trying to feel for her. The dead cold pond swayed upon his chest. He moved again, a little deeper and again with his hands underneath, he felt all around under the water. And he touched her clothing. But he'd evaded his fingers. He made a desperate effort to grasp it. And so doing he lost his balance and went under, horribly, suffocating in the foul earthy water, struggling madly for a few moments. At last, after what seemed an eternity, he got his footing, rose again into the air and looked around. He garter knew he was in the world. Then he looked at the water. She had risen near him. He grasped her clothing and, drawing her nearer, turned to take his way to land again. He went very slowly, carefully, absorbed in the slow progress. He rose higher, climbing out of the pond. The water was now only about his legs. He was thankful, full of relief to be out of the clutches of the pond. He lifted her and staggered on to the bank, out of the horror of wet, grey clay. He laid her down on the bank. She was quite unconscious and running with water. He made the water come from her mouth. He worked to restore her. He did not have to work very long, before he could feel the breathing begin again in her. And she was breathing naturally. He worked a little longer. He could feel her, live, beneath his hands. She was coming back. He wiped her face, wrapped her in his overcoat, looked round into the dim, dark grey world, and lifted her and staggered down the bank and across the fields. It seemed an unthinkably long way, and his burden so heavy he felt he would never get to the house. But at last he was in the stable yard, and then in the houseyard. He opened the door and went into the house. In the kitchen he laid her down on the hearth-rogue, and called. The house was empty. But the fire was burning in the grate. Then again he kneeled to attend to her. She was breathing regularly. Her eyes were wide open, as if conscious. But there seemed something missing in her look. She was conscious in herself, but unconscious of her surroundings. He ran upstairs, took blankets from her bed, and put them before the fire to warm. Then he removed her saturated, earthy-smelling clothing, rubbed her dry with a towel, and wrapped her naked in the blankets. Then he went into the dining-room to look for spirits. There was a little whiskey. He drank a gulp himself and put some into her mouth. The effect was instantaneous. She looked full into his face, as if she had been seeing him for some time, and yet had only just become conscious of him. Dr. Ferguson, she said. What! he answered. He was divesting himself of his coat, intending to find some dry clothing upstairs. He would not bear the smell of the dead clayy water, and was mortally afraid for his own health. What did I do? she asked. Walked into the pond, he replied. He had begun to shudder like one sick, and could hardly attend to her. Her eyes remained full on him. He seemed to be going dark in his mind, looking back at her helplessly. The shuddering became quieter in him. His life came back in him, dark and unknowing, but strong again. Was I out of my mind? she asked, while her eyes were fixed on him all the time. Maybe for the moment, he replied, he felt quiet because his strength had come back. The strange, flexible strain had left him. Am I out of my mind now? she asked. Are you? he reflected a moment. No, he answered truthfully. I don't see that you are. He turned his face aside. He was afraid now because he felt dazed and felt dimly that her power was stronger than his in this issue. And she continued to look at him fixedly all the time. Can you tell me where I shall find some dry things to put on? he asked. Did you dive into the pond for me? she asked. No, he answered. I walked in, but I went in overhead as well. There was silence for a moment. He hesitated. He very much wanted to go upstairs to get into dry clothing, but there was another desire in him, and she seemed to hold him. His will seemed to have gone to sleep and left him standing there slack before her. But he felt warm inside himself. He did not shudder at all, though his clothes were sodden on him. Why did you? she asked. Because I didn't want you to do such a foolish thing, he said. It wasn't foolish, she said, still gazing at him as she lay on the floor with a sofa cushion under her head. It was the right thing to do. I knew best, then. I'll go and shift these wet things, he said, but still he had not the power to move out of her presence until she sent him. It was as if she had the life of his body in her hands, and he could not extricate himself. Or perhaps she did not want to. Suddenly she sat up. Then she became aware of her own immediate condition. She felt the blankets about her. She knew her limbs. For a moment it seemed as if her reason were going. She looked round with wild eye as if seeking something. He stood still with fear. She saw her clothing lying scattered. Who undressed me? she asked, her eyes resting full and inevitable on his face. I did, he replied, to bring you round. For some moment she sat and gazed at him awfully, her lips parting. Do you love me, then? she asked. He only stood and stared at her, fascinating. His soul seemed to melt. She shuffled forward on her knees and put her arms around him, round his legs, as he stood there, pressing her breast against his knees and thighs, clutching him with strange convulsive certainty, pressing his thighs against her, drawing him to her face, her throat, as she looked up at him with flaring, humble eyes of transfiguration, triumphant in first possession. You love me, she murmured, in strange transport, yearning and triumphant and confident. You love me, I know you love me, I know. And she was passionately kissing his knees through the wet clothing, passionately and indiscriminately kissing his knees, his legs, as if unaware of everything. He looked down at the tangled wet hair, the wild bare animal shoulders. He was amazed, bewildered and afraid. He'd never thought of loving her, he'd never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor and she was a patient. He had no single personal thought of her. Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a violation of his professional honour. It was horrible to have her there embracing his knees. It was horrible. He revolted from it violently. And yet, and yet, he had not the power to break away. She looked at him again with the same supplication of powerful love and that same transcendent, frightening light of triumph. In view of the delicate flame which seemed to come from her face like a light, he was powerless. And yet he had never intended to love her, he had never intended. And something stubborn in him could not give way. You love me, she repeated, in a murmur of deep, rhapsodic assurance. You love me. Her hands were drawing him, drawing him down to her. He was afraid, even a little horrified, for he had really no intention of loving her. Yet her hands were drawing him towards her. He put out his hand quickly to steady himself and grasped her bare shoulder. A flame seemed to burn the hand that grasped her soft shoulder. He had no intention of loving her, his whole will was against his yielding. It was horrible. And yet wonderful was the touch of her shoulders, beautiful the shining of her face. Was she perhaps mad? He had a horror of yielding to her. Yet something in him ached all of them. He'd been staring away at the door away from her, but his hand remained on her shoulder. She had gone suddenly very still. He looked down at her. Her eyes were now wide with fear, with doubt, the light was dying from her face, a shadow of terrible grayness was returning. He could not bear the touch of her eyes' question upon him, and the look of death behind the question. With an inward groan he gave way and let his heart yield towards her. A sudden gentle smile came on his face, and her eyes, which never left his face, slowly, slowly filled with tears. He watched the strange water rise in her eyes, like some slow fountain coming up, and his heart seemed to burn and melt away in his breast. He could not bear to look at her any more. He dropped to his knees and caught her head with his arms and pressed her face against his throat. She was very still. His heart, which seemed to have broken, was burning with a kind of agony in his breast, and he felt as slow hot tears wetting his throat, but he could not move. He felt the hot tears wet his neck and the hollows of his neck, and he remained motionless, suspended through one of man's eternities. Only now it had become indispensable to him to have her face pressed close to him. He could never let her go again. He could never let her head go away from the close clutch of his arm. He wanted to remain like that forever, with his heart hurting him in a pain that was also life to him. Without knowing, he was looking down on her damp, soft brown hair. Then, as it were, suddenly he smelt the horrid stagnant smell of that water, and at that same moment she drew away from him and looked at him. Her eyes were wistful and unfathomable. He was afraid of them, and he fell to kissing her, not knowing what he was doing. He wanted her eyes not to have that terrible, wistful, unfathomable look. When she turned her face to him again, a faint delicate flush was glowing, and there was again dawning that terrible shining of joy in her eyes, which really terrified him, and yet which he now wanted to see, because he feared the look of doubt still more. You love me, she said, rather faltering? Yes, the word cost him a painful effort, not because it wasn't true, but because it was too newly true. The saying seemed to tear open again his newly torn heart, and he hardly wanted it to be true even now. She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth, gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge. And as he kissed her, his heart strained again in his breast. He never intended to love her, but night was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shriveled and become void. After the kiss her eyes again slowly filled with tears. She sat still, away from him, with her face drooped aside, and her hands folded in her lap. The tears fell very slowly, dulls complete silence. He too sat there motionless and silent on the heart-rug. The strange pain of his heart that was broken seemed to consume him. That he should love her. That this was love. That he should be ripped open in this way. Him, a doctor. How they would all jeer if they knew. It was agony to him to think they might know. In the curious naked pain of the thought he looked again to her. She was sitting there drooped into a muse. He saw a tearful, and his heart flared hot. He saw, for the first time, that one of her shoulders was quite uncovered, one arm bare. He could see one of her small breasts, dimly, because it had become almost dark in the room. Why are you crying, he asked, in an altered voice? She looked up at him, and behind her tears the consciousness of her situation, for the first time brought a dark look of shame to her eyes. I'm not crying really, she said, watching him half frightened. He reached his hand, and softly closed it on her bare arm. I love you, I love you, he said in a soft, low-vibrating voice, unlike himself. She shrank and dropped her head. The soft penetration grip of his hand on her arm distressed her. She looked up at him. I want to go, she said. I want to go and get you some dry things. Why, he said, I'm all right. But I want to go, she said, and I want you to change your things. He released her arm, and she wrapped herself in the blanket, looking at him rather frightened, and still she did not rise. Kiss me, she said wistfully. He kissed her, but briefly, half in anger. Then after a second she rose nervously, all mixed up in the blanket. He watched her in her confusion, as she tried to extricate herself and wrap herself up, so that she could walk. He watched her relentlessly, as she knew, and as she went, the blanket trailing, and as she saw a glimpse of her feet and a white leg. He tried to remember her as she was when he wrapped her in the blanket, but then he didn't want to remember, because she had been nothing to him then, and his nature revolted from remembering her as she was when she was nothing to him. A tumbling, mottled noise from within the dark house startled him. Then he heard her voice. There are clothes. He rose and went to the foot of the stairs and gathered up the garments she had thrown down. Then he came back to the fire to rub himself down and dress. He granted his own appearance when he had finished. The fire was sinking, so he put on coal. The house was now quite dark, safer the light of the street lamp that shone in faintly from beyond the holly-trees. He lit the gas with matches he found on the mantelpiece. Then he emptied the pockets of his own clothes and threw all his wet things in a heap into the scullery. After which he gathered up her sodden clothes, gently, and put them in a separate heap on the copper top in the scullery. It was six o'clock on the clock. His own watch had stopped. He ought to go back to the surgery. He waited, and still she did not come down. So he went to the foot of the stairs and called. I shall have to go. Almost immediately he heard her coming down. She had on her best dress a black foil, and her hair was tidy but still damp. She looked at him and, in spite of herself, smiled. I don't like you in those clothes, she said. Do I look a sight? he answered. They were shy of one another. I'll make you some tea, she said. No, I must go. Must you? And she looked at him again with the wide, strained, doubtful eyes. And again from the pain of his breast, he knew how he loved her. He went and bent to kiss her, gently, passionately, with his heart's painful kiss. And my hair smelled so horrible, she murmured in distraction. And I'm so awful. I'm so awful. Oh, no, I'm too awful. And she broke into bitter heartbroken sobbing. You can't want to love me. I'm horrible. Don't be silly. Don't be silly, he said, trying to comfort her, kissing her, holding her in his arms. I want you. I want to marry you. We're going to be married quickly, quickly, tomorrow if I can. But she only sobbed terribly and cried, I feel awful. I feel awful. I feel I'm horrible to you. No, I want you. I want you. Well, all he answered blindly with that terrible intonation, which frightened her almost more than her horror, lest she should not want her. End of The Horse-Dealer's Daughter by D. H. Lawrence Recording by Peter Tomlinson Innocence from Droll Stories Collected from the Abbeys of Turin by Henri de Balzac This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Dale Groothman Innocence by Henri de Balzac By the double crest of my fowl and by the rose lining my sweetheart's slipper By all the horns of well-beloved cuckolds And by the virtue of their blessed wives The finest work of man is neither poetry nor painted pictures Nor music nor castles nor statues Be they carved never so well Nor rowing nor sailing galleys But children Understand me, children up to the age of ten years For after that they become men or women And cutting their wisdom teeth are not worth what they cost The worst are the best Watch them play, prettily and innocently With slippers, above all cancelated ones With the household utensils leaving that which displeases them Crying after that which pleases them Munching the sweets and confectionaries in the house Nibbling at the stores And always laughing as soon as their teeth are cut And you will agree with me that they are in every way lovable Besides which they are flower and fruit The fruit of love and the flower of life Before their minds have been unsettled by the disturbances of life There is nothing in this world more blessed Or more pleasant than their sayings Which are naive beyond description This is as true as the double chewing machine of a cow Do not expect a man to be innocent After the manner of children Because there is an I know not what Ingredient of reason in the naivete of man While the naivete of children is candid immaculate And has all the finesse of the mother Which is plainly proven in this tale Queen Catherine was at the time Dauphine And to make herself welcome to the king Her father-in-law who at the time was very ill indeed Presented him from time to time with Italian pictures Knowing that he liked them much Being a friend of Senor Raphael de Urbán Of the Senor's primates and of Leonardo da Vinci To whom he sent large sums of money She obtained from her family Who had the pick of these works because at the time The Duke of the Medici's govern Tuscany A precious picture painted by a Venetian named Titian Artist to the Emperor Charles And in very high favor In which were the portraits of Adam and Eve at the moment When God left them to wander about the terrestrial paradise And were painted their full height In the costume of the period In which it is difficult to make a mistake Because they were attired in their ignorance And comparisoned with a divine grace which enveloped them A difficult thing to execute on account of the color But one in which the said Seratitian excelled The picture was put into the room of the poor king Who was then ill with a disease of which he eventually died It had a great success at the court of France Where everyone wished to see it But no one was able to until after the king's death Since at his desire it was allowed to remain in his room As long as he lived One day Madame Catherine took with her to the king's room Her son Francis and little Margot And they began to talk at random as children will Now here, now there These children had heard this picture of Adam and Eve spoken about And had tormented their mother to take them there Since the two little ones at times amused the old king Madame the Dolphin consented to their request You wish to see Adam and Eve who were our first parents There they are, she said Then she left them in great astonishment Before Titian's picture and seated herself by the bedside of the king Who was delighted to watch the children Which of the two is Adam, said Francis, nudging his sister Margot's elbow You silly, replied she, to know that they would have to be dressed This reply, which delighted the poor king and the mother, Was mentioned in a letter written in Florence to Queen Catherine No writer having brought it to light It will remain like a sweet flower in a corner of these tales Although it is no way droll And there is no other moral to be drawn from it Except that to hear these pretty speeches of infancy One must beget the children The end of Innocence by Henri de Balzac In the graveyard by Anton Chekhov Translated by Constance Garnet This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Read by Dale Grossman In the Graveyard by Anton Chekhov The wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark Hadn't we better take ourselves off before it gets worse? The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch trees And a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves One of our parties slipped on the clay-y soil And clutched at a big gray cross to save himself from falling Egor Grenegov, titular counselor and cavalier, he read I knew that gentleman He was fond of his wife He wore a Stanislav ribbon and read nothing His digestion worked well Life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had no reason to die But alas, fate had its eye on him The poor fellow-fellow victim of his habits of observation On one occasion when he was listening at a keyhole He got such a bang on the head from the door That he sustained concussion of the brain He had a brain And died And here under this tombstone lies a man who, from his cradle, Detested verses and epigrams As if to mock him, his whole tombstone is adorned with verses There is someone coming A man in a shabby coat With a shaven bluish crimson countenance overtook us He had a bottle under his arm And a parcel of sausage was sticking out of his pocket Where is the grave of Muskin, the actor? He asked us in a husky voice We conducted him towards the grave of Muskin, the actor Who had died two years before You are a government clerk, I suppose, we ask him No, an actor Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from clerks of the Consistory No doubt you have noticed that That's typical But it's not very flattering to the government clerk It was with difficulty that we found the actor's grave It had sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a grave A cheap little cross that had begun to rot And was covered with green moss blackened by the frost Had an air of aged dejection and looked as if it were ailing Forgotten friend, Muskin, we read Time had erased the never And corrected the falsehood of man A subscription to the monument to him was gotten up by actors and journalists But they drank up the money, the dear fellows Side the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wet earth with his knees and his cap How do you mean drank it? That's very simple They collected the money, published a paragraph about it in the newspaper, and spit it on drink I don't say it to blame them I hope it did them good Dear things Good health to them, and eternal memory to him Drinking means bad health and eternal memory, nothing but sadness God give us remembrance for a time But eternal memory What next? You are right there Muskin was a well-known man, you see There were a dozen wreaths on the coffin And he is already forgotten Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him But those to whom he did harm remember him I, for instance, shall never forget him For I got nothing but harm from him I have no love for the deceased What harm did he do you? Great harm, sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment overspread his face To me he was a villain and a scoundrel, the kingdom of heaven be his It was through looking at him and listening to him that I became an actor By his art he lured me from the parental home He enticed me with the excitement of an actor's life Promised me all sorts of things, and brought tears and sorrow An actor's life is a bitter one I have lost youth, sobriety, and divine semblance I haven't a half-penny to bless myself with My shoes are down at the heel My breeches are frayed and patched And my face looks as if it has been gnawed by dogs My head is full of free thinking and nonsense He robbed me of my faith, my evil genius It would have been something if I had had talent But as it is, I am ruined for nothing It's cold, honoured friends Won't you have some? There's enough for all Let us drink to the rest of his soul Though I don't like him, and though he's dead He is the only one I had in the world The only one It is the last time I shall visit him The doctors say I shall soon die of drink So here I have come to say goodbye One must forgive one's enemies We left the actor to converse with the dead Mishkin, and went on It began drizzling a fine cold rain At the turning into the principal avenue, strewn with gravel, We met a funeral procession Four bearers wearing white calico sashes and muddy high boots With leaves stuck on them, carrying a brown coffin It was getting dark, and they hastened, stumbling, and shaking their burden We've only been walking here a couple of hours, and that is the third brought in already Shall we go home, friends? The End of In the Graveyard by Anton Chekhov The King of the Cats From More English Fairy Tales Collected and edited by Joseph Jacobs This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Read by Dale Grossman The King of the Cats Edited by Joseph Jacobs One winter's evening the Sexton's wife was sitting by the fireside with her big black cat, Old Tom, on the other side, both half asleep and waiting for the master to come home They waited and they waited, but still he didn't come until at last he came rushing in, calling out Who's Tommy Tildrum? In such a wild way that both his wife and his cat stared at him to know what was the matter Why, what's the matter? said his wife, and why do you want to know who Tommy Tildrum is? Oh, I had such an adventure I was digging away at old Mr. Fordyce's grave when I suppose I must have dropped asleep And only woke up by hearing a cat's meow Now, said Old Tom in answer Yes, just like that So I looked over the edge of the grave and what do you think I saw? Now, how can I tell? said the Sexton's wife Why, nine black cats, all like our friend Tom here, all with a white spot on their chestises And what do you think they were carrying? Why, a small coffin covered with a black velvet paw And on the paw was a small cornet all of gold And at every third step they took, they cried altogether Meow Said Old Tom again Yes, just like that said the Sexton And as they came nearer and nearer to me I could see them more distinctly Because their eyes shone out with a sort of green light Well, they all came towards me, eight of them carrying the coffin And the biggest cat of all walking in front for all the world, like But look at our Tom, how he's looking at me You'd think he knew all that I was saying Go on, go on, said the wife, never mind, Old Tom Well, as I was saying, they came towards me, slowly and solemnly And every third step, crying altogether Meow Meow, said Old Tom again Yes, just like that Till they came and stood right opposite Mr. Fordyce's grave, where I was When they all stood still and looked straight at me I did feel queer that I did But look at Old Tom, he's looking at me just like they did Go on, go on, said his wife, never mind, Old Tom Where was I? Oh, they all stood still, looking at me Then the one that wasn't carrying the coffin came forward And staring straight at me, said to me Yes, I tell you, said to me, with a squeaky voice Tell Tom Tildrem that Tim Tildrem's dead And that's why I had to ask you if you knew who Tom Tildrem was For how can I tell Tom Tildrem Tim Tildrem's dead if I don't know who Tom Tildrem is Look at Old Tom, screamed his wife And well he might look, for Tom was swelling and Tom was staring And at last Tom shrieked out What, Old Tim dead? Then I am king of the cats And rushed up the chimney And was never more seen The end of the king of cats The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit LibriVox.org Read by Dale Grossman The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet I started for school very late that morning And was in great dread of a scolding Especially because Mr. Hamill had said that he would question us on participles And I did not know the first word about them For a moment I thought of running away and spending the day out of doors It was so warm, so bright The birds were chirping at the edge of the woods And in the open field back of the sawmill The Prussian soldiers were drilling It was all much more tempting than the rule of participles But I had the strength to resist and hurried off to school When I passed the town hall there was a crowd in front of the bulletin board For the last two years all our bad news had come from there The lost battles, the draft, the orders of the commanding officer And I thought to myself without stopping What can be the matter now? Then as I hurried by as fast as I could go The blacksmith, Wachter, who was there with his apprentice Reading the bulletin, called after me Don't go so fast, Bob You'll get to your school in plenty of time I thought he was making fun of me And reached Mr. Hamill's little garden all out of breath Usually when school began there was a great bustle Which could be heard out in the street The opening and closing of desks Lessons repeated in unison, very loud With our hands over our ears to understand better And the teacher's great ruler wrapping on the table But now it was all so still I had counted on the commotion to get to my desk without being seen But, of course, that day everything had to be as quiet as Sunday morning Through the window I saw my classmates, already in their places And Mr. Hamill walking up and down with his terrible iron ruler over his arm I had to open the door and go in before everybody You can imagine how I blushed and how frightened I was But nothing happened Mr. Hamill saw me and said very kindly Go to your place quickly, little fronts We were beginning without you I jumped over the bench and sat down at my desk Not until then when I had got a little over my fright Did I see that our teacher had on his beautiful green coat His frilled shirt and the little black silk cap All embroidered that he never wore except on inspection and prize days Besides the whole school seemed so strange and solemn But the thing that surprised me most was to see on the back benches that were always empty The village people sitting quietly like ourselves Old Hauser with his three-quartered hat The former mayor The former postmaster and several others besides Everybody looked sad and Hauser had brought an old primer Thumbed at the edges and he held it open on his knees With his great spectacles lying across the pages While I was wondering about it all Mr. Hamill mounted his chair and In the same grave and gentle tone which he had used with me said My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you The order has come from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine The new master comes tomorrow This is your last French lesson I want you to be very attentive What a thunderclap these words were to me Oh the wretches, that is what they had put up at the town hall My last French lesson why I hardly knew how to write I should never learn any more I must stop there then Oh how sorry I was for not learning my lessons For seeking birds' eggs or going sliding on the saw My books which had seemed such a nuisance a while ago So heavy to carry my grammar and my history of the saints Were all old friends now and I couldn't give them up And Mr. Hamill too, the idea that he was going away That I should never see him again Made me forget all about his ruler and how cranky he was Poor man, it was in honor of this last lesson That he had put on his fine Sunday clothes And now I understood why the old men of the village were sitting there In the back of the room It was because they were sorry too that they had not gone to school more It was their way of thanking our master for his 40 years of faithful service And of showing their respect for the country that was theirs no more While I was thinking of all this I heard my name called It was my turn to recite What would I not have given to be able to say That dreadful rule for the participle all through Very loud and clear and without one mistake But I got mixed up on the first words and stood there Holding on to my desk, my heart beating and not daring to look up I heard Mr. Hamill say to me I won't scold you little fronds, you must feel bad enough See how it is Every day we have to say to ourselves Bah, I have plenty of time, I'll learn it tomorrow And now you see where we've come out Ah, that's the great trouble with Alcace She puts off learning until tomorrow Now those fellows out there will have the right to say to you How is it you pretend to be Frenchmen And yet you can neither speak nor write your own language But you are not the worst, poor little fronds We've all a great deal to reproach ourselves with Your parents were not anxious enough to have you learn They preferred to put you to work on a farm or at the mills So as to have a little more money And I, I've been to blame also Have I not often sent you to water my flowers instead of learning your lessons And when I wanted to go fishing, did I not just give you a holiday Then from one thing to another Mr. Hamill went on to talk of the French language Saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world The clearest, the most logical That we must guard it amongst us and never forget it Because when a people are enslaved As long as they hold fast to their language It is as if they had the key to their prison Then he opened a grammar and read us our lesson I was amazed to see how well I understood it All he said seemed so easy, so easy I think, too, that I had never listened so carefully And that he had never explained everything with so much patience It seemed almost as if the poor man wanted to give us All he knew before going away And to put it all into our heads in one stroke After the grammar we had a lesson in writing That day Mr. Hamill had two new copies for us Written in a beautiful round hand France, Alsace France, Alsace They looked like little flags floating everywhere in the schoolroom Hung from a rod at the top of our desks You ought to have seen how everyone's set to work And how quiet it was The only sound was the scratching of the pens over the paper Once some Beatles flew in But nobody paid any attention to them Not even the littlest one Who worked right on tracing their fish hooks As if that was French, too On the roof the pigeons cooed very low And I thought to myself Will they make them sing in German? Even the pigeons? Whenever I looked up from my writing I saw Mr. Hamill sitting motionless in his chair And gazing, first at one thing Then at another As if he wanted to fix in his mind Just how everything looked in that little schoolroom Fancy For forty years he had been there in the same place With his garden outside the window And his class in front of him Just like that Only the desks and benches had been worn smooth The walnut trees in the garden were taller And the hop-vine, which he had planted himself Twined about the window to the roof How it must have broken his heart to leave it all, poor man To hear his sister moving about in the room above Packing their trunks For they must leave the country next day But he had the courage to hear every lesson to the last After the writing we had a lesson in history And then the babies chanted their ba be by bo boo Down there at the back of the room Old Hauser had put on his spectacles And holding his primer in both hands Spelled the letters with them You could see that he, too, was crying His voice trembled with emotion And it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry Ah, how well I remember it, that last lesson All at once the church clocks dropped twelve Then the Angelus At the same moment the trumpets of the Prussians Returning from drill Sounded under our windows Mr. Hamill stood up, very pale, in his chair I never saw him look so tall My friends, he said, I—I—but something choked him He could not go on Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk And bearing on it with all his might He wrote as large as he could Viva la France! Then he stopped Leaned his head against the wall And, without a word, he made a gesture to us with his hand School is dismissed You may go The end of The Last Lesson by Alphonse Douday The Lost Danjack by Sarky H.H. Monroe 1870 to 1916 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Peter Tomlinson The prison chaplain entered the condemned cell for the last time to give such consolation as he might The only consolation I crave for, said the condemned, is to tell my story in its entirety to someone who will at least give it a respectful hearing We must not be too long over it, said the chaplain looking at his watch The condemned man repressed a shiver and commenced Most people will be of the opinion that I am paying the penalty of my own violent deeds In reality, I am a victim to a lack of specialisation in my education and character Lack of specialisation, said the chaplain Yes, if I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides or able to repeat standards of Camon's poetry in the original I should have had no difficulty improving my identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and death for me But my education was merely a moderately good one and my temperament was one of the general orders that avoid specialisation I know a little in a general way about gardening and history and, old masters, but I could never tell you offhand whether Stella Van de Lupin was a chrysanthem or a heroine of the American War of Independence or something by Romney in the Louvre The chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat Now that the alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife continued the condemned Why I should have done so, I cannot say for I do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions of mind or body On looking back at past events it seems to me that she must have been distinctly ordinary but I suppose the doctor had fallen in love with her once and what man had done man can do She appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I paid her and to that extent I suppose I might say she encouraged me but I think she was honestly unaware that I meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest When one is face to face with death one wishes to be just The chaplain murmured approval At any rate she was genuinely horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's absence one evening to declare what I believed to be my passion She begged me to pass out of her life and I could scarcely do otherwise and agree though I hadn't the dimest idea of how it was to be done In novels and plays I knew it was a regular occurrence and if you mistook a lady's sentiments or intentions you went off to India and did things on the frontier as a matter of course As I stumbled along the doctor's carriage drive I had no very clear idea as to what my line of action was to be but I had a vague feeling that I must look at the Times Atlas before going to bed Then on the dark and lonely highway I came suddenly on a dead body The chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened Some shocking accident seemed to have struck him down and the head was crushed and battered out of all human semblance Probably I thought a motor-car fatality and then with a sudden overmastering insistence came another thought that there was a remarkable opportunity for losing my identity and passing out of the life of the doctor's wife forever No tiresome and risky voyage to distant lands but a mere exchange of clothes and identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident With considerable difficulty I undressed the corpse and clothed it anew in my own garments Anyone who has validated a dead salvation army captain in an uncertain light will appreciate the difficulty With the idea presumably of inducing the doctor's wife to leave her husband's roofed tree for some habitation which would be run at my expense I crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes which represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth When therefore I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless salvationist I was not without resources which would easily support so humble a role for a considerable period I tramped to a neighbouring market town and late as the hour was the production of a few shillings procured me supper and a night's lodging in a cheap coffee house The next day I started forth on an aimless course of wandering from one small town to another I was already somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak In a few hours time I was constrictively more so In the contents bill of a local news sheet I read the announcement of my own murder at the hands of some person unknown On buying a copy of the paper for a detailed account of the tragedy which had first had aroused in me a certain grim amusement I found the deed ascribed to a wandering salvationist of doubtful antecedents who have been seen lurking in the roadway near the scene of the crime I was no longer amused the matter promised to be embarrassing What I had mistaken for a motorcar accident was evidently a case of sabbage assault and murder and until the real culprit was found I should have much difficulty in explaining my intrusion into the affair Of course I could establish my own identity but how without disagreeably involving the doctor's wife could I give any adequate reason for changing clothes with the murdered man While my brain worked feverishly at this problem I subconsciously obeyed a secondary instinct to get as far away as possible from the scene of the crime and get rid at all costs of my incriminating uniform There I found a difficulty I tried two or three obscure clothes shops but my entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile suspicion in the proprietors and on one excuse or another they avoided serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing The uniform that I so thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult to get out of as the fatal shirt of you know I forget the preacher's name Yes, yes, said the chaplain hurriedly go on with your story Somehow until I could get out of those compromising garments I felt it would not be safe to surrender myself to the police The thing that puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me since there was no question as to the suspicion which followed me like an inseparable shadow wherever I went stares, nudging, whispers and even loud spoken remarks of that's him greeted my every appearance and the meanest and most deserted eating house that I patronized soon became filled with a crowd of furtively watching customers I began to sympathize with the feeling of royal personages trying to do a little private shopping under the unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public and still with all this inarticulate shadowing which weighed on my nerves almost worse than open hostility would have done no attempt was made to interfere with my liberty later on I discovered the reason at the time of the murder on the Lonely Highway a series of important bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighborhood and some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on the track of the supposed murderer on my track one of the most public spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner of the pair that should first track me down and betting on the chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout the land the dogs ranged far and wide over about 13 counters and though my own movements had become by this time perfectly well known to police and public alike the sporting instincts of the nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest give the dogs a chance was the prevailing sentiment whenever some ambitious local constable wished to put an end to my drawn out evasion of justice my final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic episode in fact I'm not sure that they would have taken any notice of me if I hadn't spoken to them and passage them but the event gave rise to an extraordinary amount of partisan excitement the owner of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish was an American and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had married into the family of the winning pair six generations ago and that the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to capture the murderer and that the dog that had 164th part of otterhound blood in it couldn't technically be considered a bloodhound I forget how the matter was ultimately settled but it aroused a tremendous amount of acrimonious discussion on both sides of the Atlantic my own contribution to the controversy consisted in pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark as the actual murderer had not yet been captured but I soon discovered that on this point there was not the least divergence of public or expert opinion I had looked forward apprehensively to the proving of my identity and the establishment of my motive as a disagreeable necessity I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of the business was that it couldn't be done when I saw in the glass the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past few weeks have stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance I could scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise but persisted in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had been done to death on the highway to make matters worse infinitely worse an aunt of the really murdered man and a pulling female of an obviously low order of intelligence identified me as her nephew and gave the authorities a lurid account of my depraved youth and of her laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a better way I believe it was even proposed to search me for fingerprints but said the chaplain surely your educational attainments that was just a crucial point said the condemned that was where my lack of specialisation told so faithfully against me the dead salvationist whose identity I had so lightly and so disastrously adopted had possessed a veneer of cheap modern education it should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning was on altogether another plane to his but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test after test that was put to me the little French I'd ever known deserted me I could not render a simple phrase about the gooseberry of the gardener into that language because I'd forgotten the French for gooseberry the chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat and then resumed the condemned came the final discomputure in our village we had a modest little debating club and I remembered having promised chiefly I suppose to please an impressed doctor's wife to give a sketchy kind of lecture on the Vulcan crisis I relied on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard works and the back numbers of certain periodicals the prosecution had made a careful note of the circumstance that the man whom I claimed to be and actually was had posed locally as some sort of second-hand authority on Vulcan affairs and in the midst of a string of questions on indifferent topics the examining council asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the court the whereabouts of Novibazar I felt the question to be a crucial one something told me that the answer wasn't Petersburg or Baker Street I hesitated looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely expectant faces pulled myself together and chose Baker Street and I knew then that everything was lost the prosecution had no difficulty in demonstrating that an individual even moderately versed in the affairs of the Near East could never have so unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its accustomed corner of the map it was an answer which the Salvation Army Captain might conceivably have made and I made it the circumstantial evidence connecting the Salvationist with the crime was overwhelmingly convincing and I had inextricably identified myself with the Salvationist and thus it comes to pass that in 10 minutes time I shall be hanged by the neck until I'm dead in exfiation of the murder of myself which murder never took place and of which in any case I am innocent when the chaplain returned to his quarters some 15 minutes later the black flag was floating over the prison tower breakfast was waiting for him in the dining room but he first passed into his library and taking up the Times Atlas consulted a map of the Balkan Peninsula a thing like that he observed closing the volume with a snap might happen to anyone End of the Lost Sunjack by H.H. Monroe Recording by Peter Tomlinson The Mouse by H.H. Monroe Sarky 1870 to 1916 This is LibriVox Recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Peter Tomlinson Theodoric Vola had been brought up from infancy to the confines of middle age by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from what she called the causal realities of life When she died she left Theodoric alone in a world that was as real as ever and a good deal coarser than he considered it any need to be to a man of his temperament and upbringing Even a simple railway journey was crammed with petty annoyances and minor discords and as he settled himself down in a second class compartment one September morning he was conscious of ruffled feelings and general mental discomposure he had been staying at a country vicarage the inmates of which had been certainly neither brutal nor bacchanalian but their supervision of the domestic establishment had been of that lax order which invites disaster The pony carriage that was to take him to the station had never been properly ordered and when the moment for his departure drew near the handyman who should have produced the required article was nowhere to be found In this emergency Theodoric to his mute but very intense disgust found himself obliged to collaborate with the vicar's daughter in the task of harnessing the pony which necessitated groping about in an ill-lighted outhouse called a stable and smelling very like one except in patches where it smelt of mice without being actually afraid of mice Theodoric classed them among the coarser incidents of life and considered that providence with a little exercise of moral courage might long ago have recognized that they were not indispensable and have withdrawn them from circulation As the train glided out of the station Theodoric's nervous imagination accused himself of exhaling a wheat odour of stable yard and possibly of displaying a mouldy straw or two in his usually well brushed garments Fortunately the only other occupant of the compartment a lady of about the same age as himself seemed inclined for slumber rather than scrutiny The train was not due to stop till the terminus was reached in about an hour's time and the carriage was of the old-fashioned sort that held no communication with a corridor therefore no further travelling companions were likely to intrude on Theodoric's semi-privacy And yet the train had scarcely attained its normal speed before he became reluctantly but vividly aware that he was not alone with the slumbering lady He was not even alone in his own clothes A warm creeping movement over his flesh betrayed the unwelcome and highly resented presence unseen but poignant of a strayed mouse that had evidently dashed into its present retreat during the episode of the pony harnessing furtive stamps and shakes and wildly directed pinches failed to dislodge the intruder whose motto indeed seemed to be excelsior and the lawful occupant of the clothes laid back against the cushions and endeavoured rapidly to evolve some means of putting an end to the dual ownership It was unthinkable that he should continue for the space of a whole hour in the horrible position of a routen house for vagrant mice Already his imagination had at least doubled the numbers of the alien invasion On the other hand nothing less drastic than partial disrobing would ease him of his tormentor and to undress in the presence of a lady even for so laudable a purpose was an idea that made his ear-tips tingle in a blush of abject shame He had never been able to bring himself even till the mild exposure of open work socks in the presence of the fair sex and yet the lady in this case was to all appearances soundly and securely asleep The mouse, on the other hand, seemed to be trying to crowd a vanda jar into a few strenuous minutes If there is any truth in the theory of trans-migration this particular mouse must certainly have been in a former state a member of the alpine club Sometimes in its eagerness it lost its footing and slipped for half an inch or so and then in fright, or more probably temper, it bit Theodoric was goaded into the most audacious undertaking of his life Crimsoning to the hue of a beetroot and keeping an agonised watch on his slumbering fellow traveller he swiftly and noiselessly secured the ends of his railway rug to the racks on either side of the carriage so that a substantial curtain hung a thwart the compartment In the narrow dressing-room that he had thus improvised he proceeded with violent haste to extricate himself partially and the mouse entirely from the surrounding casings of tweed and half wool As the unravelled mouse gave a wild leap to the floor the rug, slipping its fastening at either end also came down with a heart-curdling flop and almost simultaneously the awakened sleeper opened her eyes With a movement almost quicker than the mouse's Theodoric pounced on the rug and hauled its ample folds chin-high over his dismantled person as he collapsed into the further corner of the carriage The blood raced and beat in the veins of his neck and forehead while he waited dumbly for the communication cord to be pulled The lady, however, contented herself with a silent stare at her strangely muttled companion How much had she seen Theodore queried to himself and in any case what on earth must she think of his present posture I think I've caught a chill, he ventured desperately Really, I'm sorry, she replied I'm just going to ask you if you would open this window I fancy its malaria, he added, his teeth chattering slightly as much from fright as from a desire to support his theory I've got some brandy in my hold all if you'll kindly reach it down for me, said his companion Not for world, I mean, I never take anything for it, he assured her earnestly I suppose you caught it in the tropics Theodoric, whose acquaintance with the tropics was limited to an annual present of a chest of tea from an uncle in Ceylon, felt that even the malaria was slipping from him Would it be possible, he wondered, to disclose the real state of affairs to her in small instalments Are you afraid of mice, he ventured, growing, if possible, more scarlet in the face Not unless they came in quantities, like those that et up Bishop Hatto Why do you ask? I had one crawling inside my clothes just now, said Theodoric in a voice that hardly seemed his own It was the most awkward situation It must have been if you wear your clothes at all tight, she observed, but mice have strange ideas of comfort I had to get rid of it while you were asleep, he continued Then with a gulp he added it was getting rid of it that brought me to this Surely leaving off one small mouse wouldn't bring on a chill, she exclaimed, with a leperty that Theodoric accounted abominable Evidently she had detected something of his predicament and was enjoying his confusion All the blood in his body seemed to have mobilised in one concentrated blush And an agony of a basement, worse than a myriad mice, crept up and down over his soul And then, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took the place of humiliation With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded and bustling terminus where dozens of prying eyes would be exchanged for the one paralyzing pair that watched him from the further corner of the carriage There was one slender, despairing chance, which the next few minutes must decide His fellow traveller might relapse into a blessed slumber But as the minute strobbed by that chance ebbed away The furtive glance which Theodoric stole at her from time to time disclosed only an unwinking wakefulness I think we must be getting near now, she presently observed Theodoric had already noted with growing terror the recurring stacks of small, ugly dwellings that heralded the journey's end The words acted as a signal like a hunted beast breaking cover and dashing madly towards some other haven of momentary safety He threw aside his rug and struggled frantically into his dishevelled garments He was conscious of dull suburban stations racing past the window of a choking, hammering sensation in his throat and heart and of an icy silence in that corner towards which he dared not look Then as he sank back in his seat, clothed and almost delirious the train slowed down to a final crawl and the woman spoke Would you be so kind? she asked as to get me a porter to put me into a cab It's a shame to trouble you when you're feeling unwell but being blind makes one so helpless at a railway station End of the Mouse by H. H. Monroe Recording by Peter Tomlinson