14 - At a Winters Fire by Bernard Capes

Immerse yourself in the enchanting tales of Bernard Capes, crafted to captivate your imagination as you cozy up by the fireplace during the long, chilly days of winter. Let A. Gramour guide you through this collection of stories that promise to entertain and warm your spirit.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fourteen of At a Winter's Fire. This is a
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Recording by Nima. At a Winter's Fire by Bernard Capes.

(00:25):
A voice from the pit signor we are arrived, whispered
the old man in my ear, and he put out
his sudden, cold hand, corded like melonrine, to stay me
in the stumbling darkness. We were on a tilted table
land of the mountain, and looking forth and below, the

(00:48):
far indigo crescent of the bay, where it swept towards
Costello Mare, seemed to rise up at me as if
it were a perpendicular wall, across which the white crest
of the waves flew like ghost moths. We skirted a
boulder and came upon a field of sleek, purple lava,

(01:10):
sewn all over with little lemon jets of silent smoke, which,
in their wan and melancholy glow, might have been the
corpse lights of those innumerable dead whose tombstone was the
mountain itself. Far away to the right, the great projecting
socket of the crater flickered intermittently with a nerve of fire.

(01:33):
It was like the glinting of the watchful eye of
some vast crustacean. And in that harsh and stupendous desolation
seemed the final crown, an expression of utter inhumanity. I
started upon hearing the low whisper of my companion at
my ear in the bay yesterday. The signor saved my life.

(01:58):
I give the signor and return my life's secret. He
seized my right hand in his left with a sinewy clutch,
and pointed a stiff finger at the luminous blots. See there,
and there and there he shrilled. One floats in wavers

(02:19):
like a spineless ribbon of seaweed in the water. Another
burns with a steady radiance. A third blares from its
fissure like a flame driven by the blowpipe. It is
all a question of the under draft. And some may
feel it a little, and some a little more or
a little less. Ah, But I will show you one

(02:42):
that feels it not at all. A hole, a narrow
shaft that goes straight down into the pit of the
great hill, and as cold as the mouth of a barbell.
The bones of his face stood out like rocks against sand.
In the pus of his maniac eyes were glazed or

(03:03):
fell into shadow as the volcano lightnings fluttered. Suddenly, he
drew me to a broken pile of sulfur rock, lying
tumbled against the ridge of the mountain that ran towards
the crater. It lay heaped, affused and fantastic ruin, And
in a moment the old man leapt for me, and

(03:26):
was tugging by main strength a vast fragment from its place.
I leaned over his shoulder and looked down upon the
hollow revealed by the displaced boulder. It was like the
bell of a mighty trumpet, and in the middle a
puckered opening seemed to suck inwards, as it were the

(03:46):
mouth of some subterranean monster risen to the surface of
the world for air. Quick, quick, muttered Pallo. The seignor
must place his ear to the hole. The little eye
stir at my heart. I dropped upon my knees and
leaned my head deep into the cup. I must have

(04:07):
stayed thus for a full minute before I drew myself
back and looked up at the old mountaineer. His eyes
gazed down into mine with mad intensity. See see. He whispered,
what didst thou hear? I heard a long, surging thunder, Pallo,

(04:28):
and the deep, shrill screaming of many gas jets. He
bent down with livid face, Senor, it is the booming
of the everlasting fire, and thou hast heard the voices
of the damned. No, my friend, No, but it is

(04:48):
a marvelous transmission of the uproar of hidden forces. He
leaped to the shallow pit. Listen and believe, he cried
and funn Pulling his hands about his lips, he stooped
over the central hole. Marco, Marco. He screeched in a

(05:09):
piercing voice. Something answered back, What was it? A male
formed and twisted echo, A whistle of imprisoned steam tricked
into some horrible caricature of a human voice. Pollo. It
seemed to wail, weak and faint with agony. Le aqua,

(05:35):
Le aqua Pollo. The old man sprang to his feet, and,
looking down upon me, in a sort of terrible triumph,
unslung a water flask from his belt, and, pulling out
the cork, poured the cold liquid down into the puckered orifice.
Then I felt his clutch on my arm, again he drinks.

(05:58):
He cried, and thou wilt understand. I rose with a
ghost of a laugh, and once more addressed my ear
to the opening from unthinkable depths, came up a strange
gloating sound, as from a ravenous throat, made vibrant with ecstasy. Pallo,

(06:21):
I cried as I rose and stood before him, And
there was an admonitory note in my voice. A feather
may decide the balance. Beware meddling with hidden thunders, or
thou mayst set rolling such another tombstone as that on
which these corpse fires are yet flaming. And he only

(06:43):
answered me, set in deathly we of the mountain signor
no more things than we may tell of end of
a voice from the pit, end of at a winter
sures fire by Bernard Capes