When I Was Dead - Vincent O'Sullivan

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I was dead by vincent O'Sullivan. And yet my
heart will not confess. He owes the malady that doth
my life besiege. All's well that ends well. That was
the worst of Ravenal Hall. The passages were long and gloomy,
the rooms were musty and dull. Even the pictures were
somber and their subjects dire. On an autumn evening, when

(00:23):
the wind soft and wailed to the trees in the park,
and the dead leaves whistled and chattered, while the rain
clamored at the windows, small wonder that folks with gentle
nerves when a straying in their wits an acute nervous
system is a grievous burthen on the deck of a
yacht under sunlit skies. At Ravenel, the chain of nerves
was prone to clash and jangle a funeral march. Nerves

(00:47):
must be pampered in a tea drinking community. And the
ghosts that your grandfather with a skinful of port could
face and never tremble sets you in your sobriety, sweating
and shivering, or becoming scared, poor ghost of your bold
styes and dropping jaw. He quenches expectation by not appearing

(01:08):
at all. So I am left to conclude that it
was tea which made my acquaintance afraid to stay at Ravenal.
Even Wilburn gave over, and as he is in the
guards and a polo player, his nerves ought to be
strong enough. On the night before he went, I was
explaining to him my theory that if you place some
drops of human blood near you, and then concentrate your thoughts,

(01:32):
you will, after a while see before you a man
or a woman who will stay with you during the
long hours of the night, and even meet you at
unexpected places during the day. I was explaining this theory,
I repeat, when he interrupted me with words senseless enough,
which sent me fencing and parrying strangers on my guard.

(01:54):
I say, Alister, my dear chap, he began, you ought
to get out of this place and go up to
town and knock about a bit. You really ought, you know, yes,
I replied, and get poisoned at the hotels by bad
food and at the clubs by bad talk. I suppose no,
thank you, and let me say that your care for
my health enervates me. Well. You can do as you

(02:15):
like says, he rapping with his feet on the floor.
I'm hanged if I stay here after tomorrow, I'll be
staring mad if I do. He was my last visitor.
Some weeks after his departure, I was sitting in the
library with my drops of blood by me. I had
got my theory nearly perfect by this time, but there
was one difficulty. The figure, which I had ever before me,

(02:37):
was the figure of an old woman, with her hair
divided in the middle, and her hair fell to her shoulders,
white on one side and black on the other. She
was a very complete old woman, but alas she was eyeless,
and when I tried to construct the eyes, she would
shrivel and rot in my sight. But to night I
was thinking, thinking as I had never thought before, and

(03:01):
the eyes were just creeping into the head, when I
heard a terrible crash outside, as if some heavy substance
had fallen of a sudden. The door was flung open,
and two maid servants entered. They glanced at the rug
under my chair, and at that they turned a sick
white cried on God, and huddled out, how dare you
enter the library in this manner? I demanded sternly. No

(03:25):
answer came back from them, so I started in pursuit.
I found all the servants in the house gathered in
a knot at the end of the passage. Missus Pebble
I said smartly to the housekeeper, I want those two
women discharged tomorrow. It's an outrage. You ought to be
more careful. But she was not attending to me. Her
face was distorted with terror. Ah dear, ah dear, She went,

(03:50):
We had all better go to the library together, says
she to the others. Am I master of my own house,
Missus Pebble, I inquired, bringing my knuckles down with a
bang on the table. None of them seemed to see
me or hear me. I might as well have been
shrieking in a desert. I followed them down the passage
and forbade them to enter the library. But they trooped

(04:13):
past me and stood with a clutter around the hearth rug.
Then three or four of them began dragging and lifting,
as if they were lifting a helpless body, and stumbled
with their imaginary burthen over to a sofa. Old Solmes,
the butler stood near poor young gentleman. He said, with
a sob I've known him since he was a baby,

(04:35):
and to think of him being dead like this, and
so young too. I crossed the room. What is all this, Solmes,
I cried, shaking him roughly by the shoulders. I am
not dead. I am here here. As he did not stir,
I got a little scared. Palms, old friend, I called,
don't you know me, don't you know the little boy

(04:57):
you used to play with? Say I am not dead, Solms,
Please Solmes. He stooped down and kissed the sofa. I
think one of the men ought to ride over to
the village for the doctor, mister Solmes, says Missus Pebble,
and he shuffled out to give the order. Now this
doctor was an ignorant dog whom I had been forced

(05:17):
to exclude from the house because he went about proclaiming
his belief in a saving God at the same time
that he proclaimed himself a man of science. He I
was resolved should never cross my threshold. And I followed
Missus Pebble through the house, screaming out prohibition. But I
did not even catch a groan from her, not a

(05:38):
nod of the head nor cast of the eye to
show that she had heard. I met the doctor at
the door of the library. Well, I sneered, throwing my
hand in his face. Have you come to teach me
some new prayers? He brushed past me as if he
had not felt the blow, and knelt down by the sofa.
Rupture of a vessel on the brain, I think, he

(05:59):
says to Solmes and Missus Pebble after a short moment.
He has been dead some hours, Poor fellow, you had
better telegraph for his sister, and I will send up
the undertaker to arrange the body. You liar, I yelled, you,
whining liar. Have you the insolence to tell my servants
that I am dead when you see me here face

(06:20):
to face? He was far in the passage, with Solmes
and Missus Pebble at his heels. Ere I had ended,
and not one of the three turned round. All that
night I sat in the library. Strangely enough, I had
no wish to sleep, nor during the time that followed,
had I any craving to eat. In the morning, the

(06:41):
men came, and although I ordered them out, they proceeded
to minister about something I could not see. So all
day I stayed in the library or wandered about the house,
And at night the men came again, bringing with them
a coffin. Then, in my humor, thinking it shame that
so fine a cough and should be empty, I lay

(07:01):
the night in it and slept a soft, dreamless sleep,
the softest sleep I have ever slept. And when the
men came the next day, I rested still, and the
undertaker shaped me a strange valet. On the evening after that,
I was coming downstairs when I noted some luggage in

(07:21):
the hall, and so learned that my sister had arrived.
I had not seen this woman since her marriage, and
I loathed her more than I loathed any creature in
this ill organized world. She was very beautiful, I think,
tall and dark and straight as a ramrod, and she
had an unruly passion for scandal and dress. I suppose

(07:42):
the reason I disliked her so intensely was that she
had a habit of making one aware of her presence
when she was several yards off. At half past nine o'clock,
my sister came down to the library in a very
charming wrap, and I soon found that she was as
insensible to my presence as the others. I trembled with

(08:04):
rage to see him kneel down by the coffin, my coffin,
But when she had bent over to kiss the pillow,
I threw away control. A knife, which had been used
to cut string, was laying upon a table. I seized
it and drove it into her neck. She fled from
the room, screaming, Come, Come, she cried, her voice quivering

(08:26):
with anguish. The corpse is bleeding from the nose. Then
I cursed her. On the evening of the third day,
there was a heavy fall of snow. About eleven o'clock,
I observed the house was filled with blacks and mutes,
and folk of the country who came for the obsequies.
I went into the library and sat still and waited.

(08:48):
Soon came the men, and they closed the lid of
the coffin and bore it out on their shoulders. And
yet I sat, feeling rather sadly that something of mine
had been taken away. I could not quite think what
for half an hour, perhaps dreaming, dreaming, And then I

(09:10):
glided to the hall door. There was no trace left
of the funeral, but after a while I sighted a
black thread winding slowly across the white plain. I am
not dead, I moaned, and rubbed my face in the
pure snow and tossed it on my neck and hair.
Sweet God, I am not dead, and of when I

(09:37):
was dead,