 After the Theatre by Anton Chekhov. Nadia Zelenin had just come back with her mama from the theatre, where she had seen a performance of Yevgeny Onyagin. Soon after she reached her own room she threw off her dress, let down her hair, and in her petticoat and white dressing jacket hastily sat down to the table to write a letter like Tatyana's. I love you, she wrote, but you do not love me, you do not love me. She wrote it and laughed. She was only sixteen and did not yet love anyone. She knew that an officer called Gourney and a student called Gruzdev loved her. But now, after the opera, she wanted to be doubtful of their love, to be unloved and unhappy how interesting that was. There is something beautiful touching and poetical about it when one loves and the other is indifferent. Onyagin was interesting because he was not in love at all and Tatyana was fascinating because she was so much in love and if they had been equally in love with each other and had been happy they would perhaps have seemed dull. Leave off declaring that you love me. Nadia went on writing, thinking of Gourney, I cannot believe it. You are very clever, cultivated, serious. You have immense talent and perhaps a brilliant future awaits you while I am an uninteresting girl with no importance and you know very well that I should be only a hindrance in your life. It is true that you were attracted by me and thought you had found your ideal in me, but that was a mistake and now you are asking yourself in despair, why did I meet that girl? And only your goodness of heart prevents you from owning it to yourself. Nadia felt sorry for herself. She began to cry and went on. It is hard for me to leave my mother and my brother or I should take a nun's veil and go with her chance may lead me and you would be left free and would love another. Oh, if I were dead. She could not make out what she had written through her tears. Little rainbows were quivering on the table, on the floor, on the ceiling, as though she were looking through a prism. She could not write. She sank back in her easy chair and fell to thinking of Gourney. My God, how interesting, how fascinating men were! Nadia recalled the fine expression congratulating, guilty, and soft, which came into the officer's face when one argued about music with him and the effort he made to prevent his voice from betraying his passion. In a society where cold haughtiness and indifference were regarded as signs of good breeding and gentlemanly bearing, one must conceal one's passions and he did try to conceal them, but he did not succeed and everyone knew very well that he had a passionate love of music. The endless discussions about music and the bold criticisms of people who knew nothing about it kept him always on the strain. He was frightened, timid, and silent. He played the piano magnificently, like a professional pianist, and if he had not been in the army he would certainly have been a famous musician. The tears on her eyes dried. Nadia remembered that Gornie had declared his love at a symphony concert and again downstairs by the hat stand where there was a tremendous draft blowing in all directions. I am very glad that you have at last made the acquaintance of Gruzdev, our student friend. She went on writing, He is a very clever man and you will be sure to like him. You will see us yesterday and stay till two o'clock. We were all delighted with him and I regretted that you had not come. He said a great deal that was remarkable. Nadia laid her arms on the table and leaned her head on them and her hair covered her letter. She recalled that the student too loved her and that he had as much right to a letter from her as Gornie. Was it better, after all, to write to Gruzdev? There was a stir of joy in her bosom for no reason whatever. At first the joy was small and rolled in her bosom like an Indian rubber ball. Then it became more massive, bigger and rushed like a wave. Nadia forgot Gornie and Gruzdev. Her thoughts were in a tangle and her joy grew and grew. From her bosom it passed into her arms and legs and it seemed as though a light cool breeze were breathing on her head and ruffling her hair. Her shoulders quivered with subdued laughter. The table and the lamp chimney shook too and tears from her eyes splashed on the letter. She could not stop laughing and to prove to herself that she was not laughing about nothing she made haste to think of something funny. What a funny poodle, she said, feeling as though she would choke with laughter. What a funny poodle! She thought how, after tea the evening before, Gruzdev had played with Maxim the poodle and afterwards had told them about a very intelligent poodle who had run after a crow in the yard and the crow had looked round at him and said, Oh, you scamp! The poodle, not knowing he had to do with a learned crow, was fearfully confused and retreated in perplexity, then began barking. No, I had better love Gruzdev. Nadja decided and she tore up the letter to Gourney. She fell into thinking of the student, of his love, of her love. But the thoughts in her head insisted on flowing in all directions and she thought about everything, about her mother, about the street, about the pencil, about the piano. She thought of them joyfully and felt that everything was good, splendid. And her joy told her that this was not all, that in a little while it would be better still. Soon it would be spring, summer, going with her mother to Gorbiki, Gourney would come for his furlough, would walk about the garden with her and make love to her. Gruzdev would come too. He would play croquette and skittles with her. He would tell her wonderful things. She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders shook with laughter and it seemed to her that there was a scent of wormwood in the room and that a twig was tapping at the window. She went to her bed, sat down, and not knowing what to do with the immense joy which filled her with yearning. She looked at the holy image hanging at the back of her bed and said, Oh Lord God! Oh Lord God! End of After the Theatre By Anton Chekoff Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake An Occurrence at Al Creek Bridge by Ambrose Beers 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 Alex C. Tillander, Davis, California. An Occurrence at Al Creek Bridge by Ambrose Beers A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. He was attached to a stout cross timber of his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the tie supporting the rails of the railway, supplied a footing for him and his executioners. Two private soldiers of the Federal Army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as support. That is to say vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm, throwing straight across the chest, or formal under natural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge. They merely blockaded the two ends of the foot of the banking that traversed it. Beyond one of the sentinels, no one was in sight. The railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then curving was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground, a gentle slope top of the stockade of vertical tree trunks loop-hold for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators, a symbol company of infantry and lion. At parade rest, the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right, accepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels facing the banks of the stream might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his coordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who, when he comes announced, is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him, and the code of military etiquette, silence and fixity of forms of deference. The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good, a straight nose, fair mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed and straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar as well, fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers. His eyes were large and dark gray and had a conny expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons and gentlemen are not excluded. The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself merely behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quiet, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain. It was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former, the latter would step aside. The plank would tilt and the condemned man would go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered, nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his unsteady fast footing, then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream, racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream! He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thought upon his wife and children. The water touched to gold by the early sun. He missed upon the banks of some distance down the stream. The fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift, all had distracted him, and now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones with sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil. It had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby, it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He avoided each new stroke with impatience, and he knew not why apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer. The delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency, the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They heard his ear like the trust of a knife. He feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch. He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. If I could free my hands, he thought. I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets moving vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods, and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines. My wife and little ones are still beyond the invaders' farthest advance. As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain, rather than evolve from it, the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside. 2. Peyton Farkahar was a well-to-do planter of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave-owner and like other slave-owners of politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, what is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service for that gallant army which had fought these disastrous campaigns, ending with the fall of Corinth. And he chafed under the inglorious restraint longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity he felt would come as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South. No adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war. One evening while Farkahar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate in the middle of the water. Mrs. Farkahar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water, her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front. The yanks are repairing the railroads, said the man, and are getting ready for another advance. They reached the Owl Creek ridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains are in order. How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge, Farkahar asked, about thirty miles. Is there no force on this side of the creek? Only a picket post half a mile out on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this edge of the bridge. Suppose a man, a civilian, and student of hanging should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel, said Farkahar, smiling. What could he accomplish? The soldier reflected. I was there a month ago, he replied. I observed that the flood of last winter gave driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder. The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband, and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he were past the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a federal scout. Three. As Peyton Farkahar fell straight downward through the bridge, he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. Ages later, it seemed to him, by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck, downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification, and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness, of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced. He had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion, encompassed in a luminous crowd of which he was now merely the fiery heart. Without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash. A frightful warring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The rope had broken, and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation. The noose about his neck was already suffocating him, and kept the water from his lungs. To dive hanging at the bottom of a river, the idea seemed to be him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness, and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible. He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter, until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. To be hanged and drowned, he thought, that is not so bad, but I do not wish to be shot. No, I will not be shot. That is not fair. He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist surprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feet of a juggler without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! What magnificent! What superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor. His arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest, his first one, and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. Put it back, put it back! He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly. His brain was on fire. His heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out of his mouth. His whole body was racked of wrench with an unsupportable anguish, but his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick downward strokes forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge, his eyes were blinded by the sunlight, his chest expanded convulsively, and with his supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draft of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek. He was now in full possession of all senses. They were indeed preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf. He saw the very insects upon them. The locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs the prismatic colors and all the drew-drops upon a million blades of grass the humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream the beating of the dragon-fly's wings the strokes of the water's spider's legs like oars which had lifted their boat all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water. He had come to the surface facing down the stream in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire. The others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible. Their form was gigantic. Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report and saw one of the sentinels cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a grey eye and remembered having read that grey eyes were a keenest and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed. A countless whirl had caught Farkahar and turned him half round. He was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear high voice in a monotonous sing song now rang out behind him and came across the water with distinctness to pierce and subdued all other sounds even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawing, aspirated chant. The lieutenant on shore was taking apart and mourning his work. How coldly and pitilessly would what an even, calm indignation presaging and forging tranquility men with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words. Company, attention! Shoulder or arms! Ready, aim, fire! Farkahar dived. Dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara. Yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck, it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out. As he rose to the surface, grasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water. He was perceptibly farther downstream, nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading. The metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually. A hunted man saw all this over his shoulder. He was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs. The officer, he reasoned, will not make that Martinette's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the commander fire will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all. An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps. A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him. The cannon had taken in a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the spittin' water, he heard the deflected shot, having through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond. They will not do that again, he thought. The next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun. The smoke will apprise me. The report arrives too late. It lags behind the missile. That is a good gun. The water, the banks, the forest, the now distant bridge, fort, and men all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only, circular horizontal streets of color. That was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with the velocity of advance and duration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream, the southern bank, and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. In the middle of the ocean, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel restored him, and he whipped with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and utterly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds. He could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants. He noted a definite order in their arrangement and hailed the fragrance of their blooms. A strange rosy-ed light shone through the spaces among their trunks fully on harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape. He was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken. A whiz and a rattle of brave shot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled canineer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest. All that day he travelled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable. Nowhere did he discover a break in it, he had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation. By nightfall he was fatigued, foot sore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as the city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram and a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and maligned significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which, once, twice, and again he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue. His neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it, found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested. He could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst. He relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue. He could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet. Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking. For now he sees another scene. Perhaps he is merely recovered from a delirium. The gate of his own home all is as he left it, an all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have travelled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide, white walk he sees a footer of Fimo garments. His wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, swaps down from the rander to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck. A blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon. Then all is darkness in silence. Peyton Farquhar was dead. His body, with a broken neck swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge. End of an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Brighambrose Beers Recording by Alex C. Tlander Davis, California www.alexcalander.com The Bird Market by Anton Chekhov This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Bird Market by Anton Chekhov There is a small square near the monastery of the Holy Birth which is called Trubnoy or simply Truboi. There is a market there on Sundays. Hundreds of sheepskins, wadded coats, fur caps, and chimney-pot hats swarm there like crabs in a sieve. There is a sound of the twitter of birds in all sorts of keys recalling the spring. If the sun is shining and there are no clouds in the sky, the singing of the birds and the smell of hay makes a more vivid impression and this reminder of spring sets one thinking and carries one's fancy far, far away. Along one side of the square there stands a string of wagons. The wagons are loaded not with hay, not with cabbages nor beans, but with goldfinches, siskins, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, bluefinches. All of them are hopping about in rough homemade cages, twittering and looking with envy at the free sparrows. The goldfinches cost five copex. The siskins are rather more expensive while the value of the other birds is quite indeterminate. How much is a lark? The seller himself does not know the value of a lark. He scratches his head and asks whatever comes into it a ruble or three copex according to the purchaser. There are expensive birds too. A faded old blackbird with most of its feathers plucked out of its tail sits on a dirty perch. He is dignified, grave and motionless as a retired general. He has waved his claw in resignation to his captivity long ago and he looks at the blue sky with indifference. Probably owing to this indifference he is considered a sagacious bird. He is not to be bought for less than forty copex. Schoolboys, workmen, young men in stylish gray coats and bird fanciers in incredibly shabby caps in ragged trousers that are turned up at the ankles and look as though they had round the birds splashing through the mud. The young people and the workmen are sold hens for cox young birds for old ones. They know very little about birds but there is no deceiving the bird fancier. He sees and understands his bird from a distance. There is no relying on that bird, a fancier will say, looking into a siskin beak with others on his tail. He sings now it is true but what of that? I sing in company too. No my boy, shout. Sing to me without company, sing in solitude if you can. You give me that one, yonder, that sits and holds its tongue. Give me the quiet one. That one says nothing. So he thinks the more. Among the wagons of birds there are some full of other live creatures. Here you see hairs, rabbits, hedgehogs, guinea pigs, pole cats. A hair sits sorrowfully nibbling the straw. The guinea pigs shiver with cold while the hedgehogs look out with curiosity from under their prickles at the public. I have read somewhere says the post office official in a faded overcoat lovingly at the hair and addressing no one in particular. I have read that some learned man had a cat and a mouse and a falcon and a sparrow who all ate out of one bowl. That's impossible sir. The cat must have been beaten and the falcon I dare say had all its tail pulled out. There's no great cleverness in that sir. A friend of mine who had a cat who saving your presence used to eat his cucumbers. He thrashed her with a big whip for a fourth night till he taught her not to. A hair can learn to light matches if you beat it. Does that surprise you? It's very simple. It takes the match in its mouth and strikes it. An animal is like a man. A man's made wiser by beating and it's the same with a beast. Men in long, first-skirted coats moved backwards and forwards in the crowd with cocks and ducks under their arms. The fowls were all lean and hungry. Chickens poked their ugly, mangy-looking heads out of their cages and peck at something in the mud. Boys with pigeons stare into your face and try to detect in you a pigeon fancier. Indeed, it's no use talking to you. Someone shouts angrily, you should look before you speak. Do you call this a pigeon? It's an eagle, not a pigeon. A tall, thin man with a shaven upper lip and side whiskers who looks like a sick and drunken footman is selling a snow-white lapdog. The lapdog whines. She told me to sell the nasty thing, said the footman with a contemptuous snigger. She's bankrupt in her old age, has nothing to eat and here now is selling her dogs and cats. She cries and kisses them on their filthy snouts and then she is so hard up that she sells them. Hawn my soul, is that a fact? By a gentleman, the money is wanted for coffee. But no one laughs. A boy who is standing by screws up one eye and looks at him gravely with compassion. The most interesting of all is the fish section. Some dozen peasants are sitting in a row. Before each of them is a pail and in each pail there is a veritable little hell. There in the thick greenish water are swarms of little carp, eels, small fry, water snails, frogs and newts. Big water beetles with broken legs scurry over the small surface clambering on the carp and jumping over the frogs. The creatures have a strong hold on life. The frogs climb on the beetles, the newts on the frogs. The dark green tench as more expensive fish enjoy an exceptional position. They are kept in a special jar where they can't swim. Still, they are not so cramped. The carp is a grand fish. The carp's the fish to keep, Your Honor. Plague take him. You can keep him for a year in a pail and he'll live. It's a week since I caught these very fish. I caught them, sir, in Parava and have come from there on foot. The carp are two copecs each. The eels are three and the minnows are ten copecs the dozen. Plague take them all. Five copecs worth of minnows, sir? Won't you take some worms? The seller thrusts his coarse rough fingers into the pail and pulls out of it a soft minnow or a little carp the size of a nail. Fishing lines, hooks and tackle are laid out near the pails and pond worms glow with a crimson light in the sun. A fancier in a fur cap, iron rims spectacles and galoshes that look like two dreadnoughts walks about by the wagons of the birds and pails of fish. He is, as they call him here, a type. He hasn't a farthing to bless himself with but in spite of that he haggles, gets excited and pesters purchasers with advice. He has thoroughly examined all the hairs, pigeons and fish, examine them in every detail, fix the kind, the age and the price of each one of them a good hour ago. He is as interested as a child in the goldfinches, the carp and the minnows. Talk to him for instance about thrushes and the queer old fellow will tell you things you could not find in any book. He will tell you them with enthusiasm, with passion and will scold you too for your ignorance. Of goldfinches and bullfinches he is ready to talk endlessly opening his eyes wide and gesticulating violently with his hands. He is only to be met here at the market in the cold weather. In the summer he is somewhere in the country catching quails with a bird call and angling for fish. And here is another type. A very tall, very thin close-shaven gentleman with dark spectacles wearing a cap with a cockade and looking of a scrivener of bygone days. He is a fancier and he is a man of decent position, a teacher in a high school and is well known to be the habituaries of the market. And they treat him with respect, greeting him with bows and have even invented for him your scholarship. At Suherev Market he rummages among the books and to Trebnoi he looks out for good pigeons. Please, sir. The pigeon seller shouts out to him Mr. School Master, your scholarship? Take notice of my Trebner's. Your scholarship! Your scholarship! And Urchin repeats somewhere in the boulevard. And his scholarship apparently quite accustomed to his title, Grave and Serene takes a pigeon in both hands and lifting it above his head begins examining it and as he does so frowns and looks graver than ever, like a conspirator. And Trebnoi Square that little bit of Moscow where animals are so tenderly loved and where they are so tortured lives its little life, grows noisy and excited and the businesslike or pious people who pass by along the boulevard cannot make out what has brought this crowd of people this medley of caps for hats and chimney-pots together. What they are talking about there what they are buying and selling. End of The Bird Market by Anton Chekhov Read by Alan Davis Drake This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Rowdy Delaney Idaho, USA Bucky Severin by James Kerwood Father Brochet had come south from Fond du Lac and Wayman the Hudson's Bay Company doctor from Geiky River Country. They met at Severin's cabin on the water-found. Both had come on the same mission to see Severin, one to keep him from dying if that was possible, one to comfort him in his last hour if death came. Severin insisted on living. Bright-eyed, hollow-cheeked with a racking cough that reddened the gauze-hankerchief the doctor had given him, he sat bolstered in his cot and opened door with a glad and hopeful gaze. Wayman had arrived only a half an hour before. Outside was the Indian Kanuman who had helped bring him up. It was a glorious day, such as comes in its full beauty only in the far northern spring where the air enters the lungs like sharp, warm wine laden with the tang of spruce and balsam and the sweetness of bursting poplar buds. It was mighty good of you to come up, to say to the doctor, the company has always been the best friend I've ever had, except one, and that's why I've hung on to it all these years, trailing the spledges, first as a kid, you know, then trapping, running, and, oh Lord, he stopped a cough and the little black-frogged missioner looking across at Wayman saw him bite his lips. That cough hurts, a man like me coming down with a cough. Why, I've slipped in ice a thousand times, with snow for a pillow and the thermometer down to fifty. But last winter it was cold, seventy or lower, and I worked in it when I ought to have been inside warming my toes. But you see, I wanted the cabin built and all things cleared up about here before she came. It's the cold got me, wasn't it, Doc? That's it, said Wayman, rolling and lighting a cigarette. Then he laughed as the sick man finished another coughing spell and said, I never thought you'd have a love affair, Bucky. Neither did I, chuckled Severin. Ain't it a wonder, Doc? Here I am, thirty-eight, with a hide on me like leather and no thought of a woman for twenty years until I saw her. I don't mean it's a wonder I fell in love, Doc. You'd have done that a few to met her first. The wonder of it is she fell in love with me. He laughed softly. I'll bet Father Brochale go a heap in himself when he marries us. It's going to happen next month. Did you ever see her, Father? Marie Lacourne, over at the post on Split Lake? Severin dropped his head to cough, but Wayman saw the sudden look of horror that leapt into the little priest's face. Marie Lacourne. Yes, at Split Lake. Severin looked up again. He had missed what Wayman had seen. Yes, I've seen her. Bucky Severin's eyes lit up with pleasure. She's—she's beautiful, ain't she? He cried in a horse whisper. Ain't it a wonder, Father? I come up here with a canoe full of supplies last spring about this time, and at first I hardly dast to look at her. But it come out all right. When I told her I was coming over here to build us a home, she wanted me to bring her along to help, but I wouldn't. I knew it was going to be a hard winter, but she's never going to work, never so long as I live. I ain't had much to do with women, but I've seen them, and I've watched them, and she's never going to drudge like the rest. If she'll let me, I'm even going to do the cooking, and the dishwasher, and scrub the floors. I've done it for twenty-five years, and I'm tough. She ain't going to do nothing but so for the kids when they come, and sing and be happy. When it comes to work there ain't no fun in, I'll do it. I've planned it all out. We're going to have half an arpent square of flowers, and she'll love to work among them. I've got the ground cleared out there. You could see it by twisting your head through the door. And she's going to have an organ. I've got the money saved, and it's coming to Churchill on the next ship. That's going to be a surprise. About Christmas, when the snow is hard and sludge and good. You see? He stopped again to cough. A hectic flush filled his hollow cheeks, and there was a feverish glow in his eyes. As he bent his head, the priest looked at Weyman. The doctor's lips were tense. His cigarette was unlit. I know what it means for a woman to die a-working. Severin went on. My mother did that. I can remember it, though I was only a kid. She was bent and stoop-shouldered, and her hands were rough and twisted. I know why she used to hug me close, doing funny things over me when Father was away. When I first told Marie what I was going to do, she laughed at me. But when I told her about my mother, and how work and freezing and starving killed her when I needed her most, Marie just put up her hand to her face and looked queer, and then she burst out crying like a baby. She understands Marie does. She knows what I'm going to do. You mustn't talk any more, Bucky. Warned the doctor, feeling his pulse. It'll hurt you. Hurt me?" Severin laughed hysterically, as if what the doctor had said was a joke. Hurt me? It's going to put me on my feet, Doc. I know it now. I've been too much alone this last winter, with nothing but my dogs to talk to when night come. I ain't never been much of a talker, but she got me out of that. She used to tease me at first, and I'd get red in the face and almost bust. And then one day it come, like a bung out of a hole, and I've been hankering to talk ever since. Hurt me? He gave an incredulous chuckle, which ended in a cough. Do you know I wish I could read better than I can? He said suddenly, leaning almost eagerly toward Father Brochet. She knows I ain't great shucks at that. She's going to have a school just as soon as she comes, and I'm going to be the scholar. She's got a pack full of books and magazines, over a fresh load every winter. I'd like to surprise her. Can't you help me too?" Wayman pressed him back gently. See here, Bucky, you've got to lay down and keep quiet, he said. If you don't, it will take you a week longer to get well. Try and sleep a little, while Father Brochet and I go outside and see what you've done. When they went out, Wayman closed the door after them. He spoke no word, and looked upon what Bucky Severn had done for the coming of his bride. Father Brochet's hands touched the doctors, and it was cold and trembling. How is he, he asked? It's a bad malady, said Wayman softly. The frost has touched his lungs. One does not feel the effect until spring comes, then a cough, and the lungs begin literally to slough away. You mean that there's no hope? Absolutely none. He'll die within two days. As he spoke, the little priest straightened himself and lifted his hands as if to pronounce a benediction. Thank God he breathed, then as quickly he caught himself. No, I don't mean that, God forgive me, but it is best. Wayman stared incredulously into his face. It is best, repeated the other, as gently as if speaking a prayer. How strangely the creator sometimes works out his ends. I came straight here from Split Lake. Marie Lacourne died two weeks ago. It was I who said the last prayer over her dead body. End of Bucky Severin by James Kerwood Read by Browdy Delaney, Idaho, USA For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org From a Back Window by Bret Hart I remember that long ago as a sanguine and trustful child I became possessed of a highly colored lithograph representing a fair circassian sitting by a window. The price I paid for this work of art may have been extravagant, even in youth's fluctuating slate pencil currency. But the secret joy I felt in its possession knew no pecuniary equivalent. It was not alone that nature in Circasia lavished like upon the cheek of beauty and the vegetable kingdom that most expensive of colors, Lake. Nor was it that the rose which bloomed beside the fair Circasia's window had no visible stem and was directly grafted upon a marble balcony. But it was because it embodied an idea. That idea was a hinting of my fate. I felt that somewhere a young and fair circassian was sitting by a window looking out for me. The idea of resisting such an array of charms and color never occurred to me. And to my honor be it recorded that during the feverish period of adolescence I never thought of averting my destiny. But as vacation and holiday came and went and as my picture at first grew blurred and then faded quite away between the eastern and western continents in my atlas so its charms were curiously to pass away. When I became convinced that few females of Circassian or other origin sat pensively resting their chins on their henna-tinged nails at their parlor windows I turned my attention to back windows. Although the fair Circassian has not yet burst upon me with open shutters some peculiarities not unworthy of note have fallen under my observation. This knowledge has not been gained without sacrifice. I have made myself familiar with back windows and their prospects in the weak disguise of seeking lodgings heedless of the suspicious glances of landlady's and their evident reluctance to show them. I have caught cold gifts. I have become estranged from friends by unconsciously walking to their back windows during a visit when the weakly linen hung upon the line or where Miss Fanny ostensibly indisposed actually assisted in the laundry and Master Bobby in scant attire disported himself on the area railings. But I have thought and the invariable experience of all seekers and discoverers of truth has sustained me. Show me the back windows of a man's dwelling and I will tell you his character. The rear of a house only is sincere. The attitude of deception kept up at the front windows leaves the back area defenseless. The world enters at the front door but nature comes out at the back passage. That glossy, well-brushed individual who lets himself in with the latch key at the front door at night is a very different being from the slipshod wretch who growls of mornings for hot water at the door of the kitchen. The same with Madame whose contour of figure grows angular, whose face grows pallid, whose hair is down and who looks some ten years older through this sincere medium of a back window. No wonder that intimate friends fail to recognize each other in this dosa-dose position. You may imagine yourself familiar with the silver door plate and bow windows of the mansion where dwells your saccharisa. You may even fancy you recognize her graceful figure between the lace curtains of the upper chamber which you fondly imagine to be hers. But you shall dwell for months in the rear of her dwelling and within whispering distance of her bower and never know it. You shall see her with a handkerchief tied round her head in confidential discussion with the butcher and know her not. You shall hear her voice in shrill expostulation with her younger brother and it shall awaken no familiar response. I am writing at the back window as I prefer the warmth of my coal fire to the foggy freshness of the afternoon breeze that rattles the leafless shrubs in the garden below me. I have my window sash closed. Consequently I miss much of the shrill altercation that has been going on in the kitchen of number seven just opposite. I have heard fragments of an entertaining style of dialogue usually known as chafing which has just taken place between bitty in number nine and the butcher who brings the dinner. I have been pitying the chilled aspect of a poor canary put out to taste the fresh air from the window of number five. I have been watching and envying I fear the real enjoyment of two children raking over an old dust heap in the alley containing the wastes and debris of all the backyards in the neighborhood but a wealth of soda water bottles and old iron they have acquired. But I am waiting for an even more familiar prospect from my back window. I know that later in the afternoon when the evening paper comes a thick set gray head man will appear in his shirt sleeves at the back door of number nine and seating himself on the door step begin to read. He lives in the pretentious house and I hear he is a rich man but there is such humility in his attitude and such evidence of gratitude at being allowed to sit outside of his own house and read his paper and his shirt sleeves that I can picture his domestic history pretty clearly. Perhaps he is following some old habit of humbler days. Perhaps he has entered into an agreement with his wife not to indulge his disgraceful habit indoors. He does not look like a man who could be coaxed into a dressing gown. In front of his own palatial residence I know him to be a quiet and respectable middle-aged businessman but it is from my back window that my heart warms towards him in his shirt sleeve simplicity. So I sit and watch him in the twilight as he reads gravely and wonder sometimes when he looks up squares his chest and folds his paper thoughtfully over his knee whether he isn't fancy he hears the letting down of bars or the tinkling of bells as the cows come home and stand lowing for him at the gate. End of From a Back Window by Brett Hart read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake Her Lover by Maxine Gorky This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading by Paul Curran in The Hills of Northern England Her Lover by Maxine Gorky An acquaintance of mine once told me the following story. When I was a student at Moscow I happened to live alongside one of those ladies whose repute is questionable. She was a pole and they called her Teresa. She was a tallish powerfully built brunette with black bushy eyebrows and a large coarse face as if carved out by a hatchet. The beastly gleam of her dark eyes her thick bass voice her cab man like gait and her immense muscular vigor worthy of a fish wife made me with horror. I lived on the top flight and her garret was opposite to mine. I never left my door open when I knew her to be at home but this, after all was a very rare occurrence. Sometimes I'd chance to meet her on the staircase or in the yard and she would smile upon me with a smile which seemed to me to be sly and cynical. Occasionally I saw her drunk with blurry eyes, tousled hair and a particularly hideous grin and such occasions she would speak to me. How'd you do Mr. Student? And her stupid laugh would still further intensify my loading of her. I should have liked to have changed my quarters in order to have avoided such encounters and greetings but my little chamber was a nice one and there was such a wide view from the window and it was always so quiet in the street below. So I endured and one morning I was sprawling on my couch trying to find some sort of excuse for not attending my class when the door opened and the bass voice of Teresa the Loadsome resounded from my threshold. Could help you Mr. Student? What do you want? I said. I saw that her face was confused and supplicatory. It was a very unusual sort of face for her. Sir, I want to beg a favour of you. Will you grant it me? I lay there silent, thought to myself gracious courage my boy I want to send a letter home that's what it is, she said her voice was beseeching soft, timid juice take you I thought but up I jumped sat down at my table, took a sheet of paper and said come here sit down and dictate she came, sat down very gingerly on a chair and looked at me with a guilty look well, to whom do you want me to write? to Boleslav Kashput at the town of Svietsiana on the Warsaw Road well, fire away my dear Boles my darling my faithful lover may the mother of God protect thee thou heart of gold why hast thou not written for such a long time to thy sorrowing little dove Teresa I very nearly burst out laughing a sorrowing little dove more than five feet high with fists of stone and mooring weight and as black as a face as if the little dove had lived all its life in a chimney and had never once washed itself restraining myself somehow I asked who is this Boles? Boles, Mr. Student she said, as if offended with me for blundering over the name he is Boles my young man young man why are you so surprised sir cannot I a girl have a young man she a girl well oh, why not? I said all things are possible has he been your young man long? six years oh, I thought well, letters write your letter and I tell you plainly that I would willingly have changed places with this Boles if his fair correspondent had not been Teresa but something less than she I thank you most heartily sir for your kind service at Teresa to me with a curtsy perhaps I can show you some service eh? no, I must humbly thank you all the same perhaps your shirts or your trousers may want a little mendic I felt that this master don in petticoats had made me grow quite red with shame and I told her pretty sharply that I had no need whatever of her services she departed a week or two passed away it was evening I was sitting at my window whistling and thinking of some expedient for enabling me to get away from myself I was bored the weather was dirty and I didn't want to go out and out of sheer ennui I began a course of self analysis and reflection this also was dull enough work but I didn't care about doing anything else then the door opened heaven be praise someone came in oh Mr. students you have no pressing business I hope hmm no what is it I was going to ask you sir to write me another letter very well to bull as eh no this time it is from him what stupid that I am it is not for me Mr. student I beg your pardon it is for a friend of mine that is to say not a friend but an acquaintance a man acquaintance a sweetheart just like me here Teresa that is how it is will you sir write a letter to this Teresa I looked at her her face was troubled her fingers were trembling I was a bit fogged at first and then I guessed how it was look here my lady I said there are no bull lezzes or teresers at all and you have been telling me a pack of lies don't you come sneaking about me any longer I have no wish whatever to cultivate your acquaintance do you understand and suddenly she grew strangely terrified and distraught she began to shift from foot to foot without moving from the place and spluttered comically as if she wanted to say something and couldn't I waited to see what would come of all this and I saw and felt that apparently I had made a great mistake in suspecting her wishing to draw me from the path of righteousness evidently something very different Mr. Student she began and suddenly waving her hand she turned abruptly towards the door and went out I remain with a very unpleasant feeling in my mind I listened her door was flung violently too plainly the poor wench was very angry I thought it over and resolved to go to her and inviting her to come in here write everything she wanted I entered her apartment I looked around she was sitting at the table leaning on her elbows with her head in her hands listen to me I said now whenever I come to this point in my story I always feel horribly awkward and idiotic well well listen to me I said my seat came towards me with flashing eyes and laying her hands on my shoulders began to whisper or rather hum in her peculiar bass voice look you now it's like this there's no bowlers at all and there's no Teresa either but what's that to you is it a hard thing for you to draw your pen over paper eh? ah and you still such a little fair head boy there's nobody at all neither bowlers nor Teresa only me there you have it good mate do you pardon me said I altogether flabbergasted by such a reception what is it all about there's no bowlers you say no so it is and no Teresa either and no Teresa I'm Teresa I didn't understand this at all I fixed my eyes upon her and tried to make out which of us was taking leave of his or her senses and again to the table searched about for something came back to me and said in an offended tone if it was so hard for you to write to bowlers look here's your letter take it others will write for me I looked in her hand was my letter to bowlers listen Teresa what's the meaning of all this why must you get others to write for you when I have already written it and you haven't sent it sent it where I write to this bowlers there's no such person I absolutely did not understand it there was nothing for me but to spit and go then she explained what is it she said still offended there's no such person I tell you and she extended her arms as if she herself did not understand why there should be no such person but I wanted him to be am I then not a human creature like the rest of them yes yes I know I know of course yet no harm was done to anyone by my writing to him that I can see pardon me to whom to bowlers of course but he doesn't exist alas alas but what if he doesn't he doesn't exist but he might I write to him and it looks as if he did exist and to razor that's me and he replies to me and then I write to him again I understood at last and I felt so sick so miserable so ashamed somehow alongside of me not three yards away looked a human creature who had nobody in the world to treat her kindly affectionately and this human being had invented a friend for herself look now you wrote me a letter to bowlers and I gave it to someone else to read it to me and when they read it to me I listened and fancied that bowlers was there and I asked you to write me a letter from bowlers to to razor that is to me when they write such a letter for me and read it to me I feel quite sure that bowlers is there and life grows easier for me in consequence juice take you for a block head I said to myself when I heard this and from then sport regularly twice a week I wrote a letter to bowlers and an answer from bowlers to Teresa I wrote those answers well she of course listened to them and wept like anything roared I should say with her bass voice and in return for my thus moving her to tears by real letters from the imaginary bowlers she began to mend the holes I had in my socks shirts and other articles of clothing subsequently about three months after this history began they put her in prison for something or other no doubt by this time she's dead my acquaintance shook the ash from his cigarette looked pensively up at the sky and thus concluded well well the more a human creature has tasted of bitter things the more it hungers after the sweet things of life and we wrapped round in the rags of our virtues and regarding others through the midst of our self-sufficiency and persuaded of our universal impeccability do not understand this and the whole thing turns out pretty stupidly and very cruelly the fallen classes we say and who are the fallen classes I should like to know they are first of all people with the same bones flesh and blood and nerves as ourselves we have been told this day after day for ages and we actually listen and the devil only knows how hideous the whole thing is or are we completely depraved by the loud sermonizing of humanism in reality we also are fallen folks and so far as I can see very deeply fallen into the abyss of self-sufficiency and the conviction of our own superiority but enough of this it is all as old as the hills so old that it is a shame to speak of it very old indeed yes that's what it is the end of her lover by Maxine Gorky the queen bee two king's sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their fortunes but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living so that they could not return home again then their brother who was a little insignificant dwarf went out to seek for his brothers but when he had found them they only laughed at him to think that he who was so young and simple should try to travel the world when they who were so much wiser set out on their journey together and it came at last to an anthill the two elder brothers would have pulled it down in order to see how the poor ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs but the little dwarf said let the poor things enjoy themselves I will not suffer you to trouble them so on they went and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming about the two brothers wanted to catch two and roast them but the dwarf said let the poor things enjoy themselves next they came to a bee's nest in a hollow tree and there was so much honey that it ran down the trunk and the two brothers wanted to light a fire under the tree and kill the bees so as to get their honey but the dwarf held them back and said let the pretty insects enjoy themselves I cannot let you burn them at length the three brothers came to a castle and as they passed by the stables they saw fine horses standing there but all were of marble and no man was to be seen then they went through all the rooms till they came to a door on which there were three locks but in the middle of the door was a wicket so that they could look into the next room there they saw a little grey old man sitting at a table and they called to him once or twice but he did not hear however they called a third time and then he rose and came out to them he said nothing but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful table covered with all sorts of good things and when they had eaten and drunk he showed each of them to a bed chamber the next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table where there were three tablets containing an account of the means by which the castle might be disenchanted the first tablet said in the wood under the moss lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king's daughter they must all be found and if one be missing by the said of the son he who seeks them will be turned into marble the eldest brother set out and sought for the pearls the whole day but the evening came he found the first hundred so he was turned into stone as the tablet had foretold the next day the second brother undertook the task but he succeeded no better than the first for he could only find the second hundred of the pearls and therefore he too was turned into stone at last came the little dwarf's turn he looked into the moss but it was so hard to find the pearls and the job was so tiresome so he sat upon a stone and cried and as he sat there the king of the ants whose life he had saved came up to help him with five thousand ants and it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a heap the second tablet said the key of the princess's bed chamber must be fished up out of the lake and as the dwarf came to the brink of it he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about and they dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom the third task was the hardest to find out the youngest and best of all the king's three daughters now they were all beautiful and all exactly alike but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of sugar the next some sweet syrup and the youngest a spoonful of honey so he was to guess which it was that he had eaten the honey then came the queen of the bees who had been saved by the little dwarf from the fire and she tried the lips of all three but at last she sat upon the lips of the one who had eaten the honey which one was the youngest thus the spell was broken and all who had been turned into stones awoke and took their proper forms and the dwarf married the youngest and the best of all the princesses and was the king after his father's death but his two brothers married the two other sisters end of the queen bee The story of Keesh by Jack London Keesh lived long ago on the rim of the polar sea was head man of his village through many and prosperous years and died full of honors with his name on the lips of men so long ago did he live that only the old men remember his name his name and the tail which they got from the old men before them and which the old men to come will tell to their children and their children's children down to the end of time and the winter darkness when the north gales make their long sweeps across the ice pack and the air is filled with flying white and no man may venture forth is the chosen time for the telling of how Keesh from the poorest igloo in the village rose to power and place over them all he was a bright boy so the tail runs healthy and strong and he had seen thirteen sons in their way of reckoning time for each winter the sun leaves the land in darkness and the next year a new sun returns so that they may be warm again and look upon one another's faces the father of Keesh had been a very brave man but he had met his death in a time of famine when he had sought to save the lives of his people by taking the life of a great polar bear in his eagerness he came to close grapples with the bear and his bones were crushed but the bear had much meat on him and the people were saved was his only son and after that Keesh lived alone with his mother but the people are prone to forget and they forgot the deed of his father and he being but a boy and his mother only a woman they too were swiftly forgotten and their long came to live in the meanest of all the igloos it was at a council one night in the big igloo of Klosh Kwan the chief that Keesh showed the blood that ran in his veins and the manhood that stiffened his back with the dignity of an elder he rose to his feet and waited for silence amid the babble of voices it is true that meat be apportioned me and mine he said but it is off times old and tough this meat and moreover it has a quantity of bones the hunters grizzled in gray and lusty and young were aghast the like had never been known before a child that talked like a grown man and said harsh things to their very faces but steadily and with seriousness Keesh went on for that I know my father Bach was a great hunter I speak these words it is said that Bach brought home more meat than any of the two best hunters that with his own hands he attended to the division of it that with his own eyes he saw to it that the least old woman and the last old man received fair share nana the men cried put the child out and that he should talk to men and gray beards he waited calmly till the uproar died down thou hast the wife a gluck he said and for her dost thou speak and thou too masoch a mother also and for them dost thou speak my mother has no one save me wherefore I speak as I said I am dead because he hunted over keenly it is just that I who am his son and that Ikega who is my mother and was his wife should have meat in plenty so long as there be meat in plenty in the tribe I Keesh the son of Bach have spoken he sat down his ears keenly alert to the action his words had created that a boy should speak in council old a gluck was mumbling shall the babes and arms tell us men the things we do masoch demanded in a loud voice am I a man that I should be made a mock by every child that cries for meat the anger boiled a white heat they ordered him to bed threatened that he should have no meat at all and promised him sore beatings for his presumption Keesh's eyes began to flash and the blood to pound darkly under his skin in the midst of the abuse he sprang to his feet hear me ye men he cried never shall I speak in the council again never again till the men come to me and say that thou should speak it is well and it is our wish take now this ye men for my last word Bach my father was a great hunter I too his son shall go and hunt the meat that I eat and be it known now that the division of that which I kill shall be fair and no widow nor weak one shall cry in the night because there is no meat when the strong men are groaning in great pain for that they have eaten over much and in the days to come there shall be shame upon the strong men who have eaten over much I, Keesh, have said it Jeers and scornful laughter followed him out of the igloo but his jaw was set and he went his way looking neither to right nor left the next day he went forth along the shoreline where the ice and the land meet together those who saw him go noted that he carried his bow with a goodly supply of bone barbed arrows and that across his shoulders was his father's big hunting spear and there was laughter and much talk at the event it was an unprecedented occurrence never did boys of his tender age go forth to hunt much less to hunt alone also were there shaking of heads and prophetic mutterings and the women looked pityingly at Ikega and her face was grave and sad he will be back here long they said cheeringly let him go he will teach him a lesson the hunters said and he will come back shortly and he will be meek and soft of speech in the days to follow but a day passed and a second and on the third a wild gale blew and there was no quiche Ikega tore her hair and put soot of the seal oil on her face in token of her grief and the women assailed the men with bitter words he had mistreated the boy and sent him to his death and the men made no answer preparing to go in search of the body when the storm abated early next morning however quiche strode into the village but he came not shame facedly across his shoulders he bore a burden of fresh killed meat and there was importance in his step and arrogance in his speech go ye men with the dogs and sledges and take my trail for the better part of the day's travel he said there is much meat on the ice a she bear and two half grown cubs Ikega was overcome with joy but he received her demonstrations in man like fashion saying come Ikega let us eat and after that I shall sleep for I am weary and he passed into their igloo and ate profoundly and after that slept for twenty running hours there was much doubt at first much doubt in discussion the killing of a polar bear is very dangerous but thrice dangerous it is and three times thrice to kill a mother bear with her cubs the men could not bring themselves to believe that the boy quiche single handedly had accomplished so great a marvel but the women spoke of the fresh killed meat he had brought on his back and this was an overwhelming argument against their unbelief so they finally departed grumbling greatly that in all probability if the things were so he had neglected to cut up the carcass now in the north it is very necessary that this should be done as soon as a kill is made if not the meat freezes so solidly as to turn the edges of the sharpest knife and the three hundred pound bear frozen stiff is no easy thing to put on a sled and haul over the rough ice but arrived at the spot they found not only the kill which they had doubted but that quiche had quartered the beast in true hunter fashion and removed the entrails thus began the mystery of quiche a mystery that deepened and deepened with the passing of the days his very next trip he killed a young bear nearly full grown and on the trip following a large male bear and his mate thoroughly gone from three to four days though it was nothing unusual for him to stay away a week at a time in the ice field always he declined company on these expeditions and the people marveled how does he do it they demanded of one another never does he take a dog with him and dogs are of such great help too why dost thou hunt only bear quan once ventured to ask him and quiche made fitting answer it is well known that there is more meat on the bear he said but there was also talk of witchcraft in the village he hunts with evil spirits some of the people contended where for his hunting is rewarded how else can it be save that he hunts with evil spirits may have they are not evil but good these spirits others said it is known that his father was a mighty hunter may not his father hunt with him so that he may attain excellence and patience and understanding who knows nonetheless his success continued and the less successful hunters were often kept busy hauling in his meat and in the division of it he was just as his father had done before him he saw to it that the least old woman and the last old man received a fair portion keeping no more for himself than his needs required and because of this and of his merit as a hunter he was looked upon with respect and even awe his talk of making him chief after old Clash Kwan because of the things he had done they looked for him to appear again in the council but he never came and they were ashamed to ask I am minded to build me an igloo he said one day to Clash Kwan and a number of the hunters it shall be a large igloo wherein Ikega and I can dwell in comfort I they nodded gravely but I have no time my business is hunting and it takes all my time so it is but just that the men and women of the village who eat my meat should build me my igloo and the igloo was built accordingly on a generous scale which exceeded even the dwelling of Clash Kwan Kish and his mother moved into it and it was the first prosperity she had enjoyed since the death of Bak nor was material prosperity alone hers for because of her wonderful son and the position he had given her she came to be looked upon as the first woman in the village and the women were given to visiting her to asking her advice and to quoting her wisdom when arguments arose among themselves or with the men but it was the mystery of Kish's marvelous hunting that took chief place in all their minds and one day a glug taxed him with witchcraft to his face it is charged a glug said ominously that thou dealest with evil spirits wherefore thy hunting is rewarded is not the meat good Kish made answer has one in the village yet to fall sick from the eating of it how dost thou know that witchcraft to be concerned or dost thou guess in the dark merely because of the envy that consumes thee and a glug with drew discomfited the women laughed at him as he walked away but in the council one night after long deliberation it was determined to put spies on his track when he went forth to hunt so that his methods might be learned so on his next trip Bim and Bon two young men and of hunters the craftiest followed after him taking care not to be seen after five days they return their eyes bulging and their tongues a tremble to tell what they had seen the council was hastily called in Clashquan's dwelling and Bim took up the tale brothers as commanded we journeyed on the trail of Kish and cunningly we journeyed so that he might not know and midway of the first day he picked up with a great he-bear it was a very great bear none greater Bon corroborated and went on himself yet was the bear not inclined to fight for he turned away and made off slowly over the ice this we saw from the rocks of the shore and the bear came towards us and after him came Kish very much unafraid and he shouted harsh words and he waved his arms about and made much noise then did the bear grow angry and rise up on his hind legs and growl but Kish walked right up to the bear I Bim continued the story right up to the bear Kish walked and the bear looked after him and Kish ran away but as he ran he dropped a little round ball on the ice and the bear stopped and smelled it then swallowed it up and Kish continued to run away and drop little round balls and the bear continued to swallow them exclamations and cries of doubt were being made and a gluck expressed open unbelief with our own eyes as we saw it Bim affirmed and born I with our own eyes and this continued until the bear stood suddenly upright and cried a loud in pain and thrashed his forepours madly about and Kish continued to make off over the ice to a safe distance but the bear gave him no notice being occupied with the misfortune the little round balls had wrought within him I within him Bim interrupted for he did claw at himself and leap about over the ice like a playful puppy save from the way he growled and squealed it was plain it was not play but pain never did I see such a sight nay never was such a sight seen born took up the strain and furthermore it was such a large bear witchcraft a gluck suggested I know not born replied I tell you of what my eyes beheld and after a while the bear grew weak and tired for he was very heavy and he had jumped about with exceeding violence and he went off along the shore ice shaking his head slowly from side to side and sitting down ever and again to squeal and cry and Kish followed after the bear and we followed after Kish and for that day and three days more we followed the bear grew weak and never ceased crying from his pain it was a charm a gluck exclaimed surely it was a charm it may well be and Bim relieved born the bear wandered now this way and now that doubling back and forth and crossing his trail in circles so that at the end he was near where Kish had first come upon him by this time he was quite sick the bear and could crawl no farther so Kish came up close and speared him to death and then Clashquan demanded then we left Kish skinning the bear and came running that the news of the killing might be told and in the afternoon of that day the women hauled in the meat of the bear while the men sat in council assembled when Kish arrived a messenger was sent to him bidding him come to the council but he sent reply saying that he was hungry and tired and that his igloo was large and comfortable and could hold many men and curiosity was so strong on the men that the whole council Clashquan to the fore rose up and went to the igloo of Kish he was eating but he received them with respect and seated them according to their rank Ikega was proud and embarrassed by turns but Kish was quite composed Clashquan recited the information brought by Bim and Bon and at its close said in a stern voice so explanation is wanted oh Kish my manner of hunting is there witchcraft in it Kish looked up and smiled nay oh Clashquan it is not for a boy to know ought of witches and of witches I know nothing I have but devised the means whereby I may kill the ice bear with ease that is all it be headcraft not witchcraft and may any man there was a long silence the men looked in one another's faces and Kish went on eating and and and and wilt thou tell us oh Kish Clashquan finally asked in a tremulous voice yay I will tell thee Kish finished sucking a marrow bone in his feet it is quite simple behold he picked up a thin strip of well bone and showed it to them the ends were sharp as needle points the strip he coiled carefully till it disappeared in his hand then suddenly releasing it it sprang straight again he picked up a piece of blubber so he said a small chunk of blubber thus and thus makes it hollow then into the hollow goes the well bone so tightly coiled and another piece of blubber is fitted over the well bone after that it is put outside where it freezes into a little round ball the bear swallows the little round ball the blubber melts the well bone with its sharp ends stands out straight the bear gets sick and when the bear is very sick why you kill him with a spear it's quite simple an uglock said oh and Clashquan said ah and each said something after his own manner and all understood and this is the story of Kish who lived long ago on the rim of the polar sea because he exercised headcraft and not witchcraft he rose from the meanest igloo to be headman of his village and through all the years that he lived it is related his tribe was prosperous and neither widow nor weak one cried loud in the night because there was no meat end of the story of Kish by Jack London this recording is in the public domain read by Alam Davis Drake the student by Anton Chekhov this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the student by Anton Chekhov at first the weather was fine and still the thrushes were calling and in the swamps close by something alive droned pitifully with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle a snipe flew by and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay resounding note in the spring air but when it began to get dark in the forest a cold penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east there was no silence needles of ice stretched across the pools and it felt cheerless, remote and lonely in the forest there was a whiff of winter Ivan Velikopolsky the son of a sacristan and a student of the clerical academy returned home from shooting kept walking on the path by the waterlogged meadow his fingers went numb and his face was burning with the wind it seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things that nature itself felt ill at ease and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual all around it was deserted and peculiarly gloomy the only life was one gleaming in the widows garden near the river the village over three miles away and everything in the distance all around was plunged in the cold evening mist the student remembered that as he had left the house his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entryway cleaning the samovar while his father lay on the stove coughing as it was good Friday nothing had been cooked the garden was terribly hungry and now shrinking from the cold he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Yvonne the Terrible and Peter and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger the same thatched roofs with holes in them ignorance, misery the same desolation around the same feeling of oppression all these existed did exist and would exist and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better and he did not want to go home the gardens were called the widows because they were kept by two widows mother and daughter a campfire was burning brightly with a crackling sound throwing out light far around the plowed earth the widow, Vasilisa a tall fat-hold woman in a man's coat was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire her daughter, Lukyria a little pockmarked woman with a stupid-looking face was sitting on the ground washing a cauldron and spoons apparently they had just had supper there was a sound of men's voices as the laborers watering their horses at the river here you have winter back again said the student going up to the campfire good evening Vasilisa started but had once recognized him and smiled cordially I did not know you God bless you, she said you'll be rich they talked Vasilisa, a woman of experience in service with the gentry first as a wet nurse afterwards as a child's nurse expressed herself with refinement and a soft sedate smile never left her face her daughter, Lukyria a village peasant woman who had been beaten by her husband simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing and she had a strange expression like that of a deaf mute at just such a fire the apostle Peter warmed himself said the student stretching out his hands to the fire so it must have been cold then too ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny an utterly dismal long night he looked round at the darkness shook his head abruptly and asked no doubt you have heard the reading of the twelve apostles yes, I have answered Vasilisa if you remember at the last supper Peter said to Jesus I am ready to go with thee into darkness and into death and our Lord answered him thus I say unto thee, Peter before the cock crowed thou wilt have denied me thrice after the supper Jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep he fell asleep then you heard how Judas the same night kissed Jesus and betrayed him to his tormentors they took him bound to the high priest and beat him while Peter, exhausted worn out with misery and alarm hardly awoke you know feeling that something awful was just about to happen on earth followed behind he loved Jesus passionately intensely and now he saw from far off how he was beaten Lucuria left the spoons and fixed an immovable stare upon the student they came to the high priest he went on they began to question Jesus and meantime the laborers made a fire in the yard as it was cold and warmed themselves Peter too stood with them near the fire and warmed himself as I am doing a woman seeing him said he was with Jesus too that is as much as to say that he too should be taken to be questioned and all the laborers that were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him because he was confused and said I don't know him a little while after again one had recognized him as one of Jesus's disciples and said thou too art one of them but again he denied it and for the third time someone turned to him why did I not see thee with him in the garden today for the third time he denied it and immediately after that time the cock crowed and Peter looking from afar off at Jesus remembered the words he had said to him in the evening he remembered he came to himself went out to the yard and wept bitterly bitterly in the gospel it is written he went out and wept bitterly I imagine it the still still dark dark garden and in the stillness it was notable smothered sobbing the student sighed and sank into thought still smiling Facilesa suddenly gave a gulp big tears flowed freely down her cheeks and she screamed her face from the fire with her sleeve as though ashamed of her tears and Lucuria staring immovably at the student flushed crimson and heavy like that of someone enduring intense pain the laborers came back from the river and one of them riding a horse was quite near and the light from the fire quivered upon him the student said good night to the widows and went on and again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb a cruel wind was blowing winter really had come back it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after tomorrow now the student was thinking about Facilesa since she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the crucifixion must have some relation to her he looked around the solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it now the student thought again Facilesa had shed tears and her daughter had been troubled it was evident that what he had just been telling them about which had happened 19 centuries ago had a relation to the present to both women to the desolate village to himself to all people the old woman had wept not because he could tell the story but because Peter was near to them because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter's soul and joy suddenly stirred in his soul and he even stopped for a minute to take breath the past he thought is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another and it seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain that when he touched one end the other quivered when he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards mounting the hill looked at his village towards the west where the cold crimson sunset lay a narrow streak of light he thought that truth and beauty had provided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest had continued without interruption to this day and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life indeed and the feeling of youth health, vigor he was only twenty two and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness of unknown mysterious happiness took possession of him little by little and life seemed to him enchanting marvelous and full of lofty meaning end of The Student by Anton Chekhov this recording is in the public domain read by Alan Davis-Strake Two Dear for the Whistle by Benjamin Franklin this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org when I was a child of seven years old my friends on a holiday filled my pockets with coppers I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one I then came home and went whistling all over the house much pleased with my whistle but disturbing all the family my brothers and sisters and cousins understanding the bargain I had made told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth put me in my mind of what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money and laughed at me so much for my folly that I cried with vexation and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure this however was afterwards of use to me the impression continuing on my mind so that often when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing I said to myself don't give too much for the whistle and I saved my money as I grew up came into the world and observed the actions of men I thought I met with many, very many who gave too much for the whistle when I saw one two ambitious of court favor sacrificing his time and attendance for his levies his repose his liberty his virtue and perhaps his friends to attain it I have said to myself this man gives too much for his whistle when I saw another fond of popularity constantly employing himself in political bustles neglecting his own affairs and ruining them by that neglect he pays indeed said I too dear for his whistle if I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable living all the pleasure of doing good to others all the esteem of his fellow citizens and the joys of benevolent friendship for the sake of accumulating wealth poor man said I you pay too dear for your whistle when I met a man of pleasure sacrificing every laudable improvement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporeal sensations and ruining his health in their pursuit mistaken man said I you are providing pain for yourself instead of pleasure you are paying too dear for your whistle you have no conscience or fine clothes fine houses, fine furniture fine equipages all above his fortune for which he contracts debts alas say I he has paid dear very dear for his whistle in short I conceive that a great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimate they have made of the value of things and by their giving too much for their whistles Benjamin Franklin footnote this extract was taken from a letter from Passy in 1779 to Madame Breone this is the end of too dear for the whistle by Benjamin Franklin read by Adam from Towson, Maryland United States