 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit librivox.org The Dream by Ivan Tergenev 1. I was living with my mother at the time in a small seaport town. I was just turned 17 and my mother was only 35. She had married very young. When my father died, I was only seven years old, but I remember him well. My mother was a short, fair-haired woman with a charming, but permanently sad face, a quiet, languid voice, and timid movements. In her youth she had borne the reputation of a beauty, and as long as she lived she remained attractive and pretty. I have never beheld more profound, tender, and melancholy eyes. I adored her. And she loved me. But our life was not cheerful. It seemed as though some mysterious, incurable, and undeserved sorrow were constantly sapping the root of her existence. This sorrow could not be explained by grief for my father alone, great as that was, passionately as my mother had loved him, sacredly as she cherished his memory. No, there was something else hidden there which I did not understand, but which I felt felt confusedly and strongly as soon as I looked at those quiet, impassive eyes, at those very beautiful, but also impassive lips, which were not bitterly compressed, but seemed to have congealed for good at all. I have said that my mother loved me, but there were moments when she spurned me, when my presence was burdensome, intolerable to her. At such times she felt, as it were, an involuntary aversion for me, and was terrified afterward, reproaching herself with tears and clasping me to her heart. I attributed these momentary fits of hostility to her shattered health, to her unhappiness. These hostile sentiments might have been evoked, it is true, in a certain measure, by some strange outbursts, which were incomprehensible even to me myself, of wicked and criminal feelings which occasionally arose in me. But these outbursts did not coincide with the moments of repulsion. My mother constantly wore black, as though she were in mourning. We lived in a rather grand scale, although we associated with no one. Two. My mother concentrated upon me all her thoughts and cares. Her life was merging in my life. Such relations between parents and children are not always good for the children. They are more apt to be injurious. Moreover, I was my mother's only child, and only children generally develop irregularly. In rearing them the parents do not think of themselves so much as they do of them. That is not practical. I did not get spoiled and did not grow obstinate. Both these things happen with only children. But my nerves were unstrung before their time. In addition to which I was of rather feeble health. I took after my mother, to whom I also bore a great facial resemblance. I shunned the society of lads of my own age in general. I was shy of people. I even talked very little with my mother. I was fonder of reading than of anything else, and of walking alone and dreaming. Dreaming. What my dreams were about it would be difficult to say. It sometimes seemed to me as though I were standing before a half-opened door, behind which were concealed hidden secrets. Standing and waiting. And swooning with longing. Yet not crossing the threshold. And always meditating as to what there was yonder ahead of me, and always waiting and longing, or falling into slumber. If the poetic vein had throbbed in me, I should, in all probability, have taken to writing verses. If I had left an inclination to religious devoutness, I might have become a monk. But there was nothing of the sort about me, and I continued to dream. And to wait. Three. I have just mentioned that I sometimes fell asleep under the inspiration of obscure thoughts and reveries. On the whole, I slept a great deal, and dreams played a prominent part in my life. I beheld visions almost every night. I did not forget them. I attributed to them significance. I regarded them as prophetic. I strove to divine their secret import. Some of them were repeated from time to time, which always seemed to me wonderful and strange. I was particularly perturbed by one dream. It seems to me that I am walking along a narrow, badly paved street in an ancient town, between many storied houses of stone, with sharp pointed roofs. I am seeking my father, who is not dead, but is, for some reason, hiding from us, and is living in one of those houses. And so I enter a low, dark gate, traverse a long courtyard, encumbered with beams and planks, and finally make my way into a small chamber with two circular windows. In the middle of the room stands my father, clad in a dressing gown and smoking a pipe. He does not in the least resemble my real father. He is tall, thin, black-haired. He has a hooked nose, surly, piercing eyes. In appearance he is about 40 years of age. He is displeased, because I have hunted him up, and I also am not in the least delighted at the meeting, and I stand still in perplexity. He turns away slightly, begins to mutter something, and to pace to and fro with short steps. Then he retreats a little, without ceasing to mutter, and keeps constantly casting glances behind him, over his shoulder. The room widens out, and vanishes in a fog. I suddenly grow terrified of the thought that I am losing my father again. I rush after him, but I no longer see him, and can only hear his angry, bare-like growl. My heart sinks within me. I wake up, and for a long time cannot get to sleep again. All the following day I think about that dream, and, of course, am unable to arrive at any conclusion. Four. The month of June had come. The town in which my mother and I lived became remarkably animated at that season. A multitude of vessels arrived at the wharves. A multitude of new faces presented themselves on the streets. I loved at such times to stroll along the quay, pass the coffee houses and inns, to scan the varied faces of the sailors and other people who sat under the canvas awnings, at little white tables with pewter tankards filled with beer. One day, as I was passing in front of a coffee house, I caught sight of a man who immediately engrossed my entire attention. Clad in a long black coat of peasant cut, with a straw hat pulled down over his eyes, he was sitting motionless, with his arms folded on his chest. Thin rings of black hair descended to his very nose. His thin lips gripped the stem of a short pipe. This man seemed so familiar to me. Every feature of his swarthy yellow face, his whole figure, were so indubitably stamped on my memory, that I could not do otherwise than halt before him. Could not help putting to myself the question, Who is this man? Where have I seen him? He probably felt my intent stare, for he turned his black piercing eyes upon me. I involuntarily uttered a cry of surprise. This man was the father whom I had sought out, whom I had beheld in my dream. There was no possibility of making a mistake, the resemblance was too striking. Even the long skirted coat, which enveloped his gaunt limbs, reminded me in color and form of the dressing gown in which my father had presented himself to me. Am not I dreaming, I thought to myself? No, it is daylight now, a crowd is roaring round me, the sun is shining brightly in the blue sky, and I have before me not a phantom, but a living man. I stepped up to an empty table, ordered myself a tankard of beer and a newspaper, and seated myself at a short distance from this mysterious being. Five. Placing the sheets of the newspaper on a level with my face, I continued to devour the stranger with my eyes. He hardly stirred and only raised his drooping head a little from time to time. He was evidently waiting for someone. I gazed and gazed. Sometimes it seemed to me that I had invented the whole thing, that in reality there was no resemblance whatever, that I had yielded to the semi-involuntary deception of the imagination, but he would suddenly turn a little on his chair, raise his hand slightly, and again I almost cried aloud. Again I beheld before me my nocturnal father. At last he noticed my importunate attention, and first with surprise, then with vexation he glanced in my direction, started to rise and knocked down a small cane which he had leaned against the table. I instantly sprang to my feet, picked it up, and handed it to him. My heart was beating violently. He smiled in a constrained way, thanked me, and putting his face close to my face, he elevated his eyebrows and parted his lips a little as though something had struck him. You are a very polite young man, he suddenly began in a dry, sharp snuffling voice. That is a rarity nowadays. Allow me to congratulate you. You have been well brought up. I do not remember precisely what answer I made to him, but the conversation between us was started. I learned that he was a fellow countryman of mine, that he had recently returned from America, where he had lived many years, and whither he was intending to return shortly. He said his name was Baron—I did not catch the name well—he, like my nocturnal father, wound up each of his remarks with an indistinct inward growl. He wanted to know my name. On hearing it he again showed signs of surprise. Then he asked me if I had been living long in that town, and with whom. I answered him that I lived with my mother. And your father? My father died long ago. He inquired my mother's Christian name and immediately burst into an awkward laugh, and then excused himself, saying that he had that American habit and that, altogether, he was a good deal of an eccentric. Then he asked where we lived. I told him. Six. The agitation which had seized upon me at the beginning of our conversation had gradually subsided. I thought our intimacy rather strange. That was all. I did not like the smile with which the Baron questioned me. Neither did I like the expression of his eyes when he fairly stabbed them into me. There was about them something rapacious and condescending, something which inspired dread. I had not seen those eyes in my dream. The Baron had a strange face. It was pallid, fatigued, and, at the same time, youthful in appearance, but with a disagreeable youthfulness. Neither had my nocturnal father that deep scar which intersected his whole forehead in a slanting direction and which I did not notice until I moved closer to him. Before I had had time to impart to the Baron the name of the street and the number of the house where we lived, a tall negro, wrapped up in a cloak to his very eyes, approached him from behind, and tapped him softly on the shoulder. The Baron turned round, said, Aha! At last, and nodding lightly to me, entered the coffee house with the negro. I remained under the awning. I wished to wait until the Baron should come out again, not so much for the sake of entering again into conversation with him. I really did not know what topic I could start with, as for the purpose of again verifying my first impression. But half an hour passed. An hour passed the Baron did not make his appearance. I entered the coffee house. I made the circuit of all the rooms, but nowhere did I see either the Baron or the negro. Both of them must have taken their departure through the back door. My head had begun to ache a little, and with the object of refreshing myself, I set out along the seashore to the extensive park outside the town, which had been laid out ten years previously. After having strolled for a couple of hours in the shade of the huge oaks and plantain trees, I returned home. Seven. Our maid servant flew to meet me, all tremulous with agitation, as soon as I made my appearance in the enter room. I immediately divined from the expression of her face that something unpleasant had occurred in our house during my absence, and in fact I learned that half an hour before a frightful shriek had wrung out from my mother's bedroom. When the maid rushed in, she found her on the floor in a swoon which lasted for several minutes. My mother had recovered consciousness at last, but had been obliged to go to bed and wore a strange, frightened aspect. She had not uttered a word. She had not replied to questions. She had done nothing but glance around her and tremble. The servant had sent the gardener for a doctor. The doctor had come and had prescribed a soothing potions, but my mother had refused to say anything to him, either. The gardener asserted that a few moments after the shriek had wrung out from my mother's room, he had seen a strange man run hastily across the flower pots of the garden to the street gate. We lived in a one-story house whose windows looked out upon a fairly large garden. The gardener had not been able to get a good look at the man's face, but the ladder was gaunt, and wore a straw hat and a long-skirted coat. The Baron's costume immediately flashed into my head. The gardener had been unable to overtake him. Moreover, he had been summoned without delay to the house and dispatched for the doctor. I went to my mother's room. She was lying in bed, whiter than the pillow on which her head rested. At sight of me she smiled faintly and put out her hand to me. I sat down by her side and began to question her. At first she persistently parried my questions, but at last she confessed that she had seen something which had frightened her greatly. Did someone enter here, I asked? No, she answered hastily. No one entered, but it seemed to me, I thought I saw a vision. She ceased speaking and covered her eyes with her hand. I was on the point of communicating to her what I had heard from the gardener, and my meeting with the Baron also, by the way, but for some reason or other the words died on my lips. Nevertheless I did bring myself to remark to my mother that visions do not manifest themselves in the daylight. Stop, she whispered. Please stop. Do not torture me now. Someday thou shalt know. Again she relapsed into silence. Her hands were cold and her pulse beat fast and unevenly. I gave her a dose of medicine and stepped a little to one side in order not to disturb her. She did not rise all day. She lay motionless and quiet, only sighing deeply from time to time and opening her eyes in timorous fashion. Everyone in the house was perplexed. Eight. Toward night a slight fever made its appearance and my mother sent me away. I did not go to my own chamber, however, but lay down in the adjoining room on the divan. Every quarter of an hour I rose, approached the door on tiptoe and listened. Everything remained silent. But my mother hardly slept at all that night. When I went into her room early in the morning her face appeared to me to be swollen and her eyes were shining with an unnatural brilliance. In the course of the day she became a little easier, but toward evening the fever increased again. Up to that time she had maintained an obstinate silence, but now she suddenly began to talk in a hurried, spasmodic voice. She was not delirious. There was sense in her words, but there was no coherency in them. Not long before midnight she raised herself up in bed with a convulsive movement. I was sitting beside her and with the same hurried voice she began to narrate to me, continually drinking water in gulps from a glass, feebly flourishing her hands and not once looking at me the while. At times she paused, exerted an effort over herself, and went on again. All this was strange as though she were doing it in her sleep as though she herself were not present, but as though some other person were speaking with her lips or making her speak. Nine Listen to what I have to tell thee she began. Thou art no longer a young boy, thou must know all. I had a good friend. She married a man whom she loved with all her heart and she was happy with her husband, but during the first year of their married life they both went to the capital to spend a few weeks and enjoy themselves. They stopped at a good hotel and went out a great deal to theaters and assemblies. My friend was very far from homely. Everyone noticed her. All the young men paid court to her, but among them was one in particular, an officer. He followed her unremittingly and wherever she went she beheld his black, wicked eyes. He did not make her acquaintance and did not speak to her even once. He merely kept staring at her in a very strange, insolent way. All the pleasures of the capital were poisoned by his presence. She began to urge her husband to depart as speedily as possible, and they had fully made up their minds to the journey. One day her husband went off to the club. Some officers, officers who belonged to the same regiment as this man, had invited him to play cards. For the first time she was left alone, her husband did not return for a long time. She dismissed her maid and went to bed. And suddenly a great dread came upon her so that she even turned cold all over and began to tremble. It seemed to her that she heard a faint tapping on the other side of the wall, like the noise a dog makes when scratching, and she began to stare at that wall. In the corner burned a shrine lamp. The chamber was all hung with silken stuff. Suddenly something began to move at that point. Rose opened and straight out of the wall. All black and long stepped forth that dreadful man with the wicked eyes. She tried to scream and could not. She was benumbed with fright. He advanced briskly toward her like a rapacious wild beast, flung something over her head, something stifling, heavy and white. What happened afterward I do not remember. I do not remember. It was like death, like murder, when that terrible fog dispersed at last, when I my friend recovered her senses, there was no one in the room. Again, and for a long time she was incapable of crying out, but she did shriek at last. Then again everything grew confused. Then she beheld by her side her husband, who had been detained at the club until two o'clock. His face was distorted beyond recognition. He began to question her, but she said nothing. Then she fell ill. But I remember that when she was left alone in the room she examined that place in the wall. Under the silken hangings there proved to be a secret door, and her wedding ring had disappeared from her hand. This ring was an unusual shape. Upon it several tiny golden stars alternated with seven tiny silver stars. It was an ancient family heirloom. Her husband asked her what had become of her ring she could make no reply. Her husband thought that she had dropped it somewhere, hunted everywhere for it, but nowhere could he find it. Gloom descended upon him. He decided to return home as speedily as possible, and as soon as the doctor permitted they quitted the capital. But imagine, on the very day of their departure they suddenly encountered, on the street, a litter. In that litter lay a man who had just been killed, with a cleft skull, and just imagine that man was that same dreadful nocturnal visitor with the wicked eyes. He had been killed over a game of cards. Then my friend went away to the country and became a mother for the first time, and lived several years with her husband. He never learned anything about that matter, and what could she say? She herself knew nothing. But her former happiness had vanished. Darkness had invaded their life, and that darkness was never dispelled. They had no other children either before or after. But that son, my mother began to tremble all over and covered her face with her hands. But tell me now, she went on with redoubled force, whether my friend was in any way to blame. With what could she reproach herself? She was punished, but had not she the right to declare in the presence of God himself that the punishment which overtook her was unjust? Then why can the past present itself to her, after the lapse of so many years, in so frightful an aspect as those she were a sinner tortured by the gnawings of conscience? Macbeth slew Banco, so it is not to be wondered at that he should have visions, but I but my mother's speech became so entangled and confused that I ceased to understand her. I no longer had any doubt that she was raving in delirium. Ten. Anyone can easily understand what a shattering effect my mother's narration produced upon me. I had divined at her very first word that she was speaking of herself, and not of any acquaintance of hers. Her slip of the tongue only confirmed me in my surmise. So it really was my father whom I had sought out in my dream, whom I had beheld when wide awake. He had not been killed as my mother had supposed, but merely wounded, and he had come to her, and had fled, afrighted by her fright. Everything suddenly became clear to me, the feeling of involuntary repugnance for me, which sometimes awoke in my mother, and her constant sadness and our isolated life. I remember that my head reeled, and I clutched at it with both hands as though desirous of holding it firmly in its place. But one thought had become riveted in it like a nail. I made up my mind, without fail, at any cost, to find that man again. Why? With what object? I did not account to myself for that, but to find him, to find him, that had become for me a question of life or death. On the following morning, my mother regained her composure at last. The fever passed off. She fell asleep. Committing her to the care of our landlord and landlady and the servants, I set out on my quest. 11. First of all, as a matter of course, I betook myself to the coffee-house where I had met the baron. But in the coffee-house, no one knew him or had even noticed him. He was a chance visitor. The proprietors had noticed the negro. His figure had been too striking to escape notice. But who he was, where he stayed, no one knew either. Leaving my address in case of emergency at the coffee-house, I began to walk about the streets and the waterfront of the town, the wharves, the boulevards. I looked into all the public institutions, and nowhere did I find anyone who resembled either the baron or his companion. As I had not caught the baron's name, I was deprived of the possibility of appealing to the police, but I privately gave two or three guardians of public order to understand, they gazed at me and surprised it is true and did not entirely believe me, that I would lavishly reward their zeal if they should be successful in coming upon the traces of those two individuals, whose personal appearance I tried to describe as minutely as possible. Having strolled about in this manner until dinnertime, I returned home thoroughly worn out. My mother had got out of bed, but with her habitual melancholy there was mingled a new element, a sort of pensive perplexity which cut me to the heart like a knife. I sat with her all the evening. We said hardly anything. She laid out her game of patience. I silently looked at her cards. She did not refer by a single word to her story or to what had happened the day before. It was as though we had both entered into a compact, not to touch upon those strange and terrifying occurrences. She appeared to be vexed with herself and ashamed of what had involuntarily burst from her, but perhaps she did not remember very clearly what she had said in her semi-fevered delirium and hoped that I would spare her. And, in fact, I did spare her, and she was conscious of it, as on the preceding day she avoided meeting my eyes. A frightful storm had suddenly sprung up out of doors. The wind howled and tore in wild gusts. The windowpains rattled and quivered. Despairing shrieks and groans were born through the air as though something on high had broken loose and were flying with mad weeping over the shaking houses. Just before dawn I lost myself in a dose, when suddenly it seemed to me as though someone had entered my room and called me, had uttered my name not in a loud but in a decided voice. I raised my head and saw no one, but, strange to relate, I not only was not frightened, I was delighted. There suddenly arose within me the conviction that now I should, without fail, attain my end. I hastily dressed myself and left the house. Twelve. The storm had subsided, but its last flutterings could still be felt. It was early. There were no people in the streets, in many places fragments of chimneys, tiles, boards of fences which had been rent asunder, the broken boughs of trees lay strewn upon the ground. What happened at sea last night I involuntarily thought at the sight of the traces left behind by the storm. I started to go to the port, but my feet bore me in another direction, as though in obedience to an irresistible attraction. Before ten minutes had passed I found myself in a quarter of the town which I had never yet visited. I was walking, not fast, but without stopping, step by step, with a strange sensation at my heart. I was expecting something remarkable, impossible, and at the same time I was convinced that that impossible thing would come to pass. Thirteen. And lo, it came to pass that remarkable, that unexpected thing. Twenty paces in front of me I suddenly beheld that same negro who had spoken to the Baron in my presence at the coffee-house. Enveloped in the same cloak which I had then noticed on him, he seemed to have popped up out of the earth, and with his back turned toward me was walking with brisk strides along the narrow sidewalk of the crooked alley. I immediately dashed in pursuit of him, but he redoubled his gate, although he did not glance behind him, and suddenly made an abrupt turn around the corner of a projecting house. I rushed to that corner and turned it as quickly as the negro had done, marvelous to relate. Before me stretched a long, narrow, and perfectly empty street. The morning mist filled it with its dim, leaden light, but my gaze penetrated to its very extremity. I could count all its buildings, and not a single living being was anywhere a stir. The tall negro in the cloak had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. I was amazed, but only for a moment. Another feeling immediately took possession of me. That street which stretched out before my eyes, all dumb and dead as it were, I recognized it. It was the street of my dream. I trembled and shivered the morning was so chilly, and instantly, without the slightest wavering, with a certain terror of confidence, I went onward. I began to seek with my eyes. Yes, there it is, yonder on the right, with a corner projecting on the sidewalk. Yonder is the house of my dream. Yonder is the ancient gate with the stone scrolls on each side. The house is not circular, it is true, but square. But that is a matter of no importance. I knock at the gate. I knock once, twice, thrice, evermore and more loudly. The gate opens slowly, with a heavy screech, as though yawning. In front of me stands a young serving maid with a disheveled head and sleepy eyes. She has evidently just waked up. Does the baron live here, I inquire, as I run a swift glance over the deep, narrow courtyard? It is there. It is all there. There are the planks, which I had seen in my dream. No, the maid answers me. The baron does not live here. What does thou mean by that? It is impossible. He is not here now. He went away yesterday. Wither. To America. To America, I involuntarily repeated. But is he coming back? The maid looked suspiciously at me. I don't know. Perhaps he will not come back at all. But has he been living here long? No, not long, about a week. Now he is not here at all. But what was the family name of that baron? The maid-servant stared at me. Don't you know his name? We simply call him the baron. Hey there, Pieter. She cried. Perceiving that I was pushing my way in. Come hither, some stranger or other is asking all sorts of questions. From the house there presented itself the shambling figure of a robust laborer. What's the matter? What's wanted? He inquired in a hoarse voice. And having listened to me with a surly mien, he repeated what the maid-servant had said. But who does live here, I said. Our master. And who is he? A carpenter. They are all carpenters on this street. Can he be seen? Impossible now. He is asleep. And cannot I go into the house? No, go on your way. Well, and can I see your master a little later? Why not? Certainly. He can always be seen. That's his business as a dealer. Only go your way now. See how early it is? Well, and how about that negro, I suddenly asked. The laborer stared in amazement, first at me, then at the maid-servant. What negro, he said at last, go away so you can come back later. Talk with the master. I went out into the street. The gate was instantly banged behind me heavily and sharply, without squeaking this time. I took good note of the street and house and went away, but not home. I felt something in the nature of disenchantment. Everything which had happened to me was so strange, so remarkable, and yet how stupidly it had been ended. I had been convinced that I should behold in that house the room which was familiar to me, and in the middle of it my father, the baron, in a dressing-gown and with a pipe. And instead of that the master of the house was a carpenter, and one might visit him as much as one pleased and order furniture of him if one wished. But my father had gone to America, and what was left for me to do now? Tell my mother everything or conceal forever the very memory of that meeting? I was absolutely unable to reconcile myself to the thought that such a senseless, such a commonplace ending should be tacked on to such a supernatural mysterious beginning. I did not wish to return home, and walked straight ahead, following my nose, out of the town. 14. I walked along with drooping head, without a thought, almost without sensation, but wholly engrossed in myself. A measured, dull and angry roar drew me out of my torpor. I raised my head. It was the sea, roaring and booming fifty paces from me. Greatly agitated by the nocturnal storm, the sea was a mass of white caps to the very horizon, and steep crests of long breakers were rolling in regularly and breaking on the flat shore. I approached it, and walked along the very line left by the ebb and flow on the yellow-ribbed sand, strewn with fragments of trailing sea-rack, bits of shells, serpent-like ribbons of eel-grass. Sharp-winged gulls with pitiful cry, born on the wind from the distant aerial depths, soared white as snow against the gray, cloudy sky, swooped down abruptly, and as those skipping from wave to wave departed again, and vanished like silvery flecks in the strips of swirling foam. Some of them, I noticed, circled persistently around a large, isolated boulder which rose aloft in the midst of the monotonous expanse of sandy shores. Course seaweed grew in uneven tufts on one side of the rock, and at the point where its tangled stems emerged from the yellow salt marsh, there was something black and long, and arched and not very large. I began to look more intently. Some dark object was lying there, lying motionless beside the stone. That object became constantly clearer and more distinct the nearer I approached. It was only thirty paces from the rock now. Why, that was the outline of a human body. It was a corpse. It was a drowned man cast up by the sea. I went clear up to the rock. It was the corpse of the Baron, my father. I stopped short as though rooted to the spot. Then only did I understand that ever since daybreak I had been guided by some unknown forces, that I was in their power, and for the space of several minutes there was nothing in my soul save the ceaseless crashing of the sea, and a dumb terror in the presence of the fate which held me in its grip. Fifteen. He was lying on his back, bent a little to one side, with his left arm thrown above his head. The right was turned under his bent body. The sticky slime had sucked in the tips of his feet, shod in tall sailor's boots. The short blue P-jacket, all impregnated with sea salt, had not unbuttoned. A red scarf encircled his neck in a hard knot. The swarthy face, turned skyward, seemed to be laughing. From beneath the upturned upper lip small close set teeth were visible. The dim pupils of the half-closed eyes were hardly to be distinguished from the darkened whites. Covered with bubbles of foam, the dirt encrusted hair spread out over the ground and laid bare the smooth forehead with the purplish line of the scar. The narrow nose rose up like a sharp white streak between the sunken cheeks. The storm of the past night had done its work. He had not beheld America. The man who had insulted my mother, who had marred her life, my father, yes, my father, I could cherish no doubt as to that, lay stretched out helpless in the mud at my feet. I experienced a sense of satisfied vengeance and compassion and repulsion and terror, most of all, of twofold terror, terror of what I had seen and of what had come to pass. That evil, that criminal element of which I have already spoken, those incomprehensible spasms rose up within me, stifled me. Aha! I thought to myself. So that is why I am what I am. That is where blood tells. I stood beside the corpse and gazed and waited to see whether those dead pupils would not stir, whether those benumbed lips would not quiver. No, everything was motionless. The very seaweed, among which the surf had cast him, seemed to have congealed even the gulls had flown away. There was not a fragment anywhere, not a plank or any broken rigging. There was emptiness everywhere. Only he and I and the foaming sea in the distance. I cast a glance behind me. The same emptiness was there, a chain of hillocks on the horizon. That was all. I dreaded to leave that unfortunate man in that loneliness, in the ooze of the shore, to be devoured by fishes and birds. An inward voice told me that I ought to hunt up some men and call them thither, if not to aid, that was out of the question, at least for the purpose of laying him out, of bearing him beneath an inhabited roof. But indescribable terror suddenly took possession of me. It seemed to me as though that dead man knew that I had come thither, that he himself had arranged that last meeting. It even seemed as though I could hear that dull, familiar muttering. I ran off to one side, looked behind me once more. Something shining caught my eye. It brought me to a standstill. It was a golden hoop on the outstretched hand of the corpse. I recognized my mother's wedding ring. I remember how I forced myself to return, to go close, to bend down. I remember the sticky touch of the cold fingers. I remember how I panted and puckered up my eyes and gnashed my teeth, as I tugged persistently at the ring. At last I got it off, and I fled, fled away in headlong flight, and something darted after me, and overtook me, and caught me. Sixteen. Everything which I had gone through and endured was probably written on my face when I returned home. My mother suddenly rose upright as soon as I entered her room, and gazed at me with such insistent inquiry that, after having unsuccessfully attempted to explain myself, ended by silently handing her the ring. She turned frightfully pale. Her eyes opened unusually wide and turned dim like his. She uttered a faint cry. Seized the ring, reeled, fell upon my breast, and fairly swooned there, with her head thrown back, and devouring me with those wide, mad eyes. I encircled her waist with both arms, and standing still on one spot, never stirring, I slowly narrated everything, without the slightest reservation to her, in a quiet voice. My dream and the meeting and everything, everything. She heard me out to the end. Only her breast heaved more and more strongly, and her eyes suddenly grew more animated and drooped. Then she put the ring on her fourth finger, and, retreating a little, began to get out a mantilla and a hat. I asked where she was going. She raised a surprised glance to me, and tried to answer, but her voice failed her. She shuddered several times, rubbed her hands as though endeavouring to warm herself, and at last she said, Let us go at once, dither. Wither, mother dear. Where he is lying. I want to see. I want to know. I shall identify. I tried to persuade her not to go, but she was almost in hysterics. I understood that it was impossible to oppose her desire, and we set out. Seventeen. And low, again, I am walking over the sand of the dunes, but I am no longer alone. I am walking arm in arm with my mother. The sea has retreated, has gone still further away. It is quieting down, but even its diminished roar is menacing and ominous. Here, at last, the solitary rock has shown itself ahead of us, and there is the seaweed. I look intently. I strive to distinguish that rounded object lying on the ground, but I see nothing. We approach closer. I involuntarily retard my steps. But where is that black motionless thing? Only the stalks of the seaweed stand out darkly against the sand, which is already dry. We go to the very rock. The corpse is nowhere to be seen, and only on the spot where it had lain there still remains a depression, and one can make out where the arms and legs lay. Round about the seaweed seems tousaled, and the traces of one man's footsteps are discernible. They go across the down, then disappear on reaching the flinty ridge. My mother and I exchange glances, and are ourselves frightened at what we read on our own faces. Can he have got up of himself and gone away? But surely thou didst behold him dead, she asks in a whisper. I can only nod my head. Three hours have not elapsed since I stumbled upon the baron's body. Someone had discovered it and carried it away. I must find out who had done it and what had become of him. But first of all I must attend to my mother. While she wins on her way to the fatal spot she was in a fever, but she controlled herself. The disappearance of the corpse had startled her as the crowning misfortune. She was stupefied. I feared for her reason. With great difficulty I got her home. I put her to bed again. Again I called the doctor for her, but as soon as my mother partly recovered her senses she at once demanded that I should instantly set out in search of that man. I obeyed, but despite all possible measures I discovered nothing. I went several times to the police office. I visited all the villages in the neighborhood. I inserted several advertisements in the newspapers. I made inquiries in every direction, all in vain. It is true that I did hear that a drowned man had been found at one of the hamlets on the seashore. I immediately hastened thither, but he was already buried and from all the tokens he did not resemble the baron. I found out on what ship he had sailed for America. At first every one was positive that that ship had perished during the tempest, but several months afterward rumors began to circulate to the effect that it had been seen at anchor in the harbor of New York. Not knowing what to do I set about hunting up the negro whom I had seen. I offered him, through the newspapers, a very considerable sum of money if he would present himself at our house. A tall negro in a cloak actually did come to the house in my absence, but after questioning the servant made he suddenly went away and returned no more. And thus the trace of my my father grew cold. Thus did it vanish irrevocably in the mute gloom. My mother and I never spoke of him. Only one day I remember that she expressed surprise at my never having alluded before to my strange dream, and then she added, Of course, it really—and did not finish her sentence. My mother was ill for a long time, and after her convalescence our former relations were not re-established. She felt awkward in my presence until the day of her death. Precisely that. Awkward. And there was no way of helping her in her grief. Everything becomes smoothed down. The memories of the most tragic family events gradually lose their force and venom. But if a feeling of awkwardness has been set up between two closely connected persons, it is impossible to extirpate it. I have never again had that dream which had been want so to disturb me. I no longer search for my father, but it has sometimes seemed to me, and it seems so to me to this day, that in my sleep I hear distant shrieks, unintermittent, melancholy plains. They resound somewhere behind a lofty wall, across which it is impossible to clamber. They rend my heart, and I am utterly unable to comprehend what it is, whether it is a living man groaning, or whether I hear the wild prolonged roar of the troubled sea. And now it passes once more into that beast-like growl, and I awake with sadness and terror in my soul. End of The Dream by Ivan Terkenev This has been a LibriVox recording. To hear more LibriVox recordings or find out how you can volunteer, please visit librivox.org. A Ghouls Accountant by Stephen Crane This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Paul Curran in the Hills of Northern England A Ghouls Accountant by Stephen Crane In a wilderness, sunlight is noise. Darkness is a great tremendous silence, accented by small and distant sounds. The music of the wind in the trees is songs of loneliness, hymns of abandonment, and lays of the absence of things congenial and alive. Once a campfire lay dying in a fit of temper. A few weak flames struggled carellically among the burned out logs. Beneath a mass of angry red coals glowered and hated the world. Some hemlock sighed and sung, and the wind purred in the grass. The moon was looking through the locked branches at four imperturbable bundles of blankets, which lay near the agonised campfire. The fire groaned in its last throes, but the bundles made no sign. Off in the gloomy unknown a foot fell upon a twig. The laurel leaves shivered at the stealthy passing of danger. A moment later, a man crept into the spot of dim light. His skin was facely red, and his whiskers infinitely black. He gazed at the four passive bundles, and smiled a smile that curled his lips, and showed yellow disordered teeth. A campfire threw up two lurid arms, and quivering expired. The voices of the trees grew hoarse and frightened. The bundles were stolid. The intruder stepped softly nearer, and looked at the bundles. One was shorter than the others. He regarded it for some time motionless. The hemlocks quavered nervously, and the grass shook. The intruder slid to the short bundle, and touched it. Then he smiled. The bundle partially upgrade itself, and the head of a little man appeared. Lord, he said. He found himself looking at the grain of a ghoul condemned to torment. Come, croaks the ghoul. What? Said the little man. He began to feel his flesh slide to and fro on his bones, as he looked into this smile. Come, croaked the ghoul. What? The little man whimpered. He drew gray, and could not move his legs. The ghoul lifted a three-pronged, pickerel spear, and flashed it near the little man's throat. He saw menace on its points. He struggled heavily to his feet. He cast his eyes upon the remaining mummy-like bundles, but the ghoul confronted his face with the spear. Where? Shivered the little man. The ghoul turned and pointed into the darkness. His countenance shone with lurid light of triumph. Go, he croaked. The little man blindly staggered in the direction indicated. The three bundles by the fire were still immovable. He tried to pierce the cloth with a glance, and opened his mouth to whoop, but the spear ever threatened his face. The bundles were left far in the rear, and the little man stumbled on alone with the ghoul. Tangled thickets tripped him, saplings buffeted him, and stones turned away from his feet. Blinded and badgered, he began to swear frenziedly. A foam drifted to his mouth, and his eyes glowed with the blue light. Go on. He thunderously croaked the ghoul. The little man's blood turned to salt. His eaves began to decay, and refused to do their office. He fell from gloom to gloom. At last there was a house before them. Through a yellow papered window shone an uncertain light. The ghoul conducted his prisoner to the uneven threshold, and kicked the decrepit door. It swung, groaning back, and he dragged the little man into a room. A soiled oil lamp gave a feeble light that turned the pine-bored walls and furniture a dull orange. Before a table sat a wild gray man. The ghoul threw his victim upon a chair, and went and stood by the man. They regarded the little man with eyes that made wheels revolve in his soul. He cast a dazed glance around the room, and saw vaguely that it was dishevelled as from a terrific scuffle. Chairs lay shattered, and dishes in the cupboard were ground to pieces. Destruction had been present. There were moments of silence. The ghoul and the wild gray man contemplated their victim. A throw of fear passed over him, and he sank limp in his chair. His eyes swept feverishly over the faces of his tormentors. At last, the ghoul spoke. Well, he said to the wild gray man. The other cleared his throat and stood up. Stranger, he said suddenly. How much is thirty-three bushels of potatoes at sixty-four and a half a bushel? The ghoul leaned forward to catch the reply. The wild gray man straightened his figure and listened. A fierce light shone on their faces. Their breaths came swiftly. The little man wriggled his legs in agony. Twenty-one, no, two, six, and quick hissed the ghoul hoarsely. Twenty-one dollars and twenty-eight cents and a half laboriously stuttered the little man. The ghoul gave a tremendous howl. There, Tom Jones, Dernier, he yelled. What did I tell you? Hey, ain't I right? See, didn't I tell you that? The wild gray man's body shook. He was delivered of a frightful roar. He sprang forward and kicked the little man out of the door. The end of a ghoul's accountant by Stephen Crane. A Haunted House by Virginia Woolf. This is a LibriVax recording. All LibriVax recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVax.org. Whatever hour you woke, there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure. A ghostly couple. Here we left it, she said. And he added, Oh, but here too! It's upstairs, she murmured. And in the garden, he whispered. Quietly, they said, or we shall wake them. But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh no. They're looking for it. They're drawing the curtain, one might say, and so read on a page or two. Now they've found it, one would be certain, stopping the pencil at the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content, the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. What did I come in here for? What did I want to find? My hands were empty. Perhaps it's upstairs, then? The apples were in the loft, and so down again, the garden, still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass. But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses. All the leaves were green in the grass. They moved in the drawing room. The apple only turned its yellow side. Yet the moment after, if the door was open, spread about the floor, hung up on the walls, pendant from the ceiling. What? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet. From the deepest wells of silence, the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. Safe, safe, safe. The pulse of the house beat softly. The treasure buried, the room. The pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure? A moment later, the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare. Coolies sunk beneath the surface. The beam I sought always burnt behind the glass. Death was in the glass. Death was between us. Coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows. The rooms were darkened. He left it, left her. Went north, went east, saw the stars turned in the southern sky, sought the house, and found it dropped beneath the downs. Safe, safe, safe. The pulse of the house beat gladly. The treasure yours. The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not to wake us, the ghostly couples seek their joy. Here we slept, she said, and he adds, kisses without number. Waking in the morning, silver between the trees, upstairs in the garden, when summer came, in winter snow time. The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart. Near they come, sees at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken. We hear no steps beside us. We see no ladies but her ghostly cloak. His hand shields the lantern. Look, he breathes. Sound asleep, love upon their lips. Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us. Long they look and deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly. The flames stoop slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall and meeting. Stain the faces bent, the faces pondering. The faces that search the sleepers and seek their hidden joy. Safe, safe, safe. The heart of the house beats proudly. Long ears, he sighs. Again you've found me. Here, she murmurs, sleeping in the garden, reading, laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure. Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. Safe, safe, safe. The pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry. Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart. End of A Hunted House by Virginia Woolf. The Man Tiger by Anonymous This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. There was once a young man who, when a boy, had learned witchcraft from some girlfriends. He was married, but his wife knew nothing about this. They lived happily together and were in the habit of paying frequent visits to the wife's parents. One day they were on their way together to pay such a visit, and in passing through some jungle they saw, grazing with a herd of cattle, a very fine and fat bull calf. The man stopped and stripped himself to his waistcloth, and told his wife to hold his clothes for him, while he went and ate the calf that had stirred his appetite. His wife in astonishment asked him how he was going to eat a living animal. He answered that he was going to turn into a tiger and kill the animal, and he impressed on her that she must on no account be frightened or run away, and he handed her a piece of root and told her that she must give it to him to smell when he came back, and he would once again regain his human shape. So, saying he retired into a thicket and took off his waistcloth and at once became a tiger. Then he swallowed the waistcloth and thereby grew a fine long tail. Then he sprang upon the calf, and knocked it over and began to suck its blood. At this site, his wife was overwhelmed with terror, and forgetting everything and her fear ran right off to her father's house, taking with her her husband's clothes and the magic root. She arrived breathless and told her parents all that had happened. Meanwhile, her husband had been deprived of the means of regaining his own form and was forced to spend the day hiding in a jungle as a tiger. When night fell, he made his way to the village where his father-in-law lived. But when he got there, all the dogs began to bark, and when the villagers saw that there was a tiger, they barricaded themselves in their houses. The man-tiger went prowling round his father-in-law's house, and at last his father-in-law plucked up courage and went out and threw the root, which the wife had brought under the tiger's nose, and he had once became a man again. Then they brought him into the house and washed his feet, and gave him hot rice water to drink, and on drinking this he vomited up lumps of clotted blood. The next morning the father-in-law called the villagers and showed them this blood and told them all that had happened. Then he turned to his son-in-law and told him to take himself off and vowed that his daughter should never go near him again. The man-tiger had no answer to make, but went back silently and alone to his own home. The End of Man-Tiger by Anonymous There once was a young man who, when a boy had learned witchcraft from some girl friends. He was married, but his wife knew nothing about this. They lived happily together and were in the habit of paying frequent visits to the wife's parents. One day they were on their way together to pay such a visit, and in passing through some jungle, they saw, grazing with a herd of cattle. A very fine and fat bull-calf. The man stopped and stripped himself to his waist-cloth, and told his wife to hold his clothes for him, while he went and ate the calf that had stirred his appetite. His wife, in astonishment, asked him how he was going to eat a living animal. He answered that he was going to turn into a tiger and kill the animal, and he impressed upon her that she must on no account be frightened or run away, and he handed her a piece of root, and told her that she must give it him to smell when he came back. He came back, and he would at once regain his human shape. So, saying, he retired into a thicket, and took off his waist-cloth, and at once became a tiger. Then he swallowed the waist-cloth, and thereby grew a fine long tail. Then he sprang up on the calf, and knocked it over, and began to suck its blood. At this sight, the wife was overwhelmed with terror, and forgetting everything in her fear, ran right off to her father's house, taking with her her husband's clothes and the magic root. She arrived breathless, and told her parents all that had happened. Meanwhile, her husband had been deprived of the means of regaining his own form, and was forced to spend the day hiding in the jungle as a tiger. When night fell, he made his way to the village where his father-in-law lived. But when he got there all the dogs began to bark, and when the villagers saw that there was a tiger, they barricaded themselves in their houses. The man-tiger went prowling round his father-in-law's house, and at last his father-in-law plucked up courage, and went out and threw the root, which the wife had brought, under the tiger's nose, and he at once became a man again. Then they brought him into the house, and washed his feet, and gave him hot rice water to drink. And on drinking this, he vomited up clumps of clotted blood. The next morning the father-in-law called the villagers, and showed them this blood, and told them all that had happened. And then he turned to his son-in-law, and told him to take himself off, and vowed that his daughter should never go near him again. The man-tiger had no answer to make, but went back silently and alone to his own home. End of The Man-Tiger by Anonymous Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte Well, as I was saying, the emperor got into bed. Chevalier, says he to his valet, let down those window curtains, and shut the casement before you leave the room. Chevalier did as he was told, and then, taking up his candlestick, departed. In a few minutes the emperor felt his pillow becoming rather hard, and he got up to shake it. As he did so, a slight rustling noise was heard near the bed-head. His majesty listened, but all was silent as he lay down again. Scarcely had he settled into a peaceful attitude of repose when he was disturbed by a sensation of thirst. Lifting himself on his elbow, he took a glass of lemonade from the small stand which was placed beside him. He refreshed himself by a deep draught as he returned the goblet to its station. Deep groan burst from a kind of closet in one corner of the apartment. Who's there? cried the emperor, seizing his pistols. Speak, or I'll blow your brains out! This threat produced no other effect than a short, sharp laugh, and a dead silence followed. The emperor started from his couch, and hastily, throwing on a robe of chamber, which hung over the back of a chair, stepped courageously to the haunted closet. As he opened the door, something rustled. He sprang forward, sword in hand. No soul or even substance appeared, and the rustling it was evident proceeded from the falling off a cloak, which had been suspended by a peg from the door. Half ashamed of himself, he returned to bed. Just as he was about once more to close his eyes, the light of the three waxed tapers, which burned in a silver branch over the mantelpiece, was suddenly darkened. He looked up, a black opaque shadow obscured it. Sweating with terror, the emperor put out his hand to seize the bell rope, but some invisible being snatched it rudely from his grasp. And at the same instant, the ominous shade vanished. Poo! exclaimed Napoleon. It was but an ocular delusion. Was it? whispered a hollow voice, in deep mysterious tones close to his ear. Was it a delusion? Emperor of France? No. All those has heard and seen is said forewarning reality. Rise, lifter of the eagle-standard. Awake, swear of the lily-scepter. Follow me, Napoleon, and thou shalt see more. As the voice it ceased, a form dawned on his astonished sight. It was out of a tall, thin man, dressed in a blue shirt out, edged with gold lace. It wore a black cravat very tightly around its neck, and confined by two little sticks placed behind each ear. The counsellors was livid, the tongue protruded from between the teeth, and the eyes, all glazed and bloodshot, started the frightful, prominent, born-their sockets. Monde, you! exclaimed the emperor. What do I see? Spectre, when's come a thou? The apparition spoke not, but gliding forward back in Napoleon, with uplifted finger to follow. Controlled by a mysterious influence which deprived him of the capability of either thinking or acting for himself, he obeyed in silence. The solid wall of the apartment fell open as they approached, and when both had passed through, it closed behind them with a noise like thunder. They would now have been in total darkness, had it not been for a dim light which shone round the ghost, and revealed the damp walls of a long-volted passage. Down this they proceeded with mute rapidity. Air long a cool, refreshing breeze which rustled wailing up the vault and caused the emperor to wrap his loose nitrous, close around, announced their approach to the open air. This they soon reached, and Knapp found himself in one of the principal streets of Paris. Worthy spirit, said he, shivering in the chill-night air, permit me to return and put on some additional clothing. I will be with you again, presently. Fawed, replied his companion sternly. He felt compelled, in spite of the rising evening nation which almost choked him, to obey. On they went through the deserted streets, till they arrived at a lofty house built on the banks of the Seine. Here the spectre stopped, the gates rolled back to receive them, and they entered a large marble hall which was partly concealed by a curtain drawn across, though the half-transparent folds of which a bright light might be seen burning with dazzling lustre. A row of fine female figures, richly attired, stood before the screen. They were all on their heads, garlands of the most beautiful flowers, but their faces were concealed by ghastly masts representing death's heads. What is all this murmury? cried the emperor, making an effort to shake off the mental shuckles by which he was so unwillingly restrained. Where am I, and why have I been bought here? Silence, said the guide, lolling outstool further his black and bloody tongue, silence of though would escape instant death. The emperor would have replied, his natural courage overcoming the temporary awe to which he had first been subjected, but just then a strain of wild supernatural music swelled behind the huge curtain which waved to and fro, and bellied slowly out as if agitated by some internal commotion and the battle of waving winds. At the same moment an overpowering mixture of the sense of mortal corruption, blend with the richest, eastern odours, stole through the haunted hall. A murmur of many voices was now heard at a distance, and something grasped his arm eagerly from behind. He turned hastily round. His eyes met the well-known countenance of Marie Louise. What, are you in this infernal place too? said he. What has bought you here? Will your majesty permit me to ask the same question of yourself? said the Empress, smiling. He made no reply, as Sonishment prevented him. No curtain now intervened between him and the light. It had been removed as if by magic, and a splendid chandelier appeared suspended over his head. Strongs of ladies, richly dressed, but without death's head-masks, stood round, and a due portion of gay cavaliers was mingled with them. Music was still sounding, but it was seen to proceed from a band of mortal musicians stationed in an Augustra near at hand. The air was yet redolent of incense, but it was incense unblended with stench. Mon Dieu! cried the Emperor. How has all this come about? Where in the world is Peche? Peche? cried the Empress. What does your Majesty mean? Had you not better leave the apartment and retire to rest? Leave the apartment? Why? Where am I? In my private drawing room, surrounded by a few particular persons of the court, whom I had invited this evening to a ball. You entered a few minutes since, in your nitress with your eyes fixed and wide open. I suppose from the astonishment you now testify that you were walking in your sleep. The Emperor immediately fell in a fit of catalepsy, in which he continued during the whole of the night and the greater part of the next day. End of Napoleon and the Spectre by Charlotte Bronte. One Summer Night by Ambrose Beers This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Paul Curran in the Hills of Northern England. One Summer Night by Ambrose Beers. The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to prove that he was dead. He had always been a hard man to convince. That he was really buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. His posture, flat upon his back, with his hands crossed on his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation. The strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil. But dead? No. He was only very, very ill. He had with all the invalid's apathy and did not greatly concern himself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted to him. No philosopher was he, just a plain, commonplace person, gifted for the time being with a pathological indifference. The slogan that he feared consequences with was torpid. So, with no particular apprehension for his immediate future, he fell asleep and all was peace with Henry Armstrong. But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightning, silently firing a cloud lying low in the west pending a storm. There, brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery. So the three men who were there, digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure. Two of them were young students from a medical college a few miles away. The third was a gigantic man known as Jess. For many years, Jess had been employed about the cemetery as a man of all work and it was his favorite pleasantry that he knew every soul in the place. From the nature of what he was now doing it was inferrable that the place was not so populous as its register may have shown it to be. Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from the public road were a horse and a light wagon waiting. The work of excavation was not difficult. The earth with which the grave had been loosely filled a few hours before offered little resistance and was soon thrown out. Removal of the casket from its box was less easy but it was taken out for it was a prerequisite of Jess who carefully unscrewed the cover and laid it aside exposing the body in black trousers and white shirt. At that instant, the air sprang to flame a crackling shock of thunder stunned the world and Henry Armstrong tranquilly sat up. Within articulate cries the men fled in terror each in a different direction for nothing on earth could two of them have been persuaded to return but Jess was of another breed. In the gray of the morning two students pallid and haggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure still beating tumultuously in their blood met at the college. You saw it cried one. God yes, what are we to do? They went around to the rear of the building they saw a horse attached to a light wagon hitched to a gatepost near the door of the dissecting room mechanically they entered the room on a bench in the obscurity sat Jess he rose grinning all eyes and teeth I'm waiting for my pay he said stretched naked on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong the head defiled with blood and clay from a blow with a spade one summer night by Ambrose Beers. You'll also find my blog at toomuchjohnson.blogspot.com The Street by H. P. Lovecraft There will be those who say that things and places have souls and there be those who say they have not I dare not say myself but I will tell of the street men of strength and honor fashion that street good value in men of our blood who had come from the blessed isles across the sea at first it was but a path trodden by bears of water from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach then as more men came to the growing cluster of houses and looked about for places to dwell they built cabins along the north side cabins of stout oaken logs with masonry on the side of the forest for many Indians lurked there with fire arrows and in a few years more men built cabins on the south side of the street up and down the street walked brave men in conical hats who most of the time carried muskets or fouling pieces and there are also there bonneted wives and sober children in the evening these men with their wives and children would sit about gigantic hearths and read and speak very simple were the things of which they read and spoke yet things which gave them courage and goodness and helped them by day to subdue the forest until the fields and the children would listen and learn of the laws and deeds of old and of that dear England which they had never seen or could not remember there was war and thereafter no more Indians troubled the street the men busy with labour waxed prosperous and as happy as they knew how to be and the children grew up comfortable and more families came from the motherland to dwell on the street and the children's children and the newcomer's children grew up the town was now a city and one by one the cabins gave place to houses simple beautiful houses of brick and wood with stone steps and iron railings and fan lights over the doors no flimsy creations were these houses for they were made to serve many a generation within these were carving mantles and graceful stairs and sensible pleasing furniture China and silver brought from the motherland so the street drank in the dreams of the young people and rejoiced as its dwellers became more graceful and happy where once had been only strength and honour, taste and learning now abode as well books and paintings and music came to the houses and the young men went to the university which rose above the plain to the north in the place of conical hats and small swords of lace and snowy periwigs there were cobblestones over which clattered many a blooded horse and rubbled many a gilded coach and brick sidewalks with horse blocks and hitching posts there were in that street many trees, elms and oaks and maples of dignity so that in the summer the scene was all soft for due and twittering birdsong and behind the houses were walled rose gardens with hedged paths and sundials where at evening the moon and stars would shine bewitchingly while fragrant blossoms glistened with dew so the street dreamed on past wars calamities and change once most of the young men went away and some never came back that was when they furled the old flag and put up a new batter of stripes and stars but though the men talked of great changes the street felt them not for its folk were still the same speaking of the old familiar things in the old familiar accounts and the trees still sheltered singing birds and at evening the moon and stars looked down upon dewy blossoms in the walled rose gardens in time there were no more swords, three-cornered hats or periwigs in the street how strange seen the inhabitants with their walking sticks tall beavers and cropped heads new sounds came from the distance for strange puffings and shrieks from the river a mile away and then many years later strange puffings and shrieks and rumblings from other directions the air was not quite so pure as before but the spirit of the place had not changed the blood and soul of their ancestors had fashioned the street nor did the spirit change when they tore open the earth to lay down strange pipes or when they set up tall posts bearing weird lines there was so much ancient lore in that street that the past could not easily be forgotten then came days of evil when many who had known the street of old knew it no more and many knew it who had not known it before and went away where their accents were coarse and strident and their mean and faces unpleasing their thoughts too fought with the wise just spirit of the street so that the street pines silently as its houses fell into decay and its trees dried one by one and its rose gardens grew rank with weeds and waste but it felt a stir of pride one day when again marched forth young men some of whom never came back these young men were clad in blue with the years worse fortune came to the street its trees were all gone now and its rose gardens were displaced by the backs of cheap, ugly new buildings on parallel streets yet the houses remained despite the ravages of the years and the storms and worms for they had been made to serve many a generation new kinds of faces appeared in the street swarthy, sinister faces with furtive eyes and odd features whose owner spoke unfamiliar words and placed signs in known and unknown characters upon most of the musty houses push carts crowded the gutters a sordid, undefinable stench settled over the place and the ancient spirit slept great excitement once came to the street war and revolution were raging across the seas a dynasty had collapsed and its degenerate subjects were flocking with dubious intent into the western land many of these took lodgings in the battered houses that had once known the songs of burns and the scent of roses then the western land itself awoke and joined the motherland in her titanic struggle for civilization over the cities once more floated the old flag companion by a new flag and by a plainer yet glorious tricolor but not many flags floated over the street for therean brooded only fear and hatred and ignorance again young men went forth but not quite as did the young men in those other days something was lacking and the sons of those young men in other days who did indeed go forth in olive drab with the true spirit of their ancestors went from distant places and knew not the street and its ancient spirit over the seas there was a great victory and in triumph most of the young men returned those who had lacked something lacked it no longer yet fear and hatred and anger and still brood over the street for many had stayed behind and many strangers had come from distant places to the ancient houses and the young men who had returned dwelt there no longer Swarthi and Sinister were most of the strangers yet among them one might find a few faces like those who fashioned the street and molded its spirit like and yet unlike for there was in the eyes of all a weird unhealthy glitter as of greed, ambition, vindictiveness or misguided zeal unrest and treason were abroad amongst an evil few who plotted to strike the western land its death blow that they might mount to power over its ruins even as assassins had mounted in that unhappy frozen land from whence most of them had come and the heart of that plotting the street was crumbling houses teemed with alien makers of discord and echoed with the plans and speeches of those who yearned for an apported day of blood, flame and crime of the various odd assemblages in the street the law said much but could prove little with great diligence did men of hidden badges linger and listen about such places as Petrovich's Bakery the squalled Rifkin School of Modern Economics the Circle Social Club and Liberty Cafe their congregated sinister men in great numbers yet always was their speech guarded or in a foreign tongue and still the old houses stood with their forgotten lore of nobler departed centuries of sturdy colonial tenants and dewy rose gardens in the moonlight sometimes a lone poet or traveller would come to view them would try to picture them in their vanishing glory yet of such travellers and poets there were not many who were now spread wildly that these houses contained the leaders of a vast band of terrorists who on a designated day were to launch an orgious slaughter for the extermination of America and for all the fine old traditions which the street had loved handbills and papers fluttered about filthy gutters handbills and papers printed in many tongues and in many characters yet all bearing messages of crime and rebellion in these writings the people were urged to tear down the laws and virtues that our fathers had exalted to stamp out the soul of the old America the soul that was once bequeathed through a thousand and a half years of Anglo-Saxon freedom, justice and moderation it was said that the swore of the men who dwelt in the street and congregated in its rotting edifices were the brains of a hideous revolution and their word of command many millions of brainless besotted beasts would stretch forth with their noise and talons from the slums of a thousand cities burning slaying and destroying until the land of our fathers should be no more all this was said and repeated and many looked forward in dread to the fourth day of July about which the strange writings hidden much yet could nothing be found to place the guilt none could tell just whose arrest might cut off the damnable plotting in its source many times came bands of blue-coated police to search the shaky houses though at last they ceased to come for they too had grown tired of law and order and had abandoned all the city to its fate then the men in olive drab came bearing muskets till it seemed as if in its sad sleep the street must have some haunting dreams of those other days when musket-bearing men in conical hats walked along it from the woodland spring to the cluster of houses by the beach yet no act be performed to check the impending cataclysm for the swore the sinister men were old and cunning so the street slept beyond till one night they're gathered in petrovitch's bakery in the riftgen school of modern economics in the circle social club in the livery cafe and in other places as well vast hordes of men whose eyes were big with horrible triumph and expectation over hidden wires strange messages traveled and much was said of still stranger messages yet to travel but most of this was not guessed till afterward when the western land was safe from the peril could not tell what was happening nor what they ought to do for the swar the sinister men were skilled in subtlety and concealment and yet the men in olive drab will always remember that night and will speak of the street as they tell of it to their grandchildren for many of them were sent there toward mourning on a mission unlike that which they had expected it was known that this nest of anarchy was old and that the houses were tottering from the ravages of the years and storms and worms yet was the happening of that summer night a surprise because of its very queer uniformity it was indeed an exceedingly singular happening though after all a simple one for without warning in one of the small hours beyond midnight all of the ravages of the years and the storms and the worms came to a tremendous climax and after the crash there was nothing left standing in the street save two ancient chimneys and part of a stopped brick wall nor did anything that had been alive come alive from the ruins a poet and a traveller who came with the mighty crowd that sought the scene tell odd stories the poet says that all through the hours before dawn he beheld sordid ruins indistinctly in the glare of the arc lights that they're loomed above the wreckage another picture where he could describe moonlight and fair houses and elms and oaks and maples of dignity and the traveller declares that instead of the places won't it stench they're lingered a delicate fragrance as of roses in full bloom but are not the dreams of poets and the tales of travellers notoriously false there may be those who say that things and places have souls and there be those who say they have not I daresay myself but I have told you of the street the end of the street by H. B. Lovecraft this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in public domain for more information and to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org a test of courage by C. W. Leedbetter how long I had slept I cannot say but at a moment with the suddenness of a flash of lightning I passed from unconsciousness to complete and vivid consciousness I gave a quick glance around my chamber everything was visible clearly enough in the subdued light of my lamp all seemed as usual nothing out of place nothing to account in any way for that sudden awakening but the next moment they're thrilled through my soul the well-known voice of that teacher whom I revere and love above all else in the world voice uttered by one word come air I could spring from my couch and glad obedience I was seized with a feeling which it would be hopeless to attempt to describe so as to give anyone else an adequate conception of it every nerve in my body seemed strained to the breaking point but some hitherto unexpected force from within after a moment of excruciating pain the sensation of focus itself in the upper part of the head something there seemed to burst and I found myself floating in the air one glance I cast behind me and saw myself or my body rather lying soundly asleep upon the bed and then I sort out into the open air it was a dark and pestuous night and lowering clouds were driving rapidly across the sky and it seemed to me as if the whole air were full of living creatures, shadowy and indistinctively seen through the darkness creatures like reeds of mist or smoke and yet somehow living and powerful creatures was seen perpetually rushing towards me and yet retired before me but I swept unheating the room in which I had been sleeping is on the bank of a river and across this my flight tended at this point there is in the center of the stream a small islet little more than a stand bank I have covered when the water is high and on this islet I alighted suddenly I found myself standing before the form of my mother who had passed from this life some six years before what is this I cried in amazement hush she said look there she pointed into the river whose waves washed almost to our feet I looked and saw a sight that might well have made the boldest tremble approaching us along the river was a vast army of enormous creatures such as a man's wildest imagination never conceived I quite despair of giving any idea of the appearance of this huge mass of advancing horrors perhaps the prevailing types might be described as resembling the pictures we see of the gigantic monsters of the so-called atendulvian era and yet were far more fearful than they dark as the night was I could see the hellish host clearly enough for they had a light of their own a strange unearthly luminosity do you know what those are as my mother in a voice of terror elementals are they not said I yes she replied terrible elementals of deadly power let us fly but even in the crisis of horror I did not forget my teacher's instructions so I answered no I will never fly from an elemental besides it would be quite useless come with me she cried better die a thousand deaths than fall into their power not fly I repeated and she rose hurriedly into the air and vanished to say that I was objectively frightened would be an untruth but I certainly had not the courage to turn my back on the appalling army and moreover I felt that my flight from such power would be hopeless my one chance was to endeavor to stand firm by this time the advancing host was close at hand but the first rank instead of springing upon me as I expected arrived slowly along in front of me no such sight certainly has ever been seen by man's physical eye delirium itself could never give birth to horror so unutterable as these ichthyosary plesiosary prodigist by tachryans gigantic cuttlefish, sea spiders 20 feet high cobras the size of a mythical sea serpent monsters shape almost like some huge bird yet obviously reptilian in character ghastly bloodless creatures like enormously magnified animal coulis all these in many more nameless variants to file before my eyes and yet no two of the obscene hosts were like and none seemed perfect each had some peculiar and awful deformity of its own but through all these diversities of form each more inconceivably loathsome than the last there ran a still more frightful likeness and I soon realized that this likeness was all in their eyes no matter what unclean shape each hateful monstrosity might bear all alike had fiery malignant eyes and in every case in these baleful orbs there dwelt an awful demonic power of fascination an expression of bitter unrelenting hostility to the human race each noisome abomination as it rise slowly past fix its fearful eyes on mine and seemed to be exerting some formidable power against me how my reason retained its throne under these terrible conditions I shall never know I felt somehow certain that if I once gave way to my fears I should instantly fall victim to this demon host and I concentrated all my being in the one faculty of stubborn resistance how long that terrific procession took to pass me I know not but last the lowly religion came a something which wore partly the semblance of a three headed snake though immeasurably greater than any earthly Ophidian and yet a whore in its head and its eyes seemed somehow human or rather diabolical and this dreadful mishappen things instead of gliding slowly past as the others had done turned aside and with raised crests and open mouths made straight at me on it came its blazing eyes fixed on mine and blood red slime or foam dropping from its enormous wide open jaws while I summoned up all my willpower for one last appendice effort but that I clenched my hands and set my teeth hard I moved no muscle although the pestilent Ophidium of its burning breath came fool my face my downward rush had splashed the water over my feet and even dropped its loathsome slime upon them though I felt that life and more than life depending upon the strength of my will how long the tremendous strain lasted I cannot say but just as it seemed that I could hold out no longer I felt the resistance weaken the fire died out of the fiendish eyes that were held so close to mine and with the horrible roar of baffled rage the unclean monster fell back into the water and I was alone in the dark night at first but before the revulsion of feeling had time to set in clear and sweet above my head rang the well known a straw bell and I felt myself rising and moving swiftly through the air in a moment I was back again in my own room saw my body still lying in the same position and with a sort of shock found myself one with it once more but as I laid myself on my couch I saw laid upon my bosom a lovely white lotus blossom freshly plucked with the dew still on the petals with heart throbbing with delight I turned towards the light to examine it more closely when a puff of cold air drew my attention to the fact that my feet were wet and looking down at them I was horror-stricken to see they were covered with splashes of fish's red liquid instantly I rushed out to the bathroom and watched them again and again finding it very difficult to get rid of the filthy trickly fluid I sat in my room and sat down to admire my lotus bosom marveling greatly now before lying down again to sleep I have thus written this account of what happened to me lest tomorrow I shall fail to recollect any of the points clearly though indeed there seems little fear of that for they are burnt into my brain later my wonderful story is not yet quite finished after writing thus far I lay down and slept and was so weary that contrary to my custom I did not wake until after sunrise the first object on which my eye fell was my lotus bosom in the cup of water in which I had placed it before writing and by the clear light of day I discerned some reddish stains at the foot of the sheet on which I had lain rising I determined to plunge into the river and swim across so as to view by the morning light the scene of this strange not-turnal adventure there lay the island there were the low level banks just as I had seen them then and yet by the clear morning sunshine it was difficult to put upon this stage the ghastly dramatist personas that occupied it that night I swam out to the sand bank for it seemed to me that I could identify the very spot where I stood during the terrible trial yes here surely it must be and powers above us what is this here our footprints in the sand two deep footprints side by side made evidently by one who stood long and firmly in one position no others leading up to them either from the water or from the other side of the islet only just these two footprints my footprints undoubtedly for I tried them and they fit exactly and once more what is this here on the sand close by the footprints I find traces still left of the horrible vicious liquid the foul red slime that fell from the jaws of the elemental dragon I've thought over every possible hypothesis and I cannot escape the conclusion that my experience is a real one I did not walk in my sleep to make those footprints for to reach the islet I must have swum some distance and then not my feet alone but my whole body in clothes must have been wet and besides that theory would hardly account for the slime and the lotus but what of the female figure which I saw I can only suppose it to have been a nature spirit who had either seized upon the shell of my departed relative or from some reason had assumed her appearance now immediately on my return from the swim I have made this addition to my narrative end of a test of courage by CW Ledbetter