 In the year two-thousand eight-hundred and eighty-nine, by Jules Verne, read for LibriVox.org by Esther. In the year two-thousand eight-hundred and eighty-nine. Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland. Surfitted as they are with marvels, they are indifferent in presence of each new marvel. To them all seems natural. Could they but duly appreciate the refinements of civilization in our day? Could they but compare the present with the past and so better comprehend the advance we have made? How much fairer they would find our modern towns with populations amounting sometimes to ten million souls, their streets three-hundred feet wide, their houses one-thousand feet in height, with a temperate the same in all seasons, with their lines of aerial locomotion crossing the sky in every direction. If they would but picture to themselves the state of things that once existed when through muddy streets rumbling boxes of wheels drawn by horses—yes, horses—were the only means of conveyance. Think of the railroads of the olden time and you will be able to appreciate the pneumatic tubes through which today one travels at the rate of one-thousand miles an hour. Would not our contemporaries prize the telephone and the telephote more highly if they had not forgotten the telegraph? Singularly enough all these transformations rest upon principles which were perfectly familiar to our remote ancestors, but which they disregarded. Heat, for instance, is as ancient as man himself. Energy was known three-thousand years ago and steam one-thousand one-hundred years ago. Nay so early as ten centuries ago it was known that the differences between the several chemical and physical forces depend on the mode of vibration of the aetheric particles, which is for each specifically different. When at last the kinship of all these forces was discovered it is simply astounding that five hundred years should still have to elapse before men could analyze and describe the several modes of vibration that constitute these differences. Above all it is singular that the mode of reproducing these forces directly from one another and of reproducing one without the others should have remained undiscovered till less than a hundred years ago. Nevertheless such was the course of events, for it was not till the year twenty-seven ninety-two that the famous Oswald Nier made this great discovery. Truly was he a great benefactor of the human race. His admiral discovery led to many another. Hence is sprung a pliad of inventors, its brightest star being our great Joseph Jackson. To Jackson we are indebted for those wonderful instruments, the new accumulators. Some of these absorb and condense the living force contained in the sun's rays, others the electricity stored in our globe, others again the energy coming from whatever source as a waterfall, a stream, the winds, etc. He too, it was, that invented the transformer, a more wonderful contrivance still, which takes the living force from the accumulator and on the simple pressure of a button gives it back to space in whatever form may be desired, whether as heat, light, electricity, or mechanical force. After having first obtained from it the work required. From the day when these two instruments were contrived is to be dated the era of true progress. They have put into the hands of man a power that is almost infinite. As for their applications they are numberless, mitigating the rigors of winter by giving back to the atmosphere the surplus heat stored up during the summer. They have revolutionized agriculture. By supplying motive power for aerial navigation they have given to calmers a mighty impetus. To them we are indebted for the continuous production of electricity without batteries or dynamos, of light without combustion or incandescence, and for an unfailing supply of mechanical energy for all the needs of industry. Yes, all these wonders have been wrought by the accumulator and the transformer. And can we not to them also trace, indirectly, this latest wonder of all, the great earth chronicle building in 253rd Avenue, which was dedicated the other day. If George Washington Smith, the founder of the Manhattan Chronicle, could come back to life today, what would he think? Were he to behold that this palace of marble and gold belongs to his remote descendant? Fritz Napoleon Smith, who, after thirty generations, has come and gone, is owner of the same newspaper which his ancestor established. For George Washington Smith's newspaper has lived generation after generation, now passing out of the family and on, coming back to it. When two hundred years ago the political center of the United States was transferred from Washington to Centropolis the newspaper followed the government and assumed the name of earth chronicle. Unfortunately it was unable to maintain itself at the high level of its name. Pressed on all sides by rival journals of a more modern type it was continually in danger of collapse. Twenty years ago its subscription list contained but a few hundred thousand names, and then Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith bought it for a mere trifle and originated telephonic journalism. Everyone is familiar with Fritz Napoleon Smith's system, a system made possible by the enormous development of telephony during the last hundred years. Instead of being printed the earth chronicle is every morning spoken to subscribers, who, in interesting conversations with reporters, statesmen and scientists, learn the news of the day. Furthermore each subscriber owns a phonograph, and to this instrument he leaves the task of gathering the news whenever he happens not to be in a mood to listen directly himself. As for purchasers of single copies they can, at a very trifling cost, learn all that is in the paper of the day at any of the innumerable phonographs set up nearly everywhere. Fritz Napoleon Smith's innovation galvanized the old newspaper. In the course of a few years the number of subscribers grew to be eighty million, and Smith's wealth went on growing, till now it reaches the almost unimaginable figure of ten billion. This lucky hit has enabled him to erect his new building, a vast edifice with four facades each three thousand two hundred and fifty feet in length, over which proudly floats the hundred-starred flag of the Union thanks to the same lucky hit. He is today king of Newspaperdom. Indeed he would be king of all the Americans too if Americans could ever accept a king. You do not believe it? Well then, look at the plenty of potentiaries of all nations and our own ministers themselves crowding about his door and treating his counsels begging for his approbation imploring the aid of his all-powerful organ, reckon up the number of scientists and artists that he supports of inventors that he has under his pay. Yes, a king is he, and in truth his is a royalty full of burdens, his labours are incessant, and there is no doubt at all that in earlier times any man would have succumbed under the overpowering stress of the toil which Mr. Smith has to perform. Very fortunately for him, thanks to the progress of hygiene which abating all the old sources of unhealthfulness has lifted the mean of human life from thirty-seven up to fifty-two years. Men have stronger constitutions now than here to for. The discovery of nutritive air is still in the future, but in the meantime men today consume food that is compounded and prepared according to scientific principles, and they breathe an atmosphere freed from the microorganisms that formerly used to swarm in it. Thus they live longer than their forefathers and know nothing of the innumerable diseases of olden times. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding these considerations, Fritz Napoleon Smith's mode of life may well astonish one. His iron constitution is taxed to the utmost by the heavy strain that is put upon it. Veined the attempt to estimate the amount of labour he undergoes, an example alone can give an idea of it. Let us then go about with him for one day as he attends to his multifarious concernments. What day? That matters little. It is the same every day. Let us then take at random September twenty-fifth of this present year, twenty-eight eighty-nine. This morning Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith awoke in very bad humour. His wife, having left for France eight days ago, he was feeling disconsolate. Although it seems, in all the ten years since their marriage, this is the first time that Mrs. Edith Smith, the professional beauty, has been so long absent from home. Two or three days usually suffice for her frequent trips to Europe. The first thing that Mr. Smith does is to connect his phototelophote, the wires of which communicate with his Paris mansion. The telophote here is another of the great triumphs of science in our time. The transmission of speech is an old story. The transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors, connected by wires, is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed, and Mr. Smith this morning was not niggered of blessings for the inventor. When by its aid he was able distinctly to see his wife notwithstanding the distance that separated him from her. Mrs. Smith, weary after the ball, or the visit to the theatre the preceding night, is still a bed. Though it is near noontide at Paris. She is asleep, her head sunk in the lace-covered pillows. What! She stirs, her lips move. She is dreaming, perhaps—yes, dreaming. She is talking, pronouncing a name—his name—Fritz. The delightful vision gave a happier turn to Mr. Smith's thoughts. And now, at the call of imperative duty, light-hearted, he springs from his bed and enters his mechanical dresser. Two minutes later the machine deposited him, all dressed at the threshold of his office. The round of journalistic work has now begun. First he enters the hall of the novel writers, a vast apartment, crowned with an enormous transparent capola. In one corner is a telephone, through which a hundred earth-chronical literatures in turn recount to the public in daily instalments a hundred novels. Addressing one of these authors, who was waiting his turn, "'Capital, capital, my dear fellow,' he said he, "'your last story, the scene where the village maid discusses interesting philosophical problems with her lover, shows your very acute power of observation. Never have the ways of countryfolk been better portrayed. Keep on, my dear archibald, keep on. Since yesterday, thanks to you, there is a gain of five thousand subscribers.' Mr. John last he began again, turning to a new arrival. I am not so well pleased with your work. Your story is not a picture of life. It lacks the elements of truth. And why? Simply because you run straight on to the end, and because you do not analyse. Your heroes do this thing or that, from this or that motives, which you assign without ever a thought of dissecting their mental and moral natures. Our feelings, you must remember, are far more complex than all that. In real life every act is the resultant of a hundred thoughts that come and go. And these you must study, each by itself, if you would create a living character. But you will say, in order to note these fleeting thoughts one must know them, must be able to follow them in the capricious meanderings. Why any child can do that, as you know. You have simply to make use of hypnotism, electrical or human, which gives, one, a twofold being. Setting free the witness personality, so that it may see, understand and remember the reasons, which determine the personality that acts. Just study yourself, as you live from day to day. My dear last. Let your associate, whom I was complimenting a moment ago, let yourself be hypnotised. What's that? You have tried it already? Not sufficiently, then. Not sufficiently." Mr. Smith continues his round and enters the reporter's hall. Here one thousand five hundred reporters, in their respective places, facing an equal number of telephones, are communicating to the subscriber the news of the world as gathered during the night. The organisation of this matchless surface has often been described. Besides his telephone, each reporter, as the reader is aware, has in front of him a set of communicators, which enable him to communicate with any desired telephotic line. Thus the subscribers not only hear the news, but see the occurrences. When an incident is described that is already past, photographs of its main features are transmitted with the narrative, and there is no confusion with all. The reporter's items, just like the different stories, and all the other component parts of the journal, are classified automatically according to an ingenious system, and reach the hearer in due succession. Furthermore, the hearers are free to listen only to what specifically concerns them. They may at pleasure give attention to one editor, and refuse it to another. Mr. Smith next addresses one of the ten reporters in the astronomical department, a department still in the embryonic stage, but which will yet play an important part in journalism. Well, Cash, what's the news? We have phototelegrams from Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Are those from Mars of any interest? Yes, indeed. There is a revolution in the central empire. And what of Jupiter? asked Mr. Smith. Nothing yet we cannot quite understand their signals. Perhaps ours do not reach them. That's bad, exclaimed Mr. Smith, as he hurried away, not in the best of humour, towards the hall of the scientific editors. With their heads bent down over the electric computers, thirty scientific men were absorbed in transcendental calculations. The coming of Mr. Smith was like the falling of a bomb among them. Well, gentlemen, what is this I hear? No answers from Jupiter? Is it always to be thus? Come, Cooley, you have been at work now twenty years on this problem, and yet— True enough, replied the man addressed, our science of optics is still very defective, and though are mile-and-three-quarter telescopes. Listen to that, Peter, broken Mr. Smith, turning to a second scientist. Optical science defective? Optical science is your specialty. But—he continued again, addressing William Cooley—failing with Jupiter, are we getting any results from the moon? The case is no better there. This time you do not lay the blame on the science of optics. The moon is immeasurably less distant than Mars, yet with Mars our communication is fully established. I presume you will not say that you lack telescopes. Telescopes? Oh, no! The trouble here is about inhabitants. That's it, added Pierre. So then, the moon is positively uninhabited, asked Mr. Smith. At least, answered Cooley, on the face which she presents to us, as for the opposite side, who knows? Ah, the opposite side, you think, then? remarked Mr. Smith musingly, that if one could but— Could what? Why? Turn the moon about face. Ah, there's something in that, cried the two men at once, and indeed, so confidence was their air, they seemed to have no doubt as to the possibility of success in such an undertaking. Meanwhile, asked Mr. Smith, after a moment's silence, have you known news of interest to-day? Indeed, we have, answered Cooley. The elements of Olympus are definitely settled. That great planet gravitates beyond Neptune at the mean distance of eleven billion, four hundred million, seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand, six hundred and forty-two miles from the sun, and to traverse its vast orbit takes one thousand three hundred and eleven years, two hundred and ninety-four days, twelve hours, forty-three minutes, and nine seconds. Why didn't you tell me that sooner? cried Mr. Smith. Now inform the reporters of this straight away. You know how eager is the curiosity of the public with regard to these astronomical questions. That news must go into today's issue. When the two men bowing to him, Mr. Smith passed into the next hall, an enormous gallery of three thousand two hundred feet in length, devoted to atmospheric advertising. Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements reflected from the clouds so large that they may be seen by the populace of whole cities or even of entire countries. This too is one of Mr. Fritz and Napoleon Smith's ideas, and in the Earth Chronicle Building a thousand projectors are constantly engaged in displaying upon the clouds these mammoth advertisements. When Mr. Smith today entered the sky advertising department, he found the operators sitting with folded arms at their motionless projectors, and inquired as to the cause of their inaction. In response the man addressed simply pointed to the sky, which was of a pure blue. Yes, muttered Mr. Smith, a cloudless sky, that's too bad. But what's to be done? Shall we produce rain? That we might do, but is it of any use? What we need is clouds, not rain. Go!" said he, addressing the head engineer, go see Mr. Samuel Mark of the Meteorological Division of the Scientific Department, and tell him for me to go to work in earnest on the question of artificial clouds. It will never do for us to be always thus the mercy of cloudless skies. Mr. Smith's daily tour through the several departments of his newspaper is now finished. Next from the advertisement hall he passes to the reception chamber, where the ambassadors accredited to the American government are awaiting him, desirous of having a word of counsel or advice from the all-powerful editor. A discussion was going on when he entered. Your Excellency will pardon me, the French ambassador was saying to the Russian, but I see nothing in the map of Europe that requires change. The north for the Slavs? Why yes, of course, but the south for the Matins, our common frontier, the Rhine, it seems to me, serves very well. Besides my government, as you must know, will firmly oppose every movement not only against Paris our capital, or our two great prefectures, Rome and Madrid, but also against the kingdom of Jerusalem, the dominion of St. Peter, of which France means to be the trusty defender. Well said, exclaimed Mr. Smith, how is it, he asked, turning to the Russian ambassador, that you Russians are not content with your vast empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of the Rhine, to the celestial mountains, and the Kerakorum, whose shores are washed by the frozen ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean, then what is the use of threats? Is war possible in view of modern inventions, asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a distance of sixty miles, an electric spark of ninety miles, that can at one stroke annihilate a battalion, to say nothing of the plague, the cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the greatest armies? True, answered the Russian, but can we do all that we wish, as for us Russians, pressed on our eastern frontier by the Chinese, we must at any cost put forth our strength for an effort towards the West. Oh, is that all, in that case, said Mr. Smith, the thing can be arranged, I will speak to the Secretary of State about it, the attention of the Chinese government shall be called to the matter. This is not the first time that the Chinese have bothered us. Under these conditions, of course, and the Russian ambassador declared himself satisfied. Ah, Sir John, what can I do for you? asked Mr. Smith as he turned to the representative of the people of Great Britain, who till now had remained silent. A great deal, was the reply, if the earth-chronicle would put open a campaign on our behalf. And for what object? Simply for the annulment of the act of Congress annexing to the United States the British Islands. Though by a just turnabout of things here below Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, the English are not yet reconciled to the situation. Not regular intervals, they are ever addressing to the American government vain complaints. A campaign against the annexation that has been an accomplished fact for a hundred and fifty years, exclaimed Mr. Smith, how can your people suppose that I would do anything so unpatriotic? We at home think that your people must now be sated, the Monroe Doctrine is fully applied, the whole of America belongs to the Americans, what more do you want, besides we will pay for what we ask? Indeed, answered Mr. Smith, without manifesting the slightest irritation. Well, you English will ever be the same. No, no, Sir John, do not count on me for help. Give up our fairest province, Britain? Why not ask France generously to renounce the possession of Africa, that magnificent colony, the complete conquest of which cost to the labour of eight hundred years? You will be well received. You decline, all is over then, murmured the British agent sadly, the United Kingdom falls to the share of the Americans, the Indians to that of the Russians, said Mr. Smith, completing the sentence, Australia has an independent government. Then nothing at all remains for us, sighed Sir John, downcast, nothing, asked Mr. Smith, laughing. Well, now there is Gibraltar. With this sally the audience ended. The clock was striking twelve, the hour of breakfast. Mr. Smith returns to his chamber. Where the bed stood in the morning a table all spread comes up through the floor. For Mr. Smith, being above all a practical man, has reduced the problem of existence to its simplest terms. For him, instead of the endless suites of apartments, of the olden time, one room fitted with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here he sleeps, takes his meals, in short, lives. He seats himself. In the mirror of the photo-telephote is seen the same chamber at Paris which appeared in it this morning. A table furnished forth is likewise in readiness here, for notwithstanding the difference of hours Mr. Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously. It is delightful thus to take breakfast, tet-a-tet, with one who is three thousand miles or so away. Just now Mrs. Smith's chamber has no occupant. She is late, woman's punctuality, progress everywhere except there, muttered Mr. Smith, as he turned the tap for the first dish. For like all wealthy folk in our day Mr. Smith has done away with the domestic kitchen, and is a subscriber to the Grand Alimentation Company which sends through a great network of troops to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is always in readiness. A subscription costs money to be sure, but the cuisine is of the best, and the system has this advantage that it does away with the pestering race of the cordon blues. Mr. Smith received an eight, all alone, the hors d'oeuvres entret, roti, and legumes that constituted the repast. He was just finishing the dessert when Mrs. Smith appeared in the mirror of the telephote. �Where have you been?� asked Mr. Smith, through the telephone. �What? You are already at the dessert? Then I am late!� she exclaimed, with a winsome nativity. �Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dress-makers, the hats are just lovely this season. I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so I am a little late.� �Yes, a little,� growled Mr. Smith. �So little that I have already quite finished breakfast. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I must be going. �Oh, certainly, my dear, good-bye till evening.� Smith stepped into his air-coach, which was in waiting for him at a window. �Where do you wish to go, sir?� inquired the coachman. �Let me see, I have three hours,� Mr. Smith mused. �Take me to my accumulator works at Niagara.� For Mr. Smith has obtained a lease of the great falls of Niagara. For ages the energy developed by the falls went unutilized. Smith, applying Jackson's invention, now collects this energy, and lets or sells it. His visit to the works took more time than he had anticipated. It was four o'clock when he returned home, just in time for the daily audience which he grants to collars. One readily understands how a man, situated as Smith is, must be beset with requests of all kinds. Now, it is an inventor in aiding capital. Again, it is some visionary who comes to advocate a brilliant scheme which must surely yield millions of profit. A choice has to be made between these projects, rejecting the worthless, examining the questionable questions, accepting the meritorious. To this work Mr. Smith devotes every day two full hours. The collars were fewer today than usual, only twelve of them. Of these, eight had only impractical schemes to propose. In fact one of them wanted to revive painting and art fallen into desitude owing to the progress made in color photography. Another a physician boasted that he had discovered a cure for nasal catar. These impracticables were dismissed in short order. Of the four projects favorably received, the first was that of a young man whose broad forehead betokened his intellectual power. Sir, I am a chemist, he began, and as such I come to you. Well, once the elementary bodies, said the young chemist, were held to be sixty-two in number. A hundred years ago they were reduced to ten, now only three remain irresolvable. As you were aware. Yes, yes. Well, sir, these also I will show to be composite. In a few months, a few weeks, I shall have succeeded in resolving the problem. Indeed, it may take only a few days. And then? Then, sir, I shall simply have determined the absolute. All I want is money enough to carry my research to a successful issue. Well, said Mr. Smith, and what will be the practical outcome of your discovery? The practical outcome? Why, that we shall be able to produce easily all bodies, whatever, stone, wood, metal, fibers, and flesh and blood, queried Mr. Smith, interrupting him, do you pretend that you expect to manufacture a human being out and out? Why not? Mr. Smith advanced one hundred thousand dollars to the young chemist, and engaged his services for the earth's chronicle laboratory. The second of the four successful applicants, starting from experiments made so long ago as the nineteenth century, and again and again repeated, had conceived the idea of removing an entire city all at once from one place to another. His special project had to do with the city of Granton, situated, as everybody knows, some fifteen miles inland. He proposes to transport the city on rails, and to change it into a watering-place. The profit, of course, would be enormous. Mr. Smith, captivated by the scheme, bought a half interest in it. As you are aware, sir, began applicant number three, by the aid of our solar and terrestrial accumulators and transformers, we are able to make all the seasons the same. I propose to do something better still. Get into heat, a portion of the surplus energy, at our disposal. Send this heat to the poles. Then the polar regions, relieved of their snow cap, will become a vast territory available for man's use. What do you think of the scheme? Leave your plans with me, and come back in a week. I will have them examined in the meantime. Finally, the fourth announced the early solution of a weighty scientific problem. One will remember the bold experiment made a hundred years ago by Dr. Nathaniel Faithburn. The doctor, being a firm believer in human hibernation, in other words, in the possibility of suspending our vital functions, and of calling them into action again after a time, resolved to subject the theory to a practical test. To this end, having first made his last will, and pointed out the proper method of awaking him, having also directed that his sleep was to continue a hundred years to a day from the date of his apparent death, he unhesitatingly put the theory to the proof in his own person. Reduced to the condition of a mummy, Dr. Faithburn was coffined and laid in a tomb. Time went on, September 25, 2889, being the day set for his resurrection. It was proposed to Mr. Smith that he should permit the second part of the experiment to be performed at his residence this evening. Agreed, be here at ten o'clock, answered Mr. Smith, and with that the day's audience was closed. Left to himself, feeling tired, he laid down on an extension chair. Then, touching a knob, he established communication with the central concert hall, whence our greatest maestros send out to subscribers their delightful successions of accords determined by recondite algebraic formulas. Night was approaching, entranced by the harmony, forgetful of the hour, Smith did not notice it was growing dark. It was quite dark when he was aroused by the sound of a door opening. "'Who is there?' he asked, touching a communicator. Suddenly, in consequence of the vibrations produced, the air became luminous. "'Ah, you, doctor?' "'Yes,' was the reply. "'How are you?' "'I am feeling well. Good, let me see your tongue. All right, your pulse—regular, and your appetite—only passively good. Yes, the stomach—there's the rub. You are overworked if your stomach is out of repair. It must be mended. That requires study. We must think about it.' "'In the meantime,' said Mr. Smith, you will dine with me.' As in the morning the table rose out of the floor. Again as in the morning the potage, ratu, ragu, and legumes were supplied through the food-pipes. Towards the close of the meal photo-telephonic communication was made with Paris. Smith saw his wife seated alone at the dinner-table, looking anything but pleased at her loneliness. "'Pardon me, my dear, for having left you alone,' he said, through the telephone. I was with Dr. Wilkins. "'Ah, the good doctor,' remarked Mrs. Smith, her countenance lighting up. "'Yes, but pray, when are you coming home?' "'This evening.' "'Very well. Do you come by tube or by air-train?' "'Oh, by tube.' "'Yes, and at what hour will you arrive?' "'About eleven, I suppose.' "'Eleven by Centropolis time, you mean?' "'Yes.' "'Goodbye, then.' "'For a little while,' said Mr. Smith, as he severed communication with Paris. "'Dinner over, Dr. Wilkins, wished to depart.' "'I shall expect you at ten,' said Mr. Smith. "'Today, it seems, is the day for the return to life of the famous Dr. Faithburn. You did not think of it, I suppose. The awakening is to take place here in my house. You must come and see. I shall depend on you being here.' "'I will come back,' answered Dr. Wilkins. Left alone Mr. Smith busied himself with examining his accounts, a task of vast magnitude, having to do with transactions which involve a daily expenditure of upward of eight hundred thousand dollars. Fortunately, indeed, the stupendous progress of mechanic art and modern times make it comparatively easy. Thanks to the piano-electro-reckoner, the most complex calculations can be made in a few seconds. In two hours Mr. Smith completed his task. Just in time, scarcely had he turned over the last page when Dr. Wilkins arrived. After him came the body of Dr. Faithburn, escorted by a numerous company of men of science. They commenced work at once. The casket, being laid down in the middle of the room, the telephote was got in readiness. The outer world, already notified, was anxiously expectant, for the whole world could be eye-witness of the performance of a reporter, meanwhile, like the chorus in the ancient drama, explaining it all, viva voce, through the telephone. "'They are opening the casket,' he explained. Now they are taking Faithburn out of it. A veritable mummy, yellow, hard and dry, strike the body, and it resounds like a block of wood. They are now applying heat, now electricity, no result. These experiments are suspended for a moment while Dr. Wilkins makes an examination of the body. Dr. Wilkins, rising, declares the man to be dead. "'Dead,' exclaims every one present. "'Yes,' answers Dr. Wilkins, "'dead.' And how long has he been dead?' Dr. Wilkins makes another examination. "'A hundred years,' he replies. The case stood, just as the reporter said. Faithburn was dead, quite certainly dead. "'Here is a method that needs improvement,' remarked Mr. Smith to Dr. Wilkins, as the scientific committee on hibernation bore the casket out. "'So much for that experiment, but if poor Faithburn is dead, at least he is sleeping,' he continued. "'I wish I could get some sleep. I am tired out, Dr. quite tired out. Do you not think that a bath would refresh me?' "'Certainly, but you must wrap yourself up very well before you go out into the hallway. You must not expose yourself to cold.' "'Hallway? Why, Dr., as you well know, everything is done by machinery here. It is not for me to go to the bath. The bath will come to me. Just look.' And he pressed a button. After a few seconds a faint rumbling was heard which grew louder and louder. Suddenly the door opened and the tab appeared. "'Such, for this year of Grace, 2889, is the history of one day in the life of the editor of the earth-chronicle, and the history of that one day is the history of three hundred and sixty-five days every year, except leap-years, then of three hundred and sixty-six days, for as yet no means has been found of increasing the length of the terrestrial year, and of, in the year, 2889. This recording is in the public domain." This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information on how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Love of Life by Jack London. From Love of Life and Other Stories. Led by John Taylor, southeast Missouri, December 2006. This out of all will remain. They have lived and have tossed, so much of the game will be gain, though the gold of the dice has been lost. They limped painfully down the bank, and once the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough strewn rocks. They were tired, and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience, which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs, which were strapped to their shoulders. Head straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground. I wish we had just about two of them cartridges that's lying in that cache of iron, said the second man. His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless. He spoke without enthusiasm, and the first man, limping into the milky stream that foamed over the rocks, vouchsafed no reply. The other man followed at his heels. They did not remove their foot gear, though the water was icy cold, so cold that their ankles ached, and their feet went numb. In places the water dashed against their knees, and both men staggered for footing. The man who followed slipped on a smooth boulder, nearly fell, but recovered himself with a violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy, and put out his free hand while he reeled as though seeking support against the air. When he had steadied himself, he stepped forward, but reeled again and nearly fell. Then he stood still, and looked at the other man, who had never turned his head. The man stood still for fully a minute, as though debating with himself. Then he called out. I say, Bill, I have sprained my ankle. Bill staggered on through the milky water. He did not look around. The man watched him go, and though his face was expressionless as ever, his eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer. The other man limped up the farther bank, and continued straight on without looking back. The man in the stream watched him. His lips trembled a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which covered them was visibly agitated. His tongue even straight out to moisten them. Bill! he cried out. It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress, but Bill's head did not turn. The man watched him go, limping grotesquely, and lurching forward with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the soft skyline of the low-lying hill. He watched him go till he passed over the crest, and disappeared. Then he turned his gaze, and slowly took in the circle of the world that remained to him, now that Bill was gone. Near the horizon the sun was smoldering dimly, almost obscured by formless mists and vapors, which gave an impression of mass and density without outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It was four o'clock, and as the season was near the last of July, or first of August, he did not know the precise date within a week or two. He knew that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He looked to the south, and knew that somewhere beyond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake. Also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic circle cut its forbidding way across the Canadian barrens. This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the Coppermine River, which in turn flowed north and emptied into Coronation Gulf and the Arctic Ocean. He had never been there, but he had seen it, once, on a Hudson Bay Company chart. Again, his gaze completed the circle of the world about him. It was not a heartening spectacle. Everywhere was soft skyline. The hills were all low line. There were no trees, no shrubs, no grasses. Not but a tremendous and terrible desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning into his eyes. Bill, he whispered, once, and twice, Bill. He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as though the vastness were pressing in upon him with overwhelming force, brutally crushing him with its complacent awfulness. He began to shake as with a negative fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a splash. This served to rouse him. He fought with his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the water and recovering the weapon. He hitched his pack farther over on his left shoulder so as to take a portion of its weight off the injured ankle. Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing with pain, to the bank. He did not stop. With a desperation that was madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the slope to the crest of the hill over which his comrade had disappeared. More grotesque and comical by far than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the crest he saw a shallow valley, empty of life. He fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the pack still farther over on his left shoulder, and lurched on down the slope. The bottom of the valley was soggy with water, which the thick moss held, sponge-like, close to the surface. This water squirted out from under his feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot, the action culminated in a sucking sound as the wet moss reluctantly released its grip. He picked his way from Muskeg to Muskeg, and followed the other man's footsteps along and across the rocky ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of moss. Though alone he was not lost, farther on he knew he would come to where dead spruce and fir, very small and weasened, bordered the shore of a little lake, the Tichen Nishili, in the tongue of the country, the land of little sticks, and into that lake flowed a small stream, the water of which was not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream. This he remembered well, but no timber, and he would follow it till its first trickle seized at a divide. He would cross this divide to the first trickle of another stream, flowing to the west which he would follow until it emptied into the river Dease, and here he would find a cache under an upturned canoe, and piled over with many rocks, and in this cache would be ammunition for his empty gun, fish hooks and lines, a small net, all the utilities for the killing and snaring of food. Also he would find flour, not much, a piece of bacon, and some beans. Bill would be waiting for him there, and they would paddle away south down the Dease to the Great Bear Lake, and south across the lake they would go ever south till they gained the Mackenzie, and south, still south they would go while the winter raced vainly after them, and the ice formed in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp, south to some warm Hudson Bay Company post, where timber grew tall and generous, and there was grub without end. These were the thoughts of the man as he strove onward, but hard as he strove with his body, he strove equally hard with his mind, trying to think that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would surely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled to think this thought, or else there would not be any use to strive, and he would have lain down and died. And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the northwest, he covered every inch, and many times of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming winter. And he conned the grub of the cache, and the grub of the Hudson Bay Company post over and over again. He had not eaten for two days. For a far longer time he had not had all he wanted to eat. Often he stooped and picked pale muskeg berries, put them into his mouth, and chewed and swallowed them. A muskeg berry is a bit of seed enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water melts away, and the seed chews, sharp, and bitter. The man knew there was no nourishment in the berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope greater than knowledge and defined experience. At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky ledge, and from sheer weariness and weakness staggered and fell. He lay for some time, without movement on his side. Then he slipped out of the pack straps, and clumsily dragged himself into a sitting posture. It was not yet dark, and in the lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a heap he built a fire, a smoldering, smudgy fire, and put a tin pot of water onto boil. He unwrapped his pack, and the first thing he did was to count his matches. There were sixty-seven. He counted them three times to make sure. He divided them into several portions, wrapping them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished, a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped them all, and counted them again. There were still sixty-seven. He dried his wet footgear by the fire. The moccasins were in soggy shreds. The blanket socks were worn through in places, and his feet were raw and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing, and he gave it an examination. It had swollen to the size of his knee. He tore a long strip from one of his two blankets, and bound the ankle tightly. He tore other strips, and bound them about his feet to serve for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the pot of water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and crawled between his blankets. He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness around midnight came and went. The sun arose in the northeast, at least the day dawned in that quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds. At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his back. He gazed straight up into the gray sky, and knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on his elbow, he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a bull caribou regarding him with an alert curiosity. The animal was not more than fifty feet away, and instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun, drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull snorted and leaped away his hoofs rattling and clattering as he fled across the ledges. The man cursed and flung the empty gun from him. He groaned aloud as he started to drag himself to his feet. It was a slow and arduous task. His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked harshly in their sockets, with much friction, and each bending or unbending was accomplished only through a sheer exertion of will. When he finally gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed and straightening up, so that he could stand erect as a man should stand. He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the prospect. There were no trees, no bushes, nothing but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified by gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets. The sky was gray, there was no sun, nor hint of sun. He had no idea of north, and he had forgotten the way he had come to this spot the night before. But he was not lost, he knew that. Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks. He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far, possibly just over the next low hill. He went back to put his pack into shape for traveling. He assured himself of the existence of his three separate parcels of matches, though he did not stop to count them. But he did linger, debating, over a squat, moose-hide sack. It was not large, he could hide it under his two hands. He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds, as much as all the rest of the pack. And it worried him. He finally set it to one side and proceeded to roll the pack. He paused a gaze at the squat moose-hide sack. He picked it up hastily with a defiant glance about him, as though the desolation were trying to rob him of it, and when he rose to his feet to stagger on into the day, it was included in the pack on his back. He bore away to the left, stopping now and again to eat muskeg berries. His ankle had stiffened, his limp was more pronounced, but the pain of it was as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach. The hunger pains were sharp. They nod and nod until he could not keep his mind steady on the course he must pursue to gain the land of little sticks. The muskeg berries did not allay this nine, while they made his tongue and the roof of his mouth soar with their irritating bite. He came upon a valley where rocked ptarmigan rose on whirring wings from the ledges and muskeg's. Co-co-co was the cry they made. He threw stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed his pack on the ground and stocked them as a cat stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut through his pants legs till his knees left a trail of blood, but the hurt was lost in the hurt of his hunger. He squirmed over the wet moss, saturating his clothes and chilling his body, but he was not aware of it, so great was his fever for food. And always the ptarmigan rose, worrying before him, till their kerr, kerr, kerr became a mock to him, and he cursed them and cried aloud at them with their own cry. Once he crawled upon one that must have been asleep, he did not see it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand three tail feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered his pack. As the day wore along he came into valleys or swales where game was more plentiful. A band of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals, tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild desire to run after them, a certitude that he could run them down. A black fox came toward him, carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man shouted, it was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping away in fright, did not drop the ptarmigan. Later in the day he followed a stream, milky with lime, which ran through sparse patches of rushgrass. Grasping these rushes firmly near the root he pulled up what resembled a young onion sprout, no larger than a shingle nail. It was tender and his teeth sank into it with a crunch that promised deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filaments saturated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment. He threw off his pack and went into the rushgrass on hands and knees, crunching and munching like some bovine creature. He was very weary and often wished to rest, to lie down and sleep, but he was continually driven on, not so much by his desire to gain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched little ponds for frogs, and dug up the earth with his nails for worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed so far north. He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long twilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish the size of a minnow in such a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait until the sediment had settled. The pursuit was renewed till the water was again muddied, but he could not wait. He unstrapped the tin bucket and began to bail the pool. He bailed wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging the water so short a distance that it ran back into the pool. He worked more carefully, striving to be cool, though his heart was pounding against his chest and his hands were trembling. At the end of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a cupful of water remained, and there was no fish. He found a hidden crevice among the stones through which it had escaped to the adjoining and larger pool, a pool which he could not empty in a night and a day. Had he known of the crevice he could have closed it with a rock at the beginning and the fish would have been his. Thus he thought and crumpled up and sank down upon the wet earth. At first he cried softly to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless desolation that ringed him around, and for a long time after he was shaken by great dry sobs. He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking quarts of hot water and made a camp on a rocky ledge in the same fashion he had the night before. The last thing he did was to see that his matches were dry and to wind his watch. The blankets were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed with pain. But he knew only that he was hungry, and through his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets and of food served and spread in all imaginable ways. He awoke, chilled and sick. There was no sun. The gray of earth and sky had become deeper, more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops. The air about him thickened and grew white while he made a fire and boiled more water. It was wet snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy. At first they melted as soon as they came in contact with the earth, but every more fell, covering the ground, putting out the fire, spoiling a supply of moss fuel. This was a signal for him to strap on his pack and stumble onward. He knew not where. He was not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor with bill and the cash under the upturned canoe by the River Dease. He was mastered by the verb to eat. He was hunger mad. He took no heed of the course he pursued, so long as that course led him through the swale bottoms. He fell his way through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries, and went by feel as he pulled up the rush grass by the roots, but it was tasteless stuff, and did not satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour, and he ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for it was a creeping growth easily hidden under the several inches of snow. He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and crawled under his blanket to sleep the broken hunger sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain. He awakened many times to feel it falling on his upturned face. Day came, a gray day, and no sun. It had seized raining. The keenness of his hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as concerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted. There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it did not bother him so much. He was more rational, and once more he was chiefly interested in the land of little sticks, and the cash by the River Dease. He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips, and bound his bleeding feet. Also he resinched the injured ankle, and prepared himself for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he paused long over the squat, moose-hide sack, but in the end it went with him. The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltop showed white. The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points of the compass, though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps in his previous day's wanderings he had edged away too far to the left. He now bore off to the right to counteract the possible deviation from his true course. Though the hunger pains were no longer so exquisite, he realized that he was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests when he attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry and large, as though covered with a fine, hairy growth, and it tasted bitter in his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When he had traveled a few minutes it would begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump, and then leap up and go away in a painful flutter of beets that choked him and made him go faint and dizzy. In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It was impossible to bail it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch them in his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger, but he was not particularly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had been growing duller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with painstaking care, for the eating was an act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat, he knew that he must eat to live. In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving the third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss and he was able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more than ten miles that day, and the next day, traveling whenever his heart permitted him, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in a strange country, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also the wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking away before his path. Another night, and in the morning being more rational, he untied the leather string that fastened the squat mousse hide sack. From its open mouth poured a yellow stream of coarse gold dust and nuggets. He roughly divided the gold in halves, cashing one half on a prominent ledge, wrapped in a piece of blanket, and returning the other half to the sack. He also began to use the strips of the one remaining blanket for his feet. He still clung to his gun, for there were cartridges in that cache by the River Dease. This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke in him again. He was very weak, and was affected with a giddiness which at times blinded him. It was no uncommon thing now for him to stumble and fall, and stumbling once he fell squarely into a ptarmigan nest. There were four newly hatched chicks, a day old, little specks of pulsating life, no more than a mouthful, and he ate them ravenously, resting them alive into his mouth and crunching them like eggshells between his teeth. The mother ptarmigan beat about him with great outcry. He used his gun as a club with which to knock her over, but she dodged out of reach. He threw stones at her, and with one chance shot broke a wing. Then she floated away, running, trailing the broken wing with him in pursuit. The chicks had no more than wetted his appetite. He hopped and bobbed clumsily along with his injured ankle, throwing stones and screaming hoarsely at times. At other times hopping and bobbing silently along, picking himself up grimly and patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyes with his hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower him. The chase led him across swampy ground in the bottom of the valley, and he came upon footprints in the soggy moss. They were not his own. He could see that. They must be Bill's. He could not stop, for the mother Tarmigan was running on. He would catch her first, then he would return and investigate. He exhausted the mother Tarmigan, but he exhausted himself. She lay panting on her side. He lay panting on his side a dozen feet away, unable to crawl to her. And as he recovered, she recovered, fluttering out of reach as his hungry hand went out to her. The chase was resumed. Night settled down, and she escaped. He stumbled from weakness and pitched head foremost on his face, cutting his cheek his pack upon his back. He did not move for a long while. Then he rolled over on his side, wound his watch, and lay there till morning. Another day of fog, half of his last blanket had gone into foot-wrappings. He failed to pick up Bill's trail. It did not matter. His hunger was driving him too compellingly. Only he wondered if Bill too were lost. By midday the irk of his pack became too oppressive. Again he divided the gold, this time merely spilling half of it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the rest of it away, there remaining to him only the half blanket, the tin bucket, and the rifle. An hallucination began to trouble him. He was confident that one cartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle, and he had overlooked it. On the other hand he knew all the time that the chamber was empty. But the hallucination persisted. He fought it off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he had really expected to find the cartridge. He plotted on for half an hour when the hallucination arose again. Again he fought it, and still it persisted. Till for very relief he opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered farther afield, and he plotted on a mere automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But these excursions out of the real were of brief duration. However the pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked back abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! He could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, inner shot with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear his vision called not a horse, but a great brown bear. The animal was studying him with a bellicose curiosity. The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew his hunting knife from its beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning, thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, depressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness into his brain. His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In his weakness, what of the animal attacked him? He drew himself up to his most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up, and gave vent to a tentative growl. If the man ran, he would run after him. But the man did not run. He was animated now with the courage of fear. He too growled savagely, terribly voicing the fear that is to life germane and that lies twisted about life's deepest roots. The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himself appalled by this mysterious creature that appeared upright and unafraid. But the man did not move. He stood like a statue till the danger was past when he yielded to a fit of trembling and sank down into the wet moss. He pulled himself together and went on, afraid now in a new way. It was not the fear that he should die passively and lack of food, but that he should be destroyed violently before starvation had exhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him that made toward surviving. There were the wolves. Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself arms in the air pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent. Now and again the wolves in packs of two and three crossed his path, but they sheared clear of him. They were not insufficient numbers, and besides they were hunting the caribou which did not battle while this strange creature that walked erect might scratch and bite. In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolves had made a kill. The debris had been a caribou calf on an hour before, walking and running and very much alive. He contemplated the bones, clean-picked and polished, pink with the cell life in them which had not yet died. Could it possibly be that he might be that air the day was done? Such was life, eh? A vain and fleeting thing. It was only life that pained. There was no hurt in death. To die was to sleep. It meant cessation, rest. Then why was he not content to die? But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bone in his mouth, sucking at the shreds of life that still died at faintly pink. The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive, almost as a memory, maddened him. He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. Sometimes it was the bone that broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them to a pulp, and swallowed them. He pounded his fingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment in which to feel surprised at the fact that his fingers did not hurt much when caught under the descending rock. Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp, when he broke camp. He traveled in the night as much as in the day. He rested wherever he fell, and called on whenever the dying life at him flickered up and burned less dimly. He, as a man, no longer strove. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had become blunted, numb, while his mind was filled with weird visions and delicious dreams. But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed bones of the caribou calf, the least remains of which he had gathered up and carried with him. He crossed no more hills or divides, but automatically followed a large stream which flowed through a wide and shallow valley. He did not see this stream nor this valley. He saw nothing save visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side by side, yet apart so slender was the thread that bound them. He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. The sun was shining bright and warm. A far off he heard the squawking of caribou calves. He was aware of vague memories of rain and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten by the storm for two days or two weeks, he did not know. For some time he lay without movement, the genial sunshine pouring upon him and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day, he thought, perhaps he had managed to locate himself. By a painful effort he rolled over on his side. Below him flowed a wide and sluggish river. Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly he followed it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the bleak bare hills, bleaker and bearer and lower line than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly, deliberately, without excitement or more than the most casual interest, he followed the course of the strange stream toward the skyline and saw it emptying into a bright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual he thought, a vision or a mirage, most likely a vision, a trick of his disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a ship lying at anchor in the midst of the shining sea. He closed his eyes for a while, then opened them. Strange how the vision persisted, yet not strange, he knew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle. He heard a snuffle behind him, a half choking gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough and outlined between two jagged rocks, not a score feet away, he made out the grey head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as he had seen them on other wolves. The eyes were bleared and bloodshot. The head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As he looked, it snuffled and coughed again. This, at least, was really thought and turned on the other side so that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled from him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality, after all? He closed his eyes for a long while and thought, and then it came to him. He had been making north by east, away from the Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide and sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining sea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler, straight east, far east from the mouth of the Mackenzie and it was lying at anchor in Coronation Gulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company chart he had seen long ago and it was all clear and reasonable to him. He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He had worn through the blanket wrappings and his feet were shapeless lumps of raw meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife were both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere with a bunch of matches in the band, but the matches against his chest were safe and dry inside the tobacco pouch and oil paper. He looked at his watch. It marked eleven o'clock and was still running. Evidently he had kept it wound. He was calm and collected, though extremely weak he had no sensation of pain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was not even pleasant to him and whatever he did was done by his reason alone. He ripped off his pants legs to the knees and bound them about his feet. Somehow he had succeeded in retaining the tin bucket. He would have some hot water before he began what he foresaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship. His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When he started to collect dry moss he found he could not rise to his feet. He tried again and again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself reluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemed hardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was not the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish-brown and seemed coated with a rough and half-dry mucus. After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able to stand and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposed to walk. Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His steps were feeble and uncertain just as the wolves that trailed him were feeble and uncertain. And that night when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness he knew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles. Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf and now and then the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life all around him, but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would die first. In the morning on opening his eyes he beheld it regarding him with a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched with tail between its legs like a miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the chill morning wind and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a voice that achieved no more than a hoarse whisper. The sun rose brightly and all morning the man tottered and fell toward the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief Indian summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. Tomorrow or the next day it might be gone. In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man who did not walk but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refused to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sick wolf. He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, and soon came to the end of it. A few fresh-picked bones where the soggy moss was marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw a squat, moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it up, though its weight was almost too much for his feeble fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha! Ha! He would have the laugh on Bill. He would survive and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His mirth was horse and ghastly, like a raven's croak, and the sick wolf joined him, howling legubriously. The man seized suddenly. How could he have the laugh on Bill, if that were Bill? If those bones, so pinky-white and clean, were Bill? He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him, but he would not take the gold, nor would he suck Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it been the other way around, he mused as he staggered on. He came to a pool of water, stooping over in quest of minnows, he jerked his head back as though he had been stung. He had caught sight of his reflected face. So horrible was it that sensibility awoke long enough to be shocked! There were three minnows in the pool, which was too large to drain, and after several ineffectual attempts to catch them in the ten-bucket, he forbore. He was afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he did not trust himself to the river, astride one of the many drift logs which lined at sandspits. That day he decreased the distance between him and the ship by three miles, the next day by two, for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled, and the end of the fifth day found the ship still seven miles away and him unable to make even a mile a day. Still the Indian summer held on, and he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about, and ever the sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his heels. His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though he padded them with a shirt from his back, it was a red track he left behind him on the moss and stones. Once glancing back he saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw sharply what his own end might be, unless he could get the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played, a sick man that crawled a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's lives. Had it been a well wolf it would not have mattered so much to the man, but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and all but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky, his mind had begun to wander again and to be perplexed by hallucinations while his lucid intervals grew rarer and shorter. He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear. The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused, nor was he even afraid he was too far gone for that, but his mind was for the moment clear and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those four miles. He knew that and was very calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should die after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And dying he declined to die. It was stark madness perhaps, but in the very grip of death he defied death and refused to die. He closed his eyes and composed himself with infinite precaution. He steeled himself to keep above the suffocating langer that lapped like a rising tide through all the walls of his being. It was very like a sea this deadly langer that rose and rose and drowned his consciousness bit by bit. Sometimes he was all but submerged swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke. And again by some strange alchemy of the soul he would find another shred of will and strike out more strongly. Without movement he lay on his back and he could hear slowly drawing near and near the wheezing intake and output of the sick wolf's breath. It drew closer, ever closer through an infinitude of time and he did not move. It was at his ear, the harsh dry tongue grated like sandpaper against his cheek. His hand shot out, or at least he willed them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like talons but they closed on empty air. Swiftness and certitude require strength and the man had not this strength. The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was no less terrible. For half a day he lay motionless fighting off unconsciousness and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the languid sea rose over him and he dreamed long dreams but ever through it all, waking and dreaming he waited for the wheezing breath and the harsh caress of the tongue. He did not hear the breath and he slipped slowly from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly. The pressure increased. The wolf was exerting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which it had waited so long but the man had waited long and the lacerated hand closed on the jaw. Slowly while the wolf struggled feebly and the hand clutched feebly the other hand crept across to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not sufficient strength to choke the wolf but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At the end of half an hour the man was aware of a warm trickle in his throat. It was not pleasant. It was like molten lead being forced into his stomach and it was forced by will alone. Later the man rolled over on his back and slept. There were some members of a scientific expedition on the whale ship Bedford. From the deck they remarked a strange object on the shore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to classify it and being scientific men they climbed into the whale boat alongside and went ashore to sea. And they saw something that was alive but which could hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its efforts were ineffectual but it was persistent and it rived and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score a feet an hour. Three weeks afterward the man laying a bunk on the whale ship Bedford and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone. He also babbled incoherently of his mother of sunny Southern California and a home among the orange groves and flowers. The days were not many after that when he sat at the table with a scientific man and ship's officers. He gloated over the spectacle of so much food watching it anxiously as it went into the mouths of others. With the disappearance of each mouthful an expression of deep regret came into his eyes. He was quite sane yet he hated those men at mealtime. He was haunted by a fear that the food would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin boy, the captain concerning the food stores. They reassured him countless times but he could not believe them and pried cunningly about the lazarette to see with his own eyes. It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He grew stouter with each day. The scientific man shook their heads and theorized, then limited the man at his meals but still his girth increased prodigiously under his shirt. The sailors grinned. They knew, and when the scientific men set a watch on the man they knew too. They saw him slouch forward after breakfast and, like a mendicant without stretched palm, accost a sailor. The sailor grinned and passed him a fragment of sea biscuit. He clutched at it avariciously, looking at it as a miser looks at gold and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar were the donations from other grinning sailors. The scientific men were discreet. They let him alone, but they privily examined his bunk. It was lined with hard-tack. The mattress was stuffed with hard-tack. Every nook and cranny was filled with hard-tack. Yet he was sane. He was taking precautions against another possible famine. That was all. He would recover from it, air the Bedford's anchor rumble down in San Francisco Bay. The End of Love of Life by Jack London from Love of Life and Other Stories by Jack London Read by John Taylor Southeast Missouri December 2006 Visit Librebox.org The Nice People by Eric Heller Bonner They certainly are nice people. I ascended to my wife's observation using the colloquial phrase with the consciousness that it was anything but nice English. And I'll bet that their three children are better brought up than most of two children corrected my wife. Three, he told me. My dear, she said there were two. He said three. Oh, you've simply forgotten. I'm sure she told me they had only two, a boy and a girl. Well, I didn't enter into particulars. No, dear, and you couldn't have understood him two children. All right, I said. But I don't think it was all right. As a nearsighted man learns by enforced observation to recognize persons at a distance when facing the normal eye. So the man with a bad memory learns almost unconsciously to listen carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad. But I have not had time to forget that Mr. Brewster Breed told me that afternoon that he had three children at present left in the care of his mother-in-law while he and Mrs. Breed took their summer vacation. Two children repeated my wife. It is Aunt Jenny. He told me with his mother-in-law I put in. My wife looked at me with a serious expression. Many may not remember much of what they are told about children, but any man knows the difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law. But don't you think they're nice people? Ask my wife. Oh, certainly, I replied. Only they seem to be a little mixed up about their children. That isn't a nice thing to say, returned my wife. I could not deny it. And yet, the next morning when Breed came down and seated themselves opposite the other's table, beaming and smiling in their natural, pleasant, well-bred fashion I knew to social certainty that they were nice people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat tennis flannels slim, graceful, 28 or 30 years old with a friendship-pointed beard. She was nice in all her pretty clothes and she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which outwears most other types. The prettiness that lies in a rounded figure a dusky skin, blonde, rosy cheeks, white cheeks and black eyes. She might have been 25. You guessed that she was prettier than she was when she was 20 and that she was prettier still at 40. The nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacob's summer boarding house on top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had to come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted this precious day of idleness with the company gathered around Jacob's board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Ted who in camp, the two middle-aged gossip-storm-scrantons found. Out of Mr. and Mrs. Beagle an injured head bookkeeper and his prim and sensuous wife. Out of all major orchids retired businessman who having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for circles of every stock company that was started and tried to induce everyone to invest and listen to him. He looked through under those dull eyes the truthful indices of mean and barren minds and decided that we would leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacob's biscuits, light as auroras clavets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the perfume and played as alias with which she decked her table and decided to postpone our departure one more day. Then we wondered what to take our morning lens at what we called our view and it seemed to us as if Ted or Hogan Camp went out and the Beagle others could not drive us away in a year. I was not surprised when after breakfast my wife invited the Brits to walk with us to our view. The Hogan Camp's Beagle-Tab-Out-Kids continued, never stirred off Jacob's veranda, but people felt that the Brits would not profane that sacred scene. We stroll slowly across the fields, pass through the little belt of woods and, as I heard, meet this Brits little cry, a startled rapture I motioned to Brits to look up. By Job he cried, heavenly, we looked off from the brow of the mountain, over 15 miles of building green to where far across the far stretch of pale blue lay a dim, proper line that we knew was state and island. Silent villages lay before us and under us. They were ridges and hills, uplands and lowlands, woods and plains, all mast and meagle in that great silent sea of sunlight green. For silent it was to us standing in silence at a high place. Silent, with a sandy stillness that made us listen, without shaking though. For the sound of bells coming up from spires that rose above the tree tops, the tree tops that lay as far beneath as the light clouds or above us that dropped great shadows upon our heads and faint specks of shade upon the broad swip of landed mountains and so that is your view asked Mrs. Breed after a moment. You are very generous to make it ours too. Then we lay down on grass and Breed began to talk in a gentle voice and he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe in its earlier days instead and he knew every river and creek in that vast stretch of landscape. I found these landmarks and pointed out to us right up the side and the hack and sack flows invisible to us hidden behind great ridges that in our side were but the combing of the green waves upon which we looked down and yet on the further side of those broad ridges and rises were scores of villages a little word of country life lying unseen under our eyes. A good deal like looking at me in a humanity. He said there is such a thing as getting so far above our fellow men that we see only one side of them. Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than children gossip of the child on the hog and camp than the major dissertations upon his everlasting circulars. My wife and I exchanged glances. Now, when I went up the Matterhorn, Mr. Breed began. Why, dear interrupted his wife, I didn't know you ever went up the Matterhorn. It did was five years ago, said Mr. Breed hurriedly. I didn't tell you. When I was on the other side you know, it was rather dangerous. Well, as I was saying it looked, oh it didn't look at all like this. The cloud floated overhead throwing its great shadow over the field where it lay. The shadow passed over the mountains bro and reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing cloud flying eastward over the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more. Somehow the shadow lingered us over us all. As we went home the breads went side by side along the narrow path where my wife and I walked together. Should you think, she asked me, that a man was climbed the Matterhorn the very first year he was married. I don't know, my dear. I answered evitably. This isn't the first year I've been married not by good money and I wouldn't climb it for a farm. You know what I mean, she said I did. When we reached the boarding house the Chequebus took me inside. You know, he began his discourse. My wife just live in New York. I didn't know, but I said yes. Since the numbers on the streets run crisscross like 34's on the one side on the street and 35 on the other. How's that? That is the invariable rule I believe. Then I'd say there are new folk that union wife seems so might and taken up with, didn't you know anything about them? I know nothing about character of your board or Smith Chequebus. I replied conscious of some irritability if I choose to associate with any of them. Oh just so, just so broken Chequebus I ain't nothing to say against its sociability but do you know them? Why certainly not I replied. That was all I was asking you. You see when he came here to take rooms he wasn't there then. He told me, he told my wife that he lived at number 34 in his street and yesterday she told her that they lived at number 35. He said he lived in an apartment house. Now there can't be no apartment house on two sides of the same street can they? What street was it? I inquired weirdly. 121st street maybe I replied still more weirdly. That's Arlam. Nobody knows what people will do in Arlam. I went up to my wife's room. Don't you think it's queer? She asked me I think I'll have a talk with that young man tonight I said and see if he can keep some account of himself. But my dear my wife said gravely she doesn't know whether they've had domestic missiles or not. Why great Scott I exclaimed they must have had them when they were children. Please don't be stupid said my wife I meant their children after dinner at night or rather after supper for he had dinner in the middle of the check of us. I walked down the long veranda to ask Reid who was pletally smoking at the other end to accompany me on a toilet stroll halfway down I met Major Hockett. That friend of yours he said indicated the unconscious figure at further end of the house seems to be a queer sort of a dick. He told me that he was out of business and just looking around for a chance to invest his capital and I've been telling him what an everlasting big show he had to take stock in the capital and trust company starts next month. 4 million capital. I told you all about it. Oh well he says let's wait and think about it. Wait says I the capital and trust won't wait for you my boy this is letting you on the ground floor says I or never oh let it wait says he I don't know what seemed to the man I don't know how well he knows his own business major. I said as I started again for Reid's end on the veranda but I was troubled and left. Major could not have influenced sale on one share of stock in the capital and company. But that stock was a great investment a rare chance for a person that would want to invest. Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Reid should not invest than that I should not and yet it seemed to add one circumstance more to the other suspicious circumstances. When I went upstairs that evening I found my wife putting her hair to bed I don't know how I can better describe an operation familiar to every married man I waited until the last stress was called up and then I spoke I've talked with breath I said and I didn't have to catch the child's hand it seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for and he was very outspoken you were right about the children that is I must have misunderstood him there are only two that matter horn episode was simple enough you didn't realize how dangerous it was until he had got so far into it and that he couldn't go back out and he didn't tell her because he left her here you see and under the circumstances left her here cried my wife I've been sitting with her the whole afternoon and she told me that he left her at Geneva and came back and took her to Pestle and the baby was born there now I'm sure dear because I asked her perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of the water I suggested with bitter biting irony you poor dear did I abuse you said my wife but you know Mrs. Steph said she didn't know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee now that seems queer doesn't it it did it was a small thing but it looks queer very queer next morning it was clear that war was declared against the Brits they came down to breakfast somewhat late and as soon as they arrived pillaces sucked up the last fragments that remain on their plates and made us tightly march out of the tiny room then Ms. Hogan camp arose and departed leaving a whole fish ball on her plate even as Atlanta might have dropped an apple behind her to tempt her pursuer to check his pill so Ms. Hogan camp left that fish ball behind her and between her maiden self and contamination we had finished our breakfast my wife and I before the Brits appeared we talked it over and agreed that we were glad that we had not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony after breakfast it was custom of the male half Jacob's household to go around cornered building and smoke their pipes and cigars where they would not genoid ladies we sat under a trellis covered with a grave bind that had born no graves in the memory of men this vine however bore leaves and this on that pleasant summer morning shielded from us two persons who were in earnest conversation in struggling half flower garden at side of the house I don't want we heard Mr. Jacob say to entry no man's privacy but I do want to know who it may be like that I have in my house now what I ask of you and I don't want you to take it as in no ways personal is have you your marriage license with you no we heard voice of Mr. Brightwood by have you yours I think it was a chance shot but he told me all the same the major he was a widower and Mr. Bigel and I looked at each other and Mr. Jacob was on the other side of the grave trellis looked at I don't know what and was the sound as we were where is your marriage license married ready ready do you know four men not including Mr. Breathe stood or sat on one side at the other of the grave trellis not one of them knew where his marriage license was each of us has had had one to major at that tree but by were they where is yours tucked in your best man's pocket deposited in his desk I watched to a pulp and his white waistcoat if white waistcoat bit fashion of the hour washed out of existence can you tell where it is can you unless you are one of those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon upon their drawing room's walls Mr. Breathe's voice arose after an awful stillness of what seemed like five minutes and was probably thirty seconds Mr. Jacobus will you make out your bill at once and let me pay it I shall leave by six o'clock train and will you also send wagon for my trunks I ain't said I wanted to hey you leave began Mr. Jacobus but particularly I'm short bring me your bill but it's great to check of us if you ain't bring me your bill send me to breathe my wife and I went out for our morning walk but it seemed to us when it looked at our view as if we could only see those invisible villages of which breathe I told us the other side of the ridges and rises of which we caught no glimpse from lofty hills we meant to stay out until the breathe had taken their departure but returned just in time to see Pete, the Jacobus Darkie the blacker of boots the dresser of coats the general handyman of the house loading the breathe trunks on Jacobus wagon and as we stepped upon the veranda down came Mrs. Breathe leaning on Mr. Breathe's arm as though she were hill and it was clear that she had been crying no heavy rings but her pretty black eyes my wife took a step toward her look at that dress dear she whispered she never thought anything like this was going to happen when she put that on it was a pretty delicate thank you dress a graceful narrow stripped affair her head was trimmed with this narrow stripped silk maroon and white and in her hand she held a parasol that matched their dress she's had a new dress on twice a day said my wife but that's the prettiest yet oh, somehow I'm awfully sorry they're going but going they were they moved toward steps Mr. Breathe looked toward my wife and my wife moved toward Mrs. Breathe but the ostracized woman as though she felt deep amelioration of her position turned sharply away and opened her parasol, chilled her eyes from the sun a shower of rice a half pound shower of rice fell down over a pretty head and her pretty dress and fell in a speckling circle on the floor outlining her skirt and there it lay in a broth and having bent, bright in the morning sun Mrs. Breathe was in my wife's arms solving a different young heart would break oh, you poor, dear, silly children my wife cried at Mrs. Breathe sobbing on her shoulder what did you tell us we didn't want to be taken for a bridal couple sob Mrs. Breathe and we didn't train what awful lies we had to tell and all the awful mixed upness of it oh, dear, dear, dear commanded Mr. Jacobus pulled back them trunks these folks stays here as long as they want Mrs. Breathe healed out a large hard hand order the known better he said a mildest doubt of Mrs. Breathe vanished as he choked back in a hand in manly fashion the two women were walking off toward our view each with an arm about the other's waist touched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy gentlemen said Mr. Breathe addressing Jacobus, Beagle, the major and me there is a hosterelly round street where they sell a honest new thirsty beer I recognized the obligation of the situation with five men on the street the two men went toward the pleasant slope where sunlight killed the forehead of the great hill on Mr. Jacobus verandals a spattered circle of shining grains of rice two Mr. Jacobus pigeons flew down and picked up shining grains making grateful noises far down in death's roots and of the nice people by hairy color ponder