October 27, 2025 • 30 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:38):
Mind Welcome to a half hour of mind Way short
stories from the world expectant fiction. No, this is Michael Hanson.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The mind Web story for this alph hour is None
before Me, a story by Sidney Carroll, Copyright nineteen forty
nine by Sidney Carroll. John Olney Gresham had time, inclination,
(01:41):
and money enough to be a connoisseur. He also had
the correct instinct. He was a born miser.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What he he kept to himself alone.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The privacy of property was his first passion and possibly
his last. His earliest memories did not include a mother, father, sister, brothers,
or even relatives of any proximity whatsoever. He had never
had a sweetheart. Now in his last lonely days he
had neither a wife nor kin. He had only his collection,
(02:11):
his large house somewhat on the broke Brownstone side, and servants.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Gresham was a man.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Who had improvised the main strategy of his life and
then stuck ponderously to the stratagem. Connoisseurship had been a
whim with him back in a long ago, and he
had devoted his life to it. One nameless day in
his monotone life, he had seen an ivory figurine in
the store window. Its simple symmetry had appealed to him.
(02:39):
He had haggled over the price, bought the figurine, taken
it home to study it, and he had suddenly become
a collector of ivory. That had been the first whim.
It had taken him for the first time out of
the aimless, rich young man's existence into the shops.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Of the town.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
But once he invaded the shops, he discovered a world
far beyond money at bargain. For he discovered that ivory
is a world unto itself, that as it gets more
and more expensive, it gets better and better. Immediately, therefore,
Gresham acquired the most expensive piece of ivory carving in
the world. Then he discovered that bagging the fox in
(03:19):
the first five minutes destroys the very purpose, the thrill
of the hunt. So the second whim seized him in
the form of the one inspiration of his life. Why
not it was such a simple notion, after all? Why
had it never occurred to anyone else? Why not acquire
the best single piece of anything in any line? Ivory
(03:43):
was simply one kind of hunting. He had conquered it
with one bold stroke. There were still diamonds to collect,
and coral and paintings and tapestries, and farther there must
be many things. So Gresham started to collect the best
of anything in any line. His life was consecrated to it.
(04:07):
Thus it was that a certain mister Peregrine felt safe
in his own mind. One day when he called Gresham
at the one time of the day when the servants
were allowed to answer the phone. I would speak to
mister Gresham, said Peregrine, who was master of, among other things,
the archaic speech of his calling.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Whom shall I say? Is on the telephone?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Asked the servant, mister Peregrine dealler in unusual antiquities. Gresham
came to the phone. Yes, what is it, mister Gresham?
I have for you something the rarest, the most unusual
was there is nothing like it in the entire world.
(04:49):
What is it, mister Gresham? I would really and truly
prefer not to say an item like this. It requires
an effect of surprise. It must not be described before hand.
Bring it up tomorrow at four, mister Gresham, for this
one time you must come to my place. It is
(05:09):
a large item, It is delicate, It is not possible
to transport it indiscriminately. If it were not necessary, I
would not.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh very well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Tomorrow at four I'll be at your place, thank you,
mister Gresham. When Gresham got the Pear Greens the next day, promptly,
of course, on the stroke of four.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Old Pear Greene led them into the back room.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
There it was, on an empire table at which six people.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Could eat with comfort. It stood. It was the.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Most magnificent Dolls house in the world. It was slightly
under five feet high. Even to an innocent eye, it
was obviously perfect, marvelously perfect in every detail. It was
an old European sort of house, almost square, with four
floors in the gable roof covered with chimneys. A stork
(06:00):
in a nest snuggled against one of the chimneys. The
entire facade of the house had been swung open on hinges.
Eighteen rooms were thus exposed, and the effect on the
closest scrutiny was almost frightening in its perfection of detail.
The tiny pictures on the walls, the silver service in
(06:20):
the dining room, the linens in the closets, the rugs,
the modianed windows, the doors, and the door knobs.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
All these seemed.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
To mock the perfection of the life size world, And
truly the little people in these little rooms were the
most astonishing of all. It is a perverse fact that
of all the images man continues to make of man,
the one which resembles him the least is the one
which is intended to resemble him the most, namely.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The doll.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Nobody can make a doll that looks as if it breathes.
But the artisan who had fashioned the tiny inhabitants of
this extraordinary house had come close to the secret, small
as his creatures were. In the living room on the
ground floor, an elderly grandmother sat in a rocking chair,
with four children seated at her feet. The skin of
(07:14):
the grandmother's face was veined at the temples, The wrinkles
at her eyes had flickering shadows. She held a piece
of knitting. Her hands were brown and waxen and bony,
and the flesh and grace of old fingers had been
so scrupulously copied that they looked remarkably nimble. You would
expect to hear momentarily the clicking of the knitting needles.
(07:36):
The children around the grandmother, gazing up at her with
loving admiration. Were unique personalities, each with a different expression
on his half inch face. In an upstairs room, an
infant slept in a cradle shaped like a swan. The
child slept, it truly slept. Flights of angels were painted
(07:57):
on the walls of the room. Is the wood paneling,
said pere Green, bending over. But by that time pere
Green knew that there was really no need for him
to play the guide on a conducted tour any longer.
He had seen the expression on Gresham's face, he knew
he had made the sail. Tell me, said Gresham, trying
(08:20):
to stifle his excitement. Tell me this sort of thing.
I mean, now, dalhouses one of the oldest of the arts,
mister Gresham. One of the most respected archaeology shows that
in the oldest civilizations, the inhabitants of the earth built
doll houses toys. This is the ultimate in toy making.
(08:41):
Is there anyone who doubts that toy making is a
major art?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is true, sir, It is true, one of the
oldest of the arts. And here before you the finest
specimen ever made, not the largest, that is obvious, not
the most ornate. There are complete battles of thought and
blow in existence, but it is the finest, beyond any doubt,
the finest. How would I know that? I will guarantee it.
(09:10):
I write it down, all right. I'll buy it very good,
mister Gresham. On one condition, Yes, mister Gresham, if I
ever find a better one, I want my money back. Oh,
with pleasure, mister Gresham. The house was transported with infinite
(09:34):
pains to Gresham's home. He had it placed in the den,
in the very center of the room. The den was
a museum to shame museums. It is unfortunate that after
Gresham's death, the room was disassembled, piece by piece and
raffled off to bidders. The two hundred pieces it once
contained now grace some two hundred dens and museums, and
(09:56):
two hundred parts of the world. The monstrous luxuriance of
that room has lost forever. In its original entirety, it
was fantastic. Gresham had the world's most expensive pieces of ivory,
a diamond the peer of the Koenure, an emerald statuette
four inches high, a da Vinci madonna, a Shakespeare quarto,
(10:20):
and so forth, and so forth. The priceless et cetera
of Gresham's life was arranged in glass cases, or leather boxes,
or under lock and key, and Gresham fondled them one
by one every day of his life. He was everything
the ideal connoisseur must.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Be, rich man, miser, hagler.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He was, also, and this is important, a great lover.
He fondled his pieces with his eyes, his hands, even
his lips. Every morning he had flowers distributed through the den.
The diamond, the emerald, the ivory gave him all the
ecstasy of the blood. As fat body could stand into
the very middle of this inanimate harm, Gresham placed the
(11:07):
wonderful Doll's House. It was placed upon a sturdy table
so that anybody sitting in front of it had an
excellent eye level view of most of it. Its position
in the center of the den was, in its singular way, symbolic.
In very little time, the Doll's House became the center
of Gresham's life. He started by devoting the better part
(11:30):
of a whole day to it. He sat in a
chair with his hands clasped over his capacious middle, staring
at the little objects one by one with placid in
puffy eyes. The eyes moved slowly behind the eyeglasses, selecting
the single objects to study, then focusing. He sat in
(11:50):
the chair until he had memorized the position, the appearance,
the personality of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Every object in every room. He did not touch, And.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
On the second day he began to touch. His short,
heavy fingers were not skillful in the ordinary uses of fingers.
In a word, he was clumsy. Fortunately he knew it.
He was careful, delicately, as delicately as he could, he
reached out and felt the texture of the rugs, the
(12:24):
surface of the wood paneling on the library walls, the
silken edge of a fringe on.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
A beautiful lamp.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
His pudgy fingers floated through the exquisite rooms like pink balloons.
It was enough to frighten the little people. He did
not touch them. He did not dare They were so
fragile and so perfect. He shrank from the terrible prospect
of harming them in the least degree. On the third
day he began to touch the little people. Now, Peregrine
(12:58):
counted it the finest day's work of his career. When
he sold the dolls House, his profits from the deal
were enormous. He had wild thoughts that night. Gresham was
his client, now his friend. He could sell the absurd
old fat man many things. Now all a man like
Peregrine needs is one such client. Now he could calmb
(13:22):
the sellars in the collections of the city, the world
and pick the finest and the best, and he could
sell it all to Gresham. A man who would spend
that kind of money for a doll's house, would spend
money for anything. Peregrine's dreams ran high that night. He
had no inkling of the fact that he had lost,
for all time the best customer he had ever had.
(13:46):
None of the dealers in the city ever knew what happened,
least of all Peregrine. Mister Gresham suddenly stopped buying. Whenever
the dealers called the house at the appointed hour, they
were politely informed that mister Gresham was not in the
market for things, not anymore. Thank you. Could that mean forever? Yes,
thank you, it meant forever. No, mister Gresham was not ill.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
No, he was not planning the trip.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Nobody could understand it, least of all Peregrine. None of
them ever had the slightest suspicion of the fact that
it was Peregrine who had slain the goose. For the
truth of the matter is that when Gresham began to
play with his doll's house, he found what he had
been looking for all his life. The search of the
old orphan was over here. It was a real home
(14:37):
and family and children to do his bidding. The more
he played with the dolls house, that fat ungenerous, stingy
old man, The more he reverted to childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He locked the.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Doors of his den, for he wanted no intruding servants
to discover him at the game. If a servant happened
to discover him fondling the precious stone, it would have
caused him no embarrassment, But to have somebody find him
playing with dolls would have thrown him into a fit.
So he would have his breakfast early, then go upstairs
to the den, lock the door, pulled the chair up
(15:13):
to the doll's house, and begin to play. At first,
he did it only in the mornings. In the afternoons,
after lunch, he would devote himself to other parts of
his collection, But the doll's house drew him more and more,
and he became impatient with everything else. Like a child
who cannot eat lunch, and the intensity of his desire
(15:33):
to have done and get back to his toys. And
soon he gave up the rest of his collection altogether.
Gresham now devoted himself morning, noon and night to the
dolls house. The diamond lay forgotten in its velvet bed.
There were no more caresses for the ivory. Gresham's whole
life was in the doll's house. When his fingers became
(15:57):
more accustomed to the little things, he let his fancy rome.
For the first time in his life. Gresham played games.
He began to rearrange the furniture, to rehanng the pictures,
to move the tiny rugs about. He exchanged and irons
from the fireplace on the fourth floor with those from
a fireplace on the second. But most of all, and
(16:20):
best of all, he played with the little people. He
moved the children in the parlor so that they all
surrounded the grandmother instead of facing her. He liked it
that way for a week, then he put them back again.
In the kitchen, a tiny buxom servant, all in white,
stood bending over the wood stove. Gresham moved her so
(16:41):
that she stood over the sink instead. He kept her
there the baby in the swan Betty did not touch
at all. He liked it where it was under the
lovely flood of angels. There were other people in the
other rooms, men and women and children. These he deployed
and maneuvered. He became the altar in interior decorators. He
(17:02):
could arrange the inhabitants of the house, put them and
keep them where they looked best to him. In a
short time, Gresham began to talk to himself. At least
the servants passing in the hall, passing swiftly and discreetly passed,
but then, hearing his voice making an unaccustomed cooing sound,
assumed he was talking to himself.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This they did not take a miss.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Anything might be expected from mister Gresham. Talking to himself
from the privacy of his most private chamber was quickly
and tacitly accepted as simply one more eccentricity. But the
truth of the matter was that Gresham was not talking
to himself. He was conversing with the little people. Seven
(17:48):
weeks of this and Gresham began to evolve this theory.
It was a simple theory when one comes to examine
it in the light of all pertinent facts. It was
almost a natural theory. Gresham began to figure that he
was God, and why not? He had purchased for an
(18:10):
exorbitant fee a world of his own, the creatures in it.
He owned, body and soul. Over these creatures, he exercised
an authority, complete, unquestioned, irrevocable. His hand moving among these
walls was why not the hands of destiny.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Up to that point, up.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
To the moment of the formation of his theory, Gresham
had been a benevolent god. Now, with this catechism, said,
he began to ponder the ways.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Of all gods.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
That started in exercising some of the little extra privileges
of his class. After all, a god has to tanker.
He began by inflicting certain discomforts, even pain, upon his creatures.
One day he tipped the little grandmother so far back
in her chair she fell out and lay in a
heap on the floor. Gresham told her, you see, see,
(19:12):
life isn't all comfy.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Whenever one of the children was a little perverse in
his movements, refusing to stand or sit in quite a
manner Gresham had in mind, he took to spanking it.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well, let that be a lesson.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Let that be a lesson. Do you do as you're told?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Conform.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The change from benevolent to vindictive God grew with his
growing realization of the absolute power he possessed. Up until now,
he had been charmed by his playthings, and it acted
like a father to an adopted family. Now when the
father became the heavenly father, indulged himself and his omniscience.
(19:55):
When the children weren't looking. He stole toys.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
From the playroom, He hid the the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
One day he took the knitting needles from the grandmother's hands,
and he stormed at her, far enough damn knitting, try
working for a living, so whatever your brow, And he
took her rocking chair and all and dumped her in
the kitchen. He even attacked the swan crib and the
sleeping infant. He knocked the crib over, and the infant
(20:21):
came tumbling out, rolling over and over on the floor,
and Gresham said, crying him, young teachum, life full of
hard knocks. He let the infant lay on the floor
for two days. He pretended to pay no attention to
the wailing sound he heard. They found Gresham later in
(20:41):
the pool of blood, his head cracked in places like
an egg tapped.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
With a spoon.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The glass of the window in his den had been
smashed the bits. The theory of the police was that
Gresham had climbed to the window sill in order to
throw himself out the window, that being a fat and
awkward man, then bumped into the glass and shattered it.
That he had then suffered some sort of attack or
a trip, and had fallen over backward on his head.
(21:08):
That was the way the police figured it out. But
Gresham himself would have told them a different story.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
About what happened that night.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He could have told them that he had an extremely
trying day with his wock. Nobody would stand up correctly,
the furniture didn't look right, the baby wouldn't go to sleep.
Damn it, Shut up, all of you do as I say,
or damn it, you will roast in hell. And in
his anger, he kept moving things about with clumsy impatience, beds, chairs, rugs, pictures, people,
(21:42):
and the index finger of his right hand, probing into
the far corners of the infant's nursery felt something it
had never felt before. It was high up toward the
ceiling in the room, which is why Greshia's eyes and
fingers had never found it before. He had never stooped
low enough to see the ceilings of the second floor.
Now he bent over to look, and when he saw
(22:03):
it he growled. He ripped it from a triangular shelf
high up in the corner. It was a tiny religious figure.
It might have been a madonna. He held it in
the palm of his hands. It was all green and
gold paint over plaster, and there was a flower like
caligraphy on the folds of its cloak, and the benign
expression upon a face as large as the had of
(22:24):
a hatpin. Gresham held it in his hand for some minutes.
Then he had to loosen his tie. Then he held
a thing between thumb and index finger, and with one
powerful squeeze he crushed it the powder. He flicked it
from his finger tips.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Wools.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He rose from his chair and stood face to face
with the house. He lifted his right hand clear over
his left shoulder. His eyes were terrible. With one stroke
of the arm, he could end existence for all of them.
Then and there he shuddered, a wrathful god, no other
gods before me. He began, no, and the arm came
(23:11):
slowly down to the side again. He quivered a little,
but he could not strike. He subsided a forgiving God.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
That was the night question. He could not sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Jealousy tore at his eyelids, gnawed inside him, and ancient
dyspepsia crept back in and gave him twinges until he
knew he could lie there no longer and simply stare
at the ceiling, and he murmured idols, even idols. His
pajamas were wet with sweat. Jealousy seeped through his pores.
(23:47):
He tossed on the damp sheets until he could stand
it no more. He rose from the bed and strode
with mighty steps out of the bedroom into the hallway
into the den. It was a dark night. No moonlight
came through the windows. It was late, the blackest late
part of night.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
He wanted no light for what.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
He was about to do, so he did not turn
on the switch. It took him minutes for his eyes
to see through the darkness. The first thing they saw,
of course, was the doll's house. He walked noiselessly with
the fat man's grace up to it. He said, in
an even voice, I gave you life. Now once more,
(24:32):
he raised his heavy white arm over his left shoulder.
He raised himself on his toes. This time he brought
the back of his hand down against the.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
House with all his strength.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And what occurred first was the splintering of the wood
where his hand hit a split second sound of splintering.
The blows wept the whole marvelous house off the table,
and it fell to the floor with a great crash.
It was no sturdy framework that held the house together.
Too precise it was, and too delicate to be that strong.
(25:06):
The framework caved in like glass in a heap. Then
Aggression's feet lay a shattered mass of splinters and bits
of glass, and the irreplaceable furniture, and the little people,
and torn pieces of the incomparable wallpaper, all in a rubble,
like the rubble after a bu and Gresham shout, fell fools.
(25:34):
It was the back of Gresham's hand that had smote
the building. Now the knuckles were bleeding, the hand was
at his side, and.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
The blood dripped to the floor.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You fools, never heard of a day of judgment. Wouldn't
believe me when I warned you the power of life
is the power of death. I warned you. He raised
his wound and looked at it. The blood ran down
his forearm. Wash you in the blood, I'll wash you
(26:07):
in the blood. You're stupid, selfish, disobedient people. He stood
over the rubble and shouted and exalted and sweated God.
Even a god cannot be entirely calm after producing an earthquake,
Gresham could not keep his arms from shaking. But he
(26:30):
knew he could go to sleep now the evil doers
had been slaughtered, vengeance had been rocked. But first he
walked to the window. First he wanted, for some strange reason,
a look at the night sky. He walked to the
window and leaned heavily upon the sill, and he was
still breathing hard. His throat and his brain felt curiously congested.
(26:56):
He climbed up on the broad sill, as if by
getting closer to the window he could suck in morning.
He stood there on the sill, leaning his full weight against.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
The window lay behind.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
He looked up at the sky. It was the faintest
pale blue of the very early dawn. Not a single
cloud floated.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Up there, nothing.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
To an aggression song from the immense void covering half
the shoulder of the sky, on the back of an enormous.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Haze was coming down at him.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Swiftly, powerfully, evngefully. You've heard a story by Sidney Carroll,
(28:31):
copyright nineteen forty nine. None before me. This is Michael
Hanson speaking. Technical operation for this program by Bob cham
Mind webs is a production of WHA Radio in Madison,
a service University of Wisconsin and Extensions
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Excuse at
Mind Welcome to a half hour of mind Way short
stories from the world expectant fiction. No, this is Michael Hanson.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The mind Web story for this alph hour is None
before Me, a story by Sidney Carroll, Copyright nineteen forty
nine by Sidney Carroll. John Olney Gresham had time, inclination,
(01:41):
and money enough to be a connoisseur. He also had
the correct instinct. He was a born miser.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What he he kept to himself alone.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
The privacy of property was his first passion and possibly
his last. His earliest memories did not include a mother, father, sister, brothers,
or even relatives of any proximity whatsoever. He had never
had a sweetheart. Now in his last lonely days he
had neither a wife nor kin. He had only his collection,
(02:11):
his large house somewhat on the broke Brownstone side, and servants.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Gresham was a man.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Who had improvised the main strategy of his life and
then stuck ponderously to the stratagem. Connoisseurship had been a
whim with him back in a long ago, and he
had devoted his life to it. One nameless day in
his monotone life, he had seen an ivory figurine in
the store window. Its simple symmetry had appealed to him.
(02:39):
He had haggled over the price, bought the figurine, taken
it home to study it, and he had suddenly become
a collector of ivory. That had been the first whim.
It had taken him for the first time out of
the aimless, rich young man's existence into the shops.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Of the town.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
But once he invaded the shops, he discovered a world
far beyond money at bargain. For he discovered that ivory
is a world unto itself, that as it gets more
and more expensive, it gets better and better. Immediately, therefore,
Gresham acquired the most expensive piece of ivory carving in
the world. Then he discovered that bagging the fox in
(03:19):
the first five minutes destroys the very purpose, the thrill
of the hunt. So the second whim seized him in
the form of the one inspiration of his life. Why
not it was such a simple notion, after all? Why
had it never occurred to anyone else? Why not acquire
the best single piece of anything in any line? Ivory
(03:43):
was simply one kind of hunting. He had conquered it
with one bold stroke. There were still diamonds to collect,
and coral and paintings and tapestries, and farther there must
be many things. So Gresham started to collect the best
of anything in any line. His life was consecrated to it.
(04:07):
Thus it was that a certain mister Peregrine felt safe
in his own mind. One day when he called Gresham
at the one time of the day when the servants
were allowed to answer the phone. I would speak to
mister Gresham, said Peregrine, who was master of, among other things,
the archaic speech of his calling.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Whom shall I say? Is on the telephone?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Asked the servant, mister Peregrine dealler in unusual antiquities. Gresham
came to the phone. Yes, what is it, mister Gresham?
I have for you something the rarest, the most unusual
was there is nothing like it in the entire world.
(04:49):
What is it, mister Gresham? I would really and truly
prefer not to say an item like this. It requires
an effect of surprise. It must not be described before hand.
Bring it up tomorrow at four, mister Gresham, for this
one time you must come to my place. It is
(05:09):
a large item, It is delicate, It is not possible
to transport it indiscriminately. If it were not necessary, I
would not.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh very well.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Tomorrow at four I'll be at your place, thank you,
mister Gresham. When Gresham got the Pear Greens the next day, promptly,
of course, on the stroke of four.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Old Pear Greene led them into the back room.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
There it was, on an empire table at which six people.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Could eat with comfort. It stood. It was the.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Most magnificent Dolls house in the world. It was slightly
under five feet high. Even to an innocent eye, it
was obviously perfect, marvelously perfect in every detail. It was
an old European sort of house, almost square, with four
floors in the gable roof covered with chimneys. A stork
(06:00):
in a nest snuggled against one of the chimneys. The
entire facade of the house had been swung open on hinges.
Eighteen rooms were thus exposed, and the effect on the
closest scrutiny was almost frightening in its perfection of detail.
The tiny pictures on the walls, the silver service in
(06:20):
the dining room, the linens in the closets, the rugs,
the modianed windows, the doors, and the door knobs.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
All these seemed.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
To mock the perfection of the life size world, And
truly the little people in these little rooms were the
most astonishing of all. It is a perverse fact that
of all the images man continues to make of man,
the one which resembles him the least is the one
which is intended to resemble him the most, namely.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
The doll.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Nobody can make a doll that looks as if it breathes.
But the artisan who had fashioned the tiny inhabitants of
this extraordinary house had come close to the secret, small
as his creatures were. In the living room on the
ground floor, an elderly grandmother sat in a rocking chair,
with four children seated at her feet. The skin of
(07:14):
the grandmother's face was veined at the temples, The wrinkles
at her eyes had flickering shadows. She held a piece
of knitting. Her hands were brown and waxen and bony,
and the flesh and grace of old fingers had been
so scrupulously copied that they looked remarkably nimble. You would
expect to hear momentarily the clicking of the knitting needles.
(07:36):
The children around the grandmother, gazing up at her with
loving admiration. Were unique personalities, each with a different expression
on his half inch face. In an upstairs room, an
infant slept in a cradle shaped like a swan. The
child slept, it truly slept. Flights of angels were painted
(07:57):
on the walls of the room. Is the wood paneling,
said pere Green, bending over. But by that time pere
Green knew that there was really no need for him
to play the guide on a conducted tour any longer.
He had seen the expression on Gresham's face, he knew
he had made the sail. Tell me, said Gresham, trying
(08:20):
to stifle his excitement. Tell me this sort of thing.
I mean, now, dalhouses one of the oldest of the arts,
mister Gresham. One of the most respected archaeology shows that
in the oldest civilizations, the inhabitants of the earth built
doll houses toys. This is the ultimate in toy making.
(08:41):
Is there anyone who doubts that toy making is a
major art?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It is true, sir, It is true, one of the
oldest of the arts. And here before you the finest
specimen ever made, not the largest, that is obvious, not
the most ornate. There are complete battles of thought and
blow in existence, but it is the finest, beyond any doubt,
the finest. How would I know that? I will guarantee it.
(09:10):
I write it down, all right. I'll buy it very good,
mister Gresham. On one condition, Yes, mister Gresham, if I
ever find a better one, I want my money back. Oh,
with pleasure, mister Gresham. The house was transported with infinite
(09:34):
pains to Gresham's home. He had it placed in the den,
in the very center of the room. The den was
a museum to shame museums. It is unfortunate that after
Gresham's death, the room was disassembled, piece by piece and
raffled off to bidders. The two hundred pieces it once
contained now grace some two hundred dens and museums, and
(09:56):
two hundred parts of the world. The monstrous luxuriance of
that room has lost forever. In its original entirety, it
was fantastic. Gresham had the world's most expensive pieces of ivory,
a diamond the peer of the Koenure, an emerald statuette
four inches high, a da Vinci madonna, a Shakespeare quarto,
(10:20):
and so forth, and so forth. The priceless et cetera
of Gresham's life was arranged in glass cases, or leather boxes,
or under lock and key, and Gresham fondled them one
by one every day of his life. He was everything
the ideal connoisseur must.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Be, rich man, miser, hagler.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He was, also, and this is important, a great lover.
He fondled his pieces with his eyes, his hands, even
his lips. Every morning he had flowers distributed through the den.
The diamond, the emerald, the ivory gave him all the
ecstasy of the blood. As fat body could stand into
the very middle of this inanimate harm, Gresham placed the
(11:07):
wonderful Doll's House. It was placed upon a sturdy table
so that anybody sitting in front of it had an
excellent eye level view of most of it. Its position
in the center of the den was, in its singular way, symbolic.
In very little time, the Doll's House became the center
of Gresham's life. He started by devoting the better part
(11:30):
of a whole day to it. He sat in a
chair with his hands clasped over his capacious middle, staring
at the little objects one by one with placid in
puffy eyes. The eyes moved slowly behind the eyeglasses, selecting
the single objects to study, then focusing. He sat in
(11:50):
the chair until he had memorized the position, the appearance,
the personality of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Every object in every room. He did not touch, And.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
On the second day he began to touch. His short,
heavy fingers were not skillful in the ordinary uses of fingers.
In a word, he was clumsy. Fortunately he knew it.
He was careful, delicately, as delicately as he could, he
reached out and felt the texture of the rugs, the
(12:24):
surface of the wood paneling on the library walls, the
silken edge of a fringe on.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
A beautiful lamp.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
His pudgy fingers floated through the exquisite rooms like pink balloons.
It was enough to frighten the little people. He did
not touch them. He did not dare They were so
fragile and so perfect. He shrank from the terrible prospect
of harming them in the least degree. On the third
day he began to touch the little people. Now, Peregrine
(12:58):
counted it the finest day's work of his career. When
he sold the dolls House, his profits from the deal
were enormous. He had wild thoughts that night. Gresham was
his client, now his friend. He could sell the absurd
old fat man many things. Now all a man like
Peregrine needs is one such client. Now he could calmb
(13:22):
the sellars in the collections of the city, the world
and pick the finest and the best, and he could
sell it all to Gresham. A man who would spend
that kind of money for a doll's house, would spend
money for anything. Peregrine's dreams ran high that night. He
had no inkling of the fact that he had lost,
for all time the best customer he had ever had.
(13:46):
None of the dealers in the city ever knew what happened,
least of all Peregrine. Mister Gresham suddenly stopped buying. Whenever
the dealers called the house at the appointed hour, they
were politely informed that mister Gresham was not in the
market for things, not anymore. Thank you. Could that mean forever? Yes,
thank you, it meant forever. No, mister Gresham was not ill.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
No, he was not planning the trip.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Nobody could understand it, least of all Peregrine. None of
them ever had the slightest suspicion of the fact that
it was Peregrine who had slain the goose. For the
truth of the matter is that when Gresham began to
play with his doll's house, he found what he had
been looking for all his life. The search of the
old orphan was over here. It was a real home
(14:37):
and family and children to do his bidding. The more
he played with the dolls house, that fat ungenerous, stingy
old man, The more he reverted to childhood.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
He locked the.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Doors of his den, for he wanted no intruding servants
to discover him at the game. If a servant happened
to discover him fondling the precious stone, it would have
caused him no embarrassment, But to have somebody find him
playing with dolls would have thrown him into a fit.
So he would have his breakfast early, then go upstairs
to the den, lock the door, pulled the chair up
(15:13):
to the doll's house, and begin to play. At first,
he did it only in the mornings. In the afternoons,
after lunch, he would devote himself to other parts of
his collection, But the doll's house drew him more and more,
and he became impatient with everything else. Like a child
who cannot eat lunch, and the intensity of his desire
(15:33):
to have done and get back to his toys. And
soon he gave up the rest of his collection altogether.
Gresham now devoted himself morning, noon and night to the
dolls house. The diamond lay forgotten in its velvet bed.
There were no more caresses for the ivory. Gresham's whole
life was in the doll's house. When his fingers became
(15:57):
more accustomed to the little things, he let his fancy rome.
For the first time in his life. Gresham played games.
He began to rearrange the furniture, to rehanng the pictures,
to move the tiny rugs about. He exchanged and irons
from the fireplace on the fourth floor with those from
a fireplace on the second. But most of all, and
(16:20):
best of all, he played with the little people. He
moved the children in the parlor so that they all
surrounded the grandmother instead of facing her. He liked it
that way for a week, then he put them back again.
In the kitchen, a tiny buxom servant, all in white,
stood bending over the wood stove. Gresham moved her so
(16:41):
that she stood over the sink instead. He kept her
there the baby in the swan Betty did not touch
at all. He liked it where it was under the
lovely flood of angels. There were other people in the
other rooms, men and women and children. These he deployed
and maneuvered. He became the altar in interior decorators. He
(17:02):
could arrange the inhabitants of the house, put them and
keep them where they looked best to him. In a
short time, Gresham began to talk to himself. At least
the servants passing in the hall, passing swiftly and discreetly passed,
but then, hearing his voice making an unaccustomed cooing sound,
assumed he was talking to himself.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
This they did not take a miss.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Anything might be expected from mister Gresham. Talking to himself
from the privacy of his most private chamber was quickly
and tacitly accepted as simply one more eccentricity. But the
truth of the matter was that Gresham was not talking
to himself. He was conversing with the little people. Seven
(17:48):
weeks of this and Gresham began to evolve this theory.
It was a simple theory when one comes to examine
it in the light of all pertinent facts. It was
almost a natural theory. Gresham began to figure that he
was God, and why not? He had purchased for an
(18:10):
exorbitant fee a world of his own, the creatures in it.
He owned, body and soul. Over these creatures, he exercised
an authority, complete, unquestioned, irrevocable. His hand moving among these
walls was why not the hands of destiny.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Up to that point, up.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
To the moment of the formation of his theory, Gresham
had been a benevolent god. Now, with this catechism, said,
he began to ponder the ways.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Of all gods.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
That started in exercising some of the little extra privileges
of his class. After all, a god has to tanker.
He began by inflicting certain discomforts, even pain, upon his creatures.
One day he tipped the little grandmother so far back
in her chair she fell out and lay in a
heap on the floor. Gresham told her, you see, see,
(19:12):
life isn't all comfy.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Whenever one of the children was a little perverse in
his movements, refusing to stand or sit in quite a
manner Gresham had in mind, he took to spanking it.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well, let that be a lesson.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Let that be a lesson. Do you do as you're told?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Conform.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
The change from benevolent to vindictive God grew with his
growing realization of the absolute power he possessed. Up until now,
he had been charmed by his playthings, and it acted
like a father to an adopted family. Now when the
father became the heavenly father, indulged himself and his omniscience.
(19:55):
When the children weren't looking. He stole toys.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
From the playroom, He hid the the kitchen.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
One day he took the knitting needles from the grandmother's hands,
and he stormed at her, far enough damn knitting, try
working for a living, so whatever your brow, And he
took her rocking chair and all and dumped her in
the kitchen. He even attacked the swan crib and the
sleeping infant. He knocked the crib over, and the infant
(20:21):
came tumbling out, rolling over and over on the floor,
and Gresham said, crying him, young teachum, life full of
hard knocks. He let the infant lay on the floor
for two days. He pretended to pay no attention to
the wailing sound he heard. They found Gresham later in
(20:41):
the pool of blood, his head cracked in places like
an egg tapped.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
With a spoon.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
The glass of the window in his den had been
smashed the bits. The theory of the police was that
Gresham had climbed to the window sill in order to
throw himself out the window, that being a fat and
awkward man, then bumped into the glass and shattered it.
That he had then suffered some sort of attack or
a trip, and had fallen over backward on his head.
(21:08):
That was the way the police figured it out. But
Gresham himself would have told them a different story.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
About what happened that night.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He could have told them that he had an extremely
trying day with his wock. Nobody would stand up correctly,
the furniture didn't look right, the baby wouldn't go to sleep.
Damn it, Shut up, all of you do as I say,
or damn it, you will roast in hell. And in
his anger, he kept moving things about with clumsy impatience, beds, chairs, rugs, pictures, people,
(21:42):
and the index finger of his right hand, probing into
the far corners of the infant's nursery felt something it
had never felt before. It was high up toward the
ceiling in the room, which is why Greshia's eyes and
fingers had never found it before. He had never stooped
low enough to see the ceilings of the second floor.
Now he bent over to look, and when he saw
(22:03):
it he growled. He ripped it from a triangular shelf
high up in the corner. It was a tiny religious figure.
It might have been a madonna. He held it in
the palm of his hands. It was all green and
gold paint over plaster, and there was a flower like
caligraphy on the folds of its cloak, and the benign
expression upon a face as large as the had of
(22:24):
a hatpin. Gresham held it in his hand for some minutes.
Then he had to loosen his tie. Then he held
a thing between thumb and index finger, and with one
powerful squeeze he crushed it the powder. He flicked it
from his finger tips.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Wools.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
He rose from his chair and stood face to face
with the house. He lifted his right hand clear over
his left shoulder. His eyes were terrible. With one stroke
of the arm, he could end existence for all of them.
Then and there he shuddered, a wrathful god, no other
gods before me. He began, no, and the arm came
(23:11):
slowly down to the side again. He quivered a little,
but he could not strike. He subsided a forgiving God.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
That was the night question. He could not sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Jealousy tore at his eyelids, gnawed inside him, and ancient
dyspepsia crept back in and gave him twinges until he
knew he could lie there no longer and simply stare
at the ceiling, and he murmured idols, even idols. His
pajamas were wet with sweat. Jealousy seeped through his pores.
(23:47):
He tossed on the damp sheets until he could stand
it no more. He rose from the bed and strode
with mighty steps out of the bedroom into the hallway
into the den. It was a dark night. No moonlight
came through the windows. It was late, the blackest late
part of night.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
He wanted no light for what.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
He was about to do, so he did not turn
on the switch. It took him minutes for his eyes
to see through the darkness. The first thing they saw,
of course, was the doll's house. He walked noiselessly with
the fat man's grace up to it. He said, in
an even voice, I gave you life. Now once more,
(24:32):
he raised his heavy white arm over his left shoulder.
He raised himself on his toes. This time he brought
the back of his hand down against the.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
House with all his strength.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
And what occurred first was the splintering of the wood
where his hand hit a split second sound of splintering.
The blows wept the whole marvelous house off the table,
and it fell to the floor with a great crash.
It was no sturdy framework that held the house together.
Too precise it was, and too delicate to be that strong.
(25:06):
The framework caved in like glass in a heap. Then
Aggression's feet lay a shattered mass of splinters and bits
of glass, and the irreplaceable furniture, and the little people,
and torn pieces of the incomparable wallpaper, all in a rubble,
like the rubble after a bu and Gresham shout, fell fools.
(25:34):
It was the back of Gresham's hand that had smote
the building. Now the knuckles were bleeding, the hand was
at his side, and.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
The blood dripped to the floor.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
You fools, never heard of a day of judgment. Wouldn't
believe me when I warned you the power of life
is the power of death. I warned you. He raised
his wound and looked at it. The blood ran down
his forearm. Wash you in the blood, I'll wash you
(26:07):
in the blood. You're stupid, selfish, disobedient people. He stood
over the rubble and shouted and exalted and sweated God.
Even a god cannot be entirely calm after producing an earthquake,
Gresham could not keep his arms from shaking. But he
(26:30):
knew he could go to sleep now the evil doers
had been slaughtered, vengeance had been rocked. But first he
walked to the window. First he wanted, for some strange reason,
a look at the night sky. He walked to the
window and leaned heavily upon the sill, and he was
still breathing hard. His throat and his brain felt curiously congested.
(26:56):
He climbed up on the broad sill, as if by
getting closer to the window he could suck in morning.
He stood there on the sill, leaning his full weight against.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
The window lay behind.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
He looked up at the sky. It was the faintest
pale blue of the very early dawn. Not a single
cloud floated.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Up there, nothing.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
To an aggression song from the immense void covering half
the shoulder of the sky, on the back of an enormous.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Haze was coming down at him.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Swiftly, powerfully, evngefully. You've heard a story by Sidney Carroll,
(28:31):
copyright nineteen forty nine. None before me. This is Michael
Hanson speaking. Technical operation for this program by Bob cham
Mind webs is a production of WHA Radio in Madison,
a service University of Wisconsin and Extensions
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Excuse at
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