Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Second Section 3-4

Transcript

In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Second Section 3-4 · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter two, Sections three and four of In
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: by Lewis. Section three. I recall with a vivid precision,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: her queer start when she heard the rustle of my
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: approaching feet, her surprise, her eyes almost of dismay for me.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I could recollect. I believe every significant word she spoke
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: during our meeting, and most of what I said to her,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: at least it seems I could. Though indeed I may
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: deceive myself, but I will not make the attempt. We
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: were both too ill educated to speak out our full means.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: We stamped out our feelings with clumsy, stereotyped phrases. You,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: who are better taught, would fail to catch our intention.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The effect would be inanity. But our first words I
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: may give you, because though they conveyed nothing to me
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: at the time, afterwards they meant much. You willie, she said,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I have come, I said, forgetting in the instant all
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the elaborate things I had intended to say. I thought
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I would surprise you surprise me. Yes, she stared at
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: me for a moment. I can see her pretty face
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: now as it looked at me, her impenetrable dear face.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: She laughed, a queer little laugh, and her color went
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: for a moment, and then, so soon as she had spoken,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: came back again. Surprise me at what she said with
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a rising note. I was too intense to explain myself,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to think of what might lie in that I wanted
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to tell you. I said that I didn't mean quite
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the things I put in my letter section four. When
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I and Nettie had been sixteen, we had been just
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of an age and contemporaries altogether. Now we were a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: year and three quarters older, and she her metamorphosis, was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: almost complete, and I was still only at the beginning
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of a man's long adolescence. In an instant, she grasped
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the situation. The hidden motives of her quick ripened little
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: mind flashed out their intuitive scheme of action. She treated
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: me with that neat perfection of understanding a young woman
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: has for a boy. But how did you come, she asked.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I told her I had walked, walked. In an instant,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: she was leading me towards the gardens, I must be tired.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I must come home with her at once and sit down. Indeed,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it was near tea time the Stuarts had tea at
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that old fashioned hour of five. Everyone would be so
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: surprised to see me fancy walking fancy, But she supposed
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a man thought nothing of seventeen miles. When could I
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: have started, all the while keeping me at a distance,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: without even the touch of her hand. But Nettie, I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: came over to talk to you, my dear boy. Tea first,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: if you please, And besides, aren't we talking? The dear
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: boy was a new note that sounded oddly to me.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: She quickened her pace a little. I wanted to explain.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I began whatever I wanted to explain, I had no
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: chance to do so. I said a few discrepant things,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and she answered rather by her intonation than her words.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: When we were well past the shrubbery, she slackened a
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: little in her urgency, and so we came along the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: slope under the beeches to the garden. She kept her bright,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: straightforward looking, girlish eyes on me as we went. It
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: seemed she did so all the time. But now I
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: know better than I did then that every now and
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: then she glanced over me and behind me towards the shrubbery,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and all the while behind her, quick, breathless, inconsecutive talk,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: she was thinking. Her dress marked the end of her transition.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Can I recall it? Not? I am afraid in the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: terms a woman would use. But her bright brown hair,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: which had once flowed down her back in a jolly
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: pigtail tied with a bit of scarlet ribbon, was now
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: caught up into an intricacy of pretty curves above her
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: little ear and cheek, and the soft long lines of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: her neck. Her white dress had descended to her feet.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Her slender waist, which had once been a mere geographical expression,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: an imaginary line like the equator, was now a thing
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: of flexible beauty. A year ago, she had been a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: pretty girl's face sticking out from a little unimportant frock
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that was carried upon an extremely active and efficient pair
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of brown stocking legs. Now there was coming a strange
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: new body that flowed beneath her clothes with a sensuous
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: insistence every movement, and particularly the novel droop of her
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: hand and arm, to the unaccustomed skirts she gathered about her,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and a graceful forward inclination that had come to her
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: called softly to my eyes a very fine scarf, I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: suppose you would call it a scarf of green gossamer,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that some new wakened instinct had told her to fling
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: about her should odors clung now closely to the young
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: undulations of her body, and now streamed fluttering out for
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a moment in a breath of wind, and like some
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: shy independent tentacle with a secret to impart, came into
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: momentary contact with my arm. She caught it back and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: reproved it. We went through the green gate in the
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: high garden wall. I held it open for her to
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: pass through, for this was one of my restricted stock
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of stiff politenesses. And then for a second she was
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: near touching me. So we came to the trim array
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of flower beds near the head gardener's cottage, and the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: vistas of glass on our left. We walked between the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: box edgings and beds of pegonias, and into the shadow
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of a yew hedge within twenty yards of that very
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: pond with the goldfish at whose brim we had plighted
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: our valves. And so we came to the wisteria smothered porch.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The door was wide open, and she walked in before me.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Guess who's come to see us? She cried. Her father
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: answered indistinctly from the parlor, and a chair creaked. I
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: judged he was disturbed in his nap. Mother, she called
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in her clear, young voice. Puss. Puss was her sister.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: She told them in a marveling key that I had
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: walked all the way from Clayton, and they gathered about
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: me and echoed her notes of surprise. You'd better sit down, Willie,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: said her father. Now you have got here. How's your mother?
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: He looked at me curiously as he spoke. He was
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: dressed in his sunday clothes, a sort of brownish tweeds,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: but the waistcoat was unbuttoned for greater comfort in his slumbers.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: He was a brown eyed, ruddy man, and I still
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: have now in my mind the bright effect of the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: red golden hairs that started out from his cheek to
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: flow down into his beard. He was short but strongly built,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and his beard and mustache were the biggest things about him.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: She had taken all the possibilities of beauty. He possessed
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: his clear skin, his bright hazel brown eyes and witted
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: them to a certain quickness she got from her mother.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Her mother I remember as a sharp eyed woman of
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: great activity. She seems to me now to have been
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: perpetually bringing in or taking out meals, or doing some
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: such service. And to me, for my mother's sake and
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: my own, she was always welcoming and kind. Huss was
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: a youngster of fourteen, perhaps, of whom a hard, bright
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: stare and a pale skin like her mother's are the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: chief traces on my memory. All these people were very
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: kind to me, and among them there was a common recognition,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: sometimes very agreeably finding expression, that I was clever. They
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: all stood about me as if they were a little
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: at a loss. Sit down, said her father, Give him
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a chair, Puss. We talked a little stiffly. They were
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: evidently surprised by my sudden apparition, Dusty fatigued and white faced.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: But Nettie did not remain to keep the conversation going.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: There she cried suddenly, as if she were vexed. I declare,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and she darted out of the room. Lord, what a
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: girl it is, said mister Stuart. I don't know what's
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: come to her. It was half an hour before Nettie
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: came back. It seemed a long time to me, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: yet she had been running for When she came in again,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: she was out of breath. In the meantime, I had
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: thrown out casually that I had given up my place
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: at Rawdon's. I can do better than that, I said.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I left my book in the dell, she said, panting
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: his tea ready, and that was her apology. We didn't
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: shake down into comfort, even with the coming of the tea. Things.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Tea at the Gardener's cottage was a serious meal, with
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a big cake and little cakes, and preserves and fruit,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: a fine spread upon a table. You must imagine me sullen,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: awkward and preoccupied, perplexed by the something that was inexplicably
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: unexpected in Nettie, saying little, and glowering across the cake
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: at her, and all the eloquence I had been concentrating
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on for the previous twenty four hours, miserably lost somewhere
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: in the back of my mind. Nettie's father tried to
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: set me talking. He had a liking for my gift
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of ready speech, for his own ideas came with difficulty,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and it pleased and astonished him to hear me pouring
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: out my views. Indeed, over there I was, I think,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: even more talkative than with Parload, though to the world
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: at large I was a shy, young lout. You ought
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to write it out for the newspaper, he used to say,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that's what you ought to do. I never heard such nonsense.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Or you've got the gift of gab, young man. We
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: ought hadn't made a lawyer of you. But that afternoon,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: even in his eyes, I didn't shine. Failing any other stimulus,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: he reverted to my search for a situation, but even
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: that did not engage me. In of Book one, Chapter two,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Sections three and four,