 Excerpt from Ville Helmemeister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Volume 3, from Chapter 16, The New Malusina, by Johann Goethe, 1749 to 1832. Translated by Thomas Carlyle in 1842. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Beginning on page 222. My journey proceeded without accident, but if I had hitherto paid little heed to the mysteries of my adventure expecting a natural solution of the whole, there now occurred something which threw me into astonishment, into anxiety, nay, into fear. Being want in my impatience for change of place, to hurry forward day and night, it was often my hap to be travelling in the dark, and when the lamps by any chance went out to be left in utter obscurity. Once in the dead of such a night I had fallen asleep, and on awakening I observed the glimmer of a light on the covering of my carriage. I examined this more strictly, and found that it was issuing from the box, in which there seemed to be a chink, as if it had been clapped by the warm and dry weather of summer, which was now come on. When my thoughts of jewels again came into my head, I supposed there must be some carbuncle lying in the box, and this point I forthwith said about investigating. I postured myself as well as might be, so that my eye was in immediate contact with the chink. And how great was my surprise, when a fair apartment well lighted and furnished with much taste, and even costliness, met my inspection, just as if I had been looking down through the opening of a dome into a royal saloon. A fire was burning in the grate, and before it stood an armchair. I held my breath, and continued to observe, and now there entered from the other side of the apartment a lady with a book in her hand, whom I at once recognized for my wife, although her figure was contracted into the extreme of diminution. She sat down in the chair by the fire to read. She trimmed the coals with the most dainty pair of tongs, and in the course of her movement I could clearly perceive that this fairest little creature was also in the family way. But now I was obliged to shift my constrained posture a little, and the next moment when I bent down to look in again, and convinced myself that it was no dream the light had vanished, and my eye rested on empty darkness. How amazed, may terrified I was, you may easily conceive. I started a thousand thoughts on this discovery, and in truth could think nothing. In the midst of this I fell asleep, and on awakening I fancied that it must have been a mere dream, yet I felt myself in some degree estranged from my fair one, and though I watched over the box but so much the more carefully I knew not whether the event of her reappearance in human size was a thing which I should wish or dread. After some time she did in fact reappear, one evening in a white robe she came gliding in, and as it was just then growing dusky in my room she seemed to me taller when I had seen her last, and I remembered having heard that all beams of the mermaid and gnome species increased in stature very perceptibly by the fall of night. She flew as usual to my arms, but I could not with right gladness press her to my obstructed breast. My dearest, said she, I now feel by thy reception of me, but alas I already knew too well. Thou hast seen me in the interim, thou art acquainted with the state in which at certain times I find myself. Thy happiness and mine is interrupted. Nay, it stands on the brink of being annihilated altogether. I must leave thee, and I know not whether I shall ever see thee again. Her presence, the grace with which she spoke, directly banished from my memory almost every trace of that vision, which indeed had already hovered before me as little more than a dream. I addressed her with kind vivacity, convinced her of my passion, assured her that I was innocent, that my discovery was accidental. In short, I so managed it that she appeared composed and endeavored to compose me. Try thyself strictly, said she, whether this discovery has not hurt thy love, whether thou canst forget that I live in two forms beside thee, whether the diminution of my being will not also contract thy affection. I looked at her, she was fairer than ever, and I thought within myself, is it so great a misfortune, after all, to have a wife who from time to time becomes a dwarf, so that one can carry her about with him in a casket? Was it not much worse if she became a giantess and put her husband in the box? My gaiety of heart had returned. I would not for the whole world have let her go. Best heart said I, let us be and continue ever as we have been. Could either of us wish to be better? Enjoy thy conveniency, and I promise thee to guard the box with so much the more faithfulness. Why should the prettiest sight I have ever seen in my life make a bad impression on me? How happy would lovers be, could they but procure such miniature pictures? And after all it was but a picture, a little sleight of hand deception, thou art trying and teasing me, but thou shalt see how I will stand it. The matter is more serious than thou thinkest, said the fair one. However, I am truly glad to see thee take it so lightly, for much good may still be awaiting us both. I will trust in thee, and for my own part do my utmost. Only promise me that thou wilt never mention this discovery by way of reproach. Another prayer likewise I most erroneously make to thee. Be more than ever on thy guard against wine and anger. I promised what she required. I could have gone on promising to all lengths, but she herself turned aside the conversation, and henceforth all proceeded in its former routine. We had no inducement to alter our place of residence. The town was large, the society various, and the fine season gave rise to many an excursion and garden festival. In all such amusements the presence of my wife was welcome, nay eagerly desired by women as well as men. A kind insinuating manner joined with a certain dignity of bearing secured to her on all hands praise and estimation. Besides, she could play beautifully on the lute accompanying it with her voice, and no social night could be perfect unless crowned by the graces of this talent. I will be free to confess that I have never got much good for music. On the contrary, it is always rather had a disagreeable effect on me. My fair one soon noticed this, and accordingly, when by ourselves she never tried to entertain me by such means. In return, however, she appeared to indemnify herself while in society, where indeed she always found a crowd of admirers. And now, why should I deny it? Our late dialogue, in spite of my best intentions, had by no means suffice to abolish the matter within me. On the contrary, my temper of mind had by degrees got into the strangest tune, almost without my being conscious of it. One night in a large company this hidden grudge broke loose, and by its consequences produced to myself the greatest damage. When I look back on it now, I in fact loved my beauty far less, after that unlucky discovery. I was also growing jealous of her, a whim that had never struck me before. This night at table I found myself placed very much to my mind beside my two neighbors, a couple of ladies who for some time had appeared to me very charming, amid jesting and soft small talk I was not sparing of my wine. While on the other side a pair of musical delitanti had got hold of my wife, and at last contrived to lead the company into singing separately, and by way of chorus. This put me into ill humor. The two amateurs appeared to me impertinent, the singing vexed me, and when, as my turn came, they even requested a solo strophe from me, I grew truly indignant. I emptied my glass, and set it down again with no soft movement. The grace of my two fair neighbors soon pacified me, indeed, but there is an evil nature in wrath when once it is said of going. It went on fermenting within me, though all things were of a kind to induce joy and complacence. On the contrary, I waxed more splenetic than ever when a lute was produced, and my fair one began fingering it and singing to the admiration of all the rest. Unhappily a general silence was requested. So then I was not even to talk any more, and these tones were going through me like a toothache. Was it any wonder that, at last, the smallest spark should blow up the mine? The songstress had just ended a song amid the loudest applause when she looked over to me, and this truly with the most loving face in the world. Unluckily its lovingness could not penetrate so far. She perceived that I had just gulped down a cup of wine, and was pouring out a fresh one. With her right forefinger she beckoned to me in kind threatening. "'Consider that it is wine,' said she, not louder than for myself to hear it. "'Water is for mermaids,' cried I. "'My ladies,' said she, to my neighbors, crown the cup with all your gracefulness, that it not be too often emptied. "'You will not let yourself be tutored,' whispered one of them in my ear. "'What ills the dwarf,' cried I, with a more violent gesture, in which I overset the glass?' "'Ah, what you have spilt!' cried the paragon of women, at the same time twanging her strings, as if to lead back the attention of the company from this disturbance to herself. Her attempt succeeded, the more completely as she rose to her feet, seemingly, that she might play with greater convenience, and in this attitude continued pre-looting. At sight of the red wine running over the tablecloth I returned to myself. I perceived the great fault I had been guilty of, and it cut me through the very heart. Never till now had music spoken to me. The first verse she sang was a friendly good-night to the company, here as they were, as they might still feel themselves together. With the next verse they became as if scattered asunder. Each felt himself solitary, separated. No one could fancy that he was present any longer. But what shall I say of the last verse? It was directed to me alone, the voice of injured love bidding farewell to morose-ness, and caprice. In silence I conducted her home, for boating no good, scarcely, however, had we reached our chamber, when she began to show herself exceedingly kind and graceful, nay, even roguish. She made me the happiest of all men. Next morning, in high spirits and full of love, I said to her, Thou hast so often sung, when asked in company, as, for example, thy touching farewell song last night, come now, for my sake, and sing me a dainty gay welcome to this morning hour, that we may feel as if we were meeting for the first time. That I may not do, my friend, she said seriously. The song of last night referred to our parting, which must now forthwith take place, for I can only tell thee the violation of thy promise and oath will have the worst consequences for us both. Thou hast scoffed away a great felicity, and I too must renounce my dearest wishes. As I now pressed and entreated her to explain herself more clearly, she answered, that alas I can, well do, for at all events my continuance with thee is over. Here then would I would rather have concealed to the latest times. The form under which thou sawest me in the box is my natural and proper form, for I am of the race of King Ekvald. The dread sovereign of the dwarfs, concerning whom authentic history has recorded so much. Our people are still as of old, laborious, and busy, and therefore easy to govern. Thou must not fancy that the dwarfs are behind hand in their manufacturing skill. Swords which followed the foe, when thou cast them after him, still and mysterious binding chains, in penetrable shields, and such like where, in olden times, formed their staple produce. But now they chiefly employ themselves with articles of convenience and ornament, in which truly they surpass all people of the earth. I may well say it would astonish thee to walk through our workshops and warehouses. All this would be right and good, were it not that with the whole nation in general, but more particularly with the royal family, there is one peculiar circumstance connected. She paused for a moment, and I again begged farther light on these wonderful secrets, which accordingly she forthwith proceeded to grant. It is well known, said she, that God so soon as he had created the world, and the ground was dry, and the mountains were standing bright and glorious, that God, I say, thereupon in the very first place created the dwarfs, to the end that there might be reasonable beings also, who in their passages and chasms might contemplate and adore his wonders in the inward parts of the earth. It is farther well known that this little race by degrees became uplifted in heart, and attempted to acquire the dominion of the earth, for which reason God then created the dragons, in order to drive back the dwarfs into their mountains. Now as the dragons themselves were wont to nestle in the large caverns and clefs, and dwell there, and many of them, too, were in the habit of spitting fire and working much other mischief, the poor little dwarfs were by these means thrown into exceeding straits and distress, so that not knowing what in the world to do, they humbly and fervently turned to God, that he would vouch safe to abolish this unclean dragon generation. But though it consisted not with his wisdom to destroy his own creatures, yet the heavy sufferings of the poor dwarfs so moved his compassion that anon he created the giants, ordained them to fight these dragons, and if not root them out, at least lessen their numbers. Now no sooner had the giants got moderately well through with the dragons than their hearts also began to wax wanton, and in their presumption they practiced much tyranny, especially on the good little dwarfs, who thence once more in their need turned to the Lord, and he, by the power of his hand, created the knights, who were to make war on the giants and dragons, and to live in concord with the dwarfs. Hereby was the work of creation completed on this side, and it is plain that henceforth giants and dragons as well as knights and dwarfs have always maintained themselves in being. From this, my friend, it will be clear to thee that we are of the oldest race on the earth, a circumstance which does us honor, but at the same time brings a great disadvantage along with it. For as there is nothing in the world that can endure forever, but all that has once been great must become little and fade, so it is our lot also that ever since the creation of the world we have been waning and growing smaller, especially the royal family on whom by reason of their pure blood this destiny presses with the heaviest force. To remedy this evil our wise teachers have many years ago devised the expedient of sending forth a princess of the royal house from time to time into the world to wed some honorable knight, so that the dwarf progeny may be reflected and saved from entire decay. Though my fair one related these things with an air of the utmost sincerity, I looked at her hesitatingly, for it seemed as if she meant to palm some fable on me. As to her own dainty lineage I had not the smallest doubt, but that she should have laid hold of me in place of a knight occasioned my distrust, seeing I knew myself too well to suppose that my ancestors had come into the world by an immediate act of creation. I concealed my wonder and skepticism and asked her kindly, but tell me, my dear child, how hast thou attained this large and stately shape, for I know few women that in richness of form can compare with thee? Thou shalt hear, replied she, it is a settled maxim in the council of the dwarf kings that this extraordinary step be before born as long as it possibly can, which indeed I cannot but say is quite natural and proper. Perhaps they might have lingered still longer had not my brother, born after me, come into the world so exceedingly small, that the nurses actually lost him out of his swaddling clothes, and no creature yet knows whether he is gone. On this occurrence, unexampled in the annals of dwarfdom, the sages were assembled, and without more ado the resolution was taken, and I set out in quest of a husband. The resolution, exclaimed I, that is all extremely well. One can resolve, one can take his resolution, but to give a dwarf this heavenly shape, how did your sages manage that? It had been provided for already, said she, by our ancestors. In the royal treasury lay a monstrous gold ring. I speak of it as it then appeared to me, when I saw it in my childhood, for it was this same ring which I have here on my finger. We now went to work as follows. I was informed of all that awaited me, and instructed what I had to do, and to forbear. A splendid palace, after the pattern of my father's favorite summer residence, was then got ready, a mean edifice, wings, and whatever else you could think of. It stood at the entrance of a large rock cleft, which it decorated in the handsomest style. On the appointed day our court moved thither, my parents also, and myself. The army paraded, and four and twenty priests, not without difficulty, carried on a costly litter the mysterious ring. It was placed on the threshold of the building, just within the spot where you entered. Many ceremonies were observed, and after a pathetic farewell I proceeded to my task. I stepped forward to the ring, laid my finger on it, and that instant began perceptibly to wax in stature. In a few moments I had reached my present size, and then I put the ring on my finger. But now, in the twinkling of an eye, the door's windows gates flap too. The wings grew up into the body of the edifice. Instead of a palace stood a little box beside me, which I forthwith lifted and carried off with me, not without a pleasant feeling in being so tall and strong. To indeed a dwarf to trees and mountain, to streams and tracks of land, yet a giant to grass and herbs, and above all to ants, from whom we dwarfs not being always on the best terms with them, often suffer considerable annoyance. How it fared with me on my pilgrimage I might tell the at great length, suffice it to say I tried many, but no one saved thou seemed worthy of being honored to renovate and perpetuate the line of the glorious Eckwald. In the course of these narrations my head had now and then kept wagging without myself having absolutely shaken it. I put several questions to which I received no very satisfactory answers, and on the contrary I learned to my great affliction that after what had happened she must needs return to her parents. She had hope still, she said of getting back to me but for the present it was indispensably necessary to present herself at court, as otherwise both for her and me there was nothing but utter ruin. The purses would soon cease to pay, and who knew what all would be the consequences? On hearing that our money would run short I inquired no further into consequences. I shrugged my shoulders. I was silent, and she seemed to understand. We now packed up and got into our carriage, the box standing opposite us, in which, however, I could still see no symptoms of a palace. In this way we proceeded several stages. Post money and drink money were readily and richly paid from the pouches to the right and left, till at last we reached a mountainous district, and no sooner had we alighted here than my fair one walked forward, directing me to follow her with the box. She led me by rather steep paths to a narrow plot of green ground through which a clear brook now gushed in little falls, now ran in quiet windings. She pointed to a little knoll, paid me to set the box down there, then said, Farewell, thou wilt easily find the way back, remember me, I hope to see thee again. At this moment I felt as if I could not leave her. She was just now in one of her fine days, and if you will, her fine hours, along with Sophera being on the green sward among grass and flowers, girded in by rocks, waters murmuring round you, what art could have remained insensible. I came forward to seize her hand, to clasp her in my arms, but she motioned me back, threatening me, though still kindly enough, with great danger, if I did not instantly withdraw. Is there no possibility, then, exclaimed I, of my staying with thee, of thy keeping me beside thee? These words I uttered with such rueful tones and gestures that she seemed touched by them, and after some thought confessed to me that a continuance of our union was not entirely impossible. Who happier than I? My importunity, which increased every moment, compelled her at last to come out with her scheme, and inform me that if I, too, could resolve on becoming as little as I had once seen her, I might still remain with her, be admitted to her house, her kingdom, her family. The proposal was not altogether to my mind, yet at that moment I positively could not tear myself away. Also having already, for a good while, been accustomed to the marvellous, and being at all times prone to bold enterprises, I closed with her offer, and said she might do with me as she pleased. I was there upon directed to hold out the little finger of my right hand. She placed her own against it. Then with her left hand she quite softly pulled the ring from her finger, and let it run along mine. At instant I felt a violent twinge on my finger. The ring shrunk together, and tortured me horribly. I gave a loud cry, and caught round me for my fair one, but she had disappeared. What state of mind I was in during this moment I find no words to express. So I have nothing more to say, but that I very soon, in my miniature size, found myself beside my fair one in a wood of grass darks. The joy of meeting after this short yet strange separation, or if you will, of this reunion without separation, exceeds all conception. I fell on her neck. She replied to my caresses, and the little pair was as happy as the large one. With some difficulty we now mounted a hill. I say difficulty because the sword had become for us an almost impenetrable forest. But at length we reached a bare space, and how surprised was I at perceiving there a large bolted mass, which ere long I could not, but recognize for the box, in the same state as when I had set it down. Go up to it, my friend, said she, and do but knock with the ring. Thou shalt see wonders. I went up accordingly, and no sooner had I rapped than I did in fact, witness the greatest wonder. Two wings came jutting out, and at the same time there fell like scales and chips, various pieces this way and that, while doors, windows, colonnades, and all that belonged to a complete palace at once came into view. If ever you have seen one of Ratchan's discs, how at one pole a multitude of springs and latches get in motion, the writing board and writing materials, letter and money compartments all at once, or in quick succession, start forward, you will partly conceive how this palace unfolded itself, into which my sweet attendant now introduced me. In the large saloon I directly recognized the fireplace which I had formerly seen from above, and the chair in which she had then been sitting, and on looking up I actually fancied I could still see something of the chink in the dome through which I had peeped in. I spare you the description of the rest. In a word all was spacious, splendid, and tasteful. Scarcely had I recovered from my astonishment when I heard afar off a sound of military music. My better half sprang up, and with rapture announced to me the approach of his majesty her father. We stepped out to the threshold, and here beheld a magnificent procession moving towards us, from a considerable cleft in the rock. Soldiers, servants, officers of state, and glittering courtiers, followed in order. At last you observed a golden throng, and in the midst of it the king himself. As soon as the whole procession had drawn up before the palace, the king with his nearest retinue stepped forward. His loving-daughter hastened out to him, pulling me along with her. We threw ourselves at his feet. He raised me graciously, and on coming to stand before him I perceived that in this little world I was still the most considerable figure. We proceeded together to the palace, where his majesty in presence of his whole court was pleased to welcome me with a well-studied oration, in which he expressed his surprise at finding us here, acknowledged me as his son-in-law, and appointed the nuptial ceremony to take place on the morrow. A cold sweat went over me as I heard him speak of marriage, for I dreaded this even more than music, which otherwise appeared to me the most hateful thing on earth. Our music-makers, I used to say, enjoy at least the conceit of being in unison with each other, and working in concord, for when they have tweaked and tuned long enough, grating our ears with all manners of screeches, they believe in their hearts that the matter is now adjusted, and one instrument accurately suited to the other. The bandmaster himself is in this happy delusion, and so they set forth joyfully, though still tearing our nerves to pieces. In the marriage-state even this is not the case, for although it is but a duet, and you might think two voices, or even two instruments, might in some degree be attuned to each other, yet this happens very seldom. For while the man gives out one tone, the wife directly takes a higher one, and the man again a higher, and so it rises from the chamber to the choral pitch, and farther and farther, till at last wind instruments themselves cannot reach it, and now as harmonical music itself is in offense to me, it will not be surprising that this harmonical should be a thing which I cannot endure. Of the festivities in which the day was spent, I shall in can say nothing, for I paid small heed to any of them. The sumptuous victuals, the generous wine, the royal amusements I could not relish. I kept thinking and considering what I was to do. Here however there was but little to be considered. I determined once for all to take myself away and hide somewhere. Accordingly I succeeded in reaching the chink of a stone where I entrenched and concealed myself as well as might be. My first care after this was to get the unhappy ring off my finger, an enterprise, however, which would by no means prosper, for on the contrary I felt that every pull I gave the metal grew straighter and cramped me with violent pains which again abated as soon as I desisted from my purpose. Early in the morning I awoke. For my little person had slept, and very soundly, and was just stepping out to look farther about me, when I felt a kind of rain coming down. Through the grass, flowers, and leaves, there fell, as it were, something like sand and grit in large quantities. But what was my horror when the whole of it became alive, and an innumerable host of ants rushed down on me? No sooner did they observe me than they made an attack on all sides, and though I defended myself stoutly and gallantly enough, they at last so hemmed me in, so nipped and pinched me, that I was glad to hear them calling to surrender. I surrendered instantly and wholly, whereupon an ant of respectable stature approached me with courtesy, nay, with reverence, and even recommended itself to my good graces. I learned that the ants had now become allies of my father-in-law, and by him called out in the present emergency and commissioned to fetch me back. Here then was little I, in the hands of creatures, still less. I had nothing for it but looking forward to the marriage. Nay, I must now thank heaven, if my father-in-law were not broth, if my fair one had not taken the sullens. Let me skip over the whole train of ceremonies. In a word we were wedded. Deally and joyously as matters went, there were nevertheless solitary hours in which you were led astray into reflection. Now there happened to me something which had never happened before. What and how you shall learn. Everything about me was completely adapted to my present form and once. The bottles and glasses were in a fit ratio to a little toper, nay, if you will, better measure in proportion than with us. In my tiny pellet, the dainty tidbits tasted excellently. A kiss from the little mouth of my spouse was still the most charming thing in nature, and I will not deny that novelty made all these circumstances highly agreeable. Unhappily, however, I had forgotten my former situation. I felt within me a skill of bygone greatness, and it rendered me restless and cheerless. Now for the first time did I understand what the philosophers might mean by their ideal, which they say so plagues the mind of man. I had an ideal of myself, and often in dreams I appeared as a giant. In short my wife, my ring, my dwarf figure, and so many other bonds and restrictions made me utterly unhappy, so that I began to think seriously about obtaining my deliverance. Being persuaded that the whole magic lay in the ring, I resolved on filing this asunder. From the court-jewler accordingly I borrowed some files. By good luck I was left-handed, as indeed throughout my whole life I had never done art in the right-handed way. I stood tightly to the work, and it was not small, for the golden hoop, so thin as it appeared, had grown proportionably thicker in contracting from its former length. All vacant hours I privately applied to this task, and at last the metal being nearly through I was provident enough to step out of doors. This was a wise measure, for all at once the golden hoop started sharply from my finger, and my frame shot aloft with such violence that I actually fancied I should dash against the sky. And at all events I must have bolted through the dome of our palace. Nay, perhaps, in my new awkwardness have destroyed this summer residence altogether. But here, then, was I standing again, in truth so much larger, but also, as it seemed to me, so much the more foolish and helpless. On recovering from my stupefaction I observed the royal strongbox lying near me, which I found to be moderately heavy as I lifted it, and carried it down the footpath to the next stage, where I directly ordered horses and set forth. By the road I soon made trial of the two side-pouches. Instead of money, which appeared to be run out, I found a little key. It belonged to the strongbox, in which I got some moderate compensation. So long as this held out I made use of the carriage. By and by I sold it, and proceeded by diligence. The strongbox, too, I at length cast from me, having no hope of its ever filling again, and thus in the end, after a considerable circuit, I again returned to the kitchen hearth, to the landlady, and the cook, where you were first introduced to me. End of excerpt from Villehelmmeister's Apprenticeship and Travels, Volume 3 by Johann Goethe, translated by Thomas Carlyle in 1842 The Pied Piper by James Howell, 1594 to 1666 This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. To Mr. E. P. from Familiar Letters Sir, I saw such prodigious things daily done these few years past that I had resolved with myself to give over-wondering at anything. Yet a passage happened this week that forced me to wonder once more, because it is without parallel. It was that some odd fellows went skulking up and down London streets, and with figs and raisins lured little children, and so purloined them away from their parents, and carried them a shipboard far beyond sea, whereby cutting their hair and other devices they so disguised them that their parents could not know them. This made me think upon that miraculous passage in Hamlin, which I hoped to have passed through when I was in Hamburg, had we returned by Holland, which was thus, nor would I relate it unto you, were there not some ground of truth for it. The said town of Hamlin was annoyed with rats and mice, and it chanced that a pad-coated piper came thither, who covenanted with the chief-burgers for such a reward, if he could free them quite from the said vermin, nor would he demand it till a twelve-month and a day after. The agreement being made he began to play on his pipes, and all the rats and the mice followed him to a great law nearby, for they all perished, so the town was infected no more. At the end of the year the piper returned for his reward. The burgers put him off with slidings and neglect, offered him some small matter, which he refusing, and stayed some days in the town. One Sunday morn at high mass, when most people were at church, he fell to play on his pipes, and all the children up and down followed him out of the town to a great hill not far off, which rent in two, and opened, and let him and the children in, and so closed up again. This happened a matter of two hundred and fifty years since, and in that town they date their bills and bonds and other instruments in law to this day from the year of the going out of their children. Besides, there is a great pillar of stone at the foot of the said hill, whereon this story is engraven. No more now, for this is enough in conscience for one time, so I am your most affectionate servitor, J. H. Fleet, 1 October 1643, and of the Pied Piper, by James Howell, 1594 to 1666. A redeeming sacrifice by L. M. Montgomery, 1874 to 1942. 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 dance at Brian Lyles was in full swing. Toff Leclerc, the best fiddler in three counters, was enthroned on the kitchen table, and from the glossy brown violin, which his grandfather brought from Grand Prey, was conjuring music which made even stiff old aunt Feme want to show her steps. Around the kitchen sat a row of young men and women, and the open sitting room doorway was crowded with the faces of non-dancing guests who wanted to watch the sets. An eight-hand reel had just been danced, and the girls, giddy from the much swinging of the final figure, had been led back to their seats. Matty Lyles came out with a differ of water and sprinkled the floor from which a fine dust was rising. Toff's violin purred under his hands as he waited for the next set to form. The dancers were slow about it. There was not the rush for the floor that there had been earlier in the evening, for the supper table was now spread in the dining room, and most of the guests were hungry. Fill up, dear boys, shouted the fiddler impatiently. Bring out your gals for the next set. After a moment, Paul King led out Joan Shelley from the shadowy corner where they had been sitting. They'd already danced several sets together. Joan had not danced with anybody else that evening. As they stood together under the light from the lamp on the shelf above them, many curious and disapproving eyes watched them. Connor Mitchell, who had been standing in the open out-of-door way with the moonlight behind him, turned abruptly on his heel and went out. Paul King leaned his head against the wall and watched the watchers with a smiling, defiant face as they waited for the set to form. He was a handsome fellow with the easy, winning ways that women love. His hair curled in bronze masses about his head. His dark eyes were long and drowsy and laughing. There was a swathe bloom on his round cheeks, and his lips were as red and begarling as a girl's. A bad egg was Paul King, with a bad past and a bad future. He was shiftless and drunken. Ugly tales were told of him. Not a man in Lyle's house that night, but grudged him the privilege of standing up with Joan Shelley. Joan was a slight blossom-like girl in white, looking much like the pale, sweet-scented house-rose she wore in her dark hair. Her face was colourless and young, very pure and softly curved. She had wonderfully sweet dark blue eyes, generally dropped down with notably long black lashes. There were many showier girls in the groups around her, but none half so lovely. She made all the rosy cheek-butes seemed coarse and overblown. She left in Paul's clasp the hand by which he had led her out on the floor. Now and then he shifted his gaze from the faces before him to hers. When he did she always looked up and they exchanged glances as if they had been utterly alone. Three other couples gradually took the floor and the reel began. Joan drifted through the figures with the grace of a wind-blown leaf. Paul danced with rollicking abandon, seldom taking his eyes from Joan's face. When the last mad world was over, Joan's brother came up and told her in an angry tone to go into the next room and dance no more, since she would dance with only one man. Joan looked at Paul. That look meant that she would do as he and none other told her. Paul nodded easily. He did not want any fosters then, and the girl went obediently into the room. As she turned from him, Paul coolly reached out his hand and took the rose from her hair. Then, with a triumphant glance around the room, he went out. The autumn night was very clear and chill, with a faint moaning wind blowing up from the northwest over the sea that lay shimmering before the door. Out beyond the cove the votes were nodding and curtsing on the swell, and over the shore-fields the great red star of the lighthouse flared out against the silvery sky. Paul, with a whistle, sauntered down the sandy lane, thinking of Joan. How mightily he loved her! He, Paul King, who had made a mock of so many women and had never loved before. Ah! and she loved him! She had never said so in words, but eyes and tones had said it. She, Joan Shelley, the pick and pride of the harbour girls, whom so many men had wooed, winning their trouble for their pains. He had won her. She was his and his only, for the asking. His heart was seizing with pride and triumph and passion, as he strode down to the shore and flung himself on the cold sand in the black shadow of Michael Brown's veeched vote. Brian Lyle, a grizzled elderly man, half farmer, half fisherman, and Maxwell Holmes, the Frostbeck schoolteacher, came up to the vote presently. Paul lay softly and listened to what they were saying. He was not troubled by any sense of dishonour. Honour was something Paul King could not lose since it was something he had never possessed. They were talking of him and Joan. What a shame that a girl like Joan Shelley should throw herself away on a man like that, Holmes said. Brian Lyle removed the pipe he was smoking and spat reflectively at his shadow. Damn shame, he agreed, that girl's life will be ruined if she marries him, plum ruined, and marry him she will. He's bewitched her, darned if I can understand it. A dozen better men have wanted her, Connor Mitchell for one, and he's an honest, steady fellow with a good home to offer her. If King had left her alone, she'd have taken Connor. She used to like him well enough, but that's all over. She's infatuated with King, the worst of scamp. She'll marry him and be sorry for it to her last day. He's died clear through and always will be. Why, look you teacher, most men pull up a bit when they're courting a girl, no matter how wild they veen and will be again. Paul hasn't, it hasn't made any difference. He was dead drunk night before last, at the harbour head, and he hasn't done a stroke of work for a month. And yet Joan Shelley will take him. What are her people thinking of to let her go with him, ask Holmes. She hasn't any but her brother. He's against Paul, of course, but it won't matter. The girl's fancy's caught, and she'll go her own gate to ruin. Ruin, I tell you, if she marries that handsome near do well, she'll be a wretched woman all her days, and none to pity her. The two moved away then, and Paul, emotionless, faced downward on the sand. His lips pressed against Joan's sweet, crushed rose. He felt no anger over Brian Lyle's unsparing condemnation. He knew it was true, every word of it. He was a worthless scamp, and always would be. He knew that perfectly well. It was in his blood. None of his race had ever been respectable, and he was worse than them all. He had no intention of trying to reform, because he could not, and because he did not even want to. He was not fit to touch Joan's hand. Yet he had meant to marry her. But to spoil her life, would it do that? Yes, it surely would. And if he were out of the way, taking his baleful charm out of her life, Connor Mitchell might, and doubtless, would win her yet, and give her all he could not. The man suddenly felt his eyes wet with tears. He'd never shed a tear in his daredevil life before, but they came hot and stinging now. Something he had never known or thought of before entered into his passion and purified it. He loved Joan. Did he love her well enough to stand aside, and let another take the sweetness and grace that was now his own? Did he love her well enough to save her from the poverty-stricken, shamed life she must lead with him? Did he love her better than himself? I ain't fit to think of her, he groaned. I never did a decent thing in my life, as they say. But how can I give her up? God, how can I? He lay still a long time after that, until the moonlight crept around the boat and drove away the shadow. Then he got up and went slowly down to the water's edge, with Joan's rose all wet with his unaccustomed tears in his hands. Slowly and reverently he plucked off the petals and scattered them on the ripples, where they drifted lightly off like fairy shallops on moonshine. When the last one had fluttered from his fingers, he went back to the house and hunted up Captain Alec Massison, who was smoking his pipe in a corner of the veranda, and watching the young folks dancing through the open door. The two men talked together for some time. When the dance broke up and the guests straggled homeward, Paul sought Joan. Rob Shelley had his own girl to see home, and relinquished the guardianship of his sister with a scowl. Paul strode out of the kitchen and down the steps, at the side of Joan, smiling with his usual daredevilry. He whistled noisily all the way up the lane. Great little dance, he said, my last in prospect for a spell, I guess. Why? asked Joan, wonderingly. Oh, I'm going to take a run down to South America in Massison's schooner. Lord knows when I'll come back. This old place has got too deadly dull to suit me. I'm going to look for something livelier. Joan's lips turned ashen under the fringes of a white fascinator. She trembled violently and put one of her small brown hands up to her throat. You, you are not coming back, she said faintly. Not likely, I'm pretty well tired of prospect, and I haven't got anything to hold me here. Things will be livelier down south. Joan said nothing more. They walked along the spruce fringe road, where the moonbeams laughed down through the thick, softly swaying boughs. Paul whistled one rollicking tune after another. The girl bit her lip and clenched her hands. He cared nothing for her. He'd been making a mock of her as of others. Her pride and wounded love fought each other in her soul. Pride conquered. She would not let him or anyone see that she cared. She would not care. At her gate Paul held out his hand. Well, good-bye, Joan. I'm sailing to-morrow, so I won't see you again, not for years, likely. You will be some sober old married woman when I come back to prospect, if I ever do. Good-bye, said Joan steadily. She gave him her cold hand and looked calmly into his face without quailing. She had loved him with all her heart, but now a fatal scorn of him was already mingling with her love. He was what they said he was, a scamp without principle or honour. Paul whistled himself out of the shelly lane and over the hill. Then he flung himself down under the spruces, crushed his face into the spicy frosted ferns, and had his black hour alone. But when Captain Alex Schooner sailed out of the harbor the next day, Paul King was on board of her, the wildest and most hilarious of a wild and hilarious crew. Cross-vec people nodded their satisfaction. Good riddance, they said. Paul King is black to the core. He never did a decent thing in his life. End of A Redeeming Sacrifice by L. M. Montgomery Recording by Peter Tomlinson Smith, an episode in a lodging house, by Algernon Blackwood. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Smith, an episode in a lodging house When I was a medical student, began the doctor, half turning towards his circle of listeners in the firelight, I came across one or two very curious human beings, but there was one fellow I remember particularly for he caused me the most vivid and I think the most uncomfortable emotions I have ever known. For many months I knew Smith only by name as the occupant of the floor above me, obviously his name meant nothing to me. Moreover I was busy with lectures, reading, clinics and the like, and had little leisure to devise plans for scraping acquaintance with any of the other lodgers in the house. Then Chance brought us curiously together and this fellow Smith left a deep impression upon me as the result of our first meeting. At the time the strength of this first impression seemed quite inexplicable to me, but looking back at the episode now from a standpoint of greater knowledge I judged the fact to have been that he stirred my curiosity to an unusual degree, and at the same time awakened my sense of horror, whatever that may be in a medical student, about as deeply and permanently as these two emotions were capable of being stirred at all in the particular system and set of nerves called me. How he knew that I was interested in a study of languages was something I could never explain, but one day quite unannounced he came quietly into my room in the evening and asked me point blank if I knew enough Hebrew to help him in the pronunciation of certain words. He caught me along the line of least resistance, and I was greatly flattered to be able to give him the desired information. But it was only when he had thanked me and was gone that I realized I had been in the presence of an unusual individuality. For the life of me I could not quite seize and label the peculiarities of what I felt to be a very striking personality, but it was born in upon me that he was a man apart from his fellows, a mind that followed a line leading away from ordinary human intercourse and human interests, and into regions that left in his atmosphere something remote, rarefied, chilling. The moment he was gone I became conscious of two things, an intense curiosity to know more about this man and what his real interests were, and secondly the fact that my skin was crawling and that my hair had a tendency to rise. The doctor paused the moment here to puff hard at his pipe which, however, had gone out beyond recall without the assistance of a match, and in the deep silence which testified to the genuine interest of his listeners, someone poked the fire up into a little blaze and one or two others glanced over their shoulders into the dark distances of the big hall. On looking back he went on watching the momentary flames in the grate, I see a short, thick-set man of perhaps forty-five, with immense shoulders and small, flender hands. The contrast was noticeable for I remember thinking that such a giant frame and such slim finger bones hardly belonged together. His head, too, was large and very long, the head of an idealist beyond all question, yet with an unusually strong development of the jaw and chin. Here again was a singular contradiction, though I am better able now to appreciate its full meaning with a greater experience in judging the values of physiognomy. For this meant, of course, an enthusiastic idealism balanced and kept in check by will and judgment, elements usually deficient in dreamers and visionaries. At any rate, here was a being with probably a very wide range of possibilities, a machine with a pendulum that most likely had an unusual length of swing. The man's hair was exceedingly fine, and the lines about his nose and mouth were cut, as with a delicate steel instrument in wax. His eyes I have left to the last. They were large and quite changeable, not in colour only, but in character, size, and shape. Occasionally they seemed the eyes of someone else, if you can understand what I mean, and at the same time in their shifting shades of blue, green, and a nameless sort of dark grey, there was a sinister light in them that led to the whole face and aspect almost alarming. Moreover, they were the most luminous optics I think I have ever seen in any human being. There then, at the risk of a wearisome description, is Smith, as I saw him for the first time that winter's evening, in my shabby students' rooms in Edinburgh. And yet the real part of him, of course, I have left untouched, for it is both indescribable and ungettable. I have spoken already of an atmosphere of warning and a luthiness he carried about with him. It is impossible further to analyse the series of little shocks his presence always communicated to my being. But there was that about him, which made me instantly on the kiviv, in his presence, every nerve alert, every sense strained and on the watch. I do not mean that he deliberately suggested danger, but rather that he brought forces in his wake which automatically warned the nervous centres of my system to be on their guard and alert. Since the days of my first acquaintance with this man I have lived through other experiences and have seen much I cannot pretend to explain or understand. But so far in my life I have only once come across a human being who suggested a disagreeable familiarity with unholy things, and who made me feel uncanny and creepy in his presence, and that unenviable individual was Mr Smith. What his occupation was during the day I never knew. I think he slept until the sunset. No one ever saw him on the stairs or heard him move in his room during the day. He was a creature of the shadows who apparently preferred darkness to light. Our landlady either knew nothing or would say nothing. At any rate she found no fault, and I have since wondered often by what magic this fellow was able to convert a common landlady of a common lodging-house into a discreet and uncommunicative person. This alone was a sign of genius of some sort. He's been here with me for years, long before you come, and I don't interfere or ask no questions of what doesn't concern me, as long as people pay their rent. Was the only remark on the subject that I ever succeeded in winning from that quarter, and it certainly told me nothing nor gave me the encouragement to ask for further information. Examinations, however, and the general excitement of a medical student's life, for a time put Mr Smith completely out of my head. For a long period he did not call upon me again, and for my part I felt no courage to return his unsolicited visit. Just then, however, there came a change in the fortunes of those who controlled my very limited income, and I was obliged to give up my ground floor, and move aloft to more modest chambers on the top of the house. Here I was directly over Smith, and had to pass his door to reach my own. It so happened that about this time I was frequently called out at all hours of the night, for the maternity cases which a fourth-year student takes at a certain period of his studies, and on returning from one of these visits at about two o'clock in the morning I was surprised to hear the sound of voices as I passed his door. A peculiar sweet odour too, not unlike the smell of incense penetrated into the passage. I went upstairs very quietly, wondering what was going on there at this hour of the morning. To my knowledge Smith never had visitors. For a moment I hesitated outside the door with one foot on the stairs. All my interest in this strange man revived, and my curiosity rose to a point not far from action. At last I might learn something of the habits of this lover of the night and the darkness. The sound of voices was plainly audible, Smith's predominating so much that I never could catch more than points of sound from the other, penetrating now and then the steady stream of his voice. Not a single word reached me, at least not a word that I could understand, though the voice was loud and distinct, and it was only afterwards that I realised he must have been speaking in a foreign language. The sounds of footsteps, too, was equally distinct. Two persons were moving about the room, passing and repassing the door, one of them a light, agile person, and the other ponderous and somewhat awkward. Smith's voice went on incessantly with its odd, monotonous droning, now loud, now soft, as he crossed and recrossed the floor. The other person was also on the move, but in a different and less regular fashion, for I heard rapid steps that seemed to end sometimes in stumbling, and quick sudden movements that brought up with a violent lurching against the wall or furniture. As I listened to Smith's voice moreover, I began to feel afraid. There was something in the sound that made me feel intuitively he was in a tight place, and an impulse stirred faintly in me, very faintly, I admit, to knock at the door and inquire if he needed help. But long before the impulse could translate itself into an act, or even before it had been properly weighed and considered by the mind, I heard a voice close beside me in the air, a sort of hushed whisper, which I am certain with Smith speaking, though the sound did not seem to have come to me through the door. It was close in my very ear, as though he stood beside me, and it gave me such a start that I clutched the banisters to save myself from stepping backwards and making a clatter on the stairs. There is nothing you can do to help me, it said distinctly, and you will be much safer in your own room. I am ashamed to this day of the pace at which I covered the flight of stairs in the darkness to the top floor, and of the shaking hand with which I lit my candles and bolted the door. But there it is, just as it happened. This midnight episode, so odd and yet so trivial in itself, fired me with more curiosity than ever about my fellow lodger. It also made me connect him in my mind with a sense of fear and distrust. I never saw him, yet I was often and uncomfortably aware of his presence in the upper regions of that gloomy lodging house. Smith and his secret mode of life and mysterious pursuits somehow contrived to awaken in my being a line of reflection that disturbed my comfortable condition of ignorance. I never saw him, as I have said, and exchanged no sort of communication with him, yet it seemed to me that his mind was in contact with mine, and some of the strange forces of his atmosphere filtered through into my being and disturbed my equilibrium. Those upper floors became haunted for me after dark, and though outwardly our lives never came into contact, I became unwillingly involved in certain pursuits on which his mind was centred. I felt that he was somehow making use of me against my will, and by methods which passed my comprehension. I was at that time moreover in the heavy unquestioning state of materialism, which is common to medical students when they begin to understand something of the human anatomy and nervous system, and jump at once to the conclusion that they control the universe and hold in their forceps the last word of life and death. I knew it all, and regarded a belief in anything beyond matter as the wanderings of weak or at best untrained minds. And this condition of mind, of course, added to the strength of this upsetting fear, which emanated from the floor below, and began slowly to take possession of me. Though I kept no notes of the subsequent events in this matter, they made too deep an impression for me ever to forget the sequence in which they occurred. Without difficulty I can recall the next step in the adventure with Smith. For adventure it rapidly grew to be. The doctor stopped a moment and laid his pipe on the table behind him before continuing. The fire had burned low and no one stirred to poke it. The silence in the great hall was so deep that when the speaker's pipe touched the table, the sound woke audible echoes at the far end among the shadows. One evening, while I was reading, the door of my room opened and Smith came in. He made no attempt at ceremony. It was after ten o'clock and I was tired, but the presence of the man immediately galvanized me into activity. My attempts at ordinary politeness he thrust on one side at once and began asking me to vocalise and then pronounce for him certain Hebrew words. And when this was done he abruptly inquired if I was not the fortunate possessor of a very rare rabbinical treatise which he named. How he knew that I possessed this book puzzled me exceedingly, but I was still more surprised to see him cross the room and to take it out of my bookshelf almost before I had had time to answer in the affirmative. Evidently he knew exactly where it was kept. This excited my curiosity beyond all bounds and I immediately began asking him questions, and though out of sheer respect for the man I put them very delicately to him, and almost by way of mere conversation, he had only one reply for the lot. He would look up at me from the pages of the book with an expression of complete comprehension on his extraordinary features, would bow his head a little and say very gravely, that of course is a perfectly proper question, which was absolutely all I could ever get out of him. On this particular occasion he stayed with me perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, then he went quickly downstairs to his room with my Hebrew treatise in his hand, and I heard him close and bolt his door. But a few moments later before I had time to settle down to my book again, or to recover from the surprise his visit had caused me, I heard the door open, and there stood Smith once again beside my chair. He made no excuse for his second interruption, but bent his head down to the level of my reading lamp, and peered across the flame, straight into my eyes. I hope, he whispered, I hope you are never disturbed at night. Hey, I stammered, disturbed at night. Oh, no, thanks, at least not that I know of. I am glad, he replied gravely, appearing not to notice my confusion and surprise at his question. But remember, should it ever be the case, please let me know at once. And he was gone down the stairs and into his room again. For some minutes I sat reflecting upon his strange behaviour. He was not mad, I argued, but was the victim of some harmless delusion that had gradually grown upon him as a result of his solitary mode of life. And from the books he used, I judged that it had something to do with medieval magic, or some system of ancient Hebrew mysticism. The words he asked me to pronounce for him were probably words of power which, when uttered with the vehemence of a strong will behind them, was opposed to produce physical results or set up vibrations in one's own inner being, that had the effect of a partial lifting of the veil. I sat thinking about the man and his way of living and the probable effects in the long run of his dangerous experiments, and I can recall perfectly well the sensation of disappointment that crept over me when I realised that I had labelled his particular form of aberration, and that my curiosity would therefore no longer be excited. For some time I had been sitting alone with these reflections. It may have been ten minutes, or it may have been half an hour, when I was aroused from my reverie by the knowledge that someone was again in the room standing close beside my chair. My first thought was that Smith had come back again in his swift, unaccountable manner, but almost at the same moment I realised that this could not be the case at all, for the door faith my position and it certainly had not been opened again. Yet someone was in the room, moving cautiously to and fro, watching me, almost touching me. I was as sure of it as I was of myself, and though at the moment I do not think I was actually afraid, I am bound to admit that a certain weakness came over me, and that I felt that strange disinclination for action, which is probably the beginning of the horrible paralysis of real terror. I should have been glad to hide myself, if that had been possible, to cower into a corner or behind a door or anywhere so that I could not be watched and observed. But overcoming my nervousness with an effort of the will, I got up quickly out of my chair and held the reading-lamp aloft, so that it shone into all the corners like a searchlight. The room was utterly empty. It was utterly empty, at least to the eye, but to the nerves, and especially to that combination of sense perception, which is made up by all the senses acting together, and by no one in particular, there was a person standing there at my very elbow. I say person, for I can think of no appropriate word, for if it was a human being I can only affirm that I had the overwhelming conviction that it was not, but that it was some form of life, wholly unknown to me both as to its essence and its nature. A sensation of gigantic force and power came with it, and I remember vividly to this day my terror on realising that I was close to an invisible being who could crush me as easily as I could crush a fly, and who could see my every movement while itself remaining invisible. To this terror was added the certain knowledge that the being kept in my proximity for a definite purpose, and that this purpose had some direct bearing upon my well-being. Indeed, upon my life I was equally convinced, for I became aware of a sensation of growing lassitude, and so the vitality were being steadily drained out of my body. My heart began to beat irregularly at first, then faintly. I was conscious, even within a few minutes, of a general drooping of the powers of life in the whole system, and ebbing away of self-control and a distinct approach of drowsiness and torpor. The power to move or to think out any mode of resistance was fast leaving me, when there arose in the distance as it were a tremendous commotion. The door opened with a clatter, and I heard the peremptory and commanding tones of a human voice calling aloud in a language I could not comprehend. It was Smith, my fellow lodger, calling up the stairs, and his voice had not sounded for more than a few seconds when I felt something withdrawn from my presence, from my person, indeed from my very skin. It seemed as if there was a rushing of air, and some large creature swept by me, at about the level of my shoulders. Instantly the pressure on my heart was relieved, and the atmosphere seemed to resume its normal condition. Smith's door closed quietly downstairs as I put the lamp down with trembling hands. What had happened I do not know. Only I was alone again, and my strength was returning, as rapidly as it had left me. I went across the room and examined myself in the glass. The skin was very pale, and the eyes dull. My temperature, I found, was a little below normal, and my pulse faint and irregular. But these smaller signs of disturbance were as nothing compared with the feeling I had, though no outward signs bore testimony to the fact that I had narrowly escaped a real and ghastly catastrophe. I felt shaken somehow, shaken to the very roots of my being. The doctor rose from his chair and crossed over to the dying fire so that no one could see the expression on his face as he stood with his back to the grate and continued his weird tale. It would be wearisome, he went on in a lower voice, looking over our heads as though he still saw the dingy top floor of that haunted Edinburgh lodging-house. It would be tedious for me at this length of time to analyse my feelings or attempt to reproduce for you the thorough examination to which I endeavoured then to subject my whole being, intellectual, emotional and physical. I need only mention the dominant emotion with which this curious episode left me, the indignant anger against myself that I could never have lost myself control enough to come under the sway of so gross and absurd a delusion. This protest, however, I remember making, with all the emphasis possible, and I also remember noting that it brought me very little satisfaction, for it was the protest of my reason only, when all the rest of my being was up in arms against its conclusions. My dealings with the delusion, however, were not yet over for the night, for very early next morning, somewhere about three o'clock, I was awakened by a curiously stealthy noise in the room, and the next minute there followed a crash as if all my books had been swept bodily from their shelf onto the floor. But this time I was not frightened. Cursing the disturbance with all the resounding and harmless words I could accumulate, I jumped out of bed and lit the candle in a second, and in the first dazzle of the flaring match, but before the wick had time to catch, I was certain I saw a dark grey shadow of ungainly shape, and with something more or less like a human head, drive rapidly past the side of the wall farthest from me, and disappear into the gloom by the angle of the door. I waited one single second to be sure the candle was a light, and then dashed after it, but before I had gone two steps my foot stumbled against something hard, piled up on the carpet, and I only just saved myself from falling headlong. I picked myself up and found that all the books from what I called my language shelf were strewn across the floor. The room meanwhile, as a minute's search revealed, was quite empty. I looked in every corner and behind every stick of furniture, and a student's bedroom on a top floor costing twelve shillings a week did not hold many available hiding places as you may imagine. The crash however was explained. Some very practical and physical force had thrown the books from their resting place. That, at least, was beyond all doubt, and as I replaced them on the shelf and noted that not one was missing, I busied myself mentally with the sore problem of how the agent of this little practical joke had gained access to my room and then escaped again, for my door was locked and bolted. Smith's odd question as to whether I was disturbed in the night, and his warning injunction to let him know at once if such were the case, now, of course, returned to affect me, as I stood there in the early morning, cold and shivering on the carpet, but I realised at the same moment how impossible it would be for me to admit that a more than usually vivid nightmare could have any connection with himself. I would rather stand a hundred of these mysterious visitations than consult such a man as to their possible cause. A knock at the door interrupted my reflections and I gave a start that sent the candle-greeds flying. Let me in, came in Smith's voice. I unlocked the door. He came in fully dressed. His face wore a curious pallor. It seemed to me to be under the skin and to shine through and almost make it luminous. His eyes were exceedingly bright. I was wondering what in the world to say to him or how he would explain his visit at such an hour, when he closed the door behind him and came close up to me, uncomfortably close. You should have called me at once, he said in his whispering voice, fixing his great eyes on my face. I stammered something about an awful dream, but he ignored my remark utterly, and I caught his eye, wondering if any movement of those optics can be described as wandering to the bookshelf. I watched him, unable to move my gaze from his person. The man fascinated me horribly for some reason. Why, in the devil's name, was he up and dressed at three in the morning? How did he know anything had happened unusual in my room? Then his whisper began again. It's your amazing vitality that causes you this annoyance, he said, shifting his eyes back to mine. I gasped, something in his voice or manner turned my blood into ice. That's the real attraction, you went on, but if this continues, one of us will have to leave, you know. I positively could not find a word to say in reply. The channels of speech dried up within me, and simply stared and wondered what he would say next. I watched him in a sort of dream, and as far as I can remember he asked me to promise to call him sooner another time, and then began to walk round the room, uttering strange sounds and making signs with his arms and hands, until he reached the door. Then he was gone in a second, and I had closed and locked the door behind him. After this the Smith adventure drew rapidly to a climax. It was a week or two later, and I was coming home between two and three in the morning from a maternity-case, certain features of which for the time being had very much taken possession of my mind, so much so indeed, that I passed Smith's door without giving him a single thought. The gas-jet on the landing was still burning, but so low that it made little impression on the waves of deep shadow that lay across the stairs. Overhead the faintest possible gleam of grey showed that the morning was not far away. A few stars shone down through the skylight. The house was still as the grave, and the only sound to break the silence was the rushing of the wind round the wands and over the roof. But this was a fitful sound, suddenly rising and as suddenly falling away again, and it only served to intensify the silence. I had already reached my own landing when I gave a violent start. It was automatic, almost a reflex action in fact, for it was only when I caught myself fumbling at the door handle and thinking where I could conceal myself quickest that I realised the voice had sounded close beside me in the air. It was the same voice I had heard before, and it seemed to me to be calling for help. And yet the very same minute I pushed on into the room, determined to disregard it, and seeking to persuade myself it was the creaking of the boards under my weight, or the rushing noise of the wind that had deceived me. But hardly had I reached the table where the candle stood, when the sound was unmistakably repeated. Help! Help! On this time it was accompanied by what I can only describe as a vivid tactile hallucination. I was touched, the skin of my arm was clutched by fingers. Some compelling force sent me headlong downstairs, as if the haunting forces of the whole world were at my heels. At Smith's door I paused, the force of his previous warning in junction to seek his aid without delay acted suddenly, and I led to my whole weight against the panels, little dreaming that I should be called upon to give help, rather than to receive it. The door yielded at once, and I burst into a room that was so full of a choking vapour, moving in slow clouds, that at first I could distinguish nothing at all but a set of what seemed to be huge shadows passing in and out of the mist. Then gradually I perceived that a red lamp on the mantelpiece gave all the light there was, and that the room which I now entered for the first time was almost empty of furniture. The carpet was rolled back and piled in a heap in the corner, and upon the white boards of the floor I noticed a large circle drawn in black of some material that emitted a faint glowing light, and was apparently smoking. Inside the circle, as well as that regular intervals outside it, were curious looking designs, also traced in the same black smoking substance. These two seemed to emit a feeble light of their own. My first impression on entering the room had been that it was full of people, I was going to say, but that hardly expresses my meaning. Beings, they certainly were, but it was born in upon me, beyond the possibility of doubt that they were not human beings, that I had caught a momentary glimpse of living intelligent entities I can never doubt, but I am equally convinced, though I cannot prove it, that these entities were from some other scheme of evolution altogether, and had nothing to do with the ordinary human life, either incarnate or discarnate. But whatever they were, the visible appearance of them was exceedingly fleeting. I no longer saw anything, though I still felt convinced of their immediate presence. They were, moreover, of the same order of life as the visitant in my bedroom of a few nights before, and their proximity to my atmosphere in numbers, instead of singlies before, conveyed to my mind something that was quite terrible and overwhelming. I fell into a violent trembling, and the perspiration poured from my face in streams. They were in constant motion about me. They stood close to my side, moved behind me, brushed past my shoulder, stirred the hair on my forehead, and circled round me without ever actually touching me, yet always pressing closer and closer. Especially in the air, just over my head, there seemed ceaseless movement, and it was accompanied by a confused noise of whispering and sighing that threatened every moment to become articulate in words. To my intense relief, however, I heard no distinct words, and the noise continued more like the rising and falling of the wind than anything else I can imagine. But the characteristic of these beings that impressed me most strongly at the time, and of which I have carried away the most permanent recollection, was that each of them possessed what seemed to be a vibrating centre which impelled it with tremendous force, and caused a rapid whirling motion of the atmosphere as it passed me. The air was full of these little vortices of whirring, rotating force, and whenever one of them pressed me too closely, I felt as if the nerves in that particular portion of my body had been literally drawn out, absolutely depleted of vitality, and then immediately replaced, but replaced dead, flabby, useless. Then suddenly for the first time my eyes fell upon Smith. He was crouching against the wall on my right, in an attitude that was obviously defensive, and it was plain he was in extremities. The terror on his face was pitiable, but at the same time there was another expression about the tightly clenched teeth and mouth which showed that he had not lost all control of himself. He wore the most resolute expression I have ever seen on a human countenance, and though for the moment, at a fearful disadvantage, he looked like a man who had confidence in himself, and in spite of the working of fear was waiting his opportunity. For my part I was face to face with a situation so utterly beyond my knowledge and comprehension, that I felt as helpless as a child, and as useless. Help me back, quick, into that circle! I heard him half cry, half whisper to me across the moving vapours. My only value appears to have been that I was not afraid to act. Knowing nothing of the forces I was dealing with, I had no idea of the deadly perils risked, and I sprang forward and caught him by the arms. He threw all his weight in my direction, and by our combined efforts his body left the wall and lurched across the floor towards the circle. Instantly they descended upon us, out of the empty air of that smoke-laden room, a force which I can only compare to the pushing, driving power of a great wind pent up within a narrow space. It was almost explosive in its effect, and it seemed to operate upon all parts of my body equally. It fell upon us with a rushing noise that filled my ears and made me think for a moment the very walls and roof of the building had been torn asunder. Under its first blow we staggered back against the wall, and I understood plainly that its purpose was to prevent us getting back into the circle in the middle of the floor. Pouring with perspiration and breathless, with every muscle strange to the very utmost, we at length managed to get to the edge of the circle, and at this moment so great was the opposing force that I felt myself actually torn from Smith's arms, lifted from my feet, and twirled round in the direction of the windows, as if the wheel of some great machine had caught my clothes, and was tearing me to destruction in its revolution. But, even as I fell bruised and breathless against the wall, I saw Smith firmly upon his feet in the circle, and slowly rising again to an upright position. My eyes never left his figure once in the next few minutes. He drew himself up to his full height. His great shoulders squared themselves. His head was thrown back a little, and as I looked I saw the expression on his face changed swiftly from fear to one of absolute command. He looked steadily round the room, and then his voice began to vibrate. At first in a low tone it gradually rose till it assumed the same volume and intensity I had heard that night when he called up the stairs into my room. It was a curiously increasing sound, more like the swelling of an instrument than a human voice, and as it grew in power and filled the room, I became aware that a great change was being affected slowly and surely. The confusion of noise and rushing of air fell into the role of long steady vibrations, not unlike those caused by the deeper pedals of an organ. The movements in the air became less violent, then grew decidedly weaker, and finally ceased altogether. The whisperings and signs became fainter and fainter till at last I could not hear them at all, and, strangest of all, the light emitted by the circle as well as by the designs round it increased to a steady glow, casting their radiance upwards with the weirdest possible effects upon his features. Slowly by the power of his voice, behind which lay undoubtedly a genuine knowledge of the occult manipulation of sound, this man dominated the forces that had escaped from their proper sphere, until at length the room was reduced to silence and perfect order again. Judging by the immense relief which also communicated itself to my nerves, I then felt that the crisis was over and Smith was wholly master of the situation. But hardly had I begun to congratulate myself upon this result, and to gather my scattered senses about me when, uttering a loud cry, I saw him leap out of the circle and fling himself into the air, as it seemed to me into the empty air. Then, even while holding my breath for dread of the crashing, he was bound to come upon the floor, I saw him strike with a dull thud against a solid body in mid-air, and the next instant he was wrestling with some ponderous thing that was absolutely invisible to me, and the room shook with the struggle. To and fro they swayed, sometimes lurching in one direction, sometimes in another, and always in horrible proximity to myself as I leaned trembling against the wall and watched the encounter. It lasted at most but a short minute or two, ending as suddenly as it had begun. Smith, with an unexpected movement, threw up his arms with a cry of relief. At the same instant there was a wild, tearing shriek in the air beside me, and something rushed past us with a noise like the passage of a flock of big birds. Both windows rattled as if they would break away from their sashes. Then a sense of emptiness and peace suddenly came over the room, and I knew that all was over. Smith, his face exceedingly white, but otherwise strangely composed, turned to me at once. God, if you hadn't come, you deflected the stream, broke it up, he whispered. You saved me. The doctor made a long pause. Presently he felt for his pipe in the darkness, groping over the table behind us with both hands. No one spoke for a bit, but all dreaded the sudden glare that would come when he struck the match. The fire was nearly out, and the great hall was pitch dark. But the storyteller did not strike that match. He was merely gaining time for some hidden reason of his own, and presently he went on with his tail in a more subdued voice. I quite forget, he said, how I got back to my own room. I only know that I lay with two lighted candles for the rest of the night, and the first thing I did in the morning was to let the landlady know I was leaving her house at the end of the week. Smith still has my rabbinical treatise. At least he did not return it to me at the time, and I have never seen him since, to ask for it. End of Smith, an episode in a lodging-house Sam Baxter belonged, with broad impartiality, to both. With him falsehood was not more frequently a means to an end, for he would not only lie without a purpose, but at a sacrifice. I heard him once reading a newspaper to a blind aunt, and deliberately falsifying the market reports. The good old lady took it all in with a trustful faith, until he quoted dried apples at fifty cents a yard for unbolted size. Then she arose and disinherited him. Sam seemed to regard the fountain of truth as a stagnant pool, and himself as an angel, whose business it was to stand up and trouble the waters. You know Ben Dean, said Sam to me one day. I am down on that fellow, and I'll tell you why. In the winter of sixty-eight he and I were snaking together in the mountains north of the Big Sandy. What do you mean by snaking, Sam? Well, I like that. Why gathering snakes to be sure, rattlesnakes, for zoological gardens, museums, and side shows to circuses. This is how it's done. A party of snakers goes up to the mountain in the early autumn, with provisions for all winter, and putting up a snakery at some central point, get to work as soon as the torpid season sets in, and before there is much snow. I presume you know that when the nights begin to get cold, the snakes go in under big flat stones, snuggle together, and lie there frozen stiff, until the warm days of spring limber them up for business. We go about, raise up the rocks, tie the worms into convenient bundles, and carry them to the snakery, where, during the snow season, they are assorted, labeled according to quality, and packed away for transportation. Sometimes a single showman will have as many as a dozen snakers in the mountains all winter. Ben and I were out one day, and had gathered a few sheaves of prime ones, when we discovered a broad stone that showed good indications, but we couldn't raise it. The whole upper part of the mountains seemed to be built mostly upon this one stone. There was nothing to be done but mow it, dig under, you know. So, taking a spade, I soon widened the hole the creatures had got in at, until it would admit my body. Crawling in, I found a kind of cell in the solid rock, stowed nearly full of beautiful serpents, some of them, as long as a man. You would have reveled in these worms. They were neatly disposed about the sides of the cave, and even dozen in every birth, and some odd ones swinging from the ceiling in hammocks, like sailors. By the time I had counted them roughly, as they lay, it was dark and snowing like the mischief. There was no getting back to headquarters that night, and there was room for but one of us inside. Inside what, Sam? See here, have you been listening to what I'm telling you or not? There is no use telling you anything. Perhaps you won't mind waiting until I get done, and then you can tell something of your own. We drew straws to decide who would sleep inside, and it fell to me. Such luck that fellow Ben always had drawing straws when I held them. It was sinful. But even inside it was coldish, and I was more than an hour getting asleep. Toward morning, though, I awoke, feeling very warm and peaceful. The moon was at full, just rising in the valley below, and shining in at the hole I'd entered at. It made everything light as day. But, Sam, according to my astronomy, a full moon never rises towards morning. Now, who said anything about your astronomy? I'd like to know who's telling this, you or I? Always think you know more than I do, and always swearing it isn't so, and always taking the words out of my mouth, and… but what's the use of arguing with you? As I was saying, the snakes began waking about the same time I did. I could hear them turn over on their sides and sigh. Presently, one raised himself up and yawned. He meant well, but it was not the regular thing for an Ophidian to do at that season. By and by, they began to poke their heads up all around, nodding good morning to one another across the room, and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over the sides of the beds in a fringe to study my habits. I can't describe the strange spectacle. You would have supposed it was the middle of March and a forward season. There were more worms than I had counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought, and the more they got awake, the whiter they yawned, and the longer they stretched. The fat fellows in the hammocks above me were in danger of toppling out and breaking their necks every minute. Then it went through my mind like a flash, what was the matter? Finding it cold outside, Ben had made a roaring fire on top of the rock, and the heat had deceived the worms into believing that it was late spring. As I lay there and thought of a full-grown man who hadn't any better sense than to do such a thing as that, I was mad enough to kill him. I had lost confidence in mankind. If I had not stopped up the entrance before lying down with a big round stone which the heat had swollen so that a hydraulic ram couldn't have butted it loose, I should have put on my clothes and gone straight home. But, Sam, you said the entrance was open and the moon was shining in. There you go again, always contradicting, and insinuating that the moon must remain for hours in one position, and saying you've heard it told better by someone else, and wanting to fight. I've told this story to your brother over at Milk River more than a hundred million times, and he never said a word against it. I believe you, Sam, for he is deaf as a tombstone. Tell you what to do for him. I know a fellow in Smith's Valley that will cure him in a minute. That fellow has cleaned the deafness all out of Washington County a dozen times. I never knew a case that could stand up against him ten seconds, take three parts of snake root to a gallon of wagon grease, and I'll go see if I can find the prescription. And Sam was off like a rocket. The End of Snaking by Ambrose Beers Please visit LibriVox.org Daughter of Beauty Keep Thyself from Envy Envy hath hurled an angel from heaven, it hath darkened the loveliest form of night, even the beautiful moon. From the councils of the Eternal went forth the creative voice, to light chug litter in the Firmament as kings of the earth, and distinguishers of the rolling pine. He sped, and it was done. Uprobed the sun, the first light, as a bright groom cometh forth from his chamber, as the hero rejoicingly pursues his victorious path, so stood he then, clothed in the radiance of the highest. A garland of every dye encircled his head, the earth shouted for joy. The plants yielded to him their fragrance, and the flowers arrayed themselves in lovely and varied garbs. Filled with envies stood the lesser light, for she saw that she could not outshine the lordly sun. Why, she said, murmuring to herself, why should there be two princes upon one throne? Wherefore must I be the second, and not the first? Suddenly her beautiful light, banished by inward sorrow, vanished. Away, away it flew, far off into the regions of air, and became the countless hosts of stars. Pale as death, stood Luna then, ashamed, and confounded before all the heavenly creation. Weeping, she cried. Have pity, father of beings! Have pity! Then stood an angel of God before the disconsolate mourner, and spoke to her the words of holy destiny. Because thou hast envied the light of the sun, o thou most miserable, thou shalt in future shine only by his light. And when yonder earth steps before thee, thou shalt be, as now, half or holy darkened. Yet, child of air, weep not, the merciful hath forgiven thy fault, and hath turned it even to good. Go, said he, speak consolingly to the repentant, let her also in her radiance be queen. The tears of her repentance shall be a balsam to quicken all that languish, and to endow with new strength all that have fainted beneath the rays of the sun. Comforted turned Luna away, when behold, there suddenly encircled her the same glory, in which even she now glitters, and she entered upon the silent course, in which she still moves on, the queen of light and leader of the stars. Bewailing her guilt, and sympathizing with every tear, she ever seeks whom she may comfort, and whom she may console. Daughter of beauty, beware of envy. Envy hath hurled an angel from heaven. It hath darkened the loveliest form of night. Even the beautiful moon, end of the sun and moon, by Johann Gottfried Herder, 1744-1803. A tiny village lay among the mountains of the country, from which for four years the men had gone forth to fight. First the best men had gone, then the older men, then the youths, and lastly the schoolboys. It will be seen that no men could have been left in the village except the very aged and the bodily incapacitated who soon died, owing to the war policy of the government which was to let the useless perish, that there might be more food for the useful. Now it chanced that while all the men went away, save those left to die of slow starvation, only a few returned, and those few were crippled and disfigured in various ways. One young man had only part of a face, and had to wear a painted tin mask like a holiday maker. Another had two legs but no arms, and another two arms but no legs. One man could scarcely be looked at by his mother, having had his eyes burned out of his head until he stared like death. One had neither arms nor legs, and was mad of his misery besides, and lay all day in a cradle like a baby. And there was a quite old man who strangled night and day from having sucked in poison gas, and another, a mere boy, who shook like a leaf in a high wind from the shell-shock, and screamed at a sound. And he too had lost a hand and part of his face, though not enough to warrant the expense of a mask for him. All these men, except he who had been crazed by horror of himself, had been furnished with ingenious appliances to enable them to be partly self-supporting, and to earn enough to pay their share of the taxes, which burdened their defeated nation. To go through that village after the war was something like going through a life-sized toy village, with all the mechanical figures wound up and clicking, only instead of the figures being new and gay and pretty, they were battered and grotesque and inhuman. There would be a windmill, and a smithy, and a public house. There would be a row of cottages, a village church, the sparkling waterfall, the party-colored fields spread out like bright kerchiefs on the hillside, the parading fowl, and goats and cows, though not many of these last, there would be the women, and with them some children, very few, however, for the women had been getting reasonable, and were now refusing to have sons who might one day be sent back to them limbless and mad, to be rocked in cradles, for many years, perhaps. Still, the younger women, softer creatures of impulse, had born a child or two. One of these, born the second year of the war, was a very blonde and bullet-headed rascal of three, with a bullying air, and of a roving disposition. But such traits appear engaging in children of sufficiently tender years, and he was a sort of village plaything, here, there, and everywhere, on the most familiar terms with the wrecks of the war which the government of that country had made. He tried on the tin mask, and played with the baker's mechanical leg, so indulgent were they of his caprices, and it amused him excessively to rock the cradle of the man who had no limbs, and who was his father. In and out he ran, and was humored to his bent. To one he seemed the son he had lost. To another the son he might have had had the world gone differently. To others he served as a brief escape of the shadow of a future without hope. To others yet, a diversion of an hour. This last was especially true of the blind man, who sat at the door of his old mother's cottage, binding brooms. The presence of the child seemed to him like a warm ray of sunshine falling across his hand, and he would lure him to linger by letting him try on the great blue goggles which he found it best to wear in public. But no disfigurement or deformity appeared to frighten the little fellow. These had been his playthings from earliest infancy. One morning his mother being busy washing clothes had left him alone, confident that he would soon seek out some friendly fragment of soldier and entertain himself till noon and hunger time. But occasionally children have odd notions and do the exact opposite of what one supposes. On this brilliant summer morning the child fancied a solitary ramble along the bank of the mountain stream. Vaguely he meant to seek a pool higher up, and to cast stones in it. He wandered slowly, straying now and then into small valleys, or chasing wayside ducks. It was past ten before he gained the green gleaming and foam-white pool, sunken in the shadow of the tall gray rock over whose top three pine trees swayed in the fresh breeze. Under them, looking to the child like a white cloud in a green sky, stood a beautiful young man, poised on the sheer brink for a dive. A single instant he stood there, clad only in shadow and sunshine, and next he had dived so expertly that he scarcely splashed up the water around him. Then his dark dripping head rose in sight, his glittering arm thrust up, and he swam vigorously to shore. He climbed the rock for another dive. These actions he repeated in pure sport and joy in life so often that his little spectator became dizzy with watching. At length he had enough of it and scooped for his discarded garments. These he carried to a more sheltered spot and rapidly put on. The child still wide-eyed and wondering, for indeed he had much to occupy his attention. He had two arms, two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears complete. He could see, for he had glanced around him as he dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned quickly at the whir of the pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so interesting on the arms, face, and breasts of the burned man. He did not strangle every little while, or shiver madly, and scream at a sound. It was truly inexplicable, and therefore terrifying. The child was beginning to whimper, to tremble, to look wildly about for his mother, when the young man observed him. Hello! he cried eagerly. If it isn't a child! He came forward across a footbridge, with a most ingratiating smile, for this was the first time that day he had seen a child, and he had been thinking it remarkable that there should be so few children in a valley where, when he had travelled that way five years before, there had been so many that he had scarcely been able to find pennies for them. So he cried, Hello! quite joyously, and searched in his pockets. But, to his amazement, the bullet-headed little blonde boy screamed out in terror, and fled for the protection into the arms of a hurriedly approaching young woman. She embraced him with evident relief, and was lavishing on him in terms of scolding and endearment in the same breath, when the traveller came up, looking as if his feelings were hurt. I assure you, madam, he said, that I only meant to give your little boy these pennies. He explained himself in an air of wonder. What on earth is there about me to frighten a child? he queried plentifully. The young peasant woman smiled indulgently on them both, on the child now sobbing, his face buried in her skirt, and on the boyish, perplexed and beautiful young man. It is because he finds the hare-traveller so strange-looking, she said, curtsying. He is quite small. She showed his smallness with a gesture. And it is the first time he has ever seen a whole man. The End of The Strange-Looking Man by Fanny Kimball Johnson