 Ale, by Alexander Kuprin. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Anne Fletcher, Hobart 2019. Ale! This jerky, exclamatory order, was Mamzell Nora's earliest memory from the dark monotony of her erring childhood. This word, Ale, was the very first that her weak childish little tongue ever framed. And always, even in her dreams, this cry reproduced itself in Nora's memory, evoking in its five letters the chill of the unheated circus ring, the smell of stables, the heavy gallop of the horse, the dry crackling of the long whip, and the burning pain of its lash suddenly deadening the momentary hesitation of fear. Ale! In the empty circus, it is cold and dark. Here and there, the wintry sunlight, scarcely piercing the glass cupolas, lies in pale spots over the raspberry-coloured velvet and the guilt of the boxes, over the shields with the horse's heads, over the flags that decorate the pillars. It plays on the dim glasses of the electric globes, gliding over the steel of the tourniquets and trapezes, up there at a tremendous height amid the entanglement of the machines and the ropes, from which one can scarcely distinguish the first rows of the stalls, and the seats behind and the gallery are completely drowned in darkness. The day's routine is in full swing. Five or six of the performers, in great coats and fur caps, are smoking rank cigars at the end of the first row of armchairs near the entrance from the stables. In the middle of the ring stands a square-built short-legged man with a tall hat perched on the back of his head and a black moustache carefully twisted to a fine point at the ends. He is tying a long string round the waist of a tiny little five-year-old girl, who is standing in front of him shivering from fright and cold. The big white horse, which a stable man leads around the ring, snorts loudly, shaking its arched neck as the white steam gushes from its nostrils. Every time that it passes the man in the tall hat the horse looks a scans at the whip that sticks out under his arm, snorts with agitation, and plodding round drags the tugging stable-boy behind it. Little Nora can hear behind her back its nervous plunges, and she shivers still more. Two powerful hands seize her round the waist, and lightly toss her onto the large leather mattress on the horse's back. Almost at the same instant, the chairs, the white pillars, the tent-cloth hangings at the entrance, all this is merged into the bizarre circle which spins round to meet the horse. In vain her numb hands clutch convulsively at the rough wave of Maine as her eyes closed tightly, blinded by the devilish flash of the seething The man in the tall hat walks in the centre of the ring, holding in front of the horse's head the end of his long whip, which he cracks deafeningly. Allé! And again she is in her short, gore skirt, with her bare, thin, half-childish arms standing in the electric light beneath the very cupola of the circus on a well-balanced trapeze. On this, at the little girl's feet, there is hanging head downwards, his knees clutching the upright post, another square-built man, in pink tights with gold, spangles, and fringe, curled, permeated, and cruel. Now he has raised his lowered hands, spread them out, and fixing Nora's eyes with that penetrating, meaning-look, the hypnotising glance of the acrobat, he claps his hands. Nora makes a quick forward movement with the intention of hurling herself straight down into those strong, pitiless hands. What a thrill it will give the hundreds of spectators! But all of a sudden her heart grows cold, seems to stop from terror, and she only squeezes more tightly the thin ropes of the trapeze. Up go once more the cruel, bent hands, and the acrobat's glance becomes still more intense. Beneath her feet the space seems that of an abyss. Ale! Again, she balances, scarcely able to breathe, on the very apex of the living pyramid. She glides, wriggling with her body suppled as a serpents, between the cross-beams of the long, white ladder which a man is holding on his head. She turns a somersault in the air, thrown up by the feet of the genre, strong and terrible like steel springs. Again, at a great height, she walks on thin, trembling wire which cuts her feet unbearably, and everywhere are the same, dim, beautiful faces, the pomaded heads, the puffed curls, the mustaches upturned, the reek of cigars and perspiration, and always that inevitable fatal cry, the same for human beings, for horses, and for performing dogs. Ale! She was just sixteen, and a very pretty girl, when during her performance she fell from the airy tourniquet past the net onto the sand of the ring. She was picked up unconscious and taken behind the scenes, where, in accordance with circus traditions, they began to shake her by the shoulders with all their might to bring her back to herself. She awoke to consciousness, groaning with pain from her crushed hand. The audience is getting restless and beginning to go, they were saying around her. Come, show yourself to the public. Obediently her lips framed the usual smile, the smile of the graceful horsewoman, but after walking two steps the pain became unbearable, and she cried out and staggered. Then dozens of hands laid hold of her and pushed her forcibly in front of the public. Ale! During this season there was, working in the circus, a certain star clown named Menotti. He was not the ordinary pauper clown who rolls in the sand to the rhythm of slaps in the face, and who manages on a quite empty stomach to amuse the public for a whole evening with inexhaustible jokes. Menotti was a clown celebrity, the first solo clown and imitator on the planet, a well-known trainer who had received innumerable honours and prizes. He wore on his breast a heavy chain of gold medals, received two hundred rubles for a single turn, and boasted of the fact that for the last five years he had worn nothing but moire costumes. After the performances he invariably felt done up, and with a highfalutin bitterness would say of himself, yes, we are buffoons, we must amuse the well-fed public. In the arena he would sing pretentiously and out of tune old couplets, or his height verses of his own composition, or make gags on the duma or the drainage, which usually produced on the public, drawn to the circus by reckless advertising, the impression of insistent, dull and unnecessary contortions. In private life he had a languidly patronising manner, and he loved with a mysterious and negligent air to insinuate his conquests of extraordinarily beautiful, extraordinarily rich, but utterly tiresome countesses. At her first appearance at the morning rehearsal, after her sprain had been cured, Menotti came up to her, held her hand in his, made moist, tired eyes at her, and asked in a weakened voice about her health. She became confused, blushed, and took her hand away. That moment decided her fate. A week later, as he escorted Nora back from the evening performance, Menotti asked her to have supper with him at the magnificent hotel where the world-famous first solo clown always stopped. The cabinet particulière are on the first floor, and as she made her way up Nora stopped for a minute, partly from fatigue, and partly from the emotion of the last virginal hesitation. But Menotti squeezed her elbow tightly. In his voice there rang fierce animal passion, and with it the cruel order of the old acrobats, as he whispered, Allie. And she went. She saw in him an extraordinary, a superior being, almost a god. She would have gone into fire if it had occurred to him to order it. For a year she followed him from town to town. She took care of Menotti's brilliance and jewels during his appearances, put on and took off for him his treco, attended to his wardrobe, helped him to train rats and pigs, rubbed his face with cold cream, and, what was most important of all, believed with idolising intensity in his world fame. When they were alone he had nothing to say to her, and he accepted her passionate caresses with the exaggerated boredom of a man who though thoroughly satiated, mercifully permits women to adore him. After a year he had had enough of her. His attention was diverted to one of the sisters Wilson who were executing airy flights. He did not stand on ceremony with Nora now, and often in the dressing-room, right in front of the performers and stablemen, he would box her ears for a missing button. She bore all this with the humility of an old, clever and devoted dog who accepts the blows of his master. Finally, one night after a performance in which the first trainer in the world had been hissed for whipping a dog really too savagely, Menotti told Nora straight out to go immediately to the devil. She left him, but stopped at the very door of the room and glanced back with a begging look in her eyes. Then Menotti rushed to the door, flung it open furiously, and shouted Ali! But only two days later, like a dog who has been beaten and turned out, she was drawn back again to the master. A blackness came to her eyes when a waiter of the hotel said to her with an insolent grin, You cannot go up, he is in a cabine particulière with a lady. But Nora went up and stopped unerringly before the door of the very room where she had been with Menotti a year ago. Yes, he was there. She recognised the languid voice of the overworked celebrity, interrupted from time to time by the happy laugh of the red-haired Englishwoman. Nora opened the door abruptly. The purple and gold tapestries, the dazzling light of the two candelabras, the glistening of crystals, the pyramid of fruit and bottles in silver buckets, Menotti lying on the sofa in his shirt sleeves, and Wilson with her corsage loosened, the reek of scent, wine, cigars, and powder, all this at first stupefied her. Then she rushed at Wilson and struck her again and again in the face with her clenched fist. Wilson shrieked and the fight began. When Menotti had succeeded with difficulty in separating them, Nora threw herself on her knees, covered his boots with kisses, and begged him to come back to her. Menotti could scarcely push her away from him as he said, squeezing her neck tightly with his strong fingers, if you don't go at once I'll have you thrown out of the place by the waiter. Almost stifled she rose to her feet and whispered, in that case, in that case, her eyes fell on the open window. Quickly and likely, like the experienced gymnast she was, she bounded on to the sill and bent forward, her hands grasping on each side the framework of the window. Far down beneath her the carriages rattled, seeming from that height mere small strange animals. The pavements glistened after the rain and the reflections of the streetlamps danced about in the pools of water. Nora's fingers grew cold and her heart stopped beating for a second of terror. Then, closing her eyes and breathing heavily, she raised her hands above her head, and fighting down, as usual, her old weakness, she cried out as if in the circus. The Bad Old Woman in Black From Tales of Wonder by Lord Dunsonay This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Dale Grossman The Bad Old Woman in Black by Lord Dunsonay The Bad Old Woman in Black ran down the street of the Ox Butchers. Windows at once were open high up in those crazy gables. Heads were thrust out. It was she. Then there arose the Council of Anxious Voices calling sideways from window to window or across to opposite houses. Why was she there with her sequins and bugles and old black gown? Why had she left her dreaded house? On what fell errand she hastened? They watched her lean, lithe figure and the wind in the old black dress, and soon she was gone from the cobbled streets and under the town's high gate. She turned at once to her right and was hid from view of the houses. Then they all ran down to their doors and small groups formed on the pavement. There they took Council together, the eldest speaking first. Of what they had seen they said nothing, for there was no doubt it was she. It was of the future they spoke and the future only. In what notorious thing would her errand end? What gains had tempted her out from her fearful home? What brilliant but sinful scheme had her genius planned? Above all, what future evil did this portent? Thus at first it was only questions, and then the old greybeard spoke, each one to a little group. They had seen her out before, had known her when she was younger, had noted the evil things that had followed her goings. The small groups listened well to their low and earnest voices. No one asked questions now or guessed at her infamous errand, but listened only to the wise old men who knew things that had been, and who told the younger men of the dooms that had come before. Nobody knew how many times she had left her dreaded house, but the oldest recounted all the times that they knew, and the way she had gone each time, and the doom that had followed her going, and two could remember the earthquake that there was in the street of the shears. So were there many tales of the times that were, told on the pavement near the old green doors by the edge of the cobbled street, and the experience that the aged men had bought with their white hairs might be had cheap by the young. But from all their experience only this was clear, that never twice in their lives had she done the same infamous thing, and that the same calamity twice had never followed her goings. Therefore it seemed that means were doubtful and few for finding out what thing was about to befall, and an ominous feeling of gloom came down on the street of the oxbutchers, and in the gloom grew fears of the very worst. This comfort they only had when they put their fears into words, that the doom that followed her goings had never yet been anticipated. One feared that with magic she meant to move the moon, and he would have damned the high tide on the neighboring coast, knowing that as the moon attracted the sea the sea must attract the moon, and hoping by his device to humble her spells. Another would have fetched iron bars and clamped them across the street, remembering the earthquake that was in the street of the shears. Another would have honored his household gods, the little cat-faced idols seated above his hearth, gods to whom magic was no unusual thing, and, having paid their fees and honored them well, would have put the whole case before them. His scheme found favor with many, and yet at last was rejected, for others ran indoors and brought out their gods too, to be honored, till there was a herd of gods all seated there on the pavement. Yet would they have honored them and put their case before them, but that a fat man ran up at last, carefully holding under a reverent arm his own two hound-faced gods, though he knew well, as indeed all men must, that they were notoriously at war with the little cat-faced idols. And although the animosities natural to the faith had all been lulled by the crisis, yet a look of anger had come into the cat-like faces that no one dared disrespect, and all perceived that if they stayed a moment longer there would be flaming around them the jealousy of the gods. So each man hastily took his idols home, leaving the fat man insisting that his hound-faced gods should be honored. Then there were schemes again, and voices raised in debate, and many new dangers feared, and new plans made. But in the end they made no defense against danger, for they knew not what it would be, but rode upon a parchment as a warning, and in order that all might know, the bad old women in black ran down the street of the ox-butchers, the end of The Bad Old Women in Black by Lord Dunsonay. Bliss by Catherine Mansfield, read by Nislihan Stamboli. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Bliss. Although Bertha Young was 30, she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to ball a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at nothing, at nothing simply. What can you do if you're 30 and turning the corner of your own street, you're overcome suddenly by a feeling of bliss, absolute bliss, as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and tail. Oh, is there no way you can express it without being drunk and disorderly? How idiotic civilisation is? Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle? No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean, she thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the key. She'd forgotten it as usual and rattling the letterbox. It's not what I mean because, thank you, Mary, she went into the hall. Is nurse back? Yes, mum. And has the fruit come? Yes, mum, everything's come. Bring the fruit up to the dining room, will you? I'll arrange it before I go upstairs. It was dusky in the dining room and quite chilly. But all the same, Bertha threw off her coat. She could not bear the tight clasp of it another moment and the cold air fell on her arms. But in her bosom there was still that bright glowing place, that shower of little sparks coming from it. It was almost unbearable. She hardly dared to breathe for fear of fanning it higher and yet she breathed deeply, deeply. She hardly dared to look into the cold mirror. But she did look and it gave her back a woman, radiant, with smiling, trembling lips, with big dark eyes and an air of listening, waiting for something divine to happen, that she knew must happen, infallibly. Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass ball and a blue dish, very lovely, with a strange sheen on it as though it had been dipped in milk. Shall I turn on the light, mum? No, thank you. I can see quite well. There were tangerines and apples stained with strawberry pink, some yellow pears, smooth as silk, some white grapes covered with a silver bloom and a big cluster of purple ones. These last she had bought to tone in with the new dining room carpet. Yes, that did sound rather far-fetched and absurd but it was really why she had bought them. She had thought in the shop I must have some purple ones to bring the carpet up to the table and it had seemed quite sense at the time. When she had finished with them and had made two pyramids of these bright round shapes, she stood away from the table to get the effect and it really was most curious. For the dark tables seemed to melt into the dusky light and the glass dish and the blue ball to float in the air. This, of course, in her present mood was so incredibly beautiful. She began to laugh. No, no, I'm getting hysterical and she seized her bag and coat and ran upstairs to the nursery. Nurse said at a low table giving little Bee her supper after her bath. The baby had on a white flannel gown and a blue woolen jacket and her dark fine hair was brushed up into a funny little peak. She looked up when she saw her mother and began to jump. Now my love, eat it up like a good girl, said nurse, setting her lips in a way that Bursa knew and that meant she had come into the nursery at another wrong moment. Has she been good, nanny? She's been a little sweet all the afternoon, whispered nanny. We went to the park and I sat down on a chair and took her out of the pram and a big dog came along and put its head on my knee and she clutched its ear, tugged it. You should have seen her. Bursa wanted to ask if it wasn't rather dangerous to let her clutch at the strange dog's ear but she did not dare to. She stood watching them, her hands by her side like the poor little girl in front of the rich little girl with the doll. The baby looked up at her again, stared and then smiled so charmingly that Bursa couldn't help crying. Oh nanny, do let me finish giving her her supper while you put the bath things away. Well mom, she oughtn't to be changed hands while she's eating, said nanny, still whispering. It unsettles her. It's very likely to upset her. How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has to be kept? Not in a case like a rare rare fiddle but in another woman's arms. Oh I must, said she. Very offended nanny handed her over. Now don't excite her after her supper. You know you do mom and I have such a time with her after. Thank her for nanny went out of the room with the bath towels. Now I've got you to myself my little precious, said Bursa as the baby leaned against her. She ate delightfully, holding up her lips for a spoon and then waving her hands. Sometimes she wouldn't let the spoon go and sometimes just as Bursa had filled it she waved it away to the four winds. When the soup was finished Bursa turned round to the fire. You're nice. You're very nice, said she, kissing her warm baby. I'm fond of you. I like you. And indeed she loved little B so much. Her neck as she bent forward, her exquisite toes as they shamed transparent in the firelight that all her feeling of bliss came back again and again she didn't know how to express it. What to do with it? You're wanted on the telephone, said nanny, coming back in triumph and seizing her little B. Down she flew. It was Harry. Oh is that you Burr? Look here. I'll be late. I'll take a taxi and come along as quickly as I can but get dinner put back ten minutes will you? All right? Yes perfectly. Oh Harry. Yes. What had she to say? She'd nothing to say. She only wanted to get in touch with him for a moment. She couldn't absurdly cry. Hasn't it been a divine day? What is it? Wrapped out the little voice. Nothing. Entendu, said Bursa and hung up the receiver thinking how more than idiotic civilization was. They had people coming to dinner, the Norman Knights, a very sound couple. He was about to start a theater and she was awfully keen on interior decoration. A young man, Eddie Warren, who had just published a little book of poems and whom everybody was asking to dine and a find of Bursa's called Pearl Fulton. What Miss Fulton did, Bursa did not know. They had met at the club and Bursa had fallen in love with her as she always did fall in love with beautiful women who had something strange about them. The provoking thing was that though they had been about together and met a number of times and really talked, Bursa couldn't yet make her out. Up to a certain point Miss Fulton was rarely wonderfully frank but the certain point was there and beyond that she would not go. Was there anything beyond it? Harry said no. Voted her dollish and cold like all blonde women with a touch perhaps of anemia of the brain but Bursa wouldn't agree with him, not yet at any rate. No, the way she has of sitting with her head a little on one side and smiling has something behind it Harry and I must find out what that something is. Most likely it's a good stomach answered Harry. He made a point of catching Bursa's heels with replies of that kind, liver frozen my dear girl or pure flatulence or kidney disease and so on. For some strange reason Bursa liked this and almost admired it in him very much. She went into the drawing room and lighted the fire then picking up the cushions one by one that Mary had disposed so carefully she threw them back onto the chairs and the couches. That made all the difference. The room came alive at once as she was about to throw the last one she surprised herself by suddenly hugging it to her passionately passionately but it did not put out the fire in her bosom. Oh on the contrary the windows at the drawing room opened onto a balcony overlooking the garden. At the far end against the wall there was a tall slender pear tree in fullest richest bloom. It stood perfect as though be calmed against the jade green sky. Bursa couldn't help feeling even from this distance that it had not a single bud or a faded petal. Down below in the garden beds the red and yellow tulips heavy with flowers seemed to lean upon the dusk. A gray cat dragging its belly crept across the lawn and a black one its shadow trailed after. The sight of them so intent and so quick gave Bursa a curious shiver. What creepy things cats are she stammered and she turned away from the window and began walking up and down. How strong the junk will smell in the warm room. Too strong? Oh no and yet as they overcome she flung down on a couch and pressed her hands to her eyes. I'm too happy too happy she murmured and she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear tree with its wide open blossoms as a symbol of her own life. Really really she had everything. She was young. Harry and she were as much in love as ever and they got on together splendidly and were really good pals. She had an adorable baby. They didn't have to worry about money. They had this absolutely satisfactory house and garden and friends modern thrilling friends writers and painters and poets or people keen on social questions just the kind of friends they wanted and then there were books and there was music and she had found a wonderful little dressmaker and they were going abroad in the summer and their new cook made the most superb omelets. I'm absurd. Absurd. She set up but she felt quite dizzy quite drunk. It must have been the spring. Yes it was the spring. Now she was so tired she could not drag herself upstairs the dress. A white dress, a string of jade beads, green shoes and stockings. It wasn't intentional. She had thought of this scheme hours before she stood at the drawing room window. Her petals rustled softly into the hall and she kissed Mrs Norman Knight who was taking off the most amusing orange coat with a procession of black monkeys around the ham and up the fronts. Why? Why? Why is the middle class so stodgy so utterly without a sense of humour? My dear it's only by a fluke that I'm here at all. Norman being the protective fluke for my darling monkeys so upset the train that it rose to a man and simply ate me with its eyes. Didn't laugh, wasn't amused, that I should have loved. No, just stared and bored me through and through. But the cream of it was, said Norman, pressing a large tortoise shell-rimmed monocle into his eye. You don't mind me telling this face, do you? In their home and among their friends they called each other face and mug. The cream of it was when she, being full fed, turned to the woman beside her and said, haven't you ever seen a monkey before? Oh, yes. Mrs Norman Knight joined in the laughter. Wasn't that too absolutely creamy? And the funniest thing still was that now her coat was off she did look like a very intelligent monkey who had even made that yellow silk dress out of scraped banana skins and her amber earrings they were like little dangling nuts. This is a sad, sad fall, said Mug, pausing in front of Little Bee's perambulator. When the perambulator comes into the hall and he waved the rest of the quotation away, the bell rang. It was Lean Pale Eddie Warren, as usual, in a state of acute distress. It is the right house, isn't it? he pleaded. Oh, I think so. I hope so, said Bursa brightly. I have had such a dreadful experience with a taxi man. He was most sinister. I couldn't get him to stop. The more I knocked and called, the faster he went. And in the moonlight this bizarre figure with the flattened head crouching over the little wheel, he shuddered, taking off an immense white silk scarf. Bursa noticed that his socks were white too, most charming. But how dreadful she cried. Yes, it really was, said Eddie following her into the drawing room. I saw myself driving through eternity in a timeless taxi. He knew the Norman Knights. In fact, he was going to write a play for N.K. when the theater scheme came off. Well, Warren, how's the play? said Norman Knight, dropping his monocle and giving his eye a moment in which to rise to the surface before it was screwed down again. And Mrs. Norman Knight. Oh, Mr. Warren, what happy socks. I'm so glad you like them, said he, staring at his feet. They seem to have got so much whiter since the moon rose. And he turned his lean sorrowful young face to Bertha. There is the moon, you know. She wanted to cry. I'm sure there is often, often. He really was a most attractive person. But so was face, crouched before the fire in her banana skins. And so was mug, smoking a cigarette and saying, as he flicked the ash, wide doth the bridegroom tarry. There he is now. Bank went the front door open and shut. Harry shouted, hello, you people, down in five minutes. And they heard him swarm up the stairs. Bertha couldn't help smiling. She knew how he loved doing things at high pressure. What, after all, did an extra five minutes matter? But he would pretend to himself that they mattered beyond measure. And then he would make a great point of coming into the drawing room, extravagantly cool and collected. Harry had such a zest for life. Oh, how she appreciated it in him. And his passion for fighting, for seeking in everything that came up against him another test of his power and of his courage. That too, she understood, even when it made him just occasionally, to other people who didn't know him well, a little ridiculous perhaps. For there were moments when he rushed into battle where no battle was. She talked and laughed and positively forgot until he had come in, just as she had imagined, that Pearl Fulton had not turned up. I wonder if Miss Fulton has forgotten. I expect so, said Harry. Is she on the phone? Ah, there's a taxi now. And Bertha smiled with that little air of proprietorship that she always assumed while her women finds were new and mysterious. She lives in taxis. She'll rant the fat if she does, said Harry Cooley, ringing the bell for dinner. Frightful danger for blonde women. Harry, don't! warned Bertha, laughing up at him. Came another tiny moment while they waited, laughing and talking, just a trifle too much at their ease, a trifle too unaware. And then Miss Fulton, all in silver, with a silver fillet binding her pale blonde hair, came and smiling, her head a little on one side. Am I late? No, not at all, said Bertha. Come along. And she took her arm and they moved into the dining room. What was there in the touch of that cool arm that could fan? Fan? Start blazing, blazing the fire of bliss that Bertha did not know what to do with. Miss Fulton did not look at her, but then she seldom did look at people directly. Her heavy eyelids lay upon her eyes and the strange half-smile came and went upon her lips as though she lived by listening rather than seeing. But Bertha knew suddenly as if the longest, most intimate look had passed between them, as if they had said to each other, you too, that Pearl Fulton, stirring the beautiful red soup in the gray plate, was feeling just what she was feeling. And the others, face and mug, Eddie and Harry, their spoons rising and falling, dabbing their lips with their napkins, crumbling bread, fiddling with the forks in glasses and talking. I met her at the Alpha Show, the weirdest little person. She'd not only cut off her hair, but she seemed to have taken a dreadfully good snip off her legs and arms and her neck and her poor little nose as well. Isn't she very lier with Michael Oat? The man who wrote Love in False Teeth? He wants to write a play for me. One act, one man, decides to commit suicide, gives all the reasons why he should and why he shouldn't. And just as he has made up his mind either to do it or not to do it, curtain. Not half a bad idea. What's he going to call it? Stomach trouble? I think I've come across the same idea in a little French review, quite unknown in England. No, they didn't share it. They were deers. Deers. And she loved having them there at her table and giving them delicious food and wine. In fact, she longed to tell them how delightful they were and what a decorative group they made, how they seemed to set one another off and how they reminded her of a play by Chekhov. Harry was enjoying his dinner. It was part of his, well, not his nature exactly and certainly not his pose. His something rather to talk about food and to glory in his shameless passion for the white flesh of the lobster and the green of pistachio ices, green and cold like the eyelids of Egyptian dancers. When he looked up at her and said, Bertha, this is a very admirable souffle. She almost could have wept with childlike pleasure. But why did she feel so tender towards the whole world tonight? Everything was good, was right. All that happened seemed to fill again her brimming cup of bliss. And still in the back of her mind there was the pear tree. It would be silver now in the light of poor dear Eddie's moon. Silver is Miss Fulton who sat there turning a tangerine in her slender fingers that were so pale a light seemed to come from them. What she simply couldn't make out, what was miraculous was how she should have guessed Miss Fulton's moon so exactly and so instantly. For she never doubted for a moment that she was right and yet what had she to go on? Less than nothing. I believe this does happen very very rarely between women. Never between men thought Bertha, but while I'm making the coffee in that drawing room perhaps she will give a sign. What she meant by that she did not know and what would happen after that she could not imagine. While she thought like this she saw herself talking and laughing. She had to talk because of her desire to laugh. I must laugh or die, but when she noticed Pace's funny little habit of tucking something down the front of her body as if she kept a tiny secret board of nuts there too Bertha had to dig her nails into her hands so as not to laugh too much. It was over at last and come and see my new coffee machine said Bertha. We only have a new coffee machine once a fortnight said Harry. Face took her arm this time. Miss Fulton bent her head and followed after. The fire had died down in the drawing room to a red flickering nest of baby Phoenix's said face. Don't turn up the light for a moment. It's so lovely and now she crouched by the fire again. She was always cold. Without her little red flannel jacket of course thought Bertha. At that moment Miss Fulton gave the sign. Have you a garden? said the cool sleepy voice. This was so exquisite on her part that all Bertha could do was to obey. She crossed the room pulled the curtains apart and opened those long windows. There she breathed and the two women stood side by side looking at the slender flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed like the flame of a candle to stretch up to point to quiver in the bright air to grow taller and taller as they gazed almost to touch the rim of the round silver moon. How long did they stand there? Both as it were caught in that circle of unearthly light understanding each other perfectly. Creatures of another world and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped in silver flowers from their hair and hands. Forever for a moment and did Miss Fulton murmur yes just that or did Bertha dream it? Then the light was snapped on and face made the coffee and Harry said my dear Mrs Knight don't ask me about my baby I never see her I shan't feel the slightest interest in her until she has a lover and Monk took his eye out of the conservatory for a moment and then put it on the glass again and Eddie Warren drank his coffee and sat down the cup with a face of anguish as though he had drunk and seen the spider. What I want to do is to give the young man a show I believe London is simply teeming with first chop unwritten plays what I want to say to them is here's the theatre fire ahead you know my dear I'm going to decorate a room for the Jacob Nathan's I'm so tempted to do a fried fish scheme with the backs of the chairs shaped like frying pans and lovely chip potatoes embroidered all over the curtains. The trouble with our young writing man is that they're still too romantic you can't put out to see without being seasick and wanting a basin well why won't they have the courage of those basins a dreadful poem about a girl who was violated by a beggar without a nose in a little wood Ms. Fulton sank into the lowest deepest chair and Harry handed around the cigarettes from the way he stood in front of her shaking the silver box and saying a properly Egyptian Turkish Virginian they're all mixed up Bertha realized that she not only bought him he really disliked her as she decided from the way Ms. Fulton said no thank you I won't smoke that she felt it too and was hurt oh Harry don't dislike her you're quite wrong about her she's wonderful wonderful and besides how can you feel so differently about someone who means so much to me I shall try to tell you when we're in bed tonight what has been happening what she and I have shared at those last words something strange and almost terrifying dotted into Bertha's mind and there's something blind and smiling whispered to her soon these people will go the house will be quiet quiet the lights will be out and you and he will be alone together in the dark room the warm bed she jumped up from her chair and ran over to the piano what a pity someone does not play she cried what a pity somebody does not play for the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband oh she loved him she'd been in love with him of course in every other way but just not in that way and equally of course she'd understood that he was different they'd discussed it so often it had worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold but after a time it had not seemed to matter they were so frank with each other such good pals that was the best of being modern but now ardently ardently the word ached in her ardent body was this what that feeling of bliss had been leading up to but then then my dear said mrs norman night you know our shame we're the victims of time and train we live in hamster it's been so nice i'll come with you into the hall said bertha i loved having you but you must not miss the last train that's so awful isn't it have a whiskey night before you go called harry no thanks old chap bertha squeezed his hand for that as she shook it good night goodbye she cried from the top step feeling that this self of hers was taking leave of them forever when she got back into the drawing room the others were on the move then you can come part of the way in my taxi i shall be so thankful not to have to face another driver loan after my dreadful experience you can get a taxi at the rank just at the end of the street you won't have to walk more than a few yards that's a comfort i'll go and put on my coat miss falton moved towards the hall and bertha was following when harry almost pushed past let me help you bertha knew that he was repenting his rudeness she let him go what a boy he was in some ways so impulsive so simple and eddie and she were left by the fire i wonder if you have seen bill's new poem called tabledot said eddie softly it's so wonderful in the last anthology have you got a copy i'd so like to show it to you it begins with an incredibly beautiful line why must it always be tomato soup yes said bertha and she moved noiselessly to a table opposite the drawing room door and eddie glided noiselessly after her she picked up the little book and gave it to him they had not made a sound while he looked it up she turned her head towards the hall and she saw harry with miss falton's coat in his arms and miss falton with her back turned to him and her head bent he tossed the coat away put his hands on her shoulders and turned her violently to him his lips said i adore you and miss falton laid her moonbeam fingers on his cheeks and smiled her sleepy smile harry's nostrils quivered his lips curled back in a hideous grin while he whispered tomorrow and with her eyelids miss falton said yes here it is said eddie why must it always be tomato soup it's so deeply true don't you feel tomato soup is so dreadfully eternal if you prefer said harry's voice very loud from the hall i can phone you a cab to come to the door oh no it's not necessary said miss falton and she came up to bertha and gave her the slender fingers to hold goodbye thank you so much goodbye said bertha miss falton held her hand a moment longer your lovely pear tree she murmured and then she was gone with eddie following like the black cat following the gray cat i'll shut up shop said harry extravagantly cool and collected your lovely pear tree pear tree pear tree bertha simply ran over to the long windows oh what's going to happen now she cried but the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and a still end of bliss by kathryn mansfield read by neslihan stamboli the compulsory diversion an old baron's yarn by more yokai read by neslihan stamboli this is a livery box recording all livery box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liverybox.org the compulsory diversion an old baron's yarn i wonder my dear fellows if any of you know the countess stefan repay the younger one i mean not the old lady that little creole princess my little black eyed kobold as i call her mine indeed i don't mean that of course that is only a façon de parler all of us my dear fellows as you very well know have signed after her enough at some time or other but none of you have had like me the luck to travel at night with her in the same coach well naturally her maid was there too still it was a great bit of luck all the same but no more of such luck for me thank you one day at her castle of keregvar it suddenly occurred to the countess quite late in the evening that the casino ball that arad was coming off on the morrow and she must be there at all hazards no sooner said than done the horses were put to it once and as there was nobody with her but me she said i pray you my dear baron be so good as to escort me to arad well when it came to dear baron what on earth could i say countess my deus it is very dark we shall only get upset and break our legs and how can we dance with broken legs we shall have to cross the three kurush rivers the bridge over one of them is sure to be crazy as usual and in we shall plump then at salenta we shall have to pass through the deus of a wood full of robes and i shall never be able to defend you single-handed against the whole lot of them and besides what need is there to hurry early tomorrow morning after nice cup of tea you have only to step into your carriage your four bay horses will fly with us to arad and by the evening you will be quite ready with your toilet that's what i said but you know how it always is try and persuade a woman not to do a thing and she'll insist on doing it all the more she didn't want to drive her horses to death she said and whoever had a wanting to rest after a short journey like that besides she loved so to travel by night what with the stars and the frogs it was so beautiful so romantic and much more such stuff but bless you that was a mere pretext the fact was she had suddenly got the idea into her darling little novel and nothing in heaven or earth could turn her from her purpose i was between two stools i had either to go with her or remain alone in the castle of course i chose the former alternative especially after she gave me permission to sit opposite to her in the coach i enjoyed myself splendidly i can tell you the countess by degrees absolutely loaded me with her favors first of all she put her handbag in my lap to which she presently added a muff next she hung a reticule upon my arm finally she entrusted to me a couple of bandboxes after that she fell asleep i could have asked anything i liked of her especially when the coach stumbled and she awoke in terror and began asking for all her belongings one after another dozing off again when she was quite sure they were all there later on the ladies maid began to groan oh lord how my head aches whereupon i also pretended to fall asleep suddenly we all started up in alarm the coach had suddenly moved sideways and then come to a dead stop as if it had fallen into a ditch my countess also awoke and asked stupidly what was the matter the lackey leaped from the box and came to the carriage window your ladyship i'm afraid we have lost our way well what of that said the countess we can't stop here there's a road in front of us i suppose and we're bound to arrive somewhere if we only follow it yes but yes but what do you mean the road must lead somewhere i suppose saving your ladyship's presence we're in the solent our wood well the solent our wood is no trackless wilderness we shall get to the end of it in a couple of hours yes your ladyship but the coachman is afraid the coachman what business has he to be afraid there's nothing about that in his contract is there he's afraid of some mischief befalling your ladyship what has the coachman to do with me i should like to know here i thought it my duty to intervene countess madés this is no joke this comes you see of nocturnal excursions here we are camping out in the middle of a forest and the robbers who are bound in this forest will come and take our horses our money and our lives i only wish i had a revolver but the little demon only laughed and before i could prevent it she had opened the coach door and leaped out oh what a splendid night how fragrant the forest is how to glow warm sparkle in the grass have you no eyes baron eyes indeed when i couldn't see three paces before me for the darkness but surely i see something shining through the trees over there she continued my blood grew cold within me we were approaching some robbers then evidently the coachman answered the question from his box with the voice of a man who was already being throttled that your ladyship is the pot house which the country people call a guest detaining charda guest detaining bravo the very thing for us let's hasten thither i was desperate for god's sake countess what would you do why that charda is a notorious resort of thieves where they would kill the whole lot of us a regular murder hall whose landlord is handing love with all the rafians of the district and where numbers and numbers of people have come to an evil end the naughty girl only laughed at me she told me i had read all these horrors in the story books and there was not a word of truth in any of them she admitted indeed that if there had been another in she would have gone to that in preference but as this was the only one we had no choice she then ordered the coachman to drive the horses along very gingerly while she went before on foot to show him the way every lamentation and objection was useless we had to stumble along in the direction of that cursed charda for she threatened to go alone if we were afraid to come too it is a fact that that naughty little fairy was afraid of nothing when we drew nearer to the charda a merry halla balloing sort of music suddenly struck upon our ears though all the windows were closed by shutters mondia it's absolutely full of rubbers you see how it is remarked the countess mischievously we started to go to a ball and at a ball we have arrived no one you see can avoid his fate and there upon with appalling full hardiness she marched straight towards the door for a moment i really thought i should have turned tail left her there and made a bolt of it but no bliss oblige and besides i couldn't for mademoiselle cesarin the ladies made had gripped my arms so tightly that i was powerless to release myself the poor creature was more than half dead with fright at any rate she was only half alive when we followed the countess together even outside the door we could hear quite distinctly the wild dance music and the merry uproar proceeding from a parcel of man inside but my countess was not a bit put out by it boldly she opened the door and stepped into the charada it was a large long dirty whitewashed room where in my first terror i could see about 50 men dancing about subsequently when i was able to count them there turned out to be only nine of them including the landlord who did not dance and three gypsies who provided the music but it seemed to me that five stalwart rafians were quite enough to deal with our little party they were all tall fellows who could easily hit the girders of the roof with their clenched fists and strapping fellows too with big broad shoulders their five muskets were piled up together in a corner well we were in a pretty tight place it seemed to me the rascals when they saw us instantly left off dancing and seemed to be amazed at our audacity but my countess said to them with a charming smile forgive me my friends for interrupting your past time we have lost our way and as we couldn't go any further in the dark we have come here for shelter if you will give it to us at these words one of the fellows sprucer and slimmer a good deal than the others gave his spiral mustache an extra twirl took off his vagabonds hat clapped his heels together and made my countess a profound bow he assured her she was not inconveniencing them in the least on the contrary they would be very glad of her society i am the master here he added the famous robber by the way at your ladieship service but who then is your ladieship before i could pull the countess's mantilla to prevent her from blurting out who she was she had already replied i am the countess repay from caliq bar then i'm indeed fortunate said the rascal i knew the old count he fired after me with a double musket on one occasion though he did not hit me brace it down countess a pleasant introduction i must say the countess sat down on a bench the fellow beside her me they didn't ask to take a seat at all and where did your ladieship think of going on such a night i winked at her don't tell him we were going to arad to the casino ball adieu all our jewels i thought oh then you have come here just at the nick of time your ladieship need not go a step further for we're giving a ball here if you do not despise our invitation we have very good gypsy musicians the salenta bands you know they can play splendid char dashes the rascal didn't stand on ceremony in the least but no sooner did they begin dashing off the char dash then he threw his button dolman half over his shoulder and seizing the counters around the waist twirled her off amidst a lot of them another fellow immediately hastened up to mademoiselle cesarin and ravished her away in a half fainting condition but she had no need to think of herself for she was passed from one hand to another so that her feet never touched the ground as for my counters she excelled herself she danced with as much fire and vivacity as if she were sweeping over the waxed floor of the assembly rooms at arad never have i seen her so amiable so charming as she was at that moment i have seen hangarian dancers at other times and have always been struck by their quaintness but nobody ever showed me how much there was really in them as that good for nothing rascal showed me then first of all he paced majestically round with his partner as if this were the proudest moment of his life gazing hortily down upon her from over his shoulder then he would shout down the music when at its loudest and it was pretty loud too and emerged from the midst of the throng after his partner she all the time swaying modestly backwards and forwards before him like a butterfly which touches every flower but lights on none and indeed i'm only speaking the truth when i say that her feet never seemed to touch the earth the fellow foppishly enough would keep bending towards her as if he were about to embrace her on the spot and then would stop short stamping with one foot and flinging back his head hortily alluring the enchanting little fairy hither and thither after him sometimes he would rush right up to her as if about to cast himself upon her bosom and then where the sudden twirl would be far away from her again and only the glances of their eyes showed that they were partners presently as if in high dudgeon he would turn away from his partner plant himself right in front of the gypsy musicians and prance furiously up and down before them and after thus dancing away his anger suddenly pat her back to the counters and seize and whirl her round and round as if he were a hurricane and she a leaping flame during the spacious pastime i was constantly agonized by the thought that perhaps this mad rogue in his excitement might permit himself some unbecoming demonstration towards the counters the temptation you know was great the counters was entirely in his power the fellow was a gallows bird with the news half round his neck already an extra misdeed or two more or less could do him no further harm i was firmly resolved that if he insulted the counters by the least familiarity i would make a rush for the piled up muskets seize one of them and shoot the villainous trifler dead i affirm on my honor that this i was firmly resolved to do but there was no necessity for it the dancers finished the three dancers the rubber chief politely conducted his partner back to her place and respectfully kissed her hand after thanking her heartily for her kindness and with that he approached me and amicably tapping me on the shoulder inquired well old chap can't you dance fancy calling me old chap thank you i said i cannot morris the pity and becky went to the counters i beg your ladyship's pardon he began for not being sufficiently prepared for the reception of such distinguished guests but i hope you will indulgently accept what we have to offer you it is not much but it is good so he meant to give us not only the ball but the supper after it and the splendid banquet it was i must say a large cauldron full of stewed calves flesh was produced put upon the long table and we all took our places rounded of plates and dishes there was no trace everyone used his own clothes by which i mean to say that with a hunk of bread in one hand and a clasp knife in the other we fished up our marrow bones from the cauldron itself as for my counters she fell too as if she had been starving for three days the rubber chief fished up for her with his brass studded clasp knife the reddest morsels of flesh they literally swam in pepper and piled them up on her white roll it was something splendid i can tell you suddenly it occurred to the rascal that i was not eating fall to old chap said he stalling goods make the fattest dishes you know nice company hey thank you i can't eat it it's too much peppered i said all right so much the more for us the wine naturally was sent around in the flask not a glass was to be seen your jiffy cater as is the way with balls first drank from the flask himself and then having wiped the mouth of it with his wide shirt sleeve presented it to the counters and bless my heart she took it and drank out of it an amazing woman really then the flippant rogue turned to me and offered me a drink come drink away old chap he said why always harp upon my gray hairs for of course you're going to make a night of it thank you i cannot drink i'm a cheeto chayla i said i was now thoroughly convinced that they were going to drink themselves mad drunk preparatory to knocking our brains out and indeed they did drink a casca wine between the five of them yet when they raised from the table not one of them so much as staggered while they were treating the gypsies the rubber chief approached me again well old chap devil take him with his old chap so you neither eat nor drink nor dance hey how then do you amuse yourself do you play cards and with that he produced a pack from his pocket so he wanted to find out how much money i had in my pocket a i know no game at cards well i'll pretty soon teach you one it's quite easy look now i put one card here and another card there you lay upon this and i lay upon that and whichever of us draws a court card of the corresponding suit takes the stake the rascal was actually teaching me lansknecht and i was obliged to pretend to learn from him what could i do i was obliged to sit down and play with him i had in my pocket a lot of copies i thought i might as well risk them so i put them on the table what we don't play for browns here we're not bumpkins here's the bank and with that he flung upon the table a whole heap of silver florins and gold ducats i also had a few small silver coins in my purse and with much fear and trembling i placed one of them on the first card he dealt out and i won the stake the rascal paid up not for the world would i have taken up the money i left it where it was a second and a third time i won again i did not gather my stakes the fourth fifth sixth time every time in fact fortune smiled on me i began to perspire it is a frightful situation when a man plays cards with a scoundrel and wins his money continually the seventh stake also was mine by this time a whole army of silver coins stood before me a cold sweat began to trickle down my temples why couldn't i be as lucky as this at presberg at the club during the session of the diet again i stake the whole lot inwardly praying that i might lose it all in vain for the eighth time i won i was a doomed man there could be no doubt about it the rascal smiled and said well old chap you cannot very well be in love with the pretty countess for you win at god so shamefully the rascal even there to chaff me i trembled in every limb when the night deal began yes sure enough again it fell to my share the robbers struck the table with his fist and laughed aloud well old chap he cried if you go on winning like this i shall lose the whole county of be hard in an hour's time and with that he pocketed what money remained and raised from the table i took my courage in both hands and ventured to offer him the money i had won the fellow looked me up and down as quarterly as a hidal go what do you take me for said he pick up your winnings at once or i'll pitch you in them out of doors good heavens what was i to do with all this money money enough to be murdered for and i had no doubt they would beat me to death for it presently i took it all and gave it to the gypsy musicians and only after i had done it did i reflect what a foolish thing it was to do live for how could i more clearly have betrayed the fact that i was indeed a man of unlimited means the silly gypsies that upon gathered round me and insisted upon playing me an air what was my favorite air they asked i got out of it by referring them to the counters i told them to play her favorite air and she will accompany it with her voice the counters certainly did not require much pressing she began to sing with her delightful siren voice summer and winter the poster is my dwelling and so sweetly so enchantingly did she sing that i quite forgot my surroundings and fancied i was in a private box at the buddha paced casino i actually began to applaud the rubber chief also applauded and now he said he would teach the counters his favorite song and then the madcap rascal roared out some rustic melody which certainly i had never heard before well chap he said when he had finished it is now your turn to sing us something i was in a terrible potter i sing i sing in that hour of mortal anguish i who didn't know a single note except home sweet home i can't sing at all i said and that wicked frivolous woman began laughing at me frightfully as involuntarily i fell humming an air from some opera i may mention i have a horrible whore sort of voice not unlike a peacocks if you won't sing she said to me in french we shall all be insulted see if we don't what could i do with the dart of terror in my heart and the pressure of mortal fear in my throat i piped forth my home sweet home i felt all along i was making a woeful mess of it up to the middle of the song the counters behaved with great decorum but just as i was working my way up to the miss pathetic part and brought out her most cruel flourish she burst out laughing and the whole band of robbers began to laugh with her till at last i also was obliged to smile though oddly enough there was no joke in it at all as far as i could see then they felt the dancing again the counters was indefatigable and so it went on to a broad daylight when the sun shone through the windows she said to the robber how obliged she was for the entertainment but enough was as good as a feast and would he therefore put to the horses and let us be off well now at last we shall all be knocked on the head straightaway i thought the robber went out hunted up the coachman and the lackey gave the necessary orders and came back to say the carriage was awaiting us no doubt they meant to shoot us down on the road i got into the carriage far more alarmed than i was when i got out of it it was a suspicious circumstance that he did not separate me from my companion evidently they intended to make sure of us and murder us all together the rascal himself took horse galloped along by the side of our carriage and conducted us to the turnpike road so as to put us on our way then he raised his cap wished us a merry evening and galloped back again only when we came to zerind did i venture to believe that i was alive only then did i begin to reproach the countess for involving us in an adventure which might have ended miserably enough suppose i said these rascals had not been afraid of me why then they might have practiced all sorts of sottis upon her and then to dance with vagabonds in a charda till dawn of day unpardonable all the way to arad i was indulging myself with the hope that if i was very civil to the countess she would not give me away by revealing the secret of this disreputable adventure at six o'clock we reached arad and as we dismounted at the door of the reception room she told three of my acquaintances what had befallen us of course everyone speedily knew of our misadventure so i was not even able to tell the story my own way and again she was the loveliest woman at the ball and she knew it and that was one of the chief reasons why she came it is true she did not dance a step she excused herself by saying she was tired to death i can well believe it from midnight to dawn she had danced 19 char dashes why i who hadn't danced at all could hardly stand on my legs as for me i hastened to the courtroom now that fortune has embraced you hug her tight i thought to myself at one table they were playing lansk net now's your time make a plunge i said to myself but i had the most cursed luck i lost a thousand florins straight off fortune evidently only pursues you when she sees that you're afraid of her six months later i came across a newspaper in which was an account of the summary conviction and execution by hanging of the famous rubber chief yoji i took the newspaper to the counter stephan repay and showed it to her fancy she said when she had read the case through and such a good dancer as he was too and of the compulsory diversion an old baron's yarn by more yokai read by nislihan stamboli a dinner date with murder by harry stein this is a leber vox recording all leber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit leber vox.org recording by dale growthman a dinner date with murder by harry stein it was long past the dinner hour and too early for the after theater crowd the two men at the table near the door were the only patrons in luigi's restaurant they had eaten and were sitting there drinking wine they drank very slowly and it was plain that they were waiting for somebody because they weren't talking much and had the half board half impatient look of people who have nothing to do but wait at the table near the back of the room the waiter who seemed to be the only one on duty sat smoking a black twisted cigar and reading a newspaper one of the men put his wine glass down and lit a cigarette even sitting down he was noticeably shorter than his companion but he was powerfully built he had a deep olive complexion and eyes that were black and sparkling it looks like your man isn't coming dan he said don't worry about it gatti dan said he'll turn up he knows the trail's hot and he'd rather be a live rat than a dead kidnapper gatti shook his head slowly i don't know he said vaguely you say you'll know if it's the same one that found how can you be sure the accent it's unmistakable a deep voice with an accent like a vaudeville dialecticians gatti refilled their glasses from the green bottle on the table then they were silent the front door opened and two men entered one was fat with a complexion the color of old weather beaten brick and eyes that were watery and cold he wore a high crowned pearl gray fedora set squarely on his head and his fleecy coat had heavily padded shoulders the other man was slight and sallow his coat was too tight across his back and he walked with a defiant swagger they hung their hats and coats on the rack and sat down two tables away from the one at which dan and gatti were sitting the waiter put down his cigar and came to their table bowing slightly spaghetti with the demeat sauce the southman ordered loudly on a bottle of qiandi same the small man said leconically the waiter went off without a word the two men lit cigarettes dan and gatti watched them with open curiosity waiting for some sign but they smoked in silence never looking in the direction of the other table it's the organ grinder accent all right gatti said in a barely audible voice but where's the high sign give him a chance dan mumbled he has to be plenty careful i suppose the waiter came back in with a wicker wrapped bottle which he set on the table before the newcomers then he went back to the kitchen and when he returned he brought two heaping plates of spaghetti dripping reddish brown sauce and giving off a fragrant scent the idea is to talk on a full stomach i suppose gatti whispered or isn't he the guy i thought your man was coming alone he didn't say dan said gatti watched the fat red faced man wheeling fork and knife eating the spaghetti with great relish that's a pretty good spaghetti hey joe the fat man said loudly right joe replied briefly dan looked toward the back of the room where the waiter was again occupied with his cigar and paper maybe they're waiting for the waiter to clear out first he was thinking he sipped his wine waiting then he looked up again the stout man had almost finished what was on his plate and was taking a long drink from his wine glass he put the glass down and sat back in his chair he turned his watery eyes on dan and nodded his head slowly up and down up and down dan glanced quickly at gatti who had his elbow on the table and seemed to be sleepily leaning far over on one side of his chair then he nodded his head at the stout man just as the latter had done the next instant he was on the floor and somewhere over his head repeated claps of thunder were bursting as if they would never cease and from the other table he heard a choked scream his ears hurt in the silence that followed when he rose from the floor gatti gun in hand was already standing at the side of the two men who a little while before had been enjoying their spaghetti and were now dead the waiter had disappeared dan took a revolver from the lifeless hand of the small sallow-faced man he looked at the chambers all the cartridges were neatly in place he never had a chance to use it gatti explained the door opened again a man with his hat drawn down over his eyes stood in the doorway and looked wildly about at the dead men and at dan and gatti then he turned around frantically our man gatti cried he leapt forward grabbed the fleeing man by the elbow and jerked him violently into the room you want to see us gatti said you phoned the lieutenant didn't you every feature of the man's face was distorted with terror gatti shook him this is a lieutenant he said pointing to dan what were you going to tell him the man looked at the corpses in a slow steady gaze his face was more composed now sure he said in a deep resonant voice they are dead now yes i know have to be afraid yes that's right they're dead dan said where have they been keeping the kid dead the man drew a piece of paper from his pocket dan read the address on it and put it in his own pocket who are they he asked pointing at the bodies the man was calm now that's a rocky callahan he said and the little one he is a joe baker i wasn't going to tell you i wasn't gonna tell you say walk out on them rocky callahan from detroit dan said in surprise you mean the fatfeller that's a right sucker gatti chuckled hey dan said riley but what started the target practice he pulled a rod on us gatti said who joe baker the little guy i didn't see it sure because you weren't looking for it i was looking at them baker handed under the table in the hand he wasn't eating with you couldn't notice unless you bent down to look under the flap of their tablecloth they must have found out their pal here was going to sing and figured he probably told us too much already they counted on getting him later dan nodded reflectively but what i want to know he said is how you happen to be looking under their table gatti chuckled some more i was just making sure he said guys named callahan shouldn't try to eat spaghetti he might have palmed off the accent but nobody with a real accent like that would cut up his spaghetti with a knife and pick up little pieces on his fork what's wrong with that dan wanted to know gatti gave him a look of contempt you eat spaghetti with a fork and a tablespoon to help you wind it around the fork and you eat at full length or it isn't worth eating you damn right gatti's prisoner put in belligerently his fear and humility were completely gone now that's the only way to eat a him the end of a dinner date with murder by harry stein the disciple by osco wild this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by rob marland the disciple when our scissors died the trees and the flowers desired to weep for him and the flowers said to the trees let us go to the river and pray it to lenders of its waters that we may make tears and weep and have our fill of sorrow so the trees and the flowers went to the river and the trees called to the river and said we pray thee to lend us of thy waters that we may make tears and weep and have our fill of sorrow and the river answered surely ye may have of my waters as ye desire but wherefore would ye turn my waters which are waters of laughter into waters that are waters of pain and why do ye seek after sorrow and the flowers answered we seek after sorrow because narcissus is dead and when the river heard that narcissus was dead it changed from a river of water into a river of tears and it cried out to the trees and the flowers and said though every drop of my waters is a tear and i have changed from a river of water into a river of tears and my waters that were waters of laughter are now waters of pain yet can i not lend ye a tear so loved i narcissus and the trees and the flowers were silent and after a time the trees answered and said we do not marvel that thou shouldst mourn for narcissus in this manner so beautiful was he and the river said but was narcissus beautiful and the trees and the flowers answered who should know that better than thou us did he ever pass by but thee he sought for and would lie on thy banks and look down at thee and in the mirror of thy waters he would mirror his own beauty and the river answered but i loved narcissus because as he lay on my banks and looked down at me in the mirror of his eyes i saw ever my own beauty mirrored therefore loved i narcissus and therefore must i weep and have my fill of sorrow nor can i lend the a tear end of the disciple by oscowild the economical pair by carolin wells from the wit and humor of america in ten volumes volume four this is a libre vox recording all libre vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libre vox dot org recording by dale growthman the economical pair by carolin wells once upon a time there was a man and his wife who had different ideas concerning family expenditures the man said i am extremely economical although i spend small sums here and there for cigars wine theater tickets and little dinners yet i do not buy me a yacht or a villa at newport but even with these praise worthy principles it soon came about that the man was bankrupt whereupon he reproached his wife who answered his accusations with surprise me my dear she exclaimed why i am exceedingly economical true i occasionally buy me a set of sables or a diamond tiara but i am scrupulously careful about small sums i diligently unknot all strings that come around parcels and save them and i use the backs of old envelopes for scribbling paper yet somehow my bank account is also exhausted morals this fable teaches to take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves and that we should not be penny wise and pound foolish the end of the economical pair by carolin wells farewell by guide mo passon read by neslihan stan moley this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org farewell the two friends were getting near the end of their dinner through the cafe windows they could see the boulevard crowded with people they could feel the gentle breezes which are wefted over paris on warm summer evenings and make you feel like going out somewhere you cannot wear under the trees and make you dream of moonlit rivers of fireflies and of lax one of the two ari simon heaved a deep sigh and said ah i'm growing old it's sad formerly on evenings like this i felt full of life now i only feel regrets life is short he was perhaps 45 years old very bald and already growing stout the other pierre carnie a trifle older but thin and lively answered well my boy i've grown old without noticing it in the least i've always been merry healthy vigorous and all the rest as one sees oneself in the mirror every day one does not realize the work of age for it is slow regular and it modifies the countenance so gently that the changes are unnoticeable it is for this reason alone that we do not die of sorrow after two or three years of excitement for we cannot understand the alterations which time produces in order to appreciate them one would have to remain six months without seeing one's own face then oh what a shock and the women my friend how i pity the poor beings all their joy all their power all their life lies in their beauty which lasts 10 years as i said i aged without noticing it i thought myself practically a youth when i was almost 50 years old not feeling the slightest infamity i went about happy and peaceful the revelation of my decline came to me in a simple and terrible manner which overwhelmed me for almost six months then i became resigned like all men i have often been in love but most especially once i met her at the seashore at Eretat about 12 years ago shortly after the war there's nothing prettier than this beach during the morning bathing hour it is small shaped like a horseshoe framed by high white cliffs which are pierced by strange holes called the port one stretching out into the ocean like the leg of a giant the other short and dumpy the women gather on the narrow strip of sand in this frame of high rocks which they make into a gorgeous garden of beautiful gowns the sun beats down on the shores on the multicolored parasols on the blue green sea and all is gay delightful smiling you sit down at the edge of the water and you watch the bathers the women come down wrapped in long bathrooms which they throw off daintly when they reach the foamy edge of the rippling waves and they run into the water with a rapid little step stopping from time to time for a delightful little thrill from the cold water a short gasp very few stand the test of the bath it is there that they can be judged from the ankle to the throat especially on leaving the water are the defects revealed although water is a powerful aid to flabby skin the first time that I saw this young woman in the water I was delighted entranced she stood the test well there are faces whose charms appeal to you at first glance and delight you instantly you seem to have found the woman whom you were born to love I had that feeling and that shock I was introduced and was soon smitten worse than I had ever been before my heart longed for her it is a terrible yet delightful thing thus to be dominated by a young woman it is almost torture and yet infinite delight her look her smile her hair fluttering in the wind the little lines of her face the slightest movement of her features delighted me upset me entranced me she had captured me body and soul by her gestures her manners even by her clothes which seemed to take on a peculiar charm as soon as she wore them I grew tender at the sight of her veil on some piece of furniture her gloves thrown on a chair her gown seemed to me inimitable nobody had hats like hers she was married but her husband came only on saturday and left on monday I didn't concern myself about him anyhow I wasn't jealous of him I don't know why never did the creature seem to me to be of less importance in life to attract my attention less than this man but she how I loved her how beautiful graceful and young she was she was youth elegance freshness itself never before had I felt so strongly what a pretty distinguished delicate charming graceful being woman is never before had I appreciated the seductive beauty to be found in the curve of a cheek the movement of a lip the pinkness of an air the shape of that foolish organ called the nose this lasted three months then I left for America overwhelmed with sadness but her memory remained in me persistent triumphant from far away I was as much hers as I had been when she was near me years passed by and I did not forget her the charming image of her person was ever before my eyes and in my heart and my love remained true to her a quiet tenderness now something like the beloved memory of the most beautiful and the most enchanting thing I had ever met in my life 12 years are not much in a lifetime one does not feel them slipped by the years follow each other gently and quickly slowly yet rapidly each one is long and yet so soon over they add up so rapidly they leave so few traces behind them they disappear so completely that when one turns around to look back over bygone years once he's nothing and yet one does not understand how one happens to be so old it seemed to me really that hardly a few months separated me from that charming season on the sands of Etretat last spring I went to dine with some friends at Maison Lafitte just as the train was leaving a big fat lady escorted by four little girls got into my car I hardly looked at this mother hen very big very round with a face as full as the moon frame in an enormous vertebrate hat she was puffing out of breath from having been forced to walk quickly the children began to chatter I unfolded my paper and began to read we had just passed an air when my neighbor suddenly turned to me and said excuse me sir but are you not Monsieur Garnier yes madame then she began to laugh the pleased laugh of a good woman and yet it was sad you do not seem to recognize me I hesitated it seemed to me that I had seen that face somewhere but where when I answered yes and no I certainly know you and yet I cannot recall your name she blushed a little madame Julie Le Favre never had I received such a shock in a second it seemed to me as though it were all over with me I felt that a veil had been torn from my eyes and that I was going to make a horrible and heart-rending discovery so that was she that big fat common woman she she had become the mother of these four girls since I had last seen her and these little beings surprised me as much as their mother they were part of her they were big girls and already had a place in life whereas she no longer counted she that marvel of dainty and charming gracefulness it seemed to me that I had seen her but yesterday and this is how I found her again was it possible a poignant grief seized my heart and also a revolt against nature herself an unreasoning indignation against this brutal infarious act of destruction I looked at her bewildered then I took her hand in mine and tears came to my eyes I wept for her lost youth for I did not know this fat lady she was also excited and stammered I'm greatly changed so why not what can you expect everything has its time you see I've become a mother nothing but a good mother farewell to the rest that is over well I never expected you to recognize me if we met you too have changed it took me quite a while to be sure that I was not mistaken your hair is all white just think 12 years ago 12 years my oldest girl is already 10 I looked at the child and I recognized in her something of her mother's old charm but something is yet unformed something which promised for the future and life seemed to me as swift as a passing train we had reached me on the feet I kissed my old friend's hand I had found nothing to utter but the most commonplace remarks I was too much upset to talk at night alone at home I stood in front of the mirror for a long time a very long time and I finally remembered what I had been finally so in my mind's eye my brown mustache my black hair and the useful expression of my face now I was out farewell end of farewell by Guy Demopassant read by Nislihan Stamboli