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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Woman of the Satyr by Jerome k Jerome. Wild
Reindeer stalking is hardly so exciting a sport as the
evening's veranda talk in Norway hotels would lead the trustful
traveler to suppose, under the charge of your guide, a
very young man with the dreamy, wistful eyes of those
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who live in valleys, you leave the farmstead early in
the forenoon, arriving towards twilight at the desolate hut, which,
for so long as you remain upon the uplands, will
be your somewhat cheerless headquarters. Next morning, in the chill,
mist laden dawn, you rise, and, after a breakfast of
coffee and dried fish, shoulder your remington and step forth
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silently into the raw, damp air, the guide locking the
door behind you, the key grating harshly in the rusty lock.
For hour after hour you toil over the steep, stony ground,
or wind through the pines, speaking in whispers lest your
voice reached the quick ears of your prey that keeps
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its head ever pressed against the wind. Here and there,
in the hollows of the hills lie wide fields of
snow over which you pick your steps thoughtfully listening to
the smothered thunder of the Torrent tunneling its way beneath
your feet, and wondering whether the frozen arch above it
be at all points as firm as is desirable. Now
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and again, as in single file you walk cautiously along
some jagged ridge, you catch glimpses of the green world
three thousand feet below you, though you gaze not long
upon the view, for your attention is chiefly directed to
watching the footprints of the guide, lest, by deviating to
the right or left, you find yourself at one stride
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back in the valley, or, to be more correct, are
found there. These things you do, and as exercise they
are healthful and invigorating. But a reindeer you never see, and,
unless overcoming the prejudices of your British bred conscience, you
care to take an occasional pop at a fox, you
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had better have left your rifle at the hut, and
instead have brought a stick, which would have been helpful.
Notwithstanding which, the guide continues, sanguine, and in broken English,
helped out by stirring gesture, tells of the terrible slaughter
generally done by sportsmen under his superintendence, and of the
vast herds that generally infest these fields. And when you
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grow skeptical upon the subject of rains, he whispers alluringly
of bears. Once in a way he will come across
a track and will follow it breathlessly for hours, and
it will lead to a sheer precipice. Whether the explanation
is suicide or a reprehensible tendency on the part of
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the animal towards practical joking, you are left to decide
for yourself. Then, with many rough miles between you and
your rest, you abandon the chase. But I speak from
personal experience. Merely all day long we had tramped through
the pitiless rain, stopping only for an hour at noon
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to eat some dried venison and smoke a pipe beneath
the shelter of an overhanging cliff. Soon afterwards, Michael knocked
over a riper, a bird that will hardly take the
trouble to hop out of your way with his gun barrel,
which incident cheered us a little, and later on our
flagging spirits were still further revived by the discovery of
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apparently very recent deer tracks. These we followed forgetful in
our eagerness of the lengthening distance back to the hut
of the fading daylight of the gathering mist. The track
led us higher and higher, farther and farther into the mountains,
until on the shores of a desolate, rock bound vand
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it abruptly ended, and we stood staring at one another,
and the snow began to fall. Unless in the next
half hour we could chance upon a satya, this meant
passing the night upon the mountain. Michael and I looked
at the guide, but though with characteristic Norwegian sturdiness, he
put a bold face upon it, we could see that
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in that deepening darkness he knew no more than we did.
Wasting no time on words, we made straight for the
nearest point of descent, knowing that any human habitation must
be far below us. Down we scrambled, heedless of torn
clothes and bleeding hands, the darkness pressing close round us.
Then suddenly it became black, black as pitch, and we
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could only hear each other. Another step might mean death.
We stretched out our hands and felt each other. Why
we spoke in whispers, I do not know, but we
seemed afraid of our own voices. We agreed. There was
nothing for it but to stop where we were till morning,
clinging to the short grass. So we lay there side
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by side for what may have been five minutes, or
may have been an hour. Then, attempting to turn, I
lost my grip and rolled. I made convulsive efforts to
clutch the ground, but the incline was too steep. How
far I fell I could not say. But at last
something stopped me. I felt it cautiously with my foot.
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It did not yield, so I twisted myself round and
touched it with my hand. It seemed planted firmly in
the earth. I passed my arm along to the right,
then to the left. I shouted with joy. It was
a fence rising and groping about me. I found an
opening and passed through, and crept forward with palms outstretched,
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until I touched the logs of a hut. Then feel
my way round, discovered the door and knocked. There came
no response, so I knocked louder, then pushed, and the
heavy woodwork yielded groaning, But the darkness within was even
darker than the darkness without. The others had contrived to
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crawl down and join me. Michael struck a wax vesta
and held it up, and slowly the room came out
of the darkness and stood round us. Then something rather
startling happened. Giving one swift glance about him, our guide
uttered a cry and rushed out into the night. We
followed to the door and called after him, but only
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a voice came to us out of the blackness, and
the only words we could catch, shrieked back in terror,
were seta thrawnen sata thrawnen, the women of the satyr.
Some foolish superstition about the place, I suppose, said Michael.
In these mountain solitudes, men breed ghosts for company. Let
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us make a fire. Perhaps when he sees the light,
his desire for food and shelter may get the better
of his fears. We felt about the small enclosure round
the house, and gathered juniper and birch twigs, and kindled
a fire upon the open stove built in the corner
of the room. Fortunately, we had some dried reindeer and
bread in our bag, and on that and the riper
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and the contents of our flasks, we supped afterwards for
a while. Away the time we made an inspection of
the strange eerie we had lighted on. It was an
old lock built Satya. Some of these mountain farmsteads are
as old as the stone ruins of other countries. Carvings
of strange beasts and demons were upon its blackened rafters,
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and on the lintel in runic letters ran this legend
Hunt builded me in the days of hard Fager. The
house consisted of two large apartments. Originally, no doubt these
had been separate dwellings standing beside one another, but they
were now connected by a long, low gallery. Most of
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the scanty furniture was almost as ancient as the walls themselves,
but many articles of a comparatively recent date had been added.
All was, now, however, rotting and falling into decay. The
place appeared to have been deserted suddenly by its last occupants.
Household utensils lay as they were left, rust and dirt
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encrusted on them. An open book, limp and mildewed, lay
face downwards on the table, while many others were scattered
about both rooms, together with much paper scored with faded ink.
The curtains hung in shreds about the windows. A woman's
cloak of an antiquated fashion, drooped from a nail behind
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the door. In an oak chest, we found a tumbled
heap of yellow. They were of various dates, extending over
a period of four months, and with them, apparently intended
to receive them, lay a large envelope inscribed with an
address in London that has since disappeared. Strong curiosity overcoming
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faint scruples, we read them by the dull glow of
the burning juniper twigs, and as we lay aside the
last of them, there rose from the depths below us
a wailing cry, And all night long it rose and
died away, and rose again, and died away again, Whether
born of our brain or of some human thing, God knows.
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And these a little altered and shortened, are the letters
extract from first letter. I cannot tell you, my dear Joyce,
what a haven of peace this place is to me.
After the racketh and fret of I am almost quite
recovered already, and am growing stronger every day. And joy
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of joys, my brain has come back to me, fresher
and more vigorous, I think, for its holiday. In this
silence and solitude, my thoughts flow freely, and the difficulties
of my task are disappearing, as if by magic. We
are perched upon a tiny plateau halfway up the mountain.
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On one side the rock rises almost perpendicularly, piercing the sky,
while on the other, two thousand feet below us, the
torrent hurls itself into the black waters of the Fiord.
The house consists of two rooms, or rather it is
two cabins connected by a passage. The larger one we
use as a living room, and the other is our
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sleeping apartment. We have no servant, but do everything for ourselves.
I fear sometimes Muriel must find it lonely. The nearest
human habitation is eight miles away across the mountain, and
not a soul comes near us. I spend as much
time as I can with her, however, during the day,
and make up for it by working at night after
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she has gone to sleep. And when I question her,
she only laughs and answers that she loves to have
me all to herself. Here. You will smile cynically, I know,
and say humph. I wonder will she say the same
when they have been married six years instead of six months.
At the rate I am working now, I shall have
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finished my first volume by the spring. And then, my
dear fellow, you must try and come over, and we
will walk and talk together amid these storm reared temples
of the gods. I have felt a new man since
I arrived here, instead of having to cudgel my brains
as we say, thoughts crowd upon me. This work will
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make my name part of the third letter, the second
being mere talk about the book a history, apparently that
the man was writing. My dear joyce, I have written
you two letters. This will make the third, but have
been unable to post them. Every day I have been
expecting a visit from some farmer or villager. For the
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Norwegians are kindly people towards strangers, to say nothing of
the inducements of trade. A fortnight having passed, however, and
the commissariat question having become serious, I yesterday set out
before dawn and made my way down to the valley,
and this gives me something to tell you. Nearing the village,
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I met a peasant woman. To my intense surprise, instead
of returning my salutation, she stared at me as if
I were some wild animal, and shrank away from me
as far as the width of the road would permit
in the village, the same experience awaited me. The children
ran from me, the people avoided me. At last, a
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gray haired old man appeared to take pity on me,
and from him I learnt the explanation of the mystery.
It seems there is a strange superstition attaching to this
house in which we are living. My things were brought
up here by the two men who accompanied me from Drontheim.
But the natives are afraid to go near the place,
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and prefer to keep as far as possible from any
one connected with it. The story is that the house
was built by one Hunt, a maker of runs, one
of the old saga writers, no doubt, who lived here
with his young wife. All went peacefully until, unfortunately for him,
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a certain maiden stationed at a neighboring Satya, grew to
love him. Forgive me if I am telling you what
you know. But a Satya is the name given to
the upland pastures to which during the summer are sent
the cattle, generally under the charge of one or more
of the maids. Here for three months, these girls live
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in their lonely huts, entirely shut off from the world.
Customs change a little in this land. Two or three
such stations are within climbing distance of this house at
this day, looked after by the farmer's daughters. As in
the days of Hunt, Maker of Ruins. Every night, by
devious mountain paths, the woman would come and tap lightly
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at Hunt's door. Hunt had built himself two cabins, one
behind the other. These are now, as I think I
have explained to you, connected by a passage. The smaller
one was the homestead. In the other he carved and wrote,
so that while the young wife slept, the Maker of
runs and the sat woman sat whispering. One night, however,
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the wife learnt all things, but said no word. Then,
as now, the ravine in front of the enclosure was
crossed by a slight bridge of planks, And over this
bridge the woman of the sater passed and repassed each night.
On a day when Hunt had gone down to fish
in the fiord, the wife took an axe and hacked
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and hewed at the bridge. Yet it still looked firm
and solid. And that night, as Hunt sat waiting in
his workshop, there struck upon his ears a piercing cry,
and a crashing of logs and rolling rock, and then
again the dull roaring of the torrent far below. But
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the woman did not die unavenged. For that winter, a
man skating far down the fiord noticed a curious object
embedded in the ice, and when stooping he looked closer
he saw two corpses, one gripping the other by the throat,
and the bodies were the bodies of Hunt and his
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young wife. Since then, they say, the woman of the
Sata haunts Hunt's house, and if she sees a light within,
she taps upon the door, and no man may keep
her out. Many at different times have tried to occupy
the house, but strange tales are told of them. Men
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do not live at Hunt's Satyr, said my old gray
haired friend, concluding his tale. They die there. I have
persuaded some of the braver of the villagers to bring
what provisions and other necessaries we require up to a
plateau about a mile from the house, and leave them there.
That is the most I have been able to do.
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It comes somewhat as a shock to one to find
men and women fairly educated and intelligent, as many of
them are slaves. To fears that one would expect a
child to laugh at but there is no reasoning with
superstition extract from the same letter, but from a part
seemingly written a day or two later at home. I
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should have forgotten such a tale an hour after I
heard it, But these mountain fastnesses seemed strangely fit to
be the last stronghold of the supernatural. The woman haunts me.
Already at night, instead of working, I find myself listening
for her, tapping at the door. And yesterday an incident
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occurred that makes me fear for my own common sense.
I had gone out for a long walk alone, and
the twilight was thickening into darkness as I neared home. Suddenly,
looking up from my reverie, I saw standing on a
knoll the other side of the ravine, the figure of
a woman. She held a cloak about her head, and
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I could not see her face. I took off my
cap and called out a good night to her, but
she never moved or spoke. Then God knows why, for
my brain was full of other thoughts at the time.
A clammy chill crept over me, and my tongue grew
dry and parched. I stood rooted to the spot, staring
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at her across the yawning gorge that divided us. And
slowly she moved away and passed into the gloom, and
I continued my way. I have said nothing to Muriel,
and shall not. The effect the story has had upon
myself warns me not to do so. From a letter
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dated eleven days later, she has come. I have known
she would since that evening I saw her on the mountain,
and last night she came, and we have sat and
looked into each other's eyes. You will say, of course,
that I am mad, that I have not recovered from
my fever, that I have been working too hard, that
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I have heard a foolish tale, and that it has
filled my overstrung brain with foolish fancies. I have told
myself all that. But the thing came, nevertheless, A creature
of flesh and blood, a creature of air, a creature
of my own imagination. What matter? It was real to me?
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It came last night as I sat working alone. Each
night I have waited for it, listened for it, longed
for it. I know now. I heard the passing of
its feet upon the bridge, the tapping of its hand
upon the door, three times, tap tap tap. I felt
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my loins grow cold. And a pricking pain about my head.
And I gripped my chair with both hands and waited,
and again there came the tapping, tap, tap tap. I
rose and slipped the bolt of the door leading to
the other room, and again I waited, and again there
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came the tapping, tap tap tap. Then I opened the
heavy and the wind rushed past me, scattering my papers,
and the woman entered in, and I closed the door
behind her. She threw her hood back from her head
and unwound a kerchief from about her neck and laid
it on the table. Then she crossed and sat before
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the fire, and I noticed that her bare feet were
damp with the night dew. I stood over against her
and gazed at her, and she smiled at me, a strange,
wicked smile. But I could have laid my soul at
her feet. She never spoke or moved, and neither did
I feel the need of spoken words, for I understood
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the meaning of those upon the mount when they said,
let us hear make tabernacles, it is good for us
to be here. How long a time passed thus I
do not know. But suddenly the woman held her hand up, listening,
and there came a faint sound from the other room.
Then swiftly she drew her hood about her face and
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passed out, closing the door softly behind her. And I
drew back the bolt of the inner door and waited, and,
hearing nothing more, sat down and must have fallen asleep
in my chair. I awoke, and instantly there flashed through
my mind the thought of the kerchief the woman had
left behind her, and I started from my chair to
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hide it. But the table was already laid for breakfast,
and my wife sat with her elbows on the table
and her head between her hands, watching me with a
look in her eyes that was new to me. She
kissed me, though her lips were cold, and I argued
to myself that the whole thing must have been a dream.
But later in the day, passing the open door, when
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her back was towards me, I saw her take the
kerchief from a locked chest and look at it. I
have told myself must have been a kerchief of her own,
and that all the rest has been my imagination. That
if not, then my strain visitant was no spirit but
a woman, and that if human thing knows human thing,
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it was no creature of flesh and blood, that sat
beside me last night. Besides, what woman would she be?
The nearest? Satya is a three hours climb to a
strong man, and the path is dangerous even in daylight.
What woman would have found them in the night? What
woman would have chilled the air around her and have
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made the blood flow cold through all my veins. Yet,
if she come again, I will speak to her. I
will stretch out my hand and see whether she be
mortal thing or only air. The fifth letter, my dear joyce.
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Whether your eyes will ever see these letters is doubtful.
From this place, I shall never send them. They would
read to you as the ravings of a madman. If
ever I return to England, I may one day show
them to you, But when I do, it will be
when I with you can laugh over them. At present
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I write them merely to hide away. Putting the words
down on paper saves my screaming them aloud. She comes
each night, now, taking the same seat beside the embers,
and fixing upon me those eyes with the hell light
in them that burn into my brain. And at rare
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times she smiles, and all my being passes out of
me and is hers. I make no attempt to work.
I sit listening for her footsteps on the creaking bridge,
for the rustling of her feet upon the grass, for
the tapping of her hand upon the door. No word
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is uttered between us. Each day. I say, when she
comes to night, I will speak to her. I will
stretch out my hand and touch her. Yet when she enters,
all thought and will goes out from me. Last night,
as I stood gazing at her, my soul filled with
her wondrous beauty as a lake with moonlight, her lips parted,
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and she started from her chair, and turning, I thought
I saw a white face pressed against the window, But
as I looked, it vanished. Then she drew her cloak
about her and passed out. I slid back the bolt
I always draw now, and stole into the other room, and,
taking down the lantern, held it above the bed. But
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Muriel's eyes were closed, as if in sleep. Extract from
the sixth letter. It is not the night I fear,
but the day I hate. The sight of this woman
with whom I live, whom I call wife. I shrink
from the blow of her cold li lips. The curse
of her stony eyes. She has seen she has lat
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I feel it, I know it Yet she winds her
arms around my neck and calls me sweetheart, and smooths
my hair with her soft, false hands. We speak mocking
words of love to one another, but I know her
cruel eyes are ever following me. She is plotting her revenge,
and I hate her. I hate her, I hate her
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part of the Seventh Letter. This morning I went down
to the fiord. I told her I should not be
back until the evening. She stood by the door, watching
me until we were mere specks to one another, and
a promontory of the mountain shut me from view. Then,
turning aside from the track, I made my way, running
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and stumbling over the jagged ground, round to the other
side of the mountain and began to climb again. It
was slow, weary work. Often I had to go miles
out of my road to avoid a ravine, and twice
I reached a high point, only to have to descend again.
But at length I crossed the ridge and crept down
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to a spot where concealed I could spy upon my
own house. She, my wife, stood by the flimsy bridge.
A short hatchet, such as butcher's use, was in her hand.
She leant against a pine trunk with her arm behind
her as one stands whose back aches with long stooping
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in some cramped position. And even at that distance I
could see the cruel smile about her lips. Then I
recrossed the ridge and crawled down again, and, waiting until evening,
walked slowly up the path. As I came in view
of the house, she saw me and waved her handkerchief
to me, and in answer, I waved my hat and
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shouted curses at her that the wind whirled away into
the torrent. She met me with a kiss, and I
breathed no hint to her that I had seen. Let
her devil's work remain undisturbed. Let it prove to me
what manner of thing this is that haunts me. If
it be a spirit, then the bridge will bear it safely.
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If it be woman, but I dismiss the thought. If
it be human thing, why does it sit gazing at me,
never speaking? Why does my tongue refuse to question it?
Why does all power forsake me in its presence so
that I stand as in a dream. Yet, if it
be spirit, why do I hear the passing of her feet?
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And why does the night rain glisten on her hair.
I force myself back into my chair. It is far
into the night, and I am alone, waiting, listening. If
it be spirit, she will come to me. And if
it be woman, I shall hear her cry above the storm.
Unless it be a demon mocking me, I have heard
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the cry. It rose, piercing and shrill, above the storm,
above the writhing and rending of the bridge, above the
downward crashing of the logs and loosened stones. I hear
it as I listen now. It is cleaving its way
upward from the depths below. It is wading through the
room as I sit writing. I have crawled upon my
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belly to the utmost edge of the still standing pier
until I could feel with my hand the jagged splinters
left by the fallen planks, and have looked down. But
the chasm was full to the brim with darkness. I shouted,
but the wind shook my voice into mocking laughter. I
sit here, feebly, striking at the madness that is creeping
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nearer and nearer to me. I tell myself, the whole
thing is but the fever in my brain. The bridge
was rotten, the storm was strong. The cry is but
a single one among the many voices of the mountain.
Yet still I listen, and it rises clear and shrill,
above the moaning of the pines, above the sobbing of
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the waters. It beats like blows upon my skull, and
I know that she will never come again. Extract from
the last letter, I shall address an envelope to you,
and leave it among these letters. Then, should I never
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come back, some chance wanderer may one day find and
post them to you, and you will know my books
and writings remain untouched. We sit together of a night,
this woman I call wife, and I she holding in
her hands some knitted thing that never grows longer by
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a single stitch, and I with a volume before me
that is ever open at the same page. And day
and night we watch each other, stealthily, moving to and
fro about the silent house, and at times, looking round,
swiftly catch the smile upon her lips before she has
time to smooth it away. We speak like strangers about
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this and that, making talk to hide our thoughts. We
make a pretense of busying ourselves about whatever will help
us to keep apart from one another. At night, sitting
here between the shadows, and the dull glow of the
smoldering twigs. I sometimes think I hear the tapping I
have learnt to listen for, and I start from my
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seat softly, open the door and look out, but only
the knight stands there. Then I close to the latch,
and she, the living woman, asks me, in her purring voice,
what sound I heard, hiding a smile, as she stoops
low over her work. And I answer lightly, and moving
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towards her, put my arms about her, feeling her softness
and her suppleness, and wondering supposing I held her close
to me with one arm, while pressing her from me
with the other, how long before I should hear the
cracking of her bones? For here amid these savage solitudes,
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I also am grown savage. The old primeval passions of
love and hate stir within me, and they are fierce
and cruel and strong, beyond what you men of the
later ages could understand. The culture of the sentries has
fallen from me as a flimsy garment whirled away by
the mountain wind. The old savage instincts of the race
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I bear. One day I shall twine my fingers about
her full white throat, and her eyes will slowly come
towards me, and her lips will part, and the red
tongue creep out and backwards. Step by step, I shall
put her before me, gazing the while upon her bloodless face,
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and it will be my turn to smile backwards through
the open door, backwards, along the golden path between the
juniper bushes, backwards till her heels are overhanging the ravine,
and she grips life with nothing but her little toes.
I shall force her step by step before me. Then
I shall lean forward, closer, closer, till I kiss her
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purpling lips. And down down, down, past the startled sea birds,
past the white spray of the foss, past the downward
peeping pines, Down, down, down, we will go together till
we find the thing that lies sleeping beneath the waters
of the few. Ward with these words ended the last
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letter unsigned. At the first streak of dawn, we left
the house, and, after much wandering, found our way back
to the valley. But of our guide we heard no news,
whether he remained still upon the mountain, or whether by
some false step he had perished. Upon that night we
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never learnt end of the woman of the satyr