August 14, 2024 • 45 mins
A parting gift from me – 3 short readings that haven’t been released on the main feed before. You’ll hear A Little Place Off the Edgware Road by Graham Greene, followed by Sredni Vashtar by Saki, and The Man and the Snake by Ambroise Bierce.
The recording for Sredni Vashar is a few years old, so apologies for the dip in audio quality here.
The recording for Sredni Vashar is a few years old, so apologies for the dip in audio quality here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello again. Here's a little extra bonus from me, some
readings that haven't been released on the main feed before.
The first one up a little place off the Edgeware Road,
and it's by Graham Green, and I hope you enjoy it.
(00:54):
Craven came up past the Achilles Statue in the thin
summer rain. It was only just aff to lighting up time,
but already the cars were lined up all the way
to the marble arch, and the sharp acquisitive faces peered out,
ready for a good time with anything possible which came along.
Craven went bitterly by, with the collar of his macintosh
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tight round his throat. It was one of his bad days.
All the way up the park, he was reminded of passion,
but he needed money for love. All that a poor
man could get was lust. Love needed a good suit,
a car, a flat somewhere or a good hotel. He
needed to be wrapped in cellophane. He was well aware
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all the time of the stringy tide beneath the macintosh
and the frayed sleeves. He carried his body about with
him like something he hated. There were moments of happiness
in the British museum reading room, but the body called
him back. He bore as his only sentiment, the memory
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of ugly deeds committed on park chairs. People talked as
if the body died too soon. That wasn't the trouble
to Craven at all. The body kept alive, and through
the glittering, tinsely rain, on his way to a rostrum,
he passed a little man in a black suit carrying
a banner the body shall rise again. He remembered a
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dream from which three times he had woken trembling. He
had been alone in the huge, dark, cavernous burying ground
of all the world. Every grave was connected to another
under the ground. The globe was honeycombed for the sake
of the dead, And on each occasion of dreaming he
had discovered a knew the horrifying fact that the body
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doesn't decay. There were no worms and dissolution under the ground.
The world was littered with masses of dead flesh, ready
to rise again, with their warts and boils and a ruptions.
He had lain in bed and remembered as tidings of
great joy that the body, after all was corrupt. He
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came up into the edgeware road, walking fast. The guardsmen
were out in couples, great languid, elongated beasts, their bodies
like worms in tight trousers. He hated them, and he
hated his hatred because he knew what it was envy.
He was aware that every one of them had a
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better body than himself. Indigestion increased his stomach. He felt
sure his breath was foul, but who could he ask?
Sometimes he secretly touched himself here and therewith scent. It
was one of his ugliest secrets. Why should he be
asked to believe in the resurrection of this body that
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he wanted to forget? Sometimes he prayed at night. The
hint of religious belief was longdged in his breast, like
a worm and a nut, that his body, at any rate,
should never rise again. He knew all the side streets
around the Edgeware Road only too well. When a mood
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was on, he simply walked until he tired, squinting at
his own image in the windows of Salmon and Gluckstein
and the ABC's. So he noticed at once the posters
outside the disused theater in Culpa Road. They were not
unusual for sometimes Berkley's Bank, dramatic society would hire the
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place for an evening, or an obscure film would be
trade shown there. The theater had been built in nineteen
twenty by an optimist. He thought the cheapness of the
site would more than counterbalance its disadvantage of lying a
mile outside the conventional theater zone. But no play had
ever succeeded, and it was soon left to gather rat
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holes and spiderwebs. The covering of the seats was never
a moved, and all that ever happened to the place
was the temporary false life of an amateur play or
a trade show. Cravens stopped and read. There were still Optimists.
It appeared, even in nineteen thirty nine for nobody but
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the blindest Optimists could hope to make money out of
the place as the home of silent film. The first
season of Primitives was announced, a high brow phrase there
would never be a second. Well, the seats were cheap,
and it was perhaps worth a shilling to him now
that he was tired to get in somewhere out of
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the rain, craven bought a ticket and went into the
darkness of the stalls. In the dead darkness, a piano
tinkled something monotonous, recalling Mendelssohn. He sat down in a
gangway seat and could immediately feel the emptiness all around him. No,
there would never be another season. On the screening, a
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large woman in a kind of toga wrung her hands,
then wobbled with curious, jerky movements towards a couch. There
she sat and stared out like a sheep dog, distractedly
through her loose and black and stringy hair. Sometimes she
seemed to dissolve altogether into dots and flashes and wiggly lines.
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A subtitle said, Pompelia, betrayed by her beloved Augustus, seeks
an end to her troubles. Craven began at last to
see a dim waste of stalls. There were not twenty
people in the place, a few couples whispering with their
heads touching, and a number of lonely men like himself,
wearing the same uniform of the cheap macintosh. They lay
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about at intervals like corpses. And again Craven's obsession returned
the toothache of horror. He thought miserably, I am going mad,
Though other people don't feel like this, even a disused
theater reminded him of those interminable caverns where the bodies
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were waiting for resurrection. A slave to passion, Augustus calls
for yet more wine. The gross, middle aged Teutonic actor
lay on an elbow with his arm around a large
woman in a shift. The spring song tinkled ineptly on,
and the screen flickered like indigestion. Somebody felt his way
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through the darkness, scrabbling past Craven's knees. A small man.
Craven experienced the unpleasant feeling of a large beard brushing
his mouth. Then there was a long sigh as the
newcomer found the next chair, and on the screen events
had moved with such rapidity that Pompelia had already stabbed herself.
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Al So Craven supposed and lay still and bosom among
her weeping slaves. A low, breathless voice sighed close to
Craven's ear. What's happened? Is she asleep? No? Dead? Murdered?
The voice asked, with a keen interest. I don't think
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so stabbed herself. Nobody said hush. Nobody was enough interested
to object to a voice. They drooped among the empty
chairs and attitudes of weary inattention. The film wasn't nearly
over yet. There were children somehow to be considered. Was
it all going on to another generation? But the small
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bearded man in the next seat seemed to be interested
only in Pompilia's death. The fact that he had come
in at that moment apparently fascinated him. Craven heard the
word coincidence twice, and he went on talking to himself
about it in low, out of breath tones, absurd and
you come to think of it, and then no blood
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at all. Craven didn't listen. He sat with his hands
clasped between his knees, facing the fact, as he had
faced it so often before, that he was in danger
of going mad. He had to pull himself up, take
a holiday, see a doctor. God knew what infection moved
in his veins. He became aware that his bearded neighbor
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had addressed him directly. What he asked, impatiently, what did
you say? There would be more blood than you can imagine?
What are you talking about? When the man spoke to him,
he sprayed him with damp breath. There was a little
bubble in his speech, like an impediment. He said, when
you murder a man, this was a woman, Craven said impatiently.
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That wouldn't make any difference. It's got nothing to do
with murder anyway. That doesn't signify. They seemed to have
got into an absurd and meaningless wrangle in the dark.
I know you see, the little bearded man said, in
a tone of enormous conceit. Know what about such things?
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He said, with guarded ambiguity. Craven turned and tried to
see him clearly. Was he mad? Was this a warning
of what he might become babbling incomprehensibly to strangers and cinemas,
He thought, By God, no, trying to see I'll be
saying yet I will be sane. He could make out
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nothing but a small black hump of body. The man
was talking to himself again, he said, talk such talk.
I say, it's all for fifty pounds, But that's a lie.
Reasons and reasons they always take the first reason. Never
look behind thirty years of reason, Such simpletons, he added again,
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in that tone of breathlessness and unbounded conceit. So this
was madness so long as he could realize that he
must be sane himself relatively speaking, not so saying, perhaps
as the seekers in the park or the guardsman in
the Edgeway road, but saner than this. It was like
a message of encouragement. As the piano tinkled on. Then
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again the little man turned and sprayed him killed herself,
you say, But who's to know that? It's not a
mere question of what hand holds the knife? He laid
a hand suddenly and confidingly on Craven's. It was damp
and sticky. Craven said, with a horror as possible. Meaning
came to him. What are you talking about? I know,
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the little man said. A man in my position gets
to know almost everything. What is your position? Craven asked,
feeling the sticky hand on his trying to make up
his mind whether he was being hysterical or not. After all,
there were a dozen explanations. It might be treacal, a
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pretty desperate one, you'd say. Sometimes the voice almost died
in the throat. All together, something incomprehensible had happened on
the screen. Take your eyes from these early pictures for
a moment, And the plot had proceeded on at such
a pace. Only the actors moved slowly and jerkily. A
young woman in a night dress seemed to be weeping
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in the arms of a Roman centurion. Craven hadn't seen
either of them before seven am. Not afraid of death,
Lucius in your arms. The little man began to titter knowingly.
He was talking to himself again. It would have been
easy to ignore him altogether if it had not been
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for those sticky hands, which he now removed. Seemed to
be fumbling at the seat in front of him. His
head had a habit of lolling sideways, like an idiot child's,
he said, distinctively and irrelevantly'swater tragedy? What was that? Craven said,
He had seen those words on a poster before before
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when he entered the park. What about the tragedy? I
think they call color muse bayswater. Suddenly the little man
began to cough, turning his face towards Craven and coughing
right at him. It was like vindictiveness. The voice said,
let me see my umbrella. He was getting up. You
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didn't have an umbrella. My umbrella, he repeated, my, and
he seemed to lose the word altogether. He went scrabbling
out past Craven's knees. Craven let him go, but before
he had reached the billowy, dusty curtains of the exit,
the screen went blank and bright. The film had broken,
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and somebody immediately turned up one dirt choked chandelier above
the circle. It shone down just enough for Craven to
see the smear on his hands. This wasn't hysteria, this
was fact. He wasn't mad. He had sat next to
a madman who in some muse what was the name
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Colon Colin? Craven jumped up and made his own way out.
The black curtain flapped in his mouth, but he was
too late. The man had gone, and there were three
turnings to choose from. He chose instead a telephone box
and dialed with a sense odd for him of sanity
and decision nine to nine nine. It didn't take two
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minutes to get the right department. They were interested and
very kind. Yes, there had been a murder in a muse,
colored muse. A man's neck had been cut from ear
to ear with a bread knife, a horrid crime. He
began to tell them how he had sat next to
the murderer in a cinema. There couldn't be anyone else.
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There was blood on his hands, and he remembered with
repulsion as he spoke the damp beard, there must have
been a terrible lot of blood. But the voice from
the interrupted him. Oh no, it was saying, we have
the murderer, no doubt about it. It's the body that's disappeared.
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Craven put down the receiver. He said to himself aloud,
Why should this happen to me? Why to me? He
was back in the horror of his dream. The squalid,
darkening street outside was only one of the innumerable tunnels
connecting grave to grave where the imperishable bodies lay. He said,
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it was a dream, a dream, and leaning forward, he
saw in the mirror above the telephone his own face
sprinkled by tiny drops of blood, like dew from a
scent spray. He began to scream, I won't go mad,
I won't go mad. I'm sane, I won't go mad.
(15:58):
Presently a little crowd began to collect, and soon a
policeman came next up. This story is called shredny Vashtar,
and it's Bisaki. Conradin was ten years old and the
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doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would
not live another five years. The doctor was silky in
her feet and counted for little, but his opinion was
endorsed by Missus de Ropp, who counted for nearly everything.
Missus de Ropp was Conrardin's cousin and guardian, and in
his eyes she represented those three fifths of the world
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that are necessary and disagreeable and real. The other two fifths,
in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in
himself and his imagination. One of these days, Conrardin supposed
he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary
things such as illnesses and coddling restrictions, and drawn out dulness.
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Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness,
he would have succumbed long ago. Missus du rop would never,
in her honestest moments, had confessed to herself that she
disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that
thwarting him for his good was a duty which she
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did not find particularly irksome. Garradin hated her with a
desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such
few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an
added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing
to his guardian and from the realm of his imagination.
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She was locked out, an unclean thing which she should
find no entrance. In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by
so many windows that were ready to open with a
message not to do this or that, or a reminder
that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few
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fruit trees that it contained were set jealously apart from
his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind,
blooming in an arid waste. It would probably have been
difficult to find a market gardener who would have offered
ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however,
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almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool
shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found
a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of
a playroom and a cathedral. He peopled it with a
legion of familiar phantoms evoked partly from fragments of history,
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and partly from his own brain. But it also boasted
two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived ragged,
plumaged hood and hen, on which the boy lavished, an
affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the
gloom stood a large hutch divided into two compartments, one
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of which was fronted with closed eyron bars. This was
the abode of a large pole cap ferret, which a
friendly butcher boy had once smuggled, caged and all into
its present quarters in exchange for a long secreted horde
of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe,
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sharp fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession.
Its very presence in the tool shed was a secret
and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge
of the woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin, And
one day, out of heaven knows what material he spun
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the beast a wonderful net, and from that moment it
grew into a god and a religion. The woman indulged
in religion once a week at church nearby, and took
Conradin with her, but to him the church service was
an alien right. In the House of Rimen. Every Thursday,
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in the dim and musty silence of the tool shed,
he worshiped with a mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the
wooden hutch where dwelt. Shredny Vashtar, the Great ferret. Red
flowers in the season and scarlet berries in the winter
time were offered it his shrine, for he was a
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god who laid some special stress on the fierce, impatient
side of things, as opposed to the woman's religion, which
as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths
in the contrary direction. And on great festivals, powdered nutmeg
was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature
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of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen.
These festivals were of irregular occurrence and were chiefly appointed
to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Missus
Duop suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conrardin kept
up the festival during the entire three days, and almost
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succeeded in persuading himself that shredney Vashtar was personally responsible
for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day,
the supply of nutmeg would have given out. The Hood
and Hen was never drawn into the cult of Shredney Vashtar.
Conradin had long ago settled, and she was an Anabaptist.
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He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as
to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that
it was dashing and not very respectable. De rot was
the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.
After a while, Conradin's absorption in the tool shed began
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to attract the notice of his guardian. It's not good
for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,
she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced
that the Hood and Hen had been sold and taken
away over night. With her short sighted eyes, she peered
at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow,
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which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of
excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conraardin said nothing. There was
nothing to be said. Something, perhaps in his wide set face,
gave her a momentary qualm for at tea that afternoon,
there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she
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usually banned on the grounds that it was bad for him,
also because the making of it gave trouble, deadly offense
in the middle class em And I I thought you
liked toast, she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that
he did not touch it, sometimes, said Conradin in the shed.
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That evening there was an innovation in the worship of
the Hutch god. Conradin had been wont to chant his
praises tonight he asked a boone, do one thing for me,
shredney Vashtar. The thing was not specified, as shredney Vashtar
was a god he must be supposed to know. And,
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choking back a sob as he looked at that other
empty corner, Conradin went back to the world he so hated,
And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom,
and every evening in the dusk of the tool shed,
Conradin's bitter litany went up, do one thing for me,
shredney Vashtar. Missus Durrot noticed that the visit to the
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shed did not cease, and one day she made a
further journey of inspection. What are you keeping in that
locked huch, she asked, I believe it's guinea pigs. I'll
have them all cleared away. Conradin shut his lips tight,
but the woman ransacked his bedroom. So she found the
carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed
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to complete her discovery. There was a cold afternoon, and
Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From
the furthest window of the dining room, the door of
the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of
the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the
woman enter, and then he imagined her opening the door
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of the sacred hutch and peering down with short sighted
eyes into the thick straw bed, whereas God lay hidden.
Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience.
And Conradin fervently breathed this prayer for the last time.
But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe.
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He knew that the woman would come out presently with
that purse smile he loathed so well on her face,
and that in an hour or two the gardener would
carry away his wonderful God, a god no longer but
a simple brown ferret in a hutch. He knew that
the woman would triumph always as she triumph now, and
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that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering
and domineering and superior wisdom. So one day nothing would
matter much more with him, and the doctor would be
proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat,
he began to chant loudly and defiantly, the hymn of
his threatened idol shredny vashtar went forth. His thoughts were
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red thoughts, and his teeth were white. His enemies called
for peace, but he brought them death, shredny vashtar the beautiful.
And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and
drew closer to the window pane. The door of the
shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and
the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but
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they slipped by. Nevertheless, he watched the starlings running and
flying in little parties across the lawn. He counted them
over and over again, with one eye always on the
swinging door. A sour faced made came in to lay
the table for tea, and still, Conradin stood and waited
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and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart,
and now a look of triumph began to blaze in
his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat.
Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once
again the pain of victory and devastation, and presently his
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eyes were rewarded. Out through that doorway came a long, low,
yellow and brown beast, with eyes a blink at the
waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of
jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great
polecat ferret made its way down to a small brook
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at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment,
then crossed a little plank bridge, and was lost to
sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of shredny
vashtar tears. Ready, said the sour faced maid. Where is
the mistress? She went down to the shed some time ago,
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said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her
mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting fork out of
the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece
of bread, And during the toasting of it, and the
buttering of it with much butter, and the slow enjoyment
of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences
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which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining room door.
The loud, foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus
of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps
and hurried embassies for outside help. And then after a lull,
the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who
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bore a heavy burden into the house. Who will ever
break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the
life of me, explained the shrill voice. And while they
debated the matter amongst themselves, Conradin made himself another piece
of toast. And finally there's one is called the Man
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and the Snake by ambrose Bius of veritable report, and
attests that of so many that there be now of
wise and learned none to gain. Say it that ye, serpent,
his eye hath a magnetic property, that whoso falleth into
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its vision is drawn forwards in despite of his will
and perisheth miserably by ye creature. His bite stretched at
ease upon a sofa in gown and slippers, Arker Breighton
smiled as he read the foregoing sentence in Old Morrister's
Marvels of Science. The only marvel in the matter, he
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said to himself, is that the wise and learned in
Morrister's day should have believed such nonsense as is rejected
by most of even the ignorant in ours. A train
of reflection followed, For Breyton was a man of thought,
and he unconsciously lowered his book without altering the direction
of his eyes. As soon as the volume had gone
below the line of sight, something in an obscure corner
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of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings. What
he saw in the shadow under his bed was two
small points of light, apparently an inch apart. They might
have been reflections of the gas jet above him in
metal nail heads. He gave them but little thought and
resumed his reading. A moment later, something, some impulse which
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did not occur to him to analyze, impelled him to
lower the book again and seek for what he saw
before the points of light were still there. They seemed
to have become brighter than before, shining with a grayish
luster that he had not at first observed. He thought, too,
that they might have moved a trifle were the somewhat nearer.
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They were still too much in shadow, however, to reveal
their nature and origin to an indolent attention, And again
he resumed his reading. Suddenly, some thing and the text
suggested a thought that made him start and drop the
book for the third time to the side of the sofa,
whence escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor.
Back upward. Breton half risen were staring intently into the
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obscurity beneath the bed, where the point of light shone
with it seemed to him and added fire. His attention
was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. It disclosed,
almost directly under the foot rail of the bed, the
coils of a large serpent. The points of light were
its eyes. Its horrible head, thrust flatly forth from the
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innermost coil and resting upon the outermost, was directly straight
toward him, the definition of the wide, brutal jaw and
the idiot like forehead serving to show the direction of
its malevolent gaze. The eyes were no longer merely luminous points.
They looked into his own with a meaning, a malign significance.
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Part two. A snake in a bedroom of a modern
city dwelling of the better sort is happily not so
common a phenomena as to make explanation altogether needless. Harker Breton,
a bachelor of thirty five, a scholar, idler and something
of an athlete, rich, popular, and of sound health, had
returned to San Francisco from all manner of remote and
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unfamiliar countries. His tastes, always a trifle luxurious, had taken
on and added exuberance from long privation, and the resources
of even the Castle Hotel being inadequate to their perfect gratification,
he had gladly accepted the hospitality of his friend, doctor Druring,
the distinguished scientist. Doctor Druring's house, a large, old fashioned
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one in what is now an obscure quarter of the city,
had now to invisible aspect of proud reserve. It plainly
would not associate with the continuous elements of its altered environment,
and appeared to have developed some of the eccentricities which
come of isolation. One of these was a wing, conspicuously
irrelevant in point of architecture, and no less rebellious in
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matter of purpose, for it was a combination of laboratory,
menagerie and museum. It was here that the Doctor indulged
the scientific side of his nature in the study of
such forms of animal life as engaged his interest and
comforted his taste, which, it must be confessed, ran rather
to the lower types, for one of the higher, nimbly
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and sweetly to recommend itself on to his gentle senses,
it had at least to retain certain rudimentary characteristics, allying
it to such dragons of the prime as toads and snakes.
His scientific sympathies were distinctly Reptilian. He loved nature's vulgarians,
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and described himself as the Zola of zen zoology. His
wife and daughters, not having the advantage to share his
enlightened curiosity regarding the works and ways of our ill
starred fellow creatures, were with needless austerity, excluded from what
he called the snakery, and doomed to companionship with their
own kind. Though to soften the rigors of their lot
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he had permitted them out of his great wealth, to
outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of their surroundings, and
to shine with the superior splendor architecturally and in point
of furnishing. The Snakery had a severe simplicity, befitting the
humble circumstances of its occupants, many of whom, indeed could
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not safely have been entrusted with the liberty that is
necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury. They had the
troublesome peculiarity of being alive in their own apartments. However,
they were under as little personal restraint as was compatible
with their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing wor
on another. And as Breyton had thoughtfully been apprized, it
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was more than a tradition that some of them had,
at divers times been found in parts of the premises
where it would have embarrassed them to explain their presence.
Despite the Snakery and its uncanny associations, which indeed he
gave little attention, Breton found life at Drawing Mansion very
much to his mind. Part three. Beyond the smart shock
(35:30):
of surprise and the shudder of mere loathing, mister Breton
was not greatly affected. His first thought was to ring
the call bell and bring a servant, But although the
bell court dangled with an easy reach, he made no
movement toward it. It had occurred to his mind that
the act might subject him to the suspicion of fear,
(35:50):
which he certainly did not feel. He was more keenly
conscious of the onpongerous nature of the situation than affected
by its perils. It was revolting, but absurd. The reptile
was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar. Its length,
he could only conjecture. The body at the largest visible
(36:11):
part seemed about as thick as his forearm. In what
way was it dangerous? If in any way was it venomous?
Was it a constrictor? His knowledge of nature's danger signals
did not enable him to say. He had never deciphered
the code. If not dangerous, the creature was at least offensive.
(36:32):
It was de trop matter, out of place and impertinence.
The gem was unworthy of the setting, even the barbarous
taste of our time and country, which had loaded the
walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture,
and the furniture with bricker brac had not quite fitted
the place for this bit of savage life of the jungle.
(36:53):
Besides insupportable thought, the exhalations of its breath mingled with
the atmosphere which he himself was. These thoughts shape themselves
with greater or less definition in Brayton's mind, and begot action.
The process is what we call consideration and decision. It
is thus that we are wise and unwise. It is
(37:14):
thus that the withered leaf in an autumn breeze shows
greater or less intelligence than its fellows falling upon the
land or upon the lake. Secret of human action is
an open one, something that contracts our muscles. Does it
matter if we give to the propriety molecular changes the
name of will Breton rose to his feet and prepared
(37:35):
to back softly away from the snake, without disturbing it,
if possible, and through the door men retire so from
the presence of the great, For greatness is power, and
power is a menace. He knew that he could walk
backward without error should the monster follow. The taste which
had plastered the wars with paintings, had consistently supplied a
(37:56):
rack of murderous oriental weapons from which he could snap
one to suit the occasion. In the meantime, the snake's
eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than before. Brayton
lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward.
That moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.
(38:16):
I am accounted brave, he thought, is bravery then no
more than pride? Because there are none to witness the shame?
Shall I retreat? He was steadying himself with his right
hand upon the back of a chair, his foot suspended. Nonsense,
he said aloud. I'm not so great a coward as
to fear to seem to myself afraid. He lifted the
(38:39):
foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee, and
thrust it sharply to the floor, an inch in front
of the other. He could not think how that occurred
a trial where the left footed the same result. It
was again in advance of the right. The hand upon
the chair back was grasping it. The arm was straight,
reaching somewhat backward. One might have said that he was
(39:00):
reluctant to lose his hold. The snake's malignant head was
still thrust forth from the inner coilers before the neck level.
It had not moved, but its eyes were now electric sparks,
radiating an infinity of luminous needles. The man had an
ashy pallor. Again he took a step forward, and another,
partly dragging the chair, which, when finally released, fell upon
(39:23):
the floor with a crash. The man groaned. The snake
made neither sound nor motion, but its eyes were two
dazzling suns. The reptile itself was wholly concealed by them.
They gave off enlarging rings of rich and vivid colors, which,
at their greatest expansion successively vanished like soap bubbles. They
(39:45):
seemed to approach his very face, and anon were an
immeasurable distance away. He heard somewhere the continuous throbbing of
a great drum, with desultory bursts of far music, in
conceit avably sweet, like the tones of an Aolian harp.
He knew it for the sunrise melody of Memnon's statute,
(40:09):
and thought he stood in the nile side reeds, hearing
with exalted sense that immortal anthem. Through the silence of
the centuries. The music ceased, rather, it became and insensible
degrees the distant roll of a threatening thunderstorm. A landscape
glittering with sun and rain stretched before him, arched with
(40:32):
a vivid rainbow, framing in its giant curve a hundred
visible cities. In the middle distance, a vast serpent wearing
a crown, reared its head out of its voluminous convulsions
and looked at him with his dead mother's eyes. Suddenly,
this enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly upward, like the
(40:57):
drop scene at a theater, and vanished in a blank.
Something struck him a hard blow upon the face and breast.
He had fallen to the floor. The blood ran from
his broken nose and his bruised lips. For a time
he was dazed and stunned, and lay with closed eyes,
his face against the floor. In a few moments he
(41:21):
had recovered, and then knew that this fall, by withdrawing
his eyes, had broken the spell that held him. He
felt that by now, by keeping his gaze averted, he
would be unable to retreat. But the thought of the
serpent within a few feet of his head he had unseen,
perhaps in the very act of springing upon him, throwing
(41:42):
its coils about his throat, was too horrible. He lifted
his head, stared again into those baleful eyes, and was
again in bondage. The snake had not moved, and appeared
somewhat to have lost its power upon the imagination. The
gorgeous illusions of a few moments before were not repeat
Beneath that flat and brainless brow, its black, beady eyes
(42:05):
simply glittered as at first, with an expression unspeakably malignant.
Was as if the creature, assured of its triumph, had
determined to practice no more alluring wiles. Now ensued a
fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor within a
yard of his enemy, raised the upper part of his
body upon his elbows, his head thrown back, his legs
(42:27):
extended to their full length. His face was white between
its stains of blood. His eyes were strained open to
their utmost expansion. There was froth upon his lips. It
dripped off in flakes. Strong convulsions ran through his body,
making almost serpentile undulations. He bent himself at the waist,
(42:48):
shifting his legs from side to side, and every moment
left him a little nearer to the snake. He thrust
his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantly advanced
upon his elbows. Part four, Doctor Drowing and his wife
sat in the library. The scientist was in rare good humor.
I have obtained by exchange with another collector, he said,
(43:12):
a splendid specimen of the ohio fagus. And what might
that be? The lady inquired, with a somewhat languid interest,
Why bless my soul? What profound ignorance, my dear? A
man who ascertains after marriage that his wife does not
know Greek as entitled to a divorce? The ophio fhagus
is a snake that eats other snakes. I hope it
(43:34):
will eat all yours, she said, absently, shifting the lamp.
But how does it get other snakes by charming them?
I suppose. Ugh, it's just like you, dear, said the doctor,
with an affection of petulance. You know how irritating to
me is any allusion to that vulgar superstition about a
snake's power of fascination. The conversation was interrupted by a
(43:55):
mighty cry, which rang through the silent house, like the
voice of a demon shouting in a tomb. Again and
yet again, it sounded with terrible distinctness. They sprang to
their feet. The man confused, the lady pale and speechless
with fright. Almost before the echoes of the last cry
had died away, the doctor was out of the room,
springing up the stairs two steps at a time. In
(44:17):
the corridor in front of Breton's chamber, he met some
servants who had come from the upper floor. Together they
rushed at the door without knocking. It was unfastened and
gave way. Breton lay upon the floor on his stomach, dead.
His head and arms were partly concealed under the foot
(44:38):
rail of the bed. They pulled the body away, turning
it upon the back. The face was dawned with blood
and froth. The eyes were wide open, staring at dreadful sight.
Died in a fit, said the scientist, bending his knee
and placing his hand upon the heart. While in that position,
he chanced to look under the bed. Good God, he added,
(45:01):
how did that thing get in here? He reached under
the bed, pulled out the snake, and flung it, still coiled,
to the center of the room, whence a harsh shuffling sound.
It slid across the polished floor till it stopped by
the wall, where it lay without motion. It was a
stuffed snake. Its eyes were two shoe buttons.
Hello again. Here's a little extra bonus from me, some
readings that haven't been released on the main feed before.
The first one up a little place off the Edgeware Road,
and it's by Graham Green, and I hope you enjoy it.
(00:54):
Craven came up past the Achilles Statue in the thin
summer rain. It was only just aff to lighting up time,
but already the cars were lined up all the way
to the marble arch, and the sharp acquisitive faces peered out,
ready for a good time with anything possible which came along.
Craven went bitterly by, with the collar of his macintosh
(01:16):
tight round his throat. It was one of his bad days.
All the way up the park, he was reminded of passion,
but he needed money for love. All that a poor
man could get was lust. Love needed a good suit,
a car, a flat somewhere or a good hotel. He
needed to be wrapped in cellophane. He was well aware
(01:39):
all the time of the stringy tide beneath the macintosh
and the frayed sleeves. He carried his body about with
him like something he hated. There were moments of happiness
in the British museum reading room, but the body called
him back. He bore as his only sentiment, the memory
(01:59):
of ugly deeds committed on park chairs. People talked as
if the body died too soon. That wasn't the trouble
to Craven at all. The body kept alive, and through
the glittering, tinsely rain, on his way to a rostrum,
he passed a little man in a black suit carrying
a banner the body shall rise again. He remembered a
(02:23):
dream from which three times he had woken trembling. He
had been alone in the huge, dark, cavernous burying ground
of all the world. Every grave was connected to another
under the ground. The globe was honeycombed for the sake
of the dead, And on each occasion of dreaming he
had discovered a knew the horrifying fact that the body
(02:46):
doesn't decay. There were no worms and dissolution under the ground.
The world was littered with masses of dead flesh, ready
to rise again, with their warts and boils and a ruptions.
He had lain in bed and remembered as tidings of
great joy that the body, after all was corrupt. He
(03:11):
came up into the edgeware road, walking fast. The guardsmen
were out in couples, great languid, elongated beasts, their bodies
like worms in tight trousers. He hated them, and he
hated his hatred because he knew what it was envy.
He was aware that every one of them had a
(03:32):
better body than himself. Indigestion increased his stomach. He felt
sure his breath was foul, but who could he ask?
Sometimes he secretly touched himself here and therewith scent. It
was one of his ugliest secrets. Why should he be
asked to believe in the resurrection of this body that
(03:53):
he wanted to forget? Sometimes he prayed at night. The
hint of religious belief was longdged in his breast, like
a worm and a nut, that his body, at any rate,
should never rise again. He knew all the side streets
around the Edgeware Road only too well. When a mood
(04:14):
was on, he simply walked until he tired, squinting at
his own image in the windows of Salmon and Gluckstein
and the ABC's. So he noticed at once the posters
outside the disused theater in Culpa Road. They were not
unusual for sometimes Berkley's Bank, dramatic society would hire the
(04:34):
place for an evening, or an obscure film would be
trade shown there. The theater had been built in nineteen
twenty by an optimist. He thought the cheapness of the
site would more than counterbalance its disadvantage of lying a
mile outside the conventional theater zone. But no play had
ever succeeded, and it was soon left to gather rat
(04:55):
holes and spiderwebs. The covering of the seats was never
a moved, and all that ever happened to the place
was the temporary false life of an amateur play or
a trade show. Cravens stopped and read. There were still Optimists.
It appeared, even in nineteen thirty nine for nobody but
(05:15):
the blindest Optimists could hope to make money out of
the place as the home of silent film. The first
season of Primitives was announced, a high brow phrase there
would never be a second. Well, the seats were cheap,
and it was perhaps worth a shilling to him now
that he was tired to get in somewhere out of
(05:37):
the rain, craven bought a ticket and went into the
darkness of the stalls. In the dead darkness, a piano
tinkled something monotonous, recalling Mendelssohn. He sat down in a
gangway seat and could immediately feel the emptiness all around him. No,
there would never be another season. On the screening, a
(06:00):
large woman in a kind of toga wrung her hands,
then wobbled with curious, jerky movements towards a couch. There
she sat and stared out like a sheep dog, distractedly
through her loose and black and stringy hair. Sometimes she
seemed to dissolve altogether into dots and flashes and wiggly lines.
(06:20):
A subtitle said, Pompelia, betrayed by her beloved Augustus, seeks
an end to her troubles. Craven began at last to
see a dim waste of stalls. There were not twenty
people in the place, a few couples whispering with their
heads touching, and a number of lonely men like himself,
wearing the same uniform of the cheap macintosh. They lay
(06:44):
about at intervals like corpses. And again Craven's obsession returned
the toothache of horror. He thought miserably, I am going mad,
Though other people don't feel like this, even a disused
theater reminded him of those interminable caverns where the bodies
(07:05):
were waiting for resurrection. A slave to passion, Augustus calls
for yet more wine. The gross, middle aged Teutonic actor
lay on an elbow with his arm around a large
woman in a shift. The spring song tinkled ineptly on,
and the screen flickered like indigestion. Somebody felt his way
(07:26):
through the darkness, scrabbling past Craven's knees. A small man.
Craven experienced the unpleasant feeling of a large beard brushing
his mouth. Then there was a long sigh as the
newcomer found the next chair, and on the screen events
had moved with such rapidity that Pompelia had already stabbed herself.
(07:51):
Al So Craven supposed and lay still and bosom among
her weeping slaves. A low, breathless voice sighed close to
Craven's ear. What's happened? Is she asleep? No? Dead? Murdered?
The voice asked, with a keen interest. I don't think
(08:11):
so stabbed herself. Nobody said hush. Nobody was enough interested
to object to a voice. They drooped among the empty
chairs and attitudes of weary inattention. The film wasn't nearly
over yet. There were children somehow to be considered. Was
it all going on to another generation? But the small
(08:34):
bearded man in the next seat seemed to be interested
only in Pompilia's death. The fact that he had come
in at that moment apparently fascinated him. Craven heard the
word coincidence twice, and he went on talking to himself
about it in low, out of breath tones, absurd and
you come to think of it, and then no blood
(08:55):
at all. Craven didn't listen. He sat with his hands
clasped between his knees, facing the fact, as he had
faced it so often before, that he was in danger
of going mad. He had to pull himself up, take
a holiday, see a doctor. God knew what infection moved
in his veins. He became aware that his bearded neighbor
(09:18):
had addressed him directly. What he asked, impatiently, what did
you say? There would be more blood than you can imagine?
What are you talking about? When the man spoke to him,
he sprayed him with damp breath. There was a little
bubble in his speech, like an impediment. He said, when
you murder a man, this was a woman, Craven said impatiently.
(09:42):
That wouldn't make any difference. It's got nothing to do
with murder anyway. That doesn't signify. They seemed to have
got into an absurd and meaningless wrangle in the dark.
I know you see, the little bearded man said, in
a tone of enormous conceit. Know what about such things?
(10:03):
He said, with guarded ambiguity. Craven turned and tried to
see him clearly. Was he mad? Was this a warning
of what he might become babbling incomprehensibly to strangers and cinemas,
He thought, By God, no, trying to see I'll be
saying yet I will be sane. He could make out
(10:25):
nothing but a small black hump of body. The man
was talking to himself again, he said, talk such talk.
I say, it's all for fifty pounds, But that's a lie.
Reasons and reasons they always take the first reason. Never
look behind thirty years of reason, Such simpletons, he added again,
(10:47):
in that tone of breathlessness and unbounded conceit. So this
was madness so long as he could realize that he
must be sane himself relatively speaking, not so saying, perhaps
as the seekers in the park or the guardsman in
the Edgeway road, but saner than this. It was like
a message of encouragement. As the piano tinkled on. Then
(11:11):
again the little man turned and sprayed him killed herself,
you say, But who's to know that? It's not a
mere question of what hand holds the knife? He laid
a hand suddenly and confidingly on Craven's. It was damp
and sticky. Craven said, with a horror as possible. Meaning
came to him. What are you talking about? I know,
(11:34):
the little man said. A man in my position gets
to know almost everything. What is your position? Craven asked,
feeling the sticky hand on his trying to make up
his mind whether he was being hysterical or not. After all,
there were a dozen explanations. It might be treacal, a
(11:54):
pretty desperate one, you'd say. Sometimes the voice almost died
in the throat. All together, something incomprehensible had happened on
the screen. Take your eyes from these early pictures for
a moment, And the plot had proceeded on at such
a pace. Only the actors moved slowly and jerkily. A
young woman in a night dress seemed to be weeping
(12:16):
in the arms of a Roman centurion. Craven hadn't seen
either of them before seven am. Not afraid of death,
Lucius in your arms. The little man began to titter knowingly.
He was talking to himself again. It would have been
easy to ignore him altogether if it had not been
(12:37):
for those sticky hands, which he now removed. Seemed to
be fumbling at the seat in front of him. His
head had a habit of lolling sideways, like an idiot child's,
he said, distinctively and irrelevantly'swater tragedy? What was that? Craven said,
He had seen those words on a poster before before
(12:59):
when he entered the park. What about the tragedy? I
think they call color muse bayswater. Suddenly the little man
began to cough, turning his face towards Craven and coughing
right at him. It was like vindictiveness. The voice said,
let me see my umbrella. He was getting up. You
(13:21):
didn't have an umbrella. My umbrella, he repeated, my, and
he seemed to lose the word altogether. He went scrabbling
out past Craven's knees. Craven let him go, but before
he had reached the billowy, dusty curtains of the exit,
the screen went blank and bright. The film had broken,
(13:42):
and somebody immediately turned up one dirt choked chandelier above
the circle. It shone down just enough for Craven to
see the smear on his hands. This wasn't hysteria, this
was fact. He wasn't mad. He had sat next to
a madman who in some muse what was the name
(14:03):
Colon Colin? Craven jumped up and made his own way out.
The black curtain flapped in his mouth, but he was
too late. The man had gone, and there were three
turnings to choose from. He chose instead a telephone box
and dialed with a sense odd for him of sanity
and decision nine to nine nine. It didn't take two
(14:26):
minutes to get the right department. They were interested and
very kind. Yes, there had been a murder in a muse,
colored muse. A man's neck had been cut from ear
to ear with a bread knife, a horrid crime. He
began to tell them how he had sat next to
the murderer in a cinema. There couldn't be anyone else.
(14:48):
There was blood on his hands, and he remembered with
repulsion as he spoke the damp beard, there must have
been a terrible lot of blood. But the voice from
the interrupted him. Oh no, it was saying, we have
the murderer, no doubt about it. It's the body that's disappeared.
(15:12):
Craven put down the receiver. He said to himself aloud,
Why should this happen to me? Why to me? He
was back in the horror of his dream. The squalid,
darkening street outside was only one of the innumerable tunnels
connecting grave to grave where the imperishable bodies lay. He said,
(15:36):
it was a dream, a dream, and leaning forward, he
saw in the mirror above the telephone his own face
sprinkled by tiny drops of blood, like dew from a
scent spray. He began to scream, I won't go mad,
I won't go mad. I'm sane, I won't go mad.
(15:58):
Presently a little crowd began to collect, and soon a
policeman came next up. This story is called shredny Vashtar,
and it's Bisaki. Conradin was ten years old and the
(16:19):
doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would
not live another five years. The doctor was silky in
her feet and counted for little, but his opinion was
endorsed by Missus de Ropp, who counted for nearly everything.
Missus de Ropp was Conrardin's cousin and guardian, and in
his eyes she represented those three fifths of the world
(16:41):
that are necessary and disagreeable and real. The other two fifths,
in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in
himself and his imagination. One of these days, Conrardin supposed
he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary
things such as illnesses and coddling restrictions, and drawn out dulness.
(17:04):
Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness,
he would have succumbed long ago. Missus du rop would never,
in her honestest moments, had confessed to herself that she
disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that
thwarting him for his good was a duty which she
(17:26):
did not find particularly irksome. Garradin hated her with a
desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such
few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an
added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing
to his guardian and from the realm of his imagination.
(17:47):
She was locked out, an unclean thing which she should
find no entrance. In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by
so many windows that were ready to open with a
message not to do this or that, or a reminder
that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few
(18:09):
fruit trees that it contained were set jealously apart from
his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind,
blooming in an arid waste. It would probably have been
difficult to find a market gardener who would have offered
ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however,
(18:29):
almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool
shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found
a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of
a playroom and a cathedral. He peopled it with a
legion of familiar phantoms evoked partly from fragments of history,
(18:51):
and partly from his own brain. But it also boasted
two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived ragged,
plumaged hood and hen, on which the boy lavished, an
affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the
gloom stood a large hutch divided into two compartments, one
(19:15):
of which was fronted with closed eyron bars. This was
the abode of a large pole cap ferret, which a
friendly butcher boy had once smuggled, caged and all into
its present quarters in exchange for a long secreted horde
of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe,
(19:37):
sharp fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession.
Its very presence in the tool shed was a secret
and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge
of the woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin, And
one day, out of heaven knows what material he spun
(19:58):
the beast a wonderful net, and from that moment it
grew into a god and a religion. The woman indulged
in religion once a week at church nearby, and took
Conradin with her, but to him the church service was
an alien right. In the House of Rimen. Every Thursday,
(20:19):
in the dim and musty silence of the tool shed,
he worshiped with a mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the
wooden hutch where dwelt. Shredny Vashtar, the Great ferret. Red
flowers in the season and scarlet berries in the winter
time were offered it his shrine, for he was a
(20:42):
god who laid some special stress on the fierce, impatient
side of things, as opposed to the woman's religion, which
as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths
in the contrary direction. And on great festivals, powdered nutmeg
was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature
(21:04):
of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen.
These festivals were of irregular occurrence and were chiefly appointed
to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Missus
Duop suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conrardin kept
up the festival during the entire three days, and almost
(21:26):
succeeded in persuading himself that shredney Vashtar was personally responsible
for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day,
the supply of nutmeg would have given out. The Hood
and Hen was never drawn into the cult of Shredney Vashtar.
Conradin had long ago settled, and she was an Anabaptist.
(21:48):
He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as
to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that
it was dashing and not very respectable. De rot was
the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.
After a while, Conradin's absorption in the tool shed began
(22:11):
to attract the notice of his guardian. It's not good
for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,
she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced
that the Hood and Hen had been sold and taken
away over night. With her short sighted eyes, she peered
at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow,
(22:31):
which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of
excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conraardin said nothing. There was
nothing to be said. Something, perhaps in his wide set face,
gave her a momentary qualm for at tea that afternoon,
there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she
(22:51):
usually banned on the grounds that it was bad for him,
also because the making of it gave trouble, deadly offense
in the middle class em And I I thought you
liked toast, she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that
he did not touch it, sometimes, said Conradin in the shed.
(23:14):
That evening there was an innovation in the worship of
the Hutch god. Conradin had been wont to chant his
praises tonight he asked a boone, do one thing for me,
shredney Vashtar. The thing was not specified, as shredney Vashtar
was a god he must be supposed to know. And,
(23:35):
choking back a sob as he looked at that other
empty corner, Conradin went back to the world he so hated,
And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom,
and every evening in the dusk of the tool shed,
Conradin's bitter litany went up, do one thing for me,
shredney Vashtar. Missus Durrot noticed that the visit to the
(24:00):
shed did not cease, and one day she made a
further journey of inspection. What are you keeping in that
locked huch, she asked, I believe it's guinea pigs. I'll
have them all cleared away. Conradin shut his lips tight,
but the woman ransacked his bedroom. So she found the
carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed
(24:24):
to complete her discovery. There was a cold afternoon, and
Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From
the furthest window of the dining room, the door of
the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of
the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the
woman enter, and then he imagined her opening the door
(24:45):
of the sacred hutch and peering down with short sighted
eyes into the thick straw bed, whereas God lay hidden.
Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience.
And Conradin fervently breathed this prayer for the last time.
But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe.
(25:06):
He knew that the woman would come out presently with
that purse smile he loathed so well on her face,
and that in an hour or two the gardener would
carry away his wonderful God, a god no longer but
a simple brown ferret in a hutch. He knew that
the woman would triumph always as she triumph now, and
(25:27):
that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering
and domineering and superior wisdom. So one day nothing would
matter much more with him, and the doctor would be
proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat,
he began to chant loudly and defiantly, the hymn of
his threatened idol shredny vashtar went forth. His thoughts were
(25:51):
red thoughts, and his teeth were white. His enemies called
for peace, but he brought them death, shredny vashtar the beautiful.
And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and
drew closer to the window pane. The door of the
shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and
the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but
(26:15):
they slipped by. Nevertheless, he watched the starlings running and
flying in little parties across the lawn. He counted them
over and over again, with one eye always on the
swinging door. A sour faced made came in to lay
the table for tea, and still, Conradin stood and waited
(26:37):
and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart,
and now a look of triumph began to blaze in
his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat.
Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once
again the pain of victory and devastation, and presently his
(27:00):
eyes were rewarded. Out through that doorway came a long, low,
yellow and brown beast, with eyes a blink at the
waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of
jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great
polecat ferret made its way down to a small brook
(27:23):
at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment,
then crossed a little plank bridge, and was lost to
sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of shredny
vashtar tears. Ready, said the sour faced maid. Where is
the mistress? She went down to the shed some time ago,
(27:46):
said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her
mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting fork out of
the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece
of bread, And during the toasting of it, and the
buttering of it with much butter, and the slow enjoyment
of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences
(28:08):
which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining room door.
The loud, foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus
of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps
and hurried embassies for outside help. And then after a lull,
the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who
(28:29):
bore a heavy burden into the house. Who will ever
break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the
life of me, explained the shrill voice. And while they
debated the matter amongst themselves, Conradin made himself another piece
of toast. And finally there's one is called the Man
(28:54):
and the Snake by ambrose Bius of veritable report, and
attests that of so many that there be now of
wise and learned none to gain. Say it that ye, serpent,
his eye hath a magnetic property, that whoso falleth into
(29:16):
its vision is drawn forwards in despite of his will
and perisheth miserably by ye creature. His bite stretched at
ease upon a sofa in gown and slippers, Arker Breighton
smiled as he read the foregoing sentence in Old Morrister's
Marvels of Science. The only marvel in the matter, he
(29:38):
said to himself, is that the wise and learned in
Morrister's day should have believed such nonsense as is rejected
by most of even the ignorant in ours. A train
of reflection followed, For Breyton was a man of thought,
and he unconsciously lowered his book without altering the direction
of his eyes. As soon as the volume had gone
below the line of sight, something in an obscure corner
(30:02):
of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings. What
he saw in the shadow under his bed was two
small points of light, apparently an inch apart. They might
have been reflections of the gas jet above him in
metal nail heads. He gave them but little thought and
resumed his reading. A moment later, something, some impulse which
(30:26):
did not occur to him to analyze, impelled him to
lower the book again and seek for what he saw
before the points of light were still there. They seemed
to have become brighter than before, shining with a grayish
luster that he had not at first observed. He thought, too,
that they might have moved a trifle were the somewhat nearer.
(30:50):
They were still too much in shadow, however, to reveal
their nature and origin to an indolent attention, And again
he resumed his reading. Suddenly, some thing and the text
suggested a thought that made him start and drop the
book for the third time to the side of the sofa,
whence escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor.
Back upward. Breton half risen were staring intently into the
(31:15):
obscurity beneath the bed, where the point of light shone
with it seemed to him and added fire. His attention
was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. It disclosed,
almost directly under the foot rail of the bed, the
coils of a large serpent. The points of light were
its eyes. Its horrible head, thrust flatly forth from the
(31:38):
innermost coil and resting upon the outermost, was directly straight
toward him, the definition of the wide, brutal jaw and
the idiot like forehead serving to show the direction of
its malevolent gaze. The eyes were no longer merely luminous points.
They looked into his own with a meaning, a malign significance.
(32:03):
Part two. A snake in a bedroom of a modern
city dwelling of the better sort is happily not so
common a phenomena as to make explanation altogether needless. Harker Breton,
a bachelor of thirty five, a scholar, idler and something
of an athlete, rich, popular, and of sound health, had
returned to San Francisco from all manner of remote and
(32:25):
unfamiliar countries. His tastes, always a trifle luxurious, had taken
on and added exuberance from long privation, and the resources
of even the Castle Hotel being inadequate to their perfect gratification,
he had gladly accepted the hospitality of his friend, doctor Druring,
the distinguished scientist. Doctor Druring's house, a large, old fashioned
(32:48):
one in what is now an obscure quarter of the city,
had now to invisible aspect of proud reserve. It plainly
would not associate with the continuous elements of its altered environment,
and appeared to have developed some of the eccentricities which
come of isolation. One of these was a wing, conspicuously
irrelevant in point of architecture, and no less rebellious in
(33:10):
matter of purpose, for it was a combination of laboratory,
menagerie and museum. It was here that the Doctor indulged
the scientific side of his nature in the study of
such forms of animal life as engaged his interest and
comforted his taste, which, it must be confessed, ran rather
to the lower types, for one of the higher, nimbly
(33:34):
and sweetly to recommend itself on to his gentle senses,
it had at least to retain certain rudimentary characteristics, allying
it to such dragons of the prime as toads and snakes.
His scientific sympathies were distinctly Reptilian. He loved nature's vulgarians,
(33:57):
and described himself as the Zola of zen zoology. His
wife and daughters, not having the advantage to share his
enlightened curiosity regarding the works and ways of our ill
starred fellow creatures, were with needless austerity, excluded from what
he called the snakery, and doomed to companionship with their
own kind. Though to soften the rigors of their lot
(34:21):
he had permitted them out of his great wealth, to
outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of their surroundings, and
to shine with the superior splendor architecturally and in point
of furnishing. The Snakery had a severe simplicity, befitting the
humble circumstances of its occupants, many of whom, indeed could
(34:42):
not safely have been entrusted with the liberty that is
necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury. They had the
troublesome peculiarity of being alive in their own apartments. However,
they were under as little personal restraint as was compatible
with their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing wor
on another. And as Breyton had thoughtfully been apprized, it
(35:04):
was more than a tradition that some of them had,
at divers times been found in parts of the premises
where it would have embarrassed them to explain their presence.
Despite the Snakery and its uncanny associations, which indeed he
gave little attention, Breton found life at Drawing Mansion very
much to his mind. Part three. Beyond the smart shock
(35:30):
of surprise and the shudder of mere loathing, mister Breton
was not greatly affected. His first thought was to ring
the call bell and bring a servant, But although the
bell court dangled with an easy reach, he made no
movement toward it. It had occurred to his mind that
the act might subject him to the suspicion of fear,
(35:50):
which he certainly did not feel. He was more keenly
conscious of the onpongerous nature of the situation than affected
by its perils. It was revolting, but absurd. The reptile
was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar. Its length,
he could only conjecture. The body at the largest visible
(36:11):
part seemed about as thick as his forearm. In what
way was it dangerous? If in any way was it venomous?
Was it a constrictor? His knowledge of nature's danger signals
did not enable him to say. He had never deciphered
the code. If not dangerous, the creature was at least offensive.
(36:32):
It was de trop matter, out of place and impertinence.
The gem was unworthy of the setting, even the barbarous
taste of our time and country, which had loaded the
walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture,
and the furniture with bricker brac had not quite fitted
the place for this bit of savage life of the jungle.
(36:53):
Besides insupportable thought, the exhalations of its breath mingled with
the atmosphere which he himself was. These thoughts shape themselves
with greater or less definition in Brayton's mind, and begot action.
The process is what we call consideration and decision. It
is thus that we are wise and unwise. It is
(37:14):
thus that the withered leaf in an autumn breeze shows
greater or less intelligence than its fellows falling upon the
land or upon the lake. Secret of human action is
an open one, something that contracts our muscles. Does it
matter if we give to the propriety molecular changes the
name of will Breton rose to his feet and prepared
(37:35):
to back softly away from the snake, without disturbing it,
if possible, and through the door men retire so from
the presence of the great, For greatness is power, and
power is a menace. He knew that he could walk
backward without error should the monster follow. The taste which
had plastered the wars with paintings, had consistently supplied a
(37:56):
rack of murderous oriental weapons from which he could snap
one to suit the occasion. In the meantime, the snake's
eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than before. Brayton
lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward.
That moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.
(38:16):
I am accounted brave, he thought, is bravery then no
more than pride? Because there are none to witness the shame?
Shall I retreat? He was steadying himself with his right
hand upon the back of a chair, his foot suspended. Nonsense,
he said aloud. I'm not so great a coward as
to fear to seem to myself afraid. He lifted the
(38:39):
foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee, and
thrust it sharply to the floor, an inch in front
of the other. He could not think how that occurred
a trial where the left footed the same result. It
was again in advance of the right. The hand upon
the chair back was grasping it. The arm was straight,
reaching somewhat backward. One might have said that he was
(39:00):
reluctant to lose his hold. The snake's malignant head was
still thrust forth from the inner coilers before the neck level.
It had not moved, but its eyes were now electric sparks,
radiating an infinity of luminous needles. The man had an
ashy pallor. Again he took a step forward, and another,
partly dragging the chair, which, when finally released, fell upon
(39:23):
the floor with a crash. The man groaned. The snake
made neither sound nor motion, but its eyes were two
dazzling suns. The reptile itself was wholly concealed by them.
They gave off enlarging rings of rich and vivid colors, which,
at their greatest expansion successively vanished like soap bubbles. They
(39:45):
seemed to approach his very face, and anon were an
immeasurable distance away. He heard somewhere the continuous throbbing of
a great drum, with desultory bursts of far music, in
conceit avably sweet, like the tones of an Aolian harp.
He knew it for the sunrise melody of Memnon's statute,
(40:09):
and thought he stood in the nile side reeds, hearing
with exalted sense that immortal anthem. Through the silence of
the centuries. The music ceased, rather, it became and insensible
degrees the distant roll of a threatening thunderstorm. A landscape
glittering with sun and rain stretched before him, arched with
(40:32):
a vivid rainbow, framing in its giant curve a hundred
visible cities. In the middle distance, a vast serpent wearing
a crown, reared its head out of its voluminous convulsions
and looked at him with his dead mother's eyes. Suddenly,
this enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly upward, like the
(40:57):
drop scene at a theater, and vanished in a blank.
Something struck him a hard blow upon the face and breast.
He had fallen to the floor. The blood ran from
his broken nose and his bruised lips. For a time
he was dazed and stunned, and lay with closed eyes,
his face against the floor. In a few moments he
(41:21):
had recovered, and then knew that this fall, by withdrawing
his eyes, had broken the spell that held him. He
felt that by now, by keeping his gaze averted, he
would be unable to retreat. But the thought of the
serpent within a few feet of his head he had unseen,
perhaps in the very act of springing upon him, throwing
(41:42):
its coils about his throat, was too horrible. He lifted
his head, stared again into those baleful eyes, and was
again in bondage. The snake had not moved, and appeared
somewhat to have lost its power upon the imagination. The
gorgeous illusions of a few moments before were not repeat
Beneath that flat and brainless brow, its black, beady eyes
(42:05):
simply glittered as at first, with an expression unspeakably malignant.
Was as if the creature, assured of its triumph, had
determined to practice no more alluring wiles. Now ensued a
fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor within a
yard of his enemy, raised the upper part of his
body upon his elbows, his head thrown back, his legs
(42:27):
extended to their full length. His face was white between
its stains of blood. His eyes were strained open to
their utmost expansion. There was froth upon his lips. It
dripped off in flakes. Strong convulsions ran through his body,
making almost serpentile undulations. He bent himself at the waist,
(42:48):
shifting his legs from side to side, and every moment
left him a little nearer to the snake. He thrust
his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantly advanced
upon his elbows. Part four, Doctor Drowing and his wife
sat in the library. The scientist was in rare good humor.
I have obtained by exchange with another collector, he said,
(43:12):
a splendid specimen of the ohio fagus. And what might
that be? The lady inquired, with a somewhat languid interest,
Why bless my soul? What profound ignorance, my dear? A
man who ascertains after marriage that his wife does not
know Greek as entitled to a divorce? The ophio fhagus
is a snake that eats other snakes. I hope it
(43:34):
will eat all yours, she said, absently, shifting the lamp.
But how does it get other snakes by charming them?
I suppose. Ugh, it's just like you, dear, said the doctor,
with an affection of petulance. You know how irritating to
me is any allusion to that vulgar superstition about a
snake's power of fascination. The conversation was interrupted by a
(43:55):
mighty cry, which rang through the silent house, like the
voice of a demon shouting in a tomb. Again and
yet again, it sounded with terrible distinctness. They sprang to
their feet. The man confused, the lady pale and speechless
with fright. Almost before the echoes of the last cry
had died away, the doctor was out of the room,
springing up the stairs two steps at a time. In
(44:17):
the corridor in front of Breton's chamber, he met some
servants who had come from the upper floor. Together they
rushed at the door without knocking. It was unfastened and
gave way. Breton lay upon the floor on his stomach, dead.
His head and arms were partly concealed under the foot
(44:38):
rail of the bed. They pulled the body away, turning
it upon the back. The face was dawned with blood
and froth. The eyes were wide open, staring at dreadful sight.
Died in a fit, said the scientist, bending his knee
and placing his hand upon the heart. While in that position,
he chanced to look under the bed. Good God, he added,
(45:01):
how did that thing get in here? He reached under
the bed, pulled out the snake, and flung it, still coiled,
to the center of the room, whence a harsh shuffling sound.
It slid across the polished floor till it stopped by
the wall, where it lay without motion. It was a
stuffed snake. Its eyes were two shoe buttons.
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