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The Dream Chapter the Fourth - The Widow Smith Moves to London Part 5 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section ten of The Dream, a Novel. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: The Dream, a Novel by H. G. Wells. Chapter the fourth,
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  Speaker 1: The widow Smith moves to London, Part five. I will
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  Speaker 1: tell you as briefly as I can of the household
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  Speaker 1: in Pimlico where we joined Falses with my mother's old
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  Speaker 1: friend Matilda Goode, said Sarnact. But I confess it is
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  Speaker 1: hard to be reasonably brief when one's mind is fuller
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  Speaker 1: of curious details than this fire is of spocks. That's excellent,
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  Speaker 1: said the master of the guest house. That's a perfect
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  Speaker 1: story teller's touch, and looked brightly for Sarnact to continue.
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  Speaker 1: But we are all beginning to believe that he has
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  Speaker 1: been there, whispered Radiant, laying a restraining hand on the
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  Speaker 1: guest master's knee, and he radiant spoke behind his hand.
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  Speaker 1: He believes it altogether, not really, whispered the guest master.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed desirous of asking difficult questions, and then subsided
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  Speaker 1: into an attention that was at first a little constrained
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  Speaker 1: and presently quite involuntary. These houses in Pimlico were part
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  Speaker 1: of an enormous proliferation of houses that occurred between a
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  Speaker 1: hundred years and seventy years before the Great War. There
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  Speaker 1: was a great amount of unintelligent building enterprise in those
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  Speaker 1: decades in London, and at the building as I have
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  Speaker 1: already told you, I think was done on the supposition
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  Speaker 1: that there was an endless supply of fairly rich families
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  Speaker 1: capable of occupying a big house in employing three or
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  Speaker 1: four domestic servants. There were underground kitchens and servants rooms.
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  Speaker 1: There was a dining room and a master's study. At
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  Speaker 1: the ground level there was a drawing room floor above
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  Speaker 1: two rooms convertible into one by a device known as
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  Speaker 1: folding doors, and above this were bedrooms on a scale
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  Speaker 1: of diminishing importance until one came to attics without fireplaces,
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  Speaker 1: in which the servants were to sleep in large areas,
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  Speaker 1: and particularly in Pimlico, these fairly rich families of the
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  Speaker 1: builder's imagination, with servile domestics all complete, never appeared to
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  Speaker 1: claim the houses prepared for them. And from the first
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  Speaker 1: poor people, for whom of course no one had troubled
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  Speaker 1: to plant houses adapted these porticot plaster mansions to their
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  Speaker 1: own narrower needs. My mother's friend, Matilda Good, was a
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  Speaker 1: quite typical Pimlico householder. She had been a trusted servant
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  Speaker 1: of a rich old lady in Cliffstone, who had died
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  Speaker 1: and left to two or three hundred pounds of money.
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  Speaker 1: The master of the guest house was endlessly perplexed and
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  Speaker 1: made an interrogative noise private property, said Radiant, Very rapidly,
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  Speaker 1: power of bequest, two thousand years ago made a will
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  Speaker 1: you know, go on Sarnac. With that and her savings,
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  Speaker 1: said Sarnac, she was able to become tenant of one
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  Speaker 1: of those Pimlico houses, and to furnish it with a
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  Speaker 1: sort of shabby gentility. She lived herself in the basement below,
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  Speaker 1: and in the attic above, and all the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the house. She had hoped to let in pieces, floor
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  Speaker 1: by floor, room by room, to rich or at least
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  Speaker 1: prosperous old ladies, and to busy herself in tending them
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  Speaker 1: and supplying the needs, and extracting a profit and living
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  Speaker 1: out of them. Running up and down her staircase as
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  Speaker 1: an aunt runs up and down a rose stem tending
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  Speaker 1: its athids. But old ladies of any prosperity did not
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  Speaker 1: come to Pimlicow. It was low and foggy, the children
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  Speaker 1: of its poor streets were rough and disrespectful, and it
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  Speaker 1: was close to the river embankment, over which rich, useless
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  Speaker 1: old ladies naturally expected to be thrown. So Matilda Good
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  Speaker 1: had to console herself with the less succulent and manageable lodges.
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  Speaker 1: I remember Matilda Good giving us an account of those
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  Speaker 1: she had, as we sat in the front downstairs room,
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  Speaker 1: having a kind of tea supper on the evening of
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  Speaker 1: our arrival. Ernest had declined refreshment and departed his task
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  Speaker 1: as a travel conducted done. But there were my mother
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  Speaker 1: and Prue and myself, all in dingy black, and all
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  Speaker 1: a little stiff and strange, thawing slowly to tea and
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  Speaker 1: hot buttered toast with a poached egg each, our mouths
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  Speaker 1: very full, and our eyes and ears very attentive. To
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  Speaker 1: Matilda Good, she appeared quite a grand lady to me
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  Speaker 1: that night. She was much larger than any lady I
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  Speaker 1: had hitherto been accustomed to. She had a breadth and
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  Speaker 1: variety of contour like scenery rather than a human being.
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  Speaker 1: The thought of her veins being vericose, indeed, all of
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  Speaker 1: her anatomy being vericose and fantastic, seemed a right and
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  Speaker 1: proper one. She was dressed in black with outbreaks of
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  Speaker 1: soiled lace. A large gold rimmed brooch fastened her dress
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  Speaker 1: at the neck, and she had a gold chain about her.
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  Speaker 1: And on her head was what was called a cap
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  Speaker 1: an affair like the lower shell of an oyster, inverted,
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  Speaker 1: made with layers of dingy lace and adorned with a
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  Speaker 1: black velvet bow and a gold buckle. Her face had
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  Speaker 1: the same landscape unanatomical quality as her body. She had
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  Speaker 1: a considerable mustache, an overhung, slightly mischievous mouth, and two
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  Speaker 1: different large dark gray eyes with a slightly vertical cast
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  Speaker 1: in them, and very marked eyelashes. She sat sideways when
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  Speaker 1: I looked at you, rather sidelong. The other seemed to
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  Speaker 1: watch something over your head. She spoke in a whisper
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: which passed very easily into wheezy, not unkindly laughter. You'll
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  Speaker 1: get no end of exercise on these stairs, my dear,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: she said to sister Prue. No end of exercise. There's
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  Speaker 1: times when I go up to bed when I start
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  Speaker 1: counting them, just to make sure they aren't taken in
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  Speaker 1: lodgers like the rest of us. There's no doubt this
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  Speaker 1: house will strengthen your legs, my dear, mustn't get them
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  Speaker 1: too big and strong for the rest of you. But
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  Speaker 1: you can easy manage that by carrying something. Carry something
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  Speaker 1: every time you go up or down. Yuck yup, that'll
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  Speaker 1: equalize you. There's always something to carry boots. It is
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  Speaker 1: hot water, it is a scuddle of coals or apostle.
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  Speaker 1: I expect it's a busy house, said my mother, eating
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  Speaker 1: her buttered toast like a lady. It's a toilsome house,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: said Matilda. I don't want to deceive your matha. It's
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  Speaker 1: a toilsome house, but it's an ouse that keeps full,
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  Speaker 1: said Matilda Good, challenging me with one eye and ignoring
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  Speaker 1: me with the other. Full. I am now in full
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  Speaker 1: of bensonce michaelmas full wrought up too permanent. I've had
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  Speaker 1: three years on end, and those my best floors, are
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  Speaker 1: something to be thankful for, all things considered. And now
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  Speaker 1: I've got help of a sort that won't slide downstairs
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  Speaker 1: on a tea trail licked the ground floor, sugar lump
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  Speaker 1: by lump. Now when the lumps was counted in, never
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  Speaker 1: thinking that wetness tells the slut we'll get on swimmingly.
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  Speaker 1: The sluts I've had, Martha. These bold schools turn them
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  Speaker 1: out of oil, the garden of danger to men. I
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  Speaker 1: can't tell you it's a comfort to set eyes on
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  Speaker 1: any girl, as I can see at once, has been
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  Speaker 1: brought up to take a pride in herself. Have a
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  Speaker 1: little of that watercress with your toast, my dear, it'll
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  Speaker 1: do that complexion of yours good. My sister Preve reddened
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  Speaker 1: and took some watercress the drawing room floor, said Matilda.
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  Speaker 1: Good is a lady. It isn't often you keep a
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  Speaker 1: lady three years. What were the things they know and
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  Speaker 1: the things they fancy they know? But I've kept her.
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  Speaker 1: She's a real lady born bumpus. Their name is miss
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  Speaker 1: Beatrice Bumpus. I don't know whether you'll like her, Martha,
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  Speaker 1: when you set eyes on her, but she's got to
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  Speaker 1: be still. She's a particular sort of Warwick shild bumpus
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  Speaker 1: that hunts. She'll ask you if you want the vote,
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  Speaker 1: Martha directly. She sees you're a fresh face. It isn't
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  Speaker 1: a vote or any old vote she asks you to want.
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  Speaker 1: It's the vote. The whispering voice grew thicker and richer,
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  Speaker 1: and a persuasive smile spread far and wide over her face.
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  Speaker 1: If it's all the same to you, Martha, you'd better
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  Speaker 1: say you do. My mother was sipping her fourth cup
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  Speaker 1: of tea. I don't know, she said, Is I altogether
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  Speaker 1: old with this vote? Matilda Good's great red hands, which
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  Speaker 1: had been laying apparently detached in her lap, produced short
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  Speaker 1: arms and lace cuffs and waved about in the air,
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  Speaker 1: waving my mother's objections away. Old with it in the
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  Speaker 1: drawing room floor, wheezed Matilda. But if she asks questions,
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  Speaker 1: she won't wait to have The man said, it won't
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  Speaker 1: be difficult, Martha. I wouldn't put you into a position
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  Speaker 1: of difficulty, not if I could help it. You just
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  Speaker 1: got to old with it quietly, and she'll do the rest. Mother,
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  Speaker 1: said Prue, who was still too overalled by me til
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  Speaker 1: the Good to address her directly. Mother, what is this here? Vote?
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  Speaker 1: Vote for parliament, my dear, said Matilda Good. When shall
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  Speaker 1: we get it? Asked my mother? You won't get it,
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  Speaker 1: said Matilda Good. But if we did, what should we
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  Speaker 1: have to do with it? Like nothing, said Matilda Good,
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  Speaker 1: with bottomless contempt all the same. It's a great movement, Martha,
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  Speaker 1: and don't you forget it. And miss Bumpus, she works
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  Speaker 1: night and day. Martha gets it about by policemen, and
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  Speaker 1: once she was actually in prison a night getting you
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  Speaker 1: and me the vote. Well, it shows a kind nature,
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  Speaker 1: said my mother. My ground flows a gentleman. The worst
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  Speaker 1: of them is the books. There are to us, books
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  Speaker 1: and books, not that he ever reads them much. Very
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  Speaker 1: likely you'll hear him soon playing as Pianola. You can
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  Speaker 1: hear it down here, almost as if you were inside it.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Place. He's an Oxford gentleman, and he works at
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  Speaker 1: a firm of publishers. Barrows and graves, they're called of.
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  Speaker 1: He are a class firm. I'm told. Don't go in
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  Speaker 1: for advertisements or anything vulgar. He's got photographs of Greek
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  Speaker 1: and Latin statues and ruins round above his bookshelves and
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  Speaker 1: shields with collar j arms naked some of the statues are,
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  Speaker 1: But for all that, none of them are anything but
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  Speaker 1: quite nice and genteel, quite genteel. You can see it once.
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  Speaker 1: He's a university gentleman. And photographs of Switzerland. He's got
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  Speaker 1: He goes up mountains in Switzerland and speaks the language.
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  Speaker 1: He's a smoker, sets with a pipe, writing and reading
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  Speaker 1: it evening after evening, and marking things with his pencil manuscripts.
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  Speaker 1: He reads and proofs pipes. He has with a pipe
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  Speaker 1: for every day in the week. And a smoker is
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: outfit all made with bee utiful stone, serpentine. They call
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  Speaker 1: it sort of bloodshot green. It is tobacco jar and
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  Speaker 1: a polt of feathers to clean his pipes, little places
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  Speaker 1: for each day's pipe. Everything all of stone. It's a
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  Speaker 1: regular monument. And when you're dusting it, remember if you
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: draw us here serpentine, it breaks like earthenware. Most of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the maids I've had, I've had a chip at that
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  Speaker 1: tobacco graveyard. Ears and mind you, Matilda Good lean forward
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  Speaker 1: and held her hand to arrest any wandering of my
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  Speaker 1: mother's attention. He don't hold with doubts for women. See,
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  Speaker 1: one's got to be careful, said my mother. One has
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  Speaker 1: he's got one or two little whims has mister place.
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  Speaker 1: But if you mind about them. He don't give you
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  Speaker 1: much trouble. One of his whims is to pretend to
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  Speaker 1: have a bath every morning. Every morning he has a
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  Speaker 1: shallow tin bath put out in his room, and a
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  Speaker 1: can of cold water and a sponge, and every morning
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  Speaker 1: he pretends to splash about in it something fearful and
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  Speaker 1: makes a noise like a grandpa singing a hymn. Calls
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  Speaker 1: it his tub. He does, though it's a lot more
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  Speaker 1: like a canary. Sorcer says he must have it as
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  Speaker 1: cold as possible, even if there's ice in it. Well,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Matilda Good performed a sort of landslide over the arm
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  Speaker 1: of her chair. Her head nodded, and the whisper became
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  Speaker 1: more confidential, hen't weeds, Matilda Good? You mean he doesn't
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  Speaker 1: get into the bath, not it, said Matilda Good. You
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  Speaker 1: can see when he's really been in it by his
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: wet footmarks on the floor. Not arf the time. Does
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  Speaker 1: he have that bath? Perhaps he used to have it
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  Speaker 1: when he was a young man at college, I wonder.
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  Speaker 1: But it's always got to be put out, and the
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  Speaker 1: can always got to be lugged up and pulled out
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  Speaker 1: and pulled away again, And nobody's ever to ask if
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: he'd like the chill taken off. Not the sort of
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: thing you ask a university gentleman. Now, all the same,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: said Matilda Good, All the same. I've caught him pouring
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  Speaker 1: his hand and shaving water into that water splash in
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the winter after he's been going deady for a week.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But have a kind of warm have the chill taken
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  Speaker 1: off his water? Not him? It's curious, ain't it. But
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that's one of his whims I sometimes think, said Matilda Good,
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  Speaker 1: still more extravagantly confidential, that perhaps he climbs all those
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: mountains in Switzerland the same way he takes his back.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: She ruled back large portions of her person into a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: less symmetrical attitude. This mister Place, you must know, she said,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: has a voice between a clergyman's and a schoolmasters, sort
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of hard and superior. And when you say anything to him,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: he's apt to make a noise. Are are r a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: sort of slow neighing. It is as though he doesn't
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: think much of you, but doesn't want to blame you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: for that, and anyhow can't attend to you properly. You
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: mustn't let it annoy you. It's the way he's been
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: brought up, and he has a habit of using long,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: condescending sort of words to you and calling you insulting names.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: He'll think nothing of calling you my worthy Abigail, or
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: come in my rosy finger to Rora when you knock
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in the morning, just as though a girl could keep
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: her hands pink and clean with all these fires to light,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: he'll ask of me, how's the good, Matilda, how's honest, Matilda?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Good today? Sort of fiddling about with your name? Of course,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: he doesn't mean to be rude. It's just his idea
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: of being pleasant and humorous and making you feel you're
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: being made fun of in a gentle sort of way,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: instead of being terrible like he might be, and seeming
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: he's a good pay in very little trouble, Martha. It's
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: no good getting offended with him. All the same, I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: can't help thinking at times of how he'd get on
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: if I answered him back, and which of us two
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: would be left alive if we had a fair match
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of it making fun of one another. These things the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: things I could say, But that said, Matilda Good, breaking
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: into an ingratiating smile of extraordinary extent and rolling one
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: eye at me, is just a dream. It isn't the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: sort of dream to indulge in this house. I've reheested
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a bit, I admit, says he But never mind what
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: he says or what I says back to him. He's
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: good pay and regular, my dea. He ain't likely to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: lose his job, and he ain't likely ever to get another.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And in this veil, anyhow, we got to put up
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: with his whims. And Matilda good spoke is one who
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: confesses to a weakness, his pee and all that cheers
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: me up at times. I will say that for him,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it's almost the only noise one hears from him, except
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: when he takes off his boots. Well up above my
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: drawing room at present is the second floor front. The
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Reverend Maggeridge and his good lady. They've been here five
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: months now, and they seem like taking rit. Not a clergyman,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: said my mother respectfully. A very poor clergyman, said Matilda.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: But a clergyman so much to our credit, Martha. Oh,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: but they're poor old things, poor old things. Ben curate
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: as something all his life in some sort of out
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: of this world place, and lost his job. Somebody had
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the heart to turn him out or something happened. I
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: wonder he's a funny old man. He dades off nearly
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: every Saturday on supply they call it, to take services
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: somewhere over the Sunday, and like as not, he comes
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: back with his cold worst than ever, sniffling and sniffling.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It's cruel how they treat these poor old parsons on supply.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Fetch them from the station and open traps they do
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: in the worst sort of weather, and often the rectory
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: teatotal without a drop of anything. For a cold Christianity.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I suppose it's got to be the two of them
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: just pot her about upstairs and make shift to get
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: their meals, such as they are over the bedroom fire.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: She even does a bit of her own washing, dragging
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: about poor old things, old and forgotten and left about.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: But they're very little trouble in there, it is. And
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I say, anyhow, he's a clergyman. And in the other
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: room at the back, there's a German lady who teaches
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: well anything she can persuade anyone to be taught. She
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: hasn't been it more than a month, and I don't
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: know whether I like her or not, but she seems
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: straight enough, and she keeps pretty much to herself. And
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: when one has a room to let, one can't always
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: pick and choose. And that's the lot, my dear. Tomorrow
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: we'll have to begin. You'll go up presently and settle
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: into your two rooms. At the top. There's a little
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: one for Mortimer and a rather bigger one for you
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and Prue. There's pegs and curtains for your things. I'm
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: next door to you. I'll give you my little old
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Alarum clock and show you all about it. And tomorrow
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: at seven sharp down we come, you and me and Prue.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: My lord I suppose has the privilege of the sex,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: and doesn't come down until half past. Oh. I must
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: suffraget Martha, same as miss Bompas. First thing is this fire,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and unless we rake the ashes well forward, the boiler
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: won't hate. Then there's fires and boots, dust the front
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: rooms and breakfasts. Mister Place at eight sharp, and mind
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it is, and miss Bompus at eight thirty, and get
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: away with mister Place if you can first, because of
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the shortness of table speeds. Five I got told together,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and before I lost my last third floor back, I
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: add seven. He was a nice lord. He was the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: old people get their own breakfast when they want it,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and frow Buckles has a tray just bread and butter
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and tea whenever we can manage it. After the drawing
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: room's been seen to, that's the program. Matha. I'll do
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: my best, Tilda, said my mother. As you know, hullo,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: said Matilda, in dedicating the ceiling, the concert's going to begin.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: That bomps him, letting down the pianola petals, and then
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: suddenly through the ceiling into a subterranean tea party, came
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a rush of clavier notes. I can't describe it. One
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of the really good things of that age was the music.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Mankind perfected some things very early. I suppose precious stone
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: work and gold work have never got very much beyond
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the levels it reached under the seventeenth dynasty. In Egypt,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: ages ago and marble statuary came to a climax at
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Athens before the conquest of Alexander. I doubt if there
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: has ever come very much sweeter music into the world
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: than the tuneful stuff we had a way back there
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in the Age of Confusion. This music mister Place was
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: giving us. With some bits of Schumann's carnival music. We
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hear it still played on the clavier, and it was
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: almost the first good music I ever heard. There had
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: been brass bands on cliff Stone Promenade of Calls, but
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: they simply made a glad row. I don't know if
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you'd understand what a pianola was. It was an instrument
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: for playing the clavalier with hammers, directed by means of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: perforated roles, for the use of those who lacked the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: intelligence and dexterity to read music and play the clavier
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: with their hands, because everyone was frightfully unhandy in those days.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It thumped a little and struck undiscriminating chords, but mister
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Place managed it fairly well, and the result came filtered
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: through the ceiling. As we used to say in those days.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It might have been worse. If the thoughts of that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: music are recall, and whenever I hear Schumann, as long
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: as I live, I shall recall the picture of that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: underground room, the little fireplace and the kettle on a hob,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the kettle holder and the toasting fork beside the fireplace jam,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the steel fender, the ashes, the small blotched looking glass
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: over the mantel, the little china figures of dogs in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: front of the glass, the gas light in a frosted
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: glass globe hanging from the ceiling, and lighting the tea
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: things on the table. Yes, the house was lit by
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: coal gas. Electric light was only just coming in, My
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: dear firefly, Can I possibly stop my story to tell
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you what coal gas was? A good girl would have
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: learnt that long ago. There sat Matilda Good, reduced to
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: a sort of imbecile ecstasy by these butterflies of melody.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: She nodded her cap, she rolled her head and smiled.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: She made appreciative rhythmic gestures with the hands. One eye
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: would meet you in a joyous search for sympathy, while
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the other contemplated the dingy wallpaper beyond. I too was
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: deeply stirred. But my mother and sister Preu sat in
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the black with an expression of false devotion, looking very
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: refined and correct, exactly as they had sat and listened
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to my father's funeral service five days before. It's beautiful,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: whispered my mother, like making a response in church when
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the first piece came to an end. I went to
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: sleep that night in my little attic with fragments of Schumann,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Balk and Beethoven chasing elusively about my brain. I perceived
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that a new phase of life had come to me, Jeels,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: said Sarnak, some sculpt music, just a few lovely beginnings.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: There were already of what man could do with life.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Such things, I see now were the seeds of the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: new world of promise, already there in the dark matrix
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of the old. End of Section ten, read by Cris Buchanan, Springfield, Illinois,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: August twenty fifth, two thousand and twenty three.