 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Evolution by John Gaulsworthy Read by Adrian Pretzelis Coming out of the theatre we found it utterly impossible to get a taxi cab. And although it was raining slightly, walked through Leicester Square in the hope of picking one up as it returned down Piccadilly. Numbers of handsomes and four-wheelers passed, or stood by the curb, hailing us feebly, or not even attempting to attract our attention, but every taxi seemed to have its load. At Piccadilly Circus, losing patience, we beckoned to a four-wheeler and resigned ourselves to a long, slow journey. A sour westerly air blew through the open windows, and there was in it the scent of change that wet sense, which visits even the hearts of towns, and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with the thought of the restless force that forever cries on, on. But gradually, the steady pattern of the horse's hoofs, the rattling of the windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that when at last we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare was two shillings, and standing in the lamp light to make sure the coin was half a crown, before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up. This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty with a long, thin face, whose chin and drooping grey moustaches seemed in permanent repose and the upturned collar of his blue overcoat. But the remarkable features of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that it seemed as though the face were a collection of bones without coherent flesh, among which the eyes were sunk back so far that they had lost their luster. He sat quite motionless, gazing at the tail of his horse, and almost unconsciously, one added the rest of one's silver to that half-crown. He took the coins without speaking, but as we were turning to the garden gate we heard him say, Thank you, you saved my life. Not knowing either of us what to reply to such a curious speech, we closed the gate again and came back to the cab. Are things very bad? They are, replied the cabman. It's done with, is this job. We're not wanted now. And taking up his whip, he prepared to drive away. How long have they been as bad as this? The cabman dropped his hand again, as though glad to rest it, and answered incoherently. Thirty-five years I've been driving a cab and sunk again into contemplation of his horse's tail. He could only be roused by many questions to express himself, having, as it seemed, no knowledge of the habit. I don't blame the taxis. I don't blame nobody. It's come on us. That's what it has. I left the wife this morning with nothing in the house. She was saying to me only yesterday, What have you brought home the last four months? Oh, put it at six shill in a week, I said. No, she said seven. Well, that's right. She enters it all down in her book. Are you really going short of food? The cabman smiled, and that smile between those two deep hollows was surely as strange as ever shone on a human face. You may say that, he said, but what is it amount to? Before I picked you up, I had all one 18 penny fare today, and yesterday I took him five shillings. And I've got seven bob a day to pay for the cab, and that's low too. There's many and many a proprietor that's broke and gone, every bit as bad as us. They let us down as easy as ever they can. You can't get blood from a stone, can you? Once again, he smiled. I'm sorry for them too, and I'm sorry for the horses, that they come out the best of the three of us, I do believe. One of us muttered something about the public. The cabman turned his face and stared down through the darkness. The public, he said, and his voice had a faint surprise. Well, they all want taxis. It's natural. They get about faster in them and times money. I was seven hours before I picked you up, and then you was looking for a taxi. They must take us because they can't get better. They're not in a good temper as a rule. There's a few old ladies that's frightened of the motors, but old ladies ain't never very free with their money. Can't afford to be the most of them, I suspect. Everybody's sorry for you. No one would have thought that... He interrupted quietly. Sora died by a bread. I never had nobody asked me about things before. And slowly, moving his long face from side to side, he added, Sides, what could people do? They can't be expected to support you. And if they started asking you questions, they'd feel it very awkward. They know that, I suspect. Of course, there's such a lot of us. The Hansons are pretty nigh off as bad as we are. Well, we're getting fewer every day. That's one thing. Not knowing whether or not to manifest sympathy with this extinction, we approached the horse. It was a horse that stood over a good deal at the knee. And in the darkness seemed to have innumerable ribs. And suddenly, one of us said, Many people want to see nothing but taxes on the street, if only for the sake of the horses. The cabman nodded. This old fellow, he said, never carried a deal of flesh. His grub don't put spirit into him nowadays. It's not up to much in quality, but he gets enough of it. And you don't? The cabman again took up his whip. Oh, I don't suppose, he said, without emotion. Anyone could ever find another job for me now. I've been at this too long. It will be the workhouse. It is not the other thing. And hearing us mutter that it seemed cruel, he smiled for the third time. Yes, he said slowly. It's a bit odd on us, because we've done nothing to deserve it. But things are like that so far as I can see. One thing comes pushing out another, and so you go on. I've thought about it. You get to thinking and worrying about the rights of things sitting up here all day. No, I don't see anything for it. It'll soon be the end for us now. Can't last much longer. And I don't know that I'd be sorry to have done with it. It's pretty well broke my spirit. There was a fun got up. Yes, and it helped a few of us learn the motor driving. What's the good of that to me at my time of life? Sixty, that's my age. I'm not the only one. There's hundreds like me. We're not fit for it. That's the fact. We haven't got the nerve now. It'll want a mint of money to help us. And what you say is the truth. People want to see the end of us. Taxis are days over. I'm not complaining. You asked me about it yourself. And for the third time, he raised his whip. Tell me, what would you have done if you had been given your fare in just six minutes over? The cabman stared downwards as though puzzled by that question. Done? Why? Nothing. What could I have done? But you said it had saved your life. Yes, I said that. He answered slowly. I was feeling a bit low. You can't help it sometimes. It's the thing coming on you in no way out of it. That's what gets over you. We try not to think about it as a rule. And this time, with a thank you kindly, he touched his horse's flank with the whip. Like a thing around from sleep, the forgotten creature started and began to draw the cabman away from us. Very slowly they travelled down the road among the shadows of the trees broken by lamp-light. Above us, white ships of cloud were sailing rapidly across the dark river of sky on the wind, which smelled of change. And after the cab was lost to sight, that wind still brought to us the dying sound of the slow wheels. End of Evolution This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Read by Mark Nelson The Gifts of Asti by Andre Norton Even here, on the black terrace before the forgotten mountain retreat of Asti, it was possible to smell the dank stench of burning memfere, to imagine that the dawn wind bore upward from the pillaged city the faint tortured cries of those whom the barbarians of Clem hunted to their prolonged death. Indeed, it was time to leave. Varta, last of the virgin maidens of Asti, shivered. The scaled and waddled creature who crouched beside her thigh turned his reptilian head so that golden eyes met the aquamarine ones set slantingly at a faintly provocative angle in her smooth ivory face. We go. She nodded in answer to that unvoiced question Lerr had sent into her brain and turned toward the dark cavern which was the mouth of Asti's last dwelling place. Once, more than a thousand years before, the walls of memfere were young, Asti had lived among men below. But in the richness and softness which was trading memfere, empire of empires, Asti found no place. So he, and those who served him, had withdrawn to this mountain outcrop. And she, Varta, was the last, the very last to bow knee at Asti's shrine and raise her voice in the dawn hymn. For Lerr, as were all his race, was mute. Even the loot of memfere would not sate the shaggy-headed warriors who had stormed her gates this day. The stairway to Asti's temple was plain enough to see, and there would be those to essay the steep climb hoping to find a treasure which did not exist. For Asti was an austere god, delighting in plain walls and bare altars. His last priests had lain in the grave-nitches these three years, and there would be no one to hold that gate against intruders. Varta passed between tall, uncarved pillars, Lerr patting beside her, his spine main erect, the talons on his forefeet clicking on the stone in steady rhythm. So they came to the innermost shrine of Asti, and there Varta made graceful obeisance to the great cowled roped figure which sat enthroned, its hidden eyes focused upon its own outstretched hand. And above the flattened palm of that wide hand hung suspended in space the round orange-red sun-ball which was twin to the sun that lighted herb. Around the miniature sun swung in their orbits the four worlds of the system, each obeying the laws of space, even as did the planets they represented. Memphir has fallen. Varta's voice sounded rusty in her own ears. She had spoken so seldom during the last lonely months. Evil has risen to overwhelm our world, even as it was prophesied in your revelations, O ruler of worlds and maker of destiny. Therefore obeying the order given of old I would depart from this thy house. Suffer me now to fulfill the law. Three times she prostrated her slim body on the stones at the foot of Asti's judgment chair. Then she arose, and with the confidence of a child in its father she laid her hand palm upward upon the outstretched hand of Asti. Beneath her flesh the stone was not cold and hard, but seemed to have an inner heat, even as might be a human hand. For a long moment she stood so, and then she raised her hand slowly, carefully, as if within its slight hollow she cupped something precious. And as she drew her hand away from the grasp of Asti, the tiny sun and its planets followed, spinning now above her palm as they had above the statues. But out of the cold figure some virtue had departed the going of the miniature solar system. It was now but a carving of stone. And Varda did not look at it again as she passed behind its bulk to seek a certain place in the temple wall, known to her from much reading of the old records. Having found the stone she sought, she moved her hand in a certain pattern before it, so that the faint radiant streaming from the tiny sun gleamed on the grayness of the wall. There was a grating, as from metal long unused, and a block fell back, opening a narrow door to them. Before she stepped within the priestess lifted her hand above her head, and when she withdrew it the sun and planets remained to form a diadem just above the intricate braiding of her dull red hair. As she moved into the secret way the five orbs swung with her, and in the darkness there the sun glowed richly, sending out a light to guide their feet. They were at the top of a stairway, and the hollow clang of the stone as it moved back into place behind them echoed through a gulf which seemed endless. But that too was as the chronicles had said, and Varda knew no fear. How long they journeyed down into the maw of the mountain, and beyond that into the womb of herb itself, Varda never knew. But when feet were weary and she knew the bite of real hunger, they came into a passageway which ended in a room hollowed of solid rock. And there, preserved in the chest in which men born in the youth of Memphir had laid them, Varda found that which would keep her safe on the path she must take. She put aside the fine silks, the jeweled syncture which had been the badge of Asti's service, and drew on over her naked body a suit of scaled skin, gemmed and glistening in the rays of the small sun. There was a hood to cover the entire head, taloned gloves for the hands, webbed clawed coverings for the feet, as if the skin of a giant man-like lizard had been tanned and fashioned into this suit. And Varda suspected that that might be so. The world of herb had not always been held by the humankind alone. There were supplies here, too, lying untouched in ageless containers within a lizard-skin pouch. Varda touched her tongue without fear to a powdered restorative, sharing it with Lure, whose own mailed skin would protect him through the dangers to come. She folded the regalia she had stripped off and laid it in the chest, smoothing it regretfully before she dropped the lid upon its shimmering color. Never again would Asti's servant wear the soft stuff of his livery. But she was resolute enough when she picked up the food-pouch and strode forward, passing out of the robing chamber into a narrow way which was a natural fault in the rock unsmoothed by the tools of man. But when this rocky road ended upon the lip of a gorge, Varda hesitated, plucking at the throat latch of her hood-like helmet. Through the unclouded crystal of its eye-holes she could see the sprouts of yellow vapor which puffed from crannies in the rock-wall down which she must climb. If the records of the temple spoke true, these curls of gas were death to all lunged creatures of the upper world. She could only trust that the cunning of the scaled hood would not fail her. The long talons fitted to the fingertips of the gloves, the claws of the webbed foot-coverings, clamped fast to every hand and foothold. But the way down was long and she caught a message of weariness from lure before they reached the piled rocks at the foot of the cliff. The puffs of steamy gas had become a fog through which they groped their way slowly, following a trace of path along the base of the cliff. Time did not exist in the underworld of herb. Varda did not know whether it was still to-day or whether she had passed into tomorrow when they came to a crossroads. She felt lure press against her, forcing her back against a rock. There is a thing coming. His message was clear. And in a moment she too saw a dark hulk nosing through the vapor. It moved slowly, seeming to balance at each step, as if travel was a painful act. But it bore steadily to the meeting of the two paths. It is no enemy. But she did not need that reassurance from lure unearthly as the thing looked it had no menace. With a last twist of its ungainly body the creature squatted on a rock and clawed the clumsy covering it wore about its bone-thin shoulders and domed skull-head. The visage it revealed was long and gray, with dark pits for eyes and a gaping, fang-studded, lipless mouth. Who are you to dare to tread the forgotten ways and rouse from slumber the guardian of the chasms? The question was a shrill whine in her brain, her hands half a rose to cover her ears. I am Varta, maiden of Asti. Memphir has fallen to the barbarians of the Outer Lands, and now I go, as Asti once ordered. The guardian considered her answer gravely. In one skeleton claw it fumbled a rod, and with this it now traced certain symbols in the dust before Varta's webbed feet. When it had done the girl stooped and altered two of the lines a swift stroke from one of her talons. The creature of the chasm nodded its misshapen head. Asti does not rule here, but long and long and long ago there was a pact made with us in his name. Pass free from us, woman of the light. There are two paths before you. The guardian paused for so long that Varta dared to prompt it. Where do they lead, guardian of the dark? This will take you down into my country. It jerked the rod to the right. And that way is death for creatures from the surface world. The other, in our old legends it is said, to bring a traveller out into the upper world. Of the truth of that I have no proof. But that one I must take. She made a slight obeisance to the huddle of bones and dank cloak on the rock, and it inclined its head in grave courtesy. With Lure pushing a little ahead she took the robe which ran straight into the flume-veiled darkness. Nor did she turn to look again at the thing from the chasm world. They began to climb again across slimed rock where there were evil trails of other things which lived in this haunted darkness. But the sun of Asti lighted their way and perhaps some virtue in the rays from it kept away the makers of such trails. When they pulled themselves up onto a wide ledge the talons on Varta's gloves were worn to splintered stubs and there was a bright girdle of pain about her aching body. Lure lay panting beside her, his red forked tongue protruding from his foam-ringed mouth. We walk again the ways of men. Lure was the first to note the tool marks on the stone where they lay. By the will of Asti we may win out of this maze after all. Since there were no signs of the deadly steam, Varta dared to push her hood and share with her companion the sustaining powder she carried in her pouch. There was a freshness to the air they breathed, damp and cold though it was, which hinted of the upper world. The ledge sloped upwards, at a steep angle at first, and then more gently. Lure slipped past her and thrust head and shoulders through a break in the rock. Grasping his neck-spines she allowed him to pull her through that narrow slit into the soft blackness of a surface night. They tumbled down together, Varta's head pillowed on Lure's smooth side, and so slept as the sun and worlds of Asti whirled protectingly above them. A whir of wings in the air above her head awakened Varta. One of the small, jewel-bright flying lizard creatures of the deep jungle poised and dipped to investigate more closely the worlds of Asti. But at Varta's up-flung arm it uttered a rasping cry and plain down into the mass of vegetation below. By the glint of sunlight on the stone around them the day was already well advanced. Varta tugged at Lure's mane until he roused. There was a regularity to the rocks piled about their sleeping place which hinted that they had lain among ruins left by man. But of this side of the mountain both were ignorant, for Memphir's rule had not run here. Many dead things in times passed. Lure's scarlet nostril pits were extended to their widest. But that was long ago. This land is no longer held by men. Varta laughed cheerfully. If here there are no men then there will rise no barbarian hordes to dispute our rule. Asti has led us to safety. Let us see more of the land he gives us. There was a road leading down from the ruins, a road still to be followed in spite of the lash of landslip and the crack of time. And it brought them into a cup of green fertility where the lavishness of Asti's sowing was unchecked by man. Varta seized eagerly upon globes of blood-red fruit which she recognized as delicacies which had been cultivated in the temple gardens, while Lure went hunting into the fringes of the jungle where dining on prey so easily caught as to be judged devoid of fear. The jungle choked highway curved and they were suddenly fronted by a desert of seer desolation, a desert floored by glassy slag which sent back the sunbeams in a furnace glare. Varta shaded her eyes and tried to see the end of this but if there was a distant rim of green beyond the heat distortions in the air concealed it. Lure put out a front paw to test the slag but withdrew it instantly. It cooks the flesh. We cannot walk here, was his verdict. Varta pointed with her chin to the left where, some distance away, the mountain wall paralleled their course. Then let us keep to the jungle over there and see if it does not bring around to the far side. But what made this? She leaned out over the glassy stuff not daring to touch the slick surface. War! Lure's tongue shot out to impale a questing beetle. These forgotten people fought with fearsome weapons. But what weapon could do this? Memphir knew not such. Memphir was old, but may have there were those who raised city on her before the first hunt of Memphir squatted on tidal mud. Men forget knowledge in time. Even in Memphir the lords of the last days forgot the wisdom of their earlier sages. They fell before the barbarians easily enough. If ever men had wisdom to produce this, it was not a vast he's giving. She edged away from the glare. Let us go. But now they had to fight their way through jungle and it was hard, until they reached a ridge of rock running out from the mountain as a tongue thrust into the blasted valley. And along this they picked their slow way. There is water near. Lure's thought answered the girl's desire. She licked dry lips longingly. This way. Her companion's sudden turn was to the left and Varta was quick to follow him down a slide of rock. Lure's instinct was right as it ever was. There was water before them, a small lake of it. But even as he dipped his fanged muzzle toward the inviting surface, Lure's spined head jerked erect again. Varta snatched back the hand she had put out, staring at Lure's strange actions. His nostrils expanded to the widest, his long neck outstretched. He was swinging his head back and forth across the limpid shallows. What is it? This is no water such as we know. The scaled one answered flatly. It has life within it. Varta laughed. Fish, water, snakes, your own distant kin, Lure. It is the scent of them which you catch. No, it is the water itself which lives, and yet does not live. His thought trailed away from her as he struggled with some problem. No human brain could follow his unless he willed it so. Varta squatted back on her heels and began to look at the water and then at the banks with more care. For the first time she noted the odd patches of brilliant colour which floated just below the surface of the liquid. Blue, green, yellow, crimson, they drifted slowly with the tiny waves which lapped the shore. But they were not alive. She was almost sure of that. They appeared more a part of the water itself. Watching the voyage of one patch of green she caught sight of the branch. It was a drooping shoot of the terby, the same tree vine which produced the fruit she had relished less than an hour before. Above the water dangled a cluster of the fruit, dead ripe with a sweet pulp stretching its skin. But below the surface of the water, Varta's breath hissed between her teeth and Lure's head snapped around as he caught her thought. The branch below the water bore a perfect circle of green flowers close to its tip. The flowers which the terby had borne naturally seven months before and which should long ago have turned into just such sweetness as hung above. With Lure at her heels the girl edged around to pull cautiously at the branch. It yielded at once to her touch, swinging its tip out of the lake. She sniffed. There was a languid perfume in the air, the perfume of the blooming terby. She examined the flowers closely. To all appearances they were perfect and natural. It preserves. Lure settled back on his haunches and waved one front paw at the quiet water. What goes into it remains as it was just at the moment of entrance. But if this is seven months old, it may be seven years old, corrected Lure. How can you tell when the branch first dipped into the lake? Yet the flowers do not fade even when withdrawn from the water. This is indeed a mystery. Of which I would know more. Varta dropped the terby and started on around the edge of the lake. Twice more they found similar evidence of preservation in flower or leaf, wherever it was covered by the opaline water. The lake itself was a long and narrow slash, with one end cutting into the desert of glass while the other wet the foot of the mountain. And it was there, on the slope of the mountain where they found the greatest wonder of all, Lure sending it before they sighted the remains among the stones. Man-made, he cautioned, but very, very old. And truly the wreckage they came upon must have been old, perhaps even older than Memphir. For the part which rested above the water was almost gone, rusty red stains on the rocks outlining where it had lain. But underwater was a smooth, silver hull, shining and untouched by the ears. Varta laid her hand upon a ruddy scrap between two rocks, and it became a drift of powdery dust. And yet there, a few feet below, was strong metal. Lure padded along the scrap of shore surveying the thing. It was a machine in which men traveled, his thoughts arose to her. But they were not as the men of Memphir, perhaps not even as the sons of Herb. Not as the sons of Herb? Her astonishment broke into open speech. Lure's neck twisted as he looked up at her. Did the men of Herb, even in the old chronicles, fight with weapons such as would make a desert of glass? There are other worlds than Herb, may have this strange thing was a skyship from such a world. All things are possible by the will of Asti. Varta nodded. All things are possible by the will of Asti, she repeated. But Lure, her eyes were round with wonder. Perhaps it is Asti's will which brought us here to find this marvel. Perhaps he has some use for us and it. At least we may discover what lies within it. Lure had his own share of curiosity. How the two of us cannot draw that out of the water? No, but we can enter into it. Varta fingered the folds of the hood on her shoulders. She knew what Lure meant, the suit which had protected her in the underworld was impervious to everything outside its surface, or to every substance its makers knew just as Lure's own hide made his flesh impenetrable. But the fashioners of her suit had probably never known of the living lake, and what if she had no defense against the strange properties of the water? She leaned back against a rock. Overhead the worlds and son of Asti still travelled their pointed paths. The worlds of Asti. If it was his will which had brought them here, then Asti's power would wrap her round with safety. By his will she had come out of Memphir over ways no human of Herb had ever trod before. Could she doubt that his protection was with her now? It took only a moment to make secure the webbed shoes, to pull on and fasten the hood, to tighten the buckles of her gloves. Then she crept forward, shuddering as the water rose about her ankles. But Lure pushed on before her, his head disappearing fearlessly under the surface as he crawled through the jagged opening in the ship below. Smashed engines, which had no meaning in her eyes, occupied most of the broken section of the wreck. None of the metal showed any deterioration beyond that which had occurred at the time of the crash. Under her exploring hands it was firm and whole. Lure was pulling at a small door, half hidden by a mass of twisted wires and plates, and, just as Varta crawled around this obstacle to join him, the barrier gave way, allowing them to squeeze through into what had once been the living quarters of the ship. Varta recognized seats, a table, and other bits of strictly utilitarian furniture. But of those who had once been at home here there remained no trace. Lure, having given one glance to the furnishings, was prowling about the far end of the cabin uncertainly, and now he voiced his uneasiness. There is something beyond, something which once had life. Varta crowded up to him. To her eyes the wall seemed without line of an opening, and yet Lure was running his broad front paws over it carefully, now and then throwing his weight against the smooth surface. There is no door, she pointed out doubtfully. No door, ah, here. Lure unsheathed formidable fighting-claws to their full length for perhaps the first time in his temple-sheltered life, and endeavored to work them into a small crevice. The muscles of his forelegs and quarters stood out in sharp relief under his scales, his fangs were bare as his lips snapped back with effort. Something gave, a thin black line appeared to mark the edges of a door. Then time, or Lure's strength, broke the ancient locking mechanism. The door gave so suddenly that they were both sent hurtling backward, and Lure's breath burst from him in a huge bubble. The sealed compartment was hardly more than a cupboard, but it was full. Spread eagled against the wall was a four-limbed creature whose form was so smothered in a bulky suit that Varta could only guess that it was akin in shape to her own. Hoops of metal locked it firmly to the wall, but the head had fallen forward so that the face played in the helmet was hidden. Slowly the girl breasted the water which filled the cabin, and reached her hands toward the bowed helmet of the prisoner. Gingerly, her blunted talons scraping across metal, she pulled it up to her eye level. The eyes of that which stood within the suit were closed, as if in sleep, but there was a warm healthy tint to the bronze skin, so different in shade to her own pallid coloring. For the rest, the prisoner had the two eyes, the centered nose, the properly shaped mouth which were common to the men of herb. Hair grew on his head, black and thick, and there was a faint shadow of beard on his jawline. This is a man, her thought reached Lure. Why not, did you expect a serpent? It is a pity he is dead. Varta felt a rich warm tide rising in her throat to answer that teasing half-question. There were times when Lure's thought-reading was annoying. He had risen to his hind legs so that he too could look into the shell which held their find. Yes, a pity, he repeated, but... A vision of the turbi-flower swept through her mind. Had Lure suggested it, or had that wild thought been hers alone? Only this ship was so old, so very old. Lure's red tongue flicked. It can do no harm to try, he suggested slyly, and set his claws into the hoop holding the captive's right wrist, testing its strength. But the metal on the shore it crumpled into powder at my touch, she protested. What if we carry him out only to have... to have... Her mind shuddered away from the picture that followed. Did the turbi blossom fade when pulled out, countered Lure? There is a secret to these fastenings. He pulled and pried impatiently. Varta tried to help, but even their united strength was useless against the force which held the loops in place. Breathless the girl slumped back against the wall of the cabin while Lure settled down on his haunches. One of the odd patches of color drifted by, its vivid scarlet like a jewel spiraling lazily upward. Varta's eyes followed its drift, and so were guided to what she had forgotten, the worlds of Asti. Asti! Lure was looking up too. The power of Asti! Varta's hand went up, rested for a long moment under the sun, and then drew it down, carefully, slowly as she had in Memphir's temple. Then she stepped towards the captive. Within her hood a beaded line of moisture outlined her lips, a pulse thundered on her temple. This was a fearsome thing to try. She held the sun on a line with one of the wrist-bonds. She must avoid the flesh it imprisoned, for Asti's power could kill. From the sun there shot an orange-red beam to strike full upon the metal. A thin line of red crept across the smooth hoop, crept and widened. Varta raised her hand, sending the sun spinning up and Lure's claws pulled on the metal. It broke like rotten wood in his grasp. The girl gave a little gasp of half-terrified delight. Then the old legends were true. As Asti's priestess she controlled powers too great to guess. Swiftly she loosed the other hoops and restored the sun and world to their place over her head as the captive slumped across the threshold of his cell. Tugging and straining they brought him out of the broken ship into the sunlight of Herb. Varta threw back her hood and breathed deeply of the air which was not manufactured by the wizardry of the lizard-skin and Lure sat panting, his nostril flaps open. It was he who spied the spring on the mountainside above, a spring of water uncontaminated by the strange life of the lake. They both dragged themselves there to drink deeply. Varta returned to the lake shore reluctantly. Within her heart she believed that the man that they had brought from the ship was truly dead. Lure might hold out the promise of the flowers, but this was a man and he had lain in the water for countless ages. So she went with lagging steps to find Lure busy. He had solved the mystery of the spacesuit and had stripped it from the unknown. Now his clawed paw rested lightly on the bared chest and he turned to Varta eagerly. There is life! Hardly daring to believe that, she dropped down beside Lure and touched their prize. Lure was right, the flesh was warm and she had caught the faint rhythm of shallow breath. Half remembering old tales, she put her hands on the arch of the lower ribs and began to aid that rhythm. The breaths were deeper. Then the man half turned, his arm moved. Varta and Lure drew back. For the first time, the girl probed gently the sleeping mind before her, even as she had read the minds of those few of Memphir who had ascended to the temple precincts in the last days. Much of what she read now was confused or so alien to Herb that it had no meaning for her. But she saw a great city, plunged into flaming death in an instant and felt the horror and remorse of the man at her feet because of his own part in that act, the horror and remorse which had led him to open rebellion and so to his imprisonment. There was a last dark and frightening memory of a door closing on light and hope. The spaceman moaned softly and hunched his shoulders as if he struggled vainly to tear loose from bonds. He thinks that he is still prisoner, observed Lure. For him life begins at the very point it ended, even as it did for the Turbie flowers. See, now he awakens. The eyelids rose slowly, as if the man hated to see what he must look upon. Then as he sided Varta and Lure his eyes went wide. He pulled himself up and looked daisily around, striking out wildly with his fists. Catching sight of the clumsy suit Lure had taken from him, he pulled at it, looking at the two before him as if he feared some attack. Varta turned to Lure for help. She might read minds and use the wordless speech of Lure, but his people knew of the art of such communication long before the first priest of Asti had stumbled upon their secret. Let Lure now quiet this outlander. Delicately Lure sought away into the other's mind, twisting down paths of thought strange to him. Even Varta could not follow the subtle waves sent forth in the quick examination and reconnoitering, nor could she understand all of the conversation which resulted. For the man from the ancient ship answered in speech aloud, sharp, harsh sounds of no meaning. It was only after repeated instruction from Lure that he began to frame his messages in his mind, clumsily and disconnectedly. Pictures of another world, another solar system began to grow more clear as the spaceman became more at home in the new way of communication. He was one of a race who had come to herb from beyond the waters, and discovered it a world without human life. So they had established colonies and built great cities, far different from Memphir, and had lived in peace for centuries of their own time. Then on the faraway planet of their birth there had begun a great war, a war which brought flaming death to all that world. The survivors of a last battle in outer space had fled to the colonies on herb. But among this handful were men driven mad by the death of their world, and these had blasted the cities of herb, saying that their kind must be wiped out. The man they had rescued had turned against one such maddened leader, and had been imprisoned just before an attack upon the largest of the colony's cities. After that he remembered nothing. Varta stopped trying to follow the conversation. Ler was only explaining now how they had found the spaceman and brought him out of the wrecked ship. No human on herb, this one had said, and yet, were there not her own people, the ones who had built Memphir? And what of the barbarians, who, ruthless and cruel as they seemed by the standards of Memphir, were indeed men? Whence had they come then, the men of Memphir and the ancestors of the barbarian hordes? Her hands touched the scaled skin of the suit she still wore, and then rubbed across her own smooth flesh. Could one have come from the other? Was she of the blood and heritage of Ler? Not so, Ler's mind, as quick as his flickering tongue had caught that panic-born thought. You are of the blood of this space wanderer. Men from the river colonies must have escaped to safety. Look at this man, is he not like the men of Memphir, as they were in the olden days of the city's greatness? The stranger was tall, taller than the men of Memphir, and there was a certain hardness about him which those city dwellers in ease had never displayed. But Ler must be right, this was a man of her race. She smiled in sudden relief, and he answered that smile. Ler's soft laughter rang in both their heads. Asti and his infinite wisdom can see through centuries. Memphir has fallen because of its softness, and the evil-doing of its people, and the barbarians will now have their way with the lands of the north. But to me it appears that Asti is not yet done with the pattern he was weaving there. To each of you he granted a second life. Do not disdain the gifts of Asti, daughter of Erb. Again Varta felt the warm tide of blood rise in her cheeks. But she no longer smiled. Instead she regarded the Outlander speculatively. Not even a maiden of the temple could withstand the commands of the All Highest. Gifts from the hand of Asti dared not be thrown away. Above the puzzlement of the stranger she heard the chuckling of Ler. The End of the Gifts of Asti by Andre Norton This recording is in the public domain. The Inconsiderate Waiter by James Matthew Berry 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 Deborah Lynn in Northern Lower Michigan, March 2007. Frequently I have to ask myself in the street for the name of the man I bowed to just now. And then, before I can answer, the wind of the first corner blows him from my memory. I have a theory, however, that those puzzling faces which pass before I can see who cut the coat all belong to club waiters. Until William forced his affairs upon me, that was all I did know of the private life of waiters, though I have been in the club for twenty years. I was even unaware whether they slept downstairs or had their own homes, nor had I the interest to inquire of other members, nor they the knowledge to inform me. I hold that this sort of people should be fed and clothed and given airing in wives and children, and I subscribe yearly, I believe, for these purposes. But to come into closer relation with waiters is bad form. They are club fittings, and William should have kept his distress to himself or taken it away and patched it up, like a rent in one of the chairs. His inconsiderateness has been a pair of spectacles to me for months. It is not correct taste to know the name of a club waiter so that I must apologize for knowing Williams and still more for not forgetting it. If again to speak of a waiter as bad form to speak bitterly is the comic degree of it. But William has disappointed me sorely. There were years when I would defer dining several minutes that he might wait on me. His pains to reserve the window seat for me were perfectly satisfactory. I allowed him privileges as to suggest dishes and would give him information, as that someone had startled me in the reading room by slamming a door. I have shown him how I cut my finger with a piece of string. Obviously he was gratified by these attentions, usually recommending a liqueur, and I fancy he must have understood my sufferings for he often looked ill himself. Probably he was rheumatic, but I cannot say for certain as I never thought of asking, and he had the sense to see that the knowledge would be offensive to me. In the smoking room we have a waiter so independent that once, when he brought me a yellow chartreuse and I said I had ordered green, he replied, No, sir, you said yellow. William could never have been guilty of such a frontery. In appearance, of course, he is mean, but I can no more describe him than a milkmaid to draw cows. I suppose we distinguish one waiter from another much as we pick our hat from the rack. We could have plotted a murder safely before, William. He never presumed to have opinions of his own. When such was my mood he remained silent, and if I announced that something diverting had happened to me, he laughed before I told him what it was. He turns the twinkle in his eye off or on at my bidding as readily as if it was the gas. To my sure to be wet tomorrow, he would reply, Yes, sir. And to Trelawney's, it doesn't look like rain, two minutes afterward, he would reply, No, sir. It was one member who said lightning rod would win the derby, and another who said lightning rod had no chance, but it was William who agreed with both. He was like a sheroot which maybe smoked from either end. So used was I to him that had he died or got another situation, or whatever it is such persons do when they disappear from the club, I should probably have told the head waiter to bring him back as I disliked changes. It would not become me to know precisely when I began to think William and in great, but I date his laps from the evening when he brought me oysters. I detest oysters, and no one knew it better than William. He has agreed with me that he could not understand any gentleman's liking them. Between me and a certain member who smacks his lips twelve times to a dozen of them, William knew I liked a screen to be placed until we had reached the soup, and yet he gave me the oysters and the other man my sardine. Both the other member and I called quickly for Brandy and the head waiter. To do William justice he shook, but never can I forget his audacious explanation. Big pardon, sir, but I was thinking of something else. In these words William had flung off the mask and now I knew him for what he was. I must not be accused of bad form for looking at William on the following evening. What prompted me to do so was not personal interest in him, but a desire to see whether I dare let him wait on me again. So, recalling that a caster was off a chair yesterday, one is entitled to make sure that it is on today before sitting down. If the expression is not too strong I may say that I was taken aback by William's manner. Even when crossing the room to take my orders he let his one hand play nervously with the other. I had to repeat sardine on toast twice and instead of answering yes, sir, as if my selection of sardine on toast was a personal gratification to him, which is the manner one expects of a waiter, he glanced at the clock then out at the window and starting asked, Did you say sardine on toast, sir? It was the height of summer when London smells like a chemist's shop and he who has the dinner table at the window needs no candles to show him his knife and fork. I lay back at intervals now watching a starved looking woman asleep on a doorstep and again complaining of the club bananas. By and by I saw a little girl of the commonest kind, ill-clad and dirty as all these Arabs are. Their parents should be compelled to feed and clothe them comfortably or at least to keep them indoors where they cannot offend our eyes. Such children are for pushing aside with one's umbrella. But this girl I noticed because she was gazing at the club windows. She had stood thus for perhaps ten minutes when I became aware that someone was leaning over me to look out at the window. I turned round, conceived my indignation on seeing that the rude person was William. How dare you, William! I said sternly. He seemed not to hear me. Let me tell in the measured words of one describing a past incident what then took place. To get nearer the window he pressed heavily on my shoulder. William, you forget yourself, I said, meaning as I see now you've forgotten me. I heard him gulp, but not to my reprimand. He was scanning the street, his hands chattered on my shoulders and pushing him from me I saw that his mouth was agape. What are you looking for, I asked. He stared at me and then, like one who had at last heard the echo of my question seemed to be brought back to the club. He turned his face from me for an instant and answered shakily. I begged you pardon, sir. I shouldn't have done it. Are the bananas too ripe, sir? He recommended the nuts and awaited my verdict so anxiously while I ate one that I was about to speak graciously when I again saw his eyes drag him to the window. William, I said, my patience giving way at last, I disliked being waited on by a melancholy waiter. Yes, sir, he replied trying to smile and then broke out passionately. For God's sakes, sir, tell me, have you seen a little girl looking in at the club windows? He had been a good waiter once and his distracted visage was spoiling my dinner. There, I said, pointing to the girl and no doubt would have added that he must bring me coffee immediately had he continued to listen. But already he was beckoning to the child. I had not the least interest in her. Indeed, it had never struck me that waiters had private affairs and I still think it a pity that they should have. But as I happened to be looking out at the window, I could not avoid seeing what occurred. As soon as the girl saw William, she ran into the middle of the street regardless of vehicles and nodded three times to him. Then she disappeared. I have said that she was quite a common child without attraction of any sort and yet it was amazing the difference she made in William. He gasped relief like one who has broken through the anxiety that checks breathing and into his face there came a silly laugh of happiness. I had dined well on the whole so I said I'm glad to see you cheerful again, William. I meant that I approved his cheerfulness because it helped my digestion but he must need to think of a sympathizing with him. Thank you, sir. He answered, oh, sir, when she nodded and I saw it was all right I went down on my knees to God. I was as much horrified as if he had dropped a plate on my toes. Even William, disgracefully emotional as he was at the moment, flung out his arms to recall the shameful words. Coffee, William, I said sharply. I sipped my coffee indignantly for it was plain to me that William had something on his mind. You are not vexed with me, sir? He had the hardy-hood to whisper. It was a liberty, I said. I know, sir, but I was beside myself. That was a liberty also. He hesitated and then blurted out. It is my wife, sir, as she I stopped him with my hand. William, whom I had favored in so many ways, was a married man. I might have guessed as much years before had I ever reflected about waiters for I knew vaguely that his class did this sort of thing. His confession was distasteful to me, and I said warningly, Remember where you are, William. Yes, sir, but you see, she is so delicate. Delicate? I forbid you're speaking to me on unpleasant topics. Yes, sir, begging your pardon. It was characteristic of William to beg my pardon and withdraw his wife like some unsuccessful dish as if its taste would not remain in the mouth. I shall be chided for questioning further about his wife, but, though doubtless and unusual step, it was only bad form superficially, for my motive was irreproachable. I inquired for his wife not because I was interested in her welfare, but in the hope of allaying my irritation. So I am entitled to invite the wayfarer who has bespattered me with mud to scrape it off. I desired to be told by William that the girl's signals meant his wife's recovery to health. I was seen that such was my wish and answered accordingly, but with the brutal inconsiderateness of his class, he said, she has had a good day, but the doctor is a feared she is dying. Already I repented my question. William and his wife seemed in league against me when they might so easily have chosen some other member. Pooh, the doctor, I said. Yes, sir, he answered. Have you been married long, William? Eight years, sir. Eight years ago, she was... I... I mined her when... And now the doctor says the fellow gaped at me. More coffee, sir, he asked. What is her ailment? She was always one of the delicate kind, but full of spirit, and you see, she has had a baby lately. William. And she... I... The doctor is a feared she's not picking up. I feel sure she will pick up. Yes, sir? It must have been the wine I had drunk that made me tell him. I was once married, William. My wife, it was just such a case as yours. She did not get better, sir? No. After a pause, he said, thank you, sir, meaning for the sympathy that made me tell him that, but it must have been the wine. That little girl comes here from your wife? Yes, if she nods three times, it means my wife is a little better. She nodded twice today, but she is told to do that to relieve me, and maybe those nods don't tell the truth. Is she your girl? No, we have none, but the baby. She is a neighbor. She comes twice a day. It is heartless of her parents not to send her every hour. She is six years old, he said, and has a house and two sisters to look after in the daytime and a dinner to cook. Gentle folk don't understand. I suppose you live in some low part, William. After Elaine, he answered, but it isn't low. You see, we were never used to anything better, and I mind, when I let her see the house before we were married, she was out of it. That was eight years ago, and now she's a feared she'll die when I'm away at my work. Did she tell you that? Never. She always says she is feeling a little stronger. Then how can you know she is afraid of that? I don't know how I know, sir, but when I am leaving the house in the morning, I look at her from the door and she looks at me and then I know. A green chartreuse, William. I tried to forget William's vulgar story in billiards, but he had spoiled my game. My opponent, to whom I can give 20, ran out when I was 67 and I put aside my cue pettishly. That in itself was bad for him, but what would they have thought had they known that a waiter's impertinence caused it? I grew angrier with William as the night wore on, and next day I punished him by giving my orders through another waiter. Inside my window seat I could not but see that the girl was late again. Somehow I dawdled over my coffee. I had an evening paper before me, but there was so little in it that my eyes found more of interest in the street. It did not matter to me whether William's wife died, but when that girl had promised to come, why did she not come? These lower classes only give their word to break it. The coffee was undrinkable. At last I saw her. William was at another window pretending to do something with the curtains. I stood up, pressing closer to the window. The coffee had been so bad that I felt shaky. She nodded three times and smiled. She is a little better, William whispered to me almost gaily. Whom are you speaking of, I asked coldly, and immediately retired to the billiard room where I played a capital game. The coffee was much better there than in the dining room. Several days passed, and I took care to show William that I had forgotten his wanderings. I chanced to see the little girl, though I never looked for her, every evening, and she always nodded three times, saved once when she shook her head, and then William's face grew white as a napkin. I remember this incident because that night I could not get into a pocket. So badly did I play that the thought of it kept me awake in bed, and that again made me wonder how William's wife was. Next day I went to the club early, which was not my custom, to see the new books. Being in the club at any rate I looked into the dining room to ask William if I had left my gloves there, and the sight of him reminded me of his wife so I asked for her. He shook his head mournfully, and I went off in a rage. So accustomed am I to the club that when I dine elsewhere I feel uncomfortable next morning as if I had missed a dinner. William knew this, yet here he was hounding me out of the club. That evening I dined, as the saying is, at a restaurant where no sauce was served with the asparagus. Furthermore, as if that were not triumph enough for William, his doleful face came between me and every dish, and I seemed to see his wife dying to annoy me. I dined next day at the club for self-preservation, taking however a table in the middle of the room, and engaging a waiter who had once nearly poisoned me by not interfering when I put two lumps of sugar into my coffee instead of one, which is my allowance. But no William came to me to acknowledge his humiliation, and by and by I became aware that he was not in the room. Suddenly the thought struck me that his wife must be dead, and I... It was the worst cooked and the worst served dinner I ever had in the club. I tried the smoking room. Usually the talk there is entertaining, but on that occasion it was so frivolous that I did not remain five minutes. In the card room a member told me excitedly that a policeman had spoken rudely to him, and my strange comment was after all it is a small matter. In the library where I had not been for years I found two members asleep and to my surprise William on a ladder dusting books. You have not heard sir? He said in answer to my raised eyebrows descending the ladder he whispered tragically it was last evening sir I lost my head and I swore at a member. I stepped back from William and glanced apprehensively at the two members. They still slept. I hardly knew, William went on what I was doing all day yesterday for I had left my wife so weakly that I stamped my foot. I begged your pardon for speaking of her, he had the grace to say, but I couldn't help slipping to the window often yesterday to look for Jenny, and when she did come and I saw she was crying it it sort of confused me I didn't know right sir what I was doing. I hit against a member Mr. Middleton Finch and he jumped and swore at me. Well sir I had just touched him after all and I was so miserable it kind of stung me to be treated like that and me a man as well as him and I lost my senses and I swore back. William's shamed head sank on his chest but I even let pass his insolence weakening himself to a member of the club so afraid was I of the sleepers waking and detecting me and talk with the waiter. For the love of God, William cried with coarse emotion, don't let them dismiss me. Speak lower, I said. Who sent you here? I was turned out of the dining room at once and told to attend to the library until they had decided what to do with me. Oh sir I'll lose my place. He was blubbering as if a change of waders was a matter of importance. This is very bad, William, I said. I fear I can do nothing for you. Have mercy on a distracted man he entreated. I'll go on my knees to Mr. Middleton Finch. How could I but despise a fellow who would be thus abject for a pound a week? I dare not tell her, he continued that I have lost my place she would just fall back and die. I forbade your speaking of your wife, I said sharply, unless you can speak pleasantly of her. But she may be worse now, sir, and I cannot even see Jenny from here the library windows look to the back. If she dies, I said, it will be a warning to you to marry a stronger woman next time. Now everyone knows that there is little real affection among the lower orders as soon as they have lost one mate they take another. William, forgetting our relative positions, drew himself up and raised his fist, and if I had not stepped back I swear he would have struck me. The highly improper words William used I will omit out of consideration for him. Even while he was apologizing for them I retired to the smoking room where I found the cigarettes so badly rolled that they would not keep a light. After a little I remembered that I wanted to see Middleton Finch about an improved saddle of which a friend of his has the patent. He was in the newsroom and having questioned him about the saddle I said, by the way what is the story about your swearing at one of the waiters? You mean about his swearing at me? Middleton Finch replied reddening. I am glad that was it I said, for I could not believe you guilty of such bad form. If I did swear he was beginning but I went on the version which reached me was that you swore at him and he repeated the word I heard he was to be dismissed and you reprimanded. Who told you that? asked Middleton Finch who is a timid man. I forget it is club talk I replied lightly. But of course the committee will take your word the waiter whichever one he is richly deserves his dismissal for insulting you without provocation. Then our talk returned to the saddle Middleton Finch was abstracted and presently he said do you know I fancy I was wrong in thinking that way to swore at me and I'll withdraw my charge tomorrow. Middleton Finch then left me and sitting alone I realized that I had been doing William a service to some slight extent I may have intentionally helped him to retain his place in the club and I now see the reason which was that he alone knows precisely like my clarit heated. For a mere second I remembered William's remark that he should not be able to see the girl Jenny from the library windows. Then this recollection drove from my head that I had only dined in the sense that my dinner bill was paid. Returning to the dining room I happened to take my chair at the window and while I was eating a deviled kidney I saw in the street the girl whose nods had such an absurd effect on William. The children of the poor are as thoughtless as their parents and this Jenny did not sign to the windows in the hope that William might see her though she could not see him. Her face which was disgracefully dirty bore doubt and dismay on it but whether she brought good news it would not tell. Somehow I had expected her to signal when she saw me and though her message could not interest me I was in the mood in which one is irritated at that not taking place which he is awaiting. Ultimately she seemed to be making up her mind to go away. A boy was passing with the evening papers and I hurried out to get one. Rather thoughtlessly for we have all the papers in the club. Unfortunately I misunderstood the direction the boy had taken but round the first corner out of sight of the club windows I saw the girl Jenny and so I asked her how William's wife was. Did he send you to me? She replied impertently taking me for a waiter. My! she added after a second scrutiny I believe you're one of them. His misses is a bit better and I was to tell him as she took all the tapioca. How could you tell him? I asked I was to do like this she replied and went through the supping of something out of a plate in dumb show. That would not show she ate all the tapioca I said but I was to end like this she answered licking an imaginary plate with her tongue. I gave her a shilling to get rid of her and returned to the club disgusted. Later in the evening I had to go to the club library for a book and while William was looking in vain for it I had forgotten the title I said to him by the way William Mr. Middlecon Finch is to tell the committee that he was mistaken in the charge he brought against you so you will doubtless be restored to the dining room tomorrow. The two members were still in their chairs probably sleeping lightly yet he had the effrontery to thank me don't thank me I said blushing at the imputation remember your place William but Mr. Middlecon Finch knew I swore he insisted a gentleman I replied stiffly I remember for 24 hours what a waiter has said to him no sir but to stop him I had to say and ah William your wife is a little better she has eaten the tapioca all of it how can you know sir by an accident Jenny signed to the window no then you saw her and went out in nonsense oh sir to do that for me may god William forgive me sir but when I tell my missus she will say it was thought of your own wife has made you do it he rung my hand I dared not withdraw it lest we should waken the sleepers William returned to the dining room and I had to show him that if he did not cease looking gratefully at me I must change my waiter I also ordered him to stop telling me nightly how his wife was but I continued to know as I could not help seeing the girl Jenny from the window twice in a week I learned from this objectionable child that the ailing woman had again eaten all the tapioca then I became suspicious of William I will tell why it began with a remark of captain up John's we had been speaking of the inconvenience of not being able to get a hot dish served after 1 a.m and he said it is because these lazy waiters would strike if the beggars had a love of their work they would not rush away from the club the moment one o'clock strikes that glum fellow who often waits on you takes to his heels the moment he is clear of the club steps he ran into me the other night at the top of the street and was off without apologizing you mean the foot of the street up John I said for such as the way to Drury Lane no I mean the top the man was running west west I smiled which so annoyed him that he bet me 2 to 1 in sovereigns the bet could have been decided most quickly by asking William a question but I thought foolishly doubtless that it might hurt his feelings so I watched him leave the club the possibility of up John's winning the bet had seemed remote to me conceived my surprise therefore when William went westward amazed I pursued him along two streets without realizing that I was doing so then curiosity put me into a handsome we followed William and it proved to be a three shilling fair for running when he was in breath and walking when he was out of it he took me to West Kensington I discharged my cab and from across the street watched Williams incomprehensible behavior he had stopped and she drove workman's houses and knocked at the darkened window of one of them presently a light showed so far as I could see someone pulled up the blind and for ten minutes talked to William I was uncertain whether they talked for the window was not opened and I felt that had Williams spoken through the glass loud enough to be heard inside I must have heard him too yet he nodded and beckoned I was still bewildered when by setting off the way he had come he gave me the opportunity of going home knowing from the talk of the club what the lower orders are could I doubt that this was some discreditable love affair of Williams his solicitude for his wife had been mere pretense so far as it was genuine it meant that he feared she might recover he probably told her that he was detained nightly in the club till three I was miserable next day and blamed the deviled kidneys for it whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me but I had two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his club the one that as he had made me lose a bet I would punish him the other that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed be times yet I did not question him there was something in his face that well I seem to see his dying wife in it I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner I left the club happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street a chance to see the girl Jenny coming and no let me tell the truth though the whole club read I was waiting for her how was Williams wife today I asked she told me to nod three times the little slatter and replied but she looked like nothing but dead one till she got the brandy hush child I said shocked you don't know how the dead look bless your she answered don't I just why I've helped to lay him out I'm going on seven is William good to his wife of course he is ain't she his missus why should that make him good to her I asked cynically out of my knowledge of the poor but the girl precocious in many ways had never had my opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers, fiction and club talk she shut one eye and looking up wonderingly said ain't you green just when does William reach home at night take night it's morning when I wakes up at half dark and half light and here's a door shutting I know as it's either father going off to his work or Mr. Hicking who is Mr. Hicking him as we've been speaking on William we calls him Mr. because he's a toff father's just doing jobs in Covent Garden but Mr. Hicking he's a waiter and a clean shirt every day the old woman would like father to be a waiter but he ain't got the aristocratic look what old woman go long that's my mother is it true there's a waiter in the club and the door yes but and another just for to lick the stamps my William leaves the club at one o'clock I said interrogatively she nodded my mother she said is one to talk and she says to Mr. Hicking as he should get away at twelve because his Mrs. needs him more and the gentleman need him the old woman do talk and what does William answer to that as the gentleman can't be kept waiting for their cheese but William does not go straight home when he leaves the club that's the kid kid I echoed scarcely understanding for knowing how little the poor love their children I had asked William no questions about the baby didn't you know his Mrs. had a kid yes but that is no excuse for William staying away from his sick wife I answered sharply a baby in such a home as Williams I reflected must be trying but still besides his class can sleep through any din the kid ain't in our court the girl explained he's in W he is and I've never been out of WC least wise not as I know is on this is W I suppose you mean that the child is at West Kensington well no doubt it was better for William's wife to get rid of the child better interposed the girl taint better for her not to have the kid ain't her not having him what she's always thinking on when she looks like a dead one how could you know that cause answered the girl illustrating her words with a gesture I watch as her and I see as her arms going this way just like as she wanted to hug her kid possibly you are right I said frowning but William has put the child out to nurse because it disturbed his night's rest a man who has his work to do you are green then why have the mother and child been separated along of that their measles near all the youngins in our court has them bad have you had them I said the youngins William sent the baby to West Kensington to escape infection took him he did against his wife's wishes now you said she was dying for want of the child wouldn't she rather die than have the kid die don't speak so heartlessly child why does William not go straight home from the club does he go to West Kensington to see it taina hit it's an E of course she do then he should not his wife has the first claim on him ain't you green it's his missus as wants him to go do you think she could sleep till she know how the kid was but he does not go into the house at West Kensington is he soft of course he don't go in fear of taking the infection to the kid they just holds the kid up at the window to him so as he can have a good look then he comes home and tells his missus he sits foot of the bed and tells and that takes place every night he can't have much to tell he has just he can only say whether the child is well or ill my he tells what a difference there is in the kid since he seed him last there can be no difference go long ain't a kid always growing haven't Mr. Hicking to tell how the hair is getting darker and heaps of things beside such as what like whether he larfed and if he has her nose and how is he knowed him he tells her them things more and once and all this time he is sitting at the foot of the bed except when he holds her hand but when does he get to bed himself he don't get much he tells her as he has a sleep at the club he cannot say that ain't I heard him but he do go to his bed a bit and then they both lies quiet her pretending she is sleeping so as he can sleep and him feared to sleep case he shouldn't wake up to give her the bottle stuff what does the doctor say about her he's a good one the doctor sometimes he says she would get better if she could see the kid through the window nonsense and if she was took to the country then why does not William take her my you are green and if she drank port wines doesn't she no but William he tells her about the gentleman drinking them on the tenth day after my conversation with this unattractive child I was in my broom with the windows up and I sat back a paper before my face lest anyone should look in naturally I was afraid of being seen in company of William's wife and Jenny for men about town are uncharitable and despite the explanation I had Jenny might have charged me with pitying William as a matter of fact William was sending his wife into Surrey to stay with an old nurse of mine and I was driving her down because my horses needed an outing besides I was going that way at any rate I had arranged that the girl Jenny who was wearing an outrageous bonnet should accompany us because knowing the greed of her class I feared she might blackmail me at the club William joined us in the suburbs bringing the baby with him as I had foreseen they would all be occupied with it and to save me the trouble of conversing with them Mrs. Hicking I found too pale and fragile for a working man's wife and I formed a mean opinion of her intelligence from her pride in the baby which was a very ordinary one she created quite a vulgar scene when it was brought to her though she had given me her word not to do so what irritated me even more than her tears being her ill-bred apology that she had been feared baby wouldn't know her again I would have told her they didn't know anyone for years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny who dandled the infant on her knees and talked to it as if it understood she kept me on tender hooks by asking an offensive questions such as who know who gave me that bonnet and answering them herself it was the pretty gentlemen there and several times I had to affect sleep because she announced kitty wants to kiss the pretty gentlemen irksome as all this necessarily was to a man of taste I suffered even more when we reached our destination as we drove through the village the girl Jenny uttered shrieks of delight at the sight of flowers growing up the cottage walls and declared they were just like music all without the drink license as my horses required a rest I was forced to abandon my intention of dropping these persons at their lodgings and returning to town at once and I could not go to the inn lest I should meet inquisitive acquaintances disagreeable circumstances therefore compelled me to take tea with the waiters family close to a window too through which I could see the girl Jenny talking excitedly to villagers and telling them I felt certain that I had been good to William I had a desire to go out and put myself right with those people William's long connection with the club should have given him some manners but apparently his class cannot take them on for though he knew I regarded his thanks as an insult he looked them when he was not speaking them and hardly had he sat down by my orders then he remembered that I was a member of the club and jumped up nothing is in worse form than whispering yet again and again when he thought I was not listening he whispered to Mrs. Hicking you don't feel faint or how are you now he was also an extravagant glee because she ate two cakes it takes so little to put these people in good spirits and when she said she felt like another being already the fellow's face charged me with the change I could not but conclude from the way Mrs. Hicking left the baby pound her that she was stronger than she had pretended I remained longer than was necessary because I had something to say to William which I knew he would misunderstand and so I put off saying it but when he announced that it was time for him to return to London at which his wife suddenly paled so that he had to sign to her not to break down I delivered the message William I said the head waiter asked me to say that you could take a fortnight's holiday just now your wages will be paid as usual con found them William had me by the hand and his wife was in tears before I could reach the door is it sure doing again sir William cried William I said fiercely we owe everything to you he insisted the port wine because I had no room for it in my cellar the money for the nurse in London because I objected to being waited on by a man who got no sleep these lodgings because I wanted to do something because I wanted to do something for my old nurse and now sir a fortnight's holiday goodbye William I said in a fury but before I could get away Mrs. Hicking signed to William to leave the room and then she kissed my hand she said something to me it was about my wife somehow I what business had William to tell her about my wife they are all back in Drury Lane now and William tells me that his wife sings at her work just as she did eight years ago I have no interest in this and try to check his talk of it but such people have no sense of propriety and he even speaks of the girl Jenny who sent me lately a gaudy pair of worsted gloves worked by her own hand the meanest advantage they took of my weakness however was in calling their baby after me I have an uncomfortable suspicion too that William has given the other waiters his version of the affair but I feel safe so long as it does not reach the committee end of the inconsiderate waiter by James Matthew Berry by Edgar Allan Poe 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 Maria Tafidis Morella itself by itself solely one everlasting and single with a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my friend Morella thrown by accident into her society many years ago my soul for my first meeting burned with fires it had never before known but the fires were not of eros and bitter and tormenting to my spirit was a gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity yet we met and fate bound us together at the altar and I never spoke of passion or thought of love she however shunned society and attaching herself to me alone rendered me happy it is a happiness to wonder it is a happiness to dream Morella's erudition was profound as I hoped to live her talents were of no common order her powers of mind were gigantic I felt this and in many matters became her pupil as soon however found that perhaps on account of her Pressburg education she placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature these for what reason I could not imagine were her favorite in constant study in that in process of time they became my own should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example in all this if I were not my reason had little to do my convictions or I forget myself were in no manner acted upon by the ideal nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be discovered unless I am greatly mistaken either in my deeds or in my thoughts persuaded of this I bowed myself implicitly to the guidance of my wife and entered with an unflinting heart into the intricacies of her studies and then then when pouring over forbidden pages I felt a forbidden spirit in kindling within me would Morella place her cold hand upon my own and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low single words whose strange meaning bore themselves upon my memory and then hour after hour would I linger by her side and dwell upon the music of her voice until a length its melody was tainted with terror there fell a shadow upon my soul I grew pale and shattered inwardly at those two unearthly tones and thus joy suddenly faded into horror and the most beautiful became the most hideous as Hinnan became the henna it is unnecessary to say the exact character of those disquittisons which growing out of the volumes I have mentioned formed for so long a time almost the sole conversation of Morella and Hinnan myself by the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived and by the unlearned they would at all events be little understood the wild pantheism of fixed the modified polygynedia the Pythagoreans and above all the doctrines of identity as urged by Shelling generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella that identity which is termed personal Mr. Locke I think truly defines to consist in the sadness of rational being and since by person we understand that intelligent essence having reason and since there is a consciousness which always accompanists thinking it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves thereby distinguishing us from other beings but think and giving us our personal identity but the Pringipium Individuetionis the notion that identity which a death is or is not lost forever was to me at all times a consideration of intense interest not more from the perplexing exciting nature of its consequences than from the marked and agitated manner in which Morella mentioned them but indeed the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife's manner oppressed me as a spell I could no longer bear the touch of her one fingers nor the low tone of her musical language nor the luster of her melancholy eyes and she knew all this but did not abrade she seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly and smiling called it fate she seemed also conscious of a cause to me unknown for the gradual alienation of my regard but she gave me no hint or token of its nature it was she woman and pine away daily in time the crimson spots settled steadily upon the cheek and the blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent and one instant my nature melted into pity but in next I made a glance of her meaning eyes and then my soul sickened and became with a giddiness of one who gazed downward into some dreary and unfathomable abyss shall I then say I found with an earnest and consuming desire for the moment of Morella's disease I did but the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days for many weeks and irksome months until my tortured nerves obtained mastery over my mind and I grew furious through delay and with a heart of fiend cursed the days in the house in the bitter moments which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her gentle life declined like shadows in the dying of the day but one autumnal evening when the winds lay still in heaven Morella called me to her bedside there was a dim mist over all the earth and warm glow upon the waters and amid the rich October leaves of the forest a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen it is a day of days she said as I approached a day of all days either to live or die it is a fair day for the sons of innocent life ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and death I kissed her forehead and she continued I am dying yet shall I live Morella the days have never been when the dark would sloth me but her whom in life thou didst abhor in death thou shalt adore Morella I repeat I am dying but within me is a pledge of that affection our little which thou didst feel for me Morella and when my spirit departs shall the child live thy child and mine Morellas but thy days shall be days of sorrow that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions as the Cyprus is the most enduring of shrines for all the hours that I happiness are over and joy is not gathered twice in life as roses of pastime twice in a year thou shalt no longer then play the tion with time but being ignorant of the murder and the vine thou shalt bear about with thee thy shroud on the earth as do the muslim in that mecca Bella I cried Morella how nosed thou this but she turned away her face upon the pillow and a slight tremor coming over her limbs she thus died and I heard her voice no more yet as she had foretold a child to which in dying she had given birth which breathed not until the mother breathed no more a child a daughter lived and she grew strangely in stature and intellect and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed and I loved her with a lot more fervent than I had believed it possible to feel for any denison of earth but here along the heaven of this pure affection became darkened and gloom and horror and grief swept over it in cloud I said the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence strange indeed was her rapt increasing bodily size but terrible terrible were the tomato thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the development of her mental being could it be otherwise when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and faculties of the woman when the lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy and when the wisdom of the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye when I say all this became evident to my bold senses when I could no longer had it from a soul and I'll throw it off from those trembled to receive it is it to be wondered that suspicions of a nature fearful and exciting crept in upon to my spirit or that my thoughts fell back gassed upon the wild hails and thrilling theories of the into morella a snatch from the scrutiny of the world the being whom destiny compelled me to adore and in the rigorous inclusion of my home watched with an agonizing anxiety over all which concerned the beloved and as years rolled away and I gazed day after day upon a holy and mild and eloquent face unproved over her maturing form day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to her mother the melancholy and the dead and I only grew darker these shadows of similitude and more full and more definite and more perplexing and more hideously terrible in their aspect for that her smile was like her mother's I could bear but then I shattered that too perfect identity that her eyes were like morellas I could endure but then they too often looked out into the depths of my soul with morellas own intense and bewildering meaning and in the contour high forehead and in the ringlets are the silken hair and in the one fingers which bury themselves therein and in the sad musical tones of a speech and above all oh above all in the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loving and the living I found food for consuming thought and horror for a worm that would not die thus passed away to last through our life and as yet my daughter remained nameless upon the earth my child and my love were the designations usually prompted by your father's affection and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse morellas name died with her at her death oh the mother I had never spoken to the daughter it was impossible to speak indeed during the brief period of her existence the latter had received no impressions from the outward world save such as might have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy at the length the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind in its honor of denaditation condition present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny and at the baptism font I hesitated for a name and many titles are the wise and beautiful of old and modern times my own and foreign lands came thronging to my lips with many many fair titles of the gentle and the happy and the good what prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried dead what demon urged me to breathe that sound which in its very recollection was one to make ebb the purple torrents from the temples to the hut what fiend spoke from the recesses of my soul when I mean those demiles and in the silence of the night I whispered within the ears of the holy man the syllables morella what more than fiend conversed the features of my child and overspread them with shoes of death starting at that scarcely audible sound she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven and falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault responded I am here distinct coldly calmly distinct fell those few simple sounds within my ear and danced like molten lead rolled hissingly into my brain years may pass away but the memory of that epoch never nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day and I kept no reckoning of time or place and the stars of my fate faded from heaven and therefore the earth grew dark and its figures passed by me like fleeting shadows and among them all I beheld only morella the winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my ears and the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore morella but she died and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the channel where I laid the second morella End of Morella by Edgar Allan Poe