August 1, 2024 • 19 mins
To celebrate the podcast's 100th episode, I'm doing something special: A reading of Jack London's "The Unexpected." Part 1 today. The conclusion in Part 2 coming tomorrow. So sit back, relax and enjoy a great story... by a one of a kind author... read by an idiot.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Who what a funken one hundred episodes of this nonsense?
Come on, we did it. I shouldn't say we as
often as I do, but in this instance it is
completely accurate. We you and I well done in honor
(00:36):
of today's one hundredth episode only smokes a little bit
like yesterday, where the idea is maybe we do something different,
and yesterday was just a full on. Just let it
roll and record the actual shift so you can hear
what it sounds like in the what happens. I don't
(00:58):
know if that's interesting or not. I can guarantee you
today's show will be much more interesting because today we're
going to read a story, and it's a good one
by one of the greatest authors of all time. It's
a short story that was first published in nineteen oh
six in McClure's magazine. You remember McClure's magazine, don't you.
(01:27):
This is The Unexpected by Jack London. It is a
simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected.
The tendency of the individual life is to be static
rather than dynamic, and this tendency is made into a
(01:48):
propulsion by civilization, where the obvious only is seen and
the unexpected rarely happens. When the unexpected does happen, however,
and when it is of sufficiently grave important, the unfit perish.
(02:09):
They do not see what is not obvious and are
unable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting their
well groomed lives to other and strange grooves. In short,
when they come to the end of their own groove,
they die. On the other hand, there are those that
(02:30):
make towards survival, the fit individuals who escape from the
rule of the obvious and the expected, and adjust their
lives to no matter what strange grooves they may stray
into or into which they may be forced. Such an
individual was Edith Whit'll say she was born in a
rural district of England, where life proceeds by rule of thumb,
(02:52):
and the unexpected is so very unexpected that when it happens,
it's looked upon as immorality. She went into survey early,
and while yet a young woman, by rule of thumb progression,
she became a lady's maid. The effect of civilization is
to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine
(03:13):
like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated. The inevitable
is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain,
nor cold by the frost. While death, instead of stalking
about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along
a well oiled groove to the family vault, where the
(03:33):
hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the
air is swept continually away. Such was the environment of
Edith Whistle. Say nothing happened, it could scarcely be called happening.
When at the age of twenty five she accompanied her
mistress on a bit of a travel to the United States,
the groove merely changed its direction. It was still the
(03:55):
same groove and well oiled. It was a groove that
bridged the Atlantic with uneventfulness. So the ship was not
a ship in the midst of the sea, but a capacious,
many corridored hotel that moved swiftly and placidly, crushing the
waves into submission with a colossal bulk, until the sea
was a mill pond, monotonous with quietude, and at the
(04:17):
other side of the groove continued on over the land,
a well disposed, respectable groove that supplied hotels at every
stopping place, and hotels on wheels between stopping places in Chicago.
While her mistress saw one side of social life, Edith
Whistlesay saw another side. And when she left her lady's
service and became Edith Nelson, she betrayed, perhaps faintly, her
(04:41):
ability to grapple with the unexpected and to master it.
Hans Nelson, immigrant Swede by birth and carpenter by occupation,
had in him teutonic unrest that drives the race ever
westward on its great adventure. He was a large, muscled,
stolid sort of man, in whom imagination was coupled with
(05:02):
immense initiative, and who possessed withal loyalty and affection as
sturdy as his own strength. Would I have worked hard
and saved me some money, I will go to Colorado,
he had told Edith on the day after their wedding.
A year later they were in Colorado, where Hans Nelson
saw his first mining and caught the mining fever himself.
(05:24):
His prospecting led him through the Dakotas, Idaho, and eastern
Oregon and on into the mountains of British Columbia. In
camp and on trail, Edith Nelson was always with him,
sharing his luck his hardship and his toil. The short
step of the house reared woman she exchanged for the
long stride of the mountaineer. She learned to look upon
danger clear eyed and with understanding, losing forever that panic
(05:48):
which is bred of ignorance, and which afflicts the city reared,
making them as silly as silly horses, so that they
await fate in frozen horror, instead of grappling with it,
or stampede in blind, self destroying terror, which clutters the
way with their crushed carcasses. Edith and Nelson met the
(06:09):
unexpected at every turn of the trail, and she trained
her vision so that she saw in the landscape not
the obvious, but the concealed. She, who had never cooked
in her life, learned to make bread without the meditation
of hops, yeasts or baking powder, and to bake bread
top and bottom in a frying pan before an open fire.
(06:31):
And when the last cup of flour was gone, and
the last rind of bacon, she was able to rise
to the occasion, and of moccasins and the softer tanned
bits of leather in the outfit to make a grub
steak substitute that somehow held a man's soul in his
body and enabled him to stagger on. She learned to
pack a horse as well as a man, a task
(06:52):
to break the heart and the pride of any city dweller.
And she knew how to throw the hitch best suited
for any particular kind of pack. Also, she could build
a fire of wet wood in a downpour of rain
and not lose her temper. In short, in all its guises,
she mastered the unexpected. But the great unexpected was yet
(07:13):
to come into her life, and it put its test
upon her. The gold seeking tide was flooding northward into Alaska,
and it was inevitable that Hans Nelson and his wife
should he caught up by the stream and swept towards
the Klondike. The fall of eighteen ninety seven found them
at Daya, but without the money to carry an outfit
across Chilcoot Path, and floated down to Dawson. So Hans
(07:36):
Nelson worked at his trade that winter and helped rear
the mushroom outfitting town of Skagway. He was on the
edge of things, and throughout the winter he heard all
Alaska calling to him. Letuya bay called Loudest, so that
summer of eighteen ninety eight found him and his wife
threading the mazes of broken coastline, and seventy foot seawashed canoes.
(07:57):
With them were Indians, also three men. The Indians landed
them and their supplies in a lonely bite of land
one hundred miles or so beyond LaToya Bay, and returned
to Skagway. But the other three men remained, for they
were members of the organized party. Each had put an
equal share of capital into the outfitting, and the profits
were to be divided equally. In that Edith Nelson undertook
(08:18):
to cook for the outfit, a man's share was to
be her portion. First, spruce trees were cut down and
a three room cabin constructed to keep. This cabin was
Edith Nelson's task. The task of men was to search
for gold, which they did, and to find gold, which
they likewise did. It was not a startling find, merely
(08:38):
a low pay placer, where long hours of severe toil
earned each man between fifteen and twenty dollars a day.
The brief Alaskan summer protracted itself beyond its usual length,
and they took advantage of the opportunity, delaying their return
to Skagway to the last moment, and then it was
too late. Arrangements had been made to accompany the several
(08:58):
dozen local Indians on their fall trading trip down the coast.
The seawashes had waited on the white people until the
eleventh hour, and then departed. There was no course left
the party but to wait for chance transportation. In the meantime,
the claim was cleaned up and firewood stocked in. The
Indian summer had dreamed on and on, and then suddenly,
with the sharpness of bugles, winter came. It came in
(09:22):
a single night, and the miners awoke to howling wind,
driving snow and freezing water. Storm followed storm, and between
the storms there was the silence, broken only by the
boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the
salt spray rimmed the beach with frozen white. All went
well in the cabin. Their gold dust had weighed up
(09:44):
something like eight thousand dollars, and they could not but
be contented. The men made snowshoes, hunted fresh meat for
the larder, and then the long evenings played endless games
of whist and pedro Now that the mining had ceased,
Edith Nelson turned over the fire building and the dish
washing to the men, while she darned their socks and
mended their clothes. There was no grumbling, no bickering, no
(10:06):
petty quarreling in the little cabin, and they often congratulated
one another on the general happiness of the party. Hans
Nelson was stolid and easy going, while Edith had long
before won his unbounded admiration by her capacity for getting
on with people. Harkey, a long lank Texan, was unusually
friendly for one with a sacherine disposition, and as long
(10:29):
as his theory that gold grew was not challenged, was
quite companionable. The fourth member of the party, Michael Dennan,
contributed his Irish wit to the gayety of the cabin.
He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden rushes
of anger over little things, and of unfailing good humor
under the stress and strain of big things. The fifth
(10:50):
and last member, Duchy, was the willing butt of the party.
He even went out of his way to raise a
laugh at his own expense in order to keep things cheerful.
His deliberate aim in life seemed to be that of
a maker of laughter. No serious quarrel had ever vexed
the serenity of the party, and now that each had
sixteen hundred dollars to show for a short summer's work,
(11:13):
there reigned the well fed, contented spirit of prosperity. And
then the unexpected happened. They had just sat down to
the breakfast table, though it was already eight o'clock. Late
breakfasts had followed naturally upon cessation of the steady work
of mining. A candle in the neck of a bottle
lighted the meal. Edith and Hans sat at each end
(11:35):
of the table. On one side, with their backs to
the door, sat Harky and Dutchy. The place on the
other side was vacant. Dennan had not yet come in.
Hans Nelson looked at the empty chair, shook his head slowly,
and with a ponderous attempt at humor, said, always is
he the first at Grubb? Is very strange? Maybe he
is sick. Where is Michael? Edith asked, got up a
(11:59):
little ahead of it and went outside. Harky answered. Dutchy's
face beamed mischievously. He pretended knowledge of Dennon's absence and
affected a mysterious air while they clamored for information. Edith,
after a peep into the men's bunk room, returned to
the table and Hans looked at her, and she shook
her head. He was never late at meal time before,
she remarked, I cannot understand, said Hans. Always has he
(12:23):
the great appetite like the horse. It's too bad, Duchy said,
with a sad shake of his head. They were beginning
to make merry over their comrade's absence. It is a
great pity. Duchy volunteered what they demanded in chorus. Poor Michael,
was the mournful reply. Well, what's wrong with Michael, Harky asked.
He's not hungry no more, wailed Duchy. He's lost her appetite.
(12:47):
He do not like to grub, not from the way
he pitches into up to his ears, remarked Harky. He
does not just to be politeful. Missus Nelson was Duchy's
quick retort. I know, and it is too bad. Why
is he not here? Perhaps he half gone out? Why
half he gone out? For the development of your appetite?
And how does he develop their appetite? He walks barefoot
(13:09):
in the snow. Ah, don't I know? It is the
way the rich people's chases after their appetite when it
is no more and is running away. Michael half sixteen
hundred dollars. He is rich people's he hath no appetite. Therefore,
because he is chasing deir appetite. Just you opened a door,
you will find his barefoot in the snow. No, you
(13:30):
will not see their appetite. That is just his trouble.
When he sees their appetite, he will catch it and
come to breakfast. They burst into loud laughter and Duchy's nonsense.
The sound had scarcely died away when the door opened
and Dennin came in. All turns to look at him.
He was carrying his shotgun. Even as they looked, he
(13:51):
lifted it to his shoulder and fired twice. At the
first shot. Duchy sank upon the table, overturning his mug
of coffee, his yellow mop of hair dabbling into his
plate of mush. His forehead, which pressed upon the near
edge of the plate, tilted the plate up against his
hair at an angle of forty five degrees. Harkey was
in the air in his spring to his feet at
the second shot, he pitched his face down upon the floor,
(14:13):
his my God, gurgling and dying in his throat. It
was the unexpected. Hans and Edith were stunned. They sat
at the table with bodies tents, their eyes fixed in
a fascinated gaze upon the murderer. Dimly they saw him
through the smoke of the powder, and in the silence,
nothing was to be heard save the drip drip of
duchies spilled coffee on the floor. Dennan threw open the
(14:34):
breach of the shotgun, ejecting the empty shells. Holding the
gun with one hand, he reached with the other into
his pocket for fresh shells. He was thrusting the shells
into the gun when Edith Nelson was aroused to the action.
It was patent that he intended to kill Hans and her.
For a space of possibly three seconds of time, she
had been dazed and paralyzed by the horrible and inconceivable
form in which the Unexpected had made its appearance. Then
(14:58):
she rose to it and grappled with She grappled with it, concretely,
making a catlike leap for the murderer, and gripping his
neckcloth with both her hands. The impact of her body
sent him stumbling backwards several steps. He tried to shake
her loose, and still retained his hold on the gun.
This was awkward for her firm, fleshed body had become
a cat's. She threw herself to one side, and, with
her grip at his throat, nearly jerked him to the floor.
(15:20):
He straightened himself and whirled swiftly, still faithful to her hold.
Her body followed the circle of his whirl, so that
her feet left the floor and she swung through the air,
fastened to his throat by her hands. The whorl culminated
in a collision with a chair, and the man and
woman crashed to the floor in a wild, struggling fall
that extended itself across half the length of the room.
(15:41):
Hans Nelson was a half a second behind his wife,
and rising to the unexpected. His nerve processes and mental
processes were slower than hers. His was the grosser organism,
and it had taken him a half second longer to
perceive and determine and proceed to do. She had already
flown at denin and gripped his throat. When Hans sprang
to his feet, but her coolness was not his. He
(16:01):
was in a blind fury of berserker rage. At the instant,
he sprang from his chair, his mouth open, and there
issued forth a sound that was half roar, half bellow.
The whirl of the two bodies had already started, and
still roaring or bellowing. He pursued this whirl down the room,
overtaking it. When it fell to the floor, Hans hurled
himself upon the prostrate man, striking madly with his fists.
(16:24):
They were sledge like blows, and whenelt Dennon's body relaxed,
she loosened her grip and rolled clear. She lay on
the floor, panting and watching the fury of blows continued
to rain down. Denon did not seem to mind the blows.
He did not even move. Then it dawned on her,
and he was unconscious. She cried out to Hans to stop.
She cried out again, but he paid no heed to
(16:45):
her voice. She caught him by the arm, but her
clinging to it merely impeded his effort. It was no
reasoned impulse that stirred her to do what she then did,
nor was it a sense of pity, nor the obedience
to the thou shalt not of religion. Rather, it was
some sense of law, an ethic of her race, and
an early environment that compelled her to interpose her body
(17:08):
between her husband and the helpless murderer. It was not
until Hans knew he was striking his wife that he ceased.
He allowed himself to be shoved away by her, in
as much the same way that a ferocious but obedient
dog allows itself to be shoved away by its master.
The analogy went even further deep in his throat, in
an animal like way. Hans rage still rumbled, and several
(17:31):
times he made as though to spring back upon his prey,
and was only prevented by the woman's swiftly interposed body.
Back and farther back. Edith shoved her husband. She had
never seen him in such a condition, and she was
more frightened of him than she had been of Dennan.
In the thick of the struggle, she could not believe
that this raging beast was her Hans, and with a
(17:52):
shock she became suddenly aware of a shrinking, instinctive fear
that he might snap her hand in his teeth like
any wild animal. For some seconds unwilling to hurt her,
yet dogged in his desire to return to the attack.
Hans dodged back and forth, but she resolutely dodged with him,
until the first glimmerings of reason returned and he gave over.
(18:14):
Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered back against the wall,
where he leaned his face, working in his throat the deep,
continuous rumble that died away with the seconds and at
last ceased. The time for the reaction had come end
Part one. We'll resume tomorrow as we continue our special
(18:37):
one hundredth episode, Jack London Terror in the Cabin, themed
The Unexpected. We'll talk to you then,
Who what a funken one hundred episodes of this nonsense?
Come on, we did it. I shouldn't say we as
often as I do, but in this instance it is
completely accurate. We you and I well done in honor
(00:36):
of today's one hundredth episode only smokes a little bit
like yesterday, where the idea is maybe we do something different,
and yesterday was just a full on. Just let it
roll and record the actual shift so you can hear
what it sounds like in the what happens. I don't
(00:58):
know if that's interesting or not. I can guarantee you
today's show will be much more interesting because today we're
going to read a story, and it's a good one
by one of the greatest authors of all time. It's
a short story that was first published in nineteen oh
six in McClure's magazine. You remember McClure's magazine, don't you.
(01:27):
This is The Unexpected by Jack London. It is a
simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected.
The tendency of the individual life is to be static
rather than dynamic, and this tendency is made into a
(01:48):
propulsion by civilization, where the obvious only is seen and
the unexpected rarely happens. When the unexpected does happen, however,
and when it is of sufficiently grave important, the unfit perish.
(02:09):
They do not see what is not obvious and are
unable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting their
well groomed lives to other and strange grooves. In short,
when they come to the end of their own groove,
they die. On the other hand, there are those that
(02:30):
make towards survival, the fit individuals who escape from the
rule of the obvious and the expected, and adjust their
lives to no matter what strange grooves they may stray
into or into which they may be forced. Such an
individual was Edith Whit'll say she was born in a
rural district of England, where life proceeds by rule of thumb,
(02:52):
and the unexpected is so very unexpected that when it happens,
it's looked upon as immorality. She went into survey early,
and while yet a young woman, by rule of thumb progression,
she became a lady's maid. The effect of civilization is
to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine
(03:13):
like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated. The inevitable
is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain,
nor cold by the frost. While death, instead of stalking
about gruesome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along
a well oiled groove to the family vault, where the
(03:33):
hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the
air is swept continually away. Such was the environment of
Edith Whistle. Say nothing happened, it could scarcely be called happening.
When at the age of twenty five she accompanied her
mistress on a bit of a travel to the United States,
the groove merely changed its direction. It was still the
(03:55):
same groove and well oiled. It was a groove that
bridged the Atlantic with uneventfulness. So the ship was not
a ship in the midst of the sea, but a capacious,
many corridored hotel that moved swiftly and placidly, crushing the
waves into submission with a colossal bulk, until the sea
was a mill pond, monotonous with quietude, and at the
(04:17):
other side of the groove continued on over the land,
a well disposed, respectable groove that supplied hotels at every
stopping place, and hotels on wheels between stopping places in Chicago.
While her mistress saw one side of social life, Edith
Whistlesay saw another side. And when she left her lady's
service and became Edith Nelson, she betrayed, perhaps faintly, her
(04:41):
ability to grapple with the unexpected and to master it.
Hans Nelson, immigrant Swede by birth and carpenter by occupation,
had in him teutonic unrest that drives the race ever
westward on its great adventure. He was a large, muscled,
stolid sort of man, in whom imagination was coupled with
(05:02):
immense initiative, and who possessed withal loyalty and affection as
sturdy as his own strength. Would I have worked hard
and saved me some money, I will go to Colorado,
he had told Edith on the day after their wedding.
A year later they were in Colorado, where Hans Nelson
saw his first mining and caught the mining fever himself.
(05:24):
His prospecting led him through the Dakotas, Idaho, and eastern
Oregon and on into the mountains of British Columbia. In
camp and on trail, Edith Nelson was always with him,
sharing his luck his hardship and his toil. The short
step of the house reared woman she exchanged for the
long stride of the mountaineer. She learned to look upon
danger clear eyed and with understanding, losing forever that panic
(05:48):
which is bred of ignorance, and which afflicts the city reared,
making them as silly as silly horses, so that they
await fate in frozen horror, instead of grappling with it,
or stampede in blind, self destroying terror, which clutters the
way with their crushed carcasses. Edith and Nelson met the
(06:09):
unexpected at every turn of the trail, and she trained
her vision so that she saw in the landscape not
the obvious, but the concealed. She, who had never cooked
in her life, learned to make bread without the meditation
of hops, yeasts or baking powder, and to bake bread
top and bottom in a frying pan before an open fire.
(06:31):
And when the last cup of flour was gone, and
the last rind of bacon, she was able to rise
to the occasion, and of moccasins and the softer tanned
bits of leather in the outfit to make a grub
steak substitute that somehow held a man's soul in his
body and enabled him to stagger on. She learned to
pack a horse as well as a man, a task
(06:52):
to break the heart and the pride of any city dweller.
And she knew how to throw the hitch best suited
for any particular kind of pack. Also, she could build
a fire of wet wood in a downpour of rain
and not lose her temper. In short, in all its guises,
she mastered the unexpected. But the great unexpected was yet
(07:13):
to come into her life, and it put its test
upon her. The gold seeking tide was flooding northward into Alaska,
and it was inevitable that Hans Nelson and his wife
should he caught up by the stream and swept towards
the Klondike. The fall of eighteen ninety seven found them
at Daya, but without the money to carry an outfit
across Chilcoot Path, and floated down to Dawson. So Hans
(07:36):
Nelson worked at his trade that winter and helped rear
the mushroom outfitting town of Skagway. He was on the
edge of things, and throughout the winter he heard all
Alaska calling to him. Letuya bay called Loudest, so that
summer of eighteen ninety eight found him and his wife
threading the mazes of broken coastline, and seventy foot seawashed canoes.
(07:57):
With them were Indians, also three men. The Indians landed
them and their supplies in a lonely bite of land
one hundred miles or so beyond LaToya Bay, and returned
to Skagway. But the other three men remained, for they
were members of the organized party. Each had put an
equal share of capital into the outfitting, and the profits
were to be divided equally. In that Edith Nelson undertook
(08:18):
to cook for the outfit, a man's share was to
be her portion. First, spruce trees were cut down and
a three room cabin constructed to keep. This cabin was
Edith Nelson's task. The task of men was to search
for gold, which they did, and to find gold, which
they likewise did. It was not a startling find, merely
(08:38):
a low pay placer, where long hours of severe toil
earned each man between fifteen and twenty dollars a day.
The brief Alaskan summer protracted itself beyond its usual length,
and they took advantage of the opportunity, delaying their return
to Skagway to the last moment, and then it was
too late. Arrangements had been made to accompany the several
(08:58):
dozen local Indians on their fall trading trip down the coast.
The seawashes had waited on the white people until the
eleventh hour, and then departed. There was no course left
the party but to wait for chance transportation. In the meantime,
the claim was cleaned up and firewood stocked in. The
Indian summer had dreamed on and on, and then suddenly,
with the sharpness of bugles, winter came. It came in
(09:22):
a single night, and the miners awoke to howling wind,
driving snow and freezing water. Storm followed storm, and between
the storms there was the silence, broken only by the
boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the
salt spray rimmed the beach with frozen white. All went
well in the cabin. Their gold dust had weighed up
(09:44):
something like eight thousand dollars, and they could not but
be contented. The men made snowshoes, hunted fresh meat for
the larder, and then the long evenings played endless games
of whist and pedro Now that the mining had ceased,
Edith Nelson turned over the fire building and the dish
washing to the men, while she darned their socks and
mended their clothes. There was no grumbling, no bickering, no
(10:06):
petty quarreling in the little cabin, and they often congratulated
one another on the general happiness of the party. Hans
Nelson was stolid and easy going, while Edith had long
before won his unbounded admiration by her capacity for getting
on with people. Harkey, a long lank Texan, was unusually
friendly for one with a sacherine disposition, and as long
(10:29):
as his theory that gold grew was not challenged, was
quite companionable. The fourth member of the party, Michael Dennan,
contributed his Irish wit to the gayety of the cabin.
He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden rushes
of anger over little things, and of unfailing good humor
under the stress and strain of big things. The fifth
(10:50):
and last member, Duchy, was the willing butt of the party.
He even went out of his way to raise a
laugh at his own expense in order to keep things cheerful.
His deliberate aim in life seemed to be that of
a maker of laughter. No serious quarrel had ever vexed
the serenity of the party, and now that each had
sixteen hundred dollars to show for a short summer's work,
(11:13):
there reigned the well fed, contented spirit of prosperity. And
then the unexpected happened. They had just sat down to
the breakfast table, though it was already eight o'clock. Late
breakfasts had followed naturally upon cessation of the steady work
of mining. A candle in the neck of a bottle
lighted the meal. Edith and Hans sat at each end
(11:35):
of the table. On one side, with their backs to
the door, sat Harky and Dutchy. The place on the
other side was vacant. Dennan had not yet come in.
Hans Nelson looked at the empty chair, shook his head slowly,
and with a ponderous attempt at humor, said, always is
he the first at Grubb? Is very strange? Maybe he
is sick. Where is Michael? Edith asked, got up a
(11:59):
little ahead of it and went outside. Harky answered. Dutchy's
face beamed mischievously. He pretended knowledge of Dennon's absence and
affected a mysterious air while they clamored for information. Edith,
after a peep into the men's bunk room, returned to
the table and Hans looked at her, and she shook
her head. He was never late at meal time before,
she remarked, I cannot understand, said Hans. Always has he
(12:23):
the great appetite like the horse. It's too bad, Duchy said,
with a sad shake of his head. They were beginning
to make merry over their comrade's absence. It is a
great pity. Duchy volunteered what they demanded in chorus. Poor Michael,
was the mournful reply. Well, what's wrong with Michael, Harky asked.
He's not hungry no more, wailed Duchy. He's lost her appetite.
(12:47):
He do not like to grub, not from the way
he pitches into up to his ears, remarked Harky. He
does not just to be politeful. Missus Nelson was Duchy's
quick retort. I know, and it is too bad. Why
is he not here? Perhaps he half gone out? Why
half he gone out? For the development of your appetite?
And how does he develop their appetite? He walks barefoot
(13:09):
in the snow. Ah, don't I know? It is the
way the rich people's chases after their appetite when it
is no more and is running away. Michael half sixteen
hundred dollars. He is rich people's he hath no appetite. Therefore,
because he is chasing deir appetite. Just you opened a door,
you will find his barefoot in the snow. No, you
(13:30):
will not see their appetite. That is just his trouble.
When he sees their appetite, he will catch it and
come to breakfast. They burst into loud laughter and Duchy's nonsense.
The sound had scarcely died away when the door opened
and Dennin came in. All turns to look at him.
He was carrying his shotgun. Even as they looked, he
(13:51):
lifted it to his shoulder and fired twice. At the
first shot. Duchy sank upon the table, overturning his mug
of coffee, his yellow mop of hair dabbling into his
plate of mush. His forehead, which pressed upon the near
edge of the plate, tilted the plate up against his
hair at an angle of forty five degrees. Harkey was
in the air in his spring to his feet at
the second shot, he pitched his face down upon the floor,
(14:13):
his my God, gurgling and dying in his throat. It
was the unexpected. Hans and Edith were stunned. They sat
at the table with bodies tents, their eyes fixed in
a fascinated gaze upon the murderer. Dimly they saw him
through the smoke of the powder, and in the silence,
nothing was to be heard save the drip drip of
duchies spilled coffee on the floor. Dennan threw open the
(14:34):
breach of the shotgun, ejecting the empty shells. Holding the
gun with one hand, he reached with the other into
his pocket for fresh shells. He was thrusting the shells
into the gun when Edith Nelson was aroused to the action.
It was patent that he intended to kill Hans and her.
For a space of possibly three seconds of time, she
had been dazed and paralyzed by the horrible and inconceivable
form in which the Unexpected had made its appearance. Then
(14:58):
she rose to it and grappled with She grappled with it, concretely,
making a catlike leap for the murderer, and gripping his
neckcloth with both her hands. The impact of her body
sent him stumbling backwards several steps. He tried to shake
her loose, and still retained his hold on the gun.
This was awkward for her firm, fleshed body had become
a cat's. She threw herself to one side, and, with
her grip at his throat, nearly jerked him to the floor.
(15:20):
He straightened himself and whirled swiftly, still faithful to her hold.
Her body followed the circle of his whirl, so that
her feet left the floor and she swung through the air,
fastened to his throat by her hands. The whorl culminated
in a collision with a chair, and the man and
woman crashed to the floor in a wild, struggling fall
that extended itself across half the length of the room.
(15:41):
Hans Nelson was a half a second behind his wife,
and rising to the unexpected. His nerve processes and mental
processes were slower than hers. His was the grosser organism,
and it had taken him a half second longer to
perceive and determine and proceed to do. She had already
flown at denin and gripped his throat. When Hans sprang
to his feet, but her coolness was not his. He
(16:01):
was in a blind fury of berserker rage. At the instant,
he sprang from his chair, his mouth open, and there
issued forth a sound that was half roar, half bellow.
The whirl of the two bodies had already started, and
still roaring or bellowing. He pursued this whirl down the room,
overtaking it. When it fell to the floor, Hans hurled
himself upon the prostrate man, striking madly with his fists.
(16:24):
They were sledge like blows, and whenelt Dennon's body relaxed,
she loosened her grip and rolled clear. She lay on
the floor, panting and watching the fury of blows continued
to rain down. Denon did not seem to mind the blows.
He did not even move. Then it dawned on her,
and he was unconscious. She cried out to Hans to stop.
She cried out again, but he paid no heed to
(16:45):
her voice. She caught him by the arm, but her
clinging to it merely impeded his effort. It was no
reasoned impulse that stirred her to do what she then did,
nor was it a sense of pity, nor the obedience
to the thou shalt not of religion. Rather, it was
some sense of law, an ethic of her race, and
an early environment that compelled her to interpose her body
(17:08):
between her husband and the helpless murderer. It was not
until Hans knew he was striking his wife that he ceased.
He allowed himself to be shoved away by her, in
as much the same way that a ferocious but obedient
dog allows itself to be shoved away by its master.
The analogy went even further deep in his throat, in
an animal like way. Hans rage still rumbled, and several
(17:31):
times he made as though to spring back upon his prey,
and was only prevented by the woman's swiftly interposed body.
Back and farther back. Edith shoved her husband. She had
never seen him in such a condition, and she was
more frightened of him than she had been of Dennan.
In the thick of the struggle, she could not believe
that this raging beast was her Hans, and with a
(17:52):
shock she became suddenly aware of a shrinking, instinctive fear
that he might snap her hand in his teeth like
any wild animal. For some seconds unwilling to hurt her,
yet dogged in his desire to return to the attack.
Hans dodged back and forth, but she resolutely dodged with him,
until the first glimmerings of reason returned and he gave over.
(18:14):
Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered back against the wall,
where he leaned his face, working in his throat the deep,
continuous rumble that died away with the seconds and at
last ceased. The time for the reaction had come end
Part one. We'll resume tomorrow as we continue our special
(18:37):
one hundredth episode, Jack London Terror in the Cabin, themed
The Unexpected. We'll talk to you then,
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.