Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Certain Personal Matters - The House of Di Sorno

Transcript

Certain Personal Matters - The House of Di Sorno · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter four of Certain Personal Matters. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: by D. J. Wood Certain Personal Matters by H. G. Wells,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Chapter four, The House of Disorno. A manuscript found in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a box, and the box Euphemius brutally rated. It was
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: by an insensate husband, eager for a tie, and too
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: unreasonably impatient to wait an hour or so until she
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: could get home and find it for him. There was,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of course no tie at all in that box, for
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: all his stirring, as any one might have known. But
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: if there was no tie, there were certain papers that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: at least suggested a possibility of whiling away the time
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: until the chooser and distributor of ties should return. And
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: after all, there is no reading like your accidental reading
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: come upon unawares. It was a discovery, indeed, that Euphimia
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: had papers. At the first glance, these close written sheets
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: suggested a treasonable keynote, and the husband gripped it with
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a certain apprehension mingling with his relief at the opiate
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: of reading. It was so to speak. The privilege of police,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: he exercised, so he justified himself. He began to read,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But what is this? She stood on the balcony outside
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the window, while the noblest born in the palace waited
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: on her every capricious glance and watched for an unbending
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: look to relieve her hauteur. But in vain, none of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: your snippy, snappy keynote there. Then he turned over a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: page or so of the copy, doubting if the privilege
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of police still held good standing out by virtue of
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a different ink, and coming immediately after bear her to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: her proud father, where the words how many yards of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: carpet three quarter yards wide will cover the room with
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: sixteen foot length twenty seven and a half foot Then
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: he knew he was in the presence of the great
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: romance that Euphemia wrote when she was sixteen. He had
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: heard something of it before. He held it doubtfully in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: his hands, for the question of conscience still troubled him. Bah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: he said abruptly, not to find it irresistible was to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: slight the authoress and her skill. And with that he
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: sat plumped down among the things in the box very comfortably,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and began reading, and indeed read until Euphemia arrived. But she,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: at the sight of his head and legs, made several
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: fragmentary and presumably offensive remarks about crushing some hat or other,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and proceeded with needless violence to get him out of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the box again. However, that is my own private trouble.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: We are concerned now with the merits of Euphemia's romance.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: The hero of the story is a Venetian named, for
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: some unknown reason Ivan Disorno. So far as I ascertained,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: he is the entire house of Disorno, referred to in
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the title. No other Disornos transpired. Like others in the story,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: he is possessed of untold wealth, tempered by a profound
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: sorrow for some cause which remains unmentioned, but which is
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: possibly internal. He is first displayed pacing a somber avenue
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: of Ilix and Arbutus that reflected with singular truth the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: gloom of his countenance, and toying sadly with the jeweled
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: hilt of his dagger. He meditates upon his loveless life
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and the burden of riches. Presently he paces the long
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and magnificent gallery, where a hundred generations of Disornos, each
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: with the same flashing eye and the same marble brow
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: looked down with the same sad melancholy upon the beholder,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a true monotonous exhibition. It would be too much for
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: any one. Day after day, he decides that he will
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: travel incognito. The next chapter is headed in Old Madrid,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and Disorno, cloaked to conceal his grandeur, moved sad and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: observant among the giddy throng. But Gwendolen, that majestic Gwendolen
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: of the balcony, marked his pallid yet beautiful countenance, And
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the next day, at the bull fight, she flung her
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: bouquet into the arena, and, turning to Disorno, a perfect stranger,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: mind you, smiled commandingly. In that moment he had flung
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: himself headlong down among the flashing blades of the torridors
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: and the trampling confusion of bulls, And in another he
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: stood before her, bowing low, with the recovered flowers in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: his hand. Fair sir, she said, methinks, my poor flowers
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: were scarce worth your trouble, a very proper remark, And
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: then suddenly I put the manuscript down. My heart was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: full of pity for Euphemia. Thus had she gone a dreaming,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a man of imposing physique and flashing eye, who would
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: fling you Oxen here and there, and volt in and
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: out of an arena without catching a breath for his
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: lady's sake. And here I sat the sad reality, a
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: lean and slippered literary pretender, and constitutionally afraid of cattle,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: poor little Euphemia. For after all is said and done,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: and the new women gibbed out of existence, I'm afraid
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we do undeceive these poor wives of ours a little
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: after the marrying is over. It may be they have
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: deceived themselves in the first place, but that scarcely affects
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: their disappointment, These dream lovers of theirs, these monsters of
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: unselfishness and devotion, these tall fair donovans and dark worshiping wanderers.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And then comes the rappel rout of us, poor human men,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: damning at our breakfast, wiping pens upon our coat sleeves,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: smelling of pipe, fearing our editors, and turning Euphemia's private
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: boxes into public copy. And they take it so steadfastly,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: most of them. They never let us see the romance
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: we have robbed them of but turn to and make
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the best of it, and us with such sweet grace.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Only now and then, as in the instance of a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: flattened hat, may a cry escape them, And even then,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: but a truce to reality, let us return to Disorno.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: This individual does not become enamored of Gwendolen, as the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: crude novel reader might anticipate. He answers her coldly, and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: his eye rests the while on her tirewoman, the Sweet Margo.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Then come scenes of jealousy and love outside a castle
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: with heavily mullioned windows. The Sweet Margo, though she turns
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: out to be the daughter of a bankrupt prince, has
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: one characteristic of your servant all the world over. She
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: spends all her time looking out the way. Disorno tells
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: her of his love on the evening of the bullfight,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and she cheerfully promises to learn to love him. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: thereafter he spends all his days and nights spurrying his
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: fiery steed down the road that leads by the castle
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: containing the young scholar. It becomes a habit with him.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: In all. He does it seventeen times in three chapters.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Then ere it is too late. He implores Margo to fly. Gwendolen,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: after a fiery scene with Margo in which she calls
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: her a petty minion, pretty language for a young gentlewoman,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: sweeps with an underable scorn from the room, never to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the reader's huge astonishment to appear in the story again,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: and Margo flies with Disorno to Grenada, where the inquisition,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: consisting apparently of a single monk with a blazing eye,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: becomes extremely mockinatory. A certain Countess de Morno, who intends
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to marry Disorno, and who has been called into the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: story in a casual kind of way since the romance began,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: now comes prominently forward. She has denounced Margo for heresy,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: and at a masked ball, the inquisition, disguised in a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: yellow Domino, succeeds in separating the young couple and in
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: carrying off the sweet Margo to a convent. Disorno, half destrut,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: flung himself into a cab and drove to all the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: hotels in Grenada. He overlooked the police station, and, failing
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to find Margo, becomes mad. He goes about ejaculating mad
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: mad then, which nothing could be more eloquent of his
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: complete mental inversion. In his paroxysms. The Countess de Morno
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: persuades him to lead her to the altar, but on
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the way, with a certain indelicacy, they go to church.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: In the same conveyance. She lets slip a little secret.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So Disorno jumps out of the carriage, hurling the crowd
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: apart and flourishing has drawn sword clamored at the gate
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of the Inquisition for Margo. The Inquisition, represented by the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: fiery eyed Monk, looked over the gate at him. No doubt,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: it felt extremely uncomfortable. Now. It was just at this
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: thrilling part that Euphemia came home and the trouble about
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the flattened hat began. I never flattened her hat. It
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: was in the box, and so was I. But as
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: for deliberate flattening, it was just the thing that happened.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: She should not write such interesting stories if she expects
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: me to go on tiptoe through the world looking about
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: for her hats. To have that story taken away just
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: at that particular moment was horrible. There was fully as
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: much as I had read still to come, so that
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: a lot happened after this duel of sword versus Fiery Eye.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I know from a sheet that came out of place,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that Margo stabbed herself with a dagger richly jeweled. But
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of all that came between I have not the faintest suspicion,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that is the peculiar interest of it. At this particular moment,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the one book I want to read in all the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: world is the rest of this novel of Euphemius. And
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: simply on the score of a new hat needed, she
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: keeps it back and haggles. End of Chapter four