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In the Days of the Comet Book Second Chapter First Section 1-2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter one, sections one and two of In
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  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In
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  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Sections one and two. The Change. I seemed
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  Speaker 1: to awaken out of a refreshing sleep. I did not
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  Speaker 1: awaken with a start, but opened my eyes and lay
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  Speaker 1: very comfortably looking at a line of extraordinarily scarlet poppies
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  Speaker 1: that glowed against the glowing sky. It was the sky
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  Speaker 1: of a magnificent sunrise, and an archipelago of gold bleached
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  Speaker 1: purple islands floated in a sea of golden green. The poppies, too,
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  Speaker 1: swan necked buds, blazing corollas, translucent, stout seed vessels, stoutly upheld,
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  Speaker 1: had a luminous quality, seemed wrought only from some more
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  Speaker 1: solid kind of light. I stared unwonderingly at these things
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  Speaker 1: for a time, and then there rose upon my consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: intermingling with these the bristling, golden green heads of growing barley,
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  Speaker 1: a remote, faint question where I might be drifted and
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  Speaker 1: vanished again. In my mind, everything was very still, Everything
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  Speaker 1: was as still as death. I felt very light, full
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  Speaker 1: of the sense of physical well being. I perceived I
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  Speaker 1: was lying on my side in a little trampled space,
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  Speaker 1: in a weedy, flowering barley field that was, in some
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  Speaker 1: inexplicable way, saturated with light and beauty. I sat up
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  Speaker 1: and remained for a long time, filled with the delight
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  Speaker 1: and charm of the delicate little convulvulus that twined among
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  Speaker 1: the barley stems, the pimpernel that laced the ground below.
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  Speaker 1: Then that question returned, What was this place? How had
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  Speaker 1: I come to be sleeping here? I could not remember.
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  Speaker 1: It perplexed me that somehow my body felt strange to me.
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  Speaker 1: It was unfamiliar. I could not tell how. And the
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  Speaker 1: barley and the beautiful weeds, and the slowly developing glory
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  Speaker 1: of the dawn behind all those things partook of the
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  Speaker 1: same unfamiliarity. I felt as though I was a thing
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  Speaker 1: in some very luminous painted window, as though this dawn
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  Speaker 1: broke through me. I felt I was part of some
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  Speaker 1: exquisite picture painted in light and joy. A faint breeze
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  Speaker 1: bent and rustled the barley heads, and jogged my mind forward.
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  Speaker 1: Who was I? That was a good way of beginning.
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  Speaker 1: I held up my left hand and arm before me,
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  Speaker 1: a grubby hand, a frayed cuff, but with a quality
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  Speaker 1: of painted unreality, transfigured as a beggar might have been
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  Speaker 1: by Botticelli. I looked for a time, steadfastly at a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful pearl sleeve link. I remembered Willie Ladford, who had
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  Speaker 1: owned that arm and hand, as though he had been
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  Speaker 1: some one else. Of course, my history, its rough outline,
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  Speaker 1: rather than the immediate past, began to shape itself in
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  Speaker 1: my memory, very small, very bright, and inaccessible, like a
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  Speaker 1: thing watched through a microscope. Clayton and swathingly returned to
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  Speaker 1: my mind the slums and darkness, duresque, minute, and in
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  Speaker 1: their rich dark colors, pleasing, and through them I went
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  Speaker 1: towards my destiny. I sat hands on knees, recalling that queer,
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  Speaker 1: passionate career that had ended with my futile shot into
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  Speaker 1: the growing darkness of the end. The thought of that
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  Speaker 1: shot awoke my emotions again. There was something in it now,
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  Speaker 1: something absurd, that made me smile pityingly, poor little, angry,
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  Speaker 1: miserable creature, Poor little angry, miserable world. I sighed for pity,
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  Speaker 1: not only pity for myself, but for all the hot hearts,
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  Speaker 1: the tormented brains, the straining, striving things of hope and pain,
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  Speaker 1: who had found their peace at last beneath the pouring
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  Speaker 1: mist and suffocation of the comet. Because certainly that world
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  Speaker 1: was over and done. They were all so weak and unhappy,
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  Speaker 1: and I was now so strong and so serene. For
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  Speaker 1: I felt sure I was dead. No one living could
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  Speaker 1: have this perfect assurance of good, this strong and confident peace.
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  Speaker 1: I had made an end of the fever called living.
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  Speaker 1: I was dead and it was all right. And these
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  Speaker 1: I felt an inconsistency. These, then, must be the barley
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  Speaker 1: fields of God, the still and silent barley fields of God,
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  Speaker 1: full of unfading poppy flowers whose seeds bear peace. Section two.
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  Speaker 1: It was queer to find barley fields in heaven, but
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  Speaker 1: no doubt there were many surprises in store for me.
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  Speaker 1: How still, everything was peace, the peace that passive understanding,
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  Speaker 1: after all, it had come to me. But indeed everything
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  Speaker 1: was very still. No birds sang Surely I was alone
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  Speaker 1: in the world. No birds sang yes, And all the
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  Speaker 1: distant sounds of life had ceased, the lowing of cattle,
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  Speaker 1: the barking of dogs. Something that was like fear beatified
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  Speaker 1: came into my heart. It was all right, I knew,
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  Speaker 1: but to be alone. I stood up and met the
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  Speaker 1: hot summons of the rising sun, hurrying towards me as
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  Speaker 1: it were, with glad tidings over the spikes of the barley. Blinded,
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  Speaker 1: I made a step. My foot struck something hard, and
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  Speaker 1: I looked down to discover my revolver, a blue black
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  Speaker 1: thing like a dead snake at my feet. For a
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  Speaker 1: moment that puzzled me. Then I clean forgot about it.
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  Speaker 1: The wonder of the quiet took possession of my soul.
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  Speaker 1: Dawn and no birds singing. How beautiful was the world,
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  Speaker 1: How beautiful? But how still? I walked slowly through the
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  Speaker 1: barley towards a line of elder bushes, wayfaring tree and
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  Speaker 1: bramble that made the hedge of the field. I noted
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  Speaker 1: as I passed along, a dead shrew, mouse, as it
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me among the halms, then a still toad.
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  Speaker 1: I was surprised that this did not leave beside from
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  Speaker 1: my footfalls, and I stooped and picked it up. Its
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  Speaker 1: body was limp like life. But it made no struggle.
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  Speaker 1: The brightness of its eye was veiled. It did not
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  Speaker 1: move in my hand. It seems to me now that
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  Speaker 1: I stood holding that lifeless little creature for some time.
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  Speaker 1: Then very softly I stooped down and replaced it. I
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  Speaker 1: was trembling, trembling with a nameless emotion. I looked with
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  Speaker 1: quickened eyes closely among the barley stems, and behold now,
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  Speaker 1: everywhere I saw beetles, flies, and little creatures that did
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  Speaker 1: not move, lying as they fell when the vapors overcame them.
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  Speaker 1: They seemed no more than painted things. Some were novel creatures.
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  Speaker 1: To me, I was very unfamiliar with natural things. My God,
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  Speaker 1: I cried, is it only I? And then at my
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  Speaker 1: next movement, something squealed sharply. I turned about, but I
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  Speaker 1: could not see it. I only saw a little stir
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  Speaker 1: in a rut, and heard the diminishing rustle of the
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  Speaker 1: unseen creature's flight. And at that I turned to my
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  Speaker 1: toad again, and its eye moved, and it stirred, and presently,
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  Speaker 1: with infirm and hesitating gestures, it stretched its limbs and
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  Speaker 1: began to crawl away from me. But wonder that gentle
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  Speaker 1: sister of fear had me now, and I saw a
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  Speaker 1: little way ahead of brown and crimson butterfly perched upon
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  Speaker 1: a corn flower. I thought at first it was the
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  Speaker 1: breeze that stirred it, and then I saw its wings
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  Speaker 1: were quivering, And even as I watched it, it started
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  Speaker 1: into life and spread itself and fluttered into the air.
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  Speaker 1: I watched it fly a turn this way, a turn that,
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  Speaker 1: until suddenly it seemed to vanish. And now life was
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  Speaker 1: returning to this thing and that on every side of me,
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  Speaker 1: with slow stretchings and bendings, with twitterings, with a little
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  Speaker 1: start and stir I came slowly, stepping, very carefully because
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  Speaker 1: of these drug feebly weakening things, through the barley to
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  Speaker 1: the hedge. It was a very glorious hedge, so that
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  Speaker 1: it held my eyes. It flowed along and interlaced like
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  Speaker 1: splendid music. It was rich with lupin honeysuckle campions and
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  Speaker 1: ragged robin bed straw hops and wild clematis twined and
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  Speaker 1: hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border.
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  Speaker 1: The starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and chorused in
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  Speaker 1: lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony
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  Speaker 1: of note like flowers and tendrils and leaves, and suddenly
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  Speaker 1: in its depths I heard a chirrup and the whir
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  Speaker 1: of startled wings. Nothing was dead, but everything had changed
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  Speaker 1: to beauty. And I stood for a time with clean
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  Speaker 1: and happy eyes, looking at the intricate delicacy before me,
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  Speaker 1: and marveling how rich God has made his whirls tweedle, tweezle.
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  Speaker 1: A lark had shot the stillness with his shining thread
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  Speaker 1: of song, one lark, and then presently another invisibly in
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  Speaker 1: the air, making out of that blue quiet a woven
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  Speaker 1: cloth of gold. The earth re created only by the
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  Speaker 1: reiteration of such phrases. May I hope to give the
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  Speaker 1: intense freshness of that dawn. For a time I was
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  Speaker 1: altogether taken up with the beautiful details of being, as
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  Speaker 1: regardless of my old life of jealous passion and impatient sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: as though I was adam new maid. And I could
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  Speaker 1: tell you now with infinite particularity, of the shut flowers
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  Speaker 1: that opened as I looked, of tendrils and grass blades
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  Speaker 1: of a blue tit I picked up very tenderly. Never
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  Speaker 1: before had I remarked the great delicacy of feathers that
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  Speaker 1: presently disclosed its bright black eye and me, and perched
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  Speaker 1: swaying fearlessly upon my finger, and spread unhurried wings, and
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  Speaker 1: flew away, And of a great ebullition of tadpoles in
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  Speaker 1: the ditch, Like all the things that lived beneath the water,
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  Speaker 1: they had passed unaltered through the change. Amid such incidents,
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  Speaker 1: I lived those first great moments, losing for a time
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  Speaker 1: in the wonder of each little part the mighty wonder
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  Speaker 1: of the whole. A little path ran between the hedge
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  Speaker 1: and barley, and along this, leisurely and content and glad,
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  Speaker 1: and looking at this beautiful thing and that, moving a step,
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  Speaker 1: and stopping, then moving on again. I came presently to
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  Speaker 1: a stile, and deep below it and overgrown was a lane.
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  Speaker 1: And on the worn oak of the stile was a
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  Speaker 1: round label, and on the label these words swindles g
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  Speaker 1: ninety pills. I sat myself astraddle on the style, not
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  Speaker 1: fully grasping all the implications of these words. But they
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  Speaker 1: perplexed me even more than the revolver and my dirty
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  Speaker 1: cuff above me. Now the birds lifted up their little
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  Speaker 1: hearts and sang ever more birds and more. I read
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  Speaker 1: the label over and over again, and joined it to
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  Speaker 1: the fact that I still wore my former clothes, and
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  Speaker 1: that my revolver had been lying at my feet. One
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  Speaker 1: conclusion stared out at me. This was no new planet,
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  Speaker 1: no glorious hereafter such as I had supposed, this beautiful wonderland.
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  Speaker 1: Was the world, the same old world of my rage
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  Speaker 1: and death. But at least it was like meeting a
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  Speaker 1: familiar house, slut washed and dignified, dressed in a queen's robes,
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  Speaker 1: worshipful and fine. It might be the old world, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: but something new lay upon all things, of glowing certitude,
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  Speaker 1: of health and happiness. It might be the old world,
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  Speaker 1: but the dust and fury of the old life was
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  Speaker 1: certainly done. At least I had no doubt of that.
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  Speaker 1: I recall the last phases of my former life, that
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  Speaker 1: darkling climax of pursuit and anger, and universal darkness, and
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  Speaker 1: the whirling green vapors of extinction. The comet had struck
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  Speaker 1: the earth and made an end to all things. Of
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  Speaker 1: that too, I was assured. But afterward, and now the
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  Speaker 1: imaginations of my boyhood came back as speculative possibilities. In
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  Speaker 1: those days I had believed firmly in the necessary advent
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  Speaker 1: of a last day, a great coming out of the sky,
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  Speaker 1: trumpetings and fear, the resurrection, and the judgment. My roving
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  Speaker 1: fancy now suggested to me that this judgment must have
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  Speaker 1: come and passed, that passed, and in some manner missed me.
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  Speaker 1: I was left alone here in a swept and garnished world,
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  Speaker 1: except of course, for this label of Swindles to begin again.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps no doubt Swindles has got his deserts. My mind
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  Speaker 1: ran for a time on Swindles, on the imbecile pushfulness
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  Speaker 1: of that extinct creature, dealing in rubbish, covering the country
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  Speaker 1: side with lies in order to get what had he sought.
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  Speaker 1: A silly, ugly great house, a temper destroying motor car,
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  Speaker 1: a number of disrespectful abject servants, thwarted intrigues for a
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  Speaker 1: party fond baronetcy as the quest of his life. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: you cannot imagine the littleness of those former times, their naive,
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  Speaker 1: queer absurdities. And for the first time in my existence,
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  Speaker 1: I thought of these things without bitterness. In the former days,
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  Speaker 1: I had seen wickedness, I had seen tragedy. But now
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  Speaker 1: I saw only the extraordinary foolishness of the old life.
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  Speaker 1: The ludicrous side of human wealth and importance turned itself
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  Speaker 1: upon me. A shining novelty poured down upon me like
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  Speaker 1: the sunrise, and engulfed me in laughter. Swindles, Swindles damned.
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  Speaker 1: My vision of judgment became a delightful burlesque. I saw
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  Speaker 1: the chuckling angel Sayer with his face veiled, and the
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  Speaker 1: corporeal presence of Swindles upheld amidst the laughter of the spheres.
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  Speaker 1: Here's a thing, a very pretty thing, And what's to
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  Speaker 1: be done with this very pretty thing? I saw a
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  Speaker 1: soul being drawn from a rotund, substantial looking body, like
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  Speaker 1: a whelk from its shell. I laughed loudly and long,
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  Speaker 1: and behold, even as I laughed, the keen point of
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  Speaker 1: things accomplished stabbed my mirth, and I was weeping, weeping aloud,
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  Speaker 1: convulsed with weeping, and the tears were pouring down my face.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book two, Chapter one, Sections one and two.