Latest / Classic Sci Fi Books - Daily / 06 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

06 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Classic Sci Fi Books - Daily

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter six, The whole in heaven. That delicate ruby light,
0:06
Speaker 1: which is one of the rarest but one of the
0:08
Speaker 1: most exquisite of evening effects, warmed the land, sky and seas,
0:14
Speaker 1: as if the whole world were washed in wine and
0:17
Speaker 1: dyed almost scarlet. The strong red head of Patrick Dalroy
0:22
Speaker 1: as he stood on a waste of firs and bracken
0:25
Speaker 1: where he and his friends had halted. One of his
0:28
Speaker 1: friends was re examining a short gun rather like a
0:32
Speaker 1: double barreled carbine. The other was eating thistles. Dolroy himself
0:38
Speaker 1: was idle and ruminant, with his hands in his pockets
0:42
Speaker 1: and his eye on the horizon. Landwards. The hills, plains
0:47
Speaker 1: and woods lay bathed in the rose red light, but
0:51
Speaker 1: it changed somewhat to purple, to cloud, and something like
0:55
Speaker 1: storm over the distant violet strip of sea. It was
1:00
Speaker 1: towards the sea that he was staring. Suddenly he woke
1:05
Speaker 1: up and seemed almost to rub his eyes, or at
1:08
Speaker 1: any rate to rub his red eyebrow. Why we're on
1:13
Speaker 1: the road of Pebblewick, he said, that's the damned little
1:17
Speaker 1: tin chapel by the beach. I know, answered his friend
1:21
Speaker 1: and guide. We've done the old hair trick doubled, you know,
1:27
Speaker 1: nine times out of ten, it's the best. Parson White
1:30
Speaker 1: Lady used to do it when they were after him
1:33
Speaker 1: for dog stealing. I've pretty much followed his trail. You
1:37
Speaker 1: can't do better than stick to the best examples. They
1:40
Speaker 1: tell you in London that Dick Turpin rode to York.
1:44
Speaker 1: Well I know he didn't. For my old grandfather up
1:48
Speaker 1: at Cobble's End knew the Turpins. Intimately threw one of
1:52
Speaker 1: them into the river on a Christmas Day. But I
1:55
Speaker 1: think I can guess what he did do and how
1:58
Speaker 1: the tail got about. If Dick was wise, he went
2:03
Speaker 1: flying up the Old North Road shouting York Yorke or
2:07
Speaker 1: what not before people recognized him. Then if he did
2:11
Speaker 1: the thing properly, he might half an hour afterwards walk
2:15
Speaker 1: down the strand with a pipe in his mouth. They say,
2:18
Speaker 1: old Boney said go where you aren't expected, and I
2:23
Speaker 1: suppose as a soldier he was right. But for a
2:26
Speaker 1: gentleman dodging the police like yourself, it isn't exactly the
2:30
Speaker 1: right way of putting it. I should say, go where
2:33
Speaker 1: you ought to be expected, and you'll generally find your
2:37
Speaker 1: fellow creatures don't do what they ought about expecting any
2:42
Speaker 1: more than about anything else. Well, this bit between here
2:46
Speaker 1: and the sea, said the captain in a brown study.
2:50
Speaker 1: I know it so well, so well that that I
2:54
Speaker 1: rather wish i'd never seen it again. Do you know,
2:57
Speaker 1: he asked, suddenly, pointing to a pack and pit of
3:00
Speaker 1: sand that showed white in the dusky heath a hundred
3:04
Speaker 1: yards away. Do you know what makes that spot so
3:07
Speaker 1: famous in history? Yes, answered mister Pump. That's where old
3:13
Speaker 1: mother Grout shot the Methodist. You are in error, said
3:17
Speaker 1: the captain. Such an incident as you describe would in
3:20
Speaker 1: no case call for special comment or regret. No, that
3:24
Speaker 1: spot is famous because a very badly brought up girl
3:28
Speaker 1: once lost a ribbon off a plate of black hair,
3:30
Speaker 1: and somebody helped her find it. Has the other person
3:34
Speaker 1: been well brought up? Asked Pump, with a faint smile. No,
3:39
Speaker 1: said Dalroy, staring at the sea. He has been brought down. Then,
3:45
Speaker 1: rousing himself again, he made a gesture toward a further
3:48
Speaker 1: part of the heath. Do you know the remarkable history
3:51
Speaker 1: of that old wall, the one beyond the last gorge
3:54
Speaker 1: over there? No, replied the other unless you mean dead
3:58
Speaker 1: man's circus, that and further along, I do not mean
4:02
Speaker 1: dead man's circus, said the captain. The remarkable history of
4:06
Speaker 1: that wall is that somebody's shadow once fell on it,
4:09
Speaker 1: and that shadow was more desirable than the substance of
4:12
Speaker 1: all other living things. It is this, he cried, almost violently,
4:18
Speaker 1: resuming his flippant tone. It is this circumstance, Hump, and
4:23
Speaker 1: not the trivial and every day incident of a dead
4:26
Speaker 1: man going to a circus to which you have presumed
4:29
Speaker 1: to compare it. It is this historical event which Lord
4:33
Speaker 1: Ivywood is about to commemorate by rebuilding the wall with
4:36
Speaker 1: solid gold and Greek marbles stolen by the Turks from
4:39
Speaker 1: the grave of Socrates, enclosing a column of solid gold
4:43
Speaker 1: four hundred feet high and surmounted by a colossal equestrian
4:47
Speaker 1: statue of a bankrupt irishman riding backwards on a donkey.
4:51
Speaker 1: He lifted one of his long legs over the animal,
4:54
Speaker 1: as if about to pose for the group, then swung
4:56
Speaker 1: back on both feet again and again looked at the
4:59
Speaker 1: purple limit of the sea. Do you know, Hump, he said,
5:03
Speaker 1: I think modern people have somehow got their minds all
5:07
Speaker 1: wrong about human life. They seem to expect what nature
5:11
Speaker 1: has never promised, and then try to ruin all that
5:14
Speaker 1: nature has really given. At all, those atheist chapels of
5:18
Speaker 1: ivy woods, they're always talking of peace, perfect peace, and
5:23
Speaker 1: utter peace and universal joy and souls that beat us one.
5:28
Speaker 1: But they don't look any more cheerful than anyone else.
5:31
Speaker 1: And the next thing they do is to start smashing
5:34
Speaker 1: a thousand good jokes and good stories and good songs
5:37
Speaker 1: and good friendships. By pulling down the old ship. He
5:41
Speaker 1: gave a glance at the loose sign post lying on
5:44
Speaker 1: the heath beside him, almost as if to reassure himself
5:48
Speaker 1: that it was not stolen. Now it seems to me,
5:52
Speaker 1: he went on, that this is asking for too much
5:56
Speaker 1: and getting too little. I don't know whether God means
6:00
Speaker 1: man to have happiness in that all in all and
6:03
Speaker 1: utterly utter sense of happiness. But God does mean a
6:06
Speaker 1: man to have a little fun, and I mean to
6:09
Speaker 1: go on having it. If I mustn't satisfy my heart,
6:12
Speaker 1: I can gratify my humor. The cynical fellows who think
6:16
Speaker 1: themselves so damned clever, have a sort of saying, be good,
6:20
Speaker 1: and you will be happy, but you will not have
6:22
Speaker 1: a jolly time. The cynical fellows are quite wrong, as
6:27
Speaker 1: they generally are, they have got hold of the exact
6:30
Speaker 1: opposite of the truth. God knows. I don't set up
6:33
Speaker 1: to be good, but even a rascal sometimes has to
6:36
Speaker 1: fight the world in the same way as a saint.
6:39
Speaker 1: I think I have fought the world et militavi non sine.
6:44
Speaker 1: What's the Latin for having a lark? I can't pretend
6:48
Speaker 1: to peace and joy and all the rest of it,
6:50
Speaker 1: particularly in this original briar patch. I haven't been happy, Hump,
6:55
Speaker 1: but I have had a jolly time. The sunset, stillness
7:00
Speaker 1: settled down again, save for the cropping of the donkey
7:03
Speaker 1: in the undergrowth, and Pump said nothing sympathetically, and it
7:08
Speaker 1: was Dolroy once more who took up his parable. So
7:12
Speaker 1: I think there's too much of this playing on our emotions, Hump,
7:16
Speaker 1: as this place is certainly playing the cat and banjo
7:19
Speaker 1: with mine. Damn it all. There are other things to
7:22
Speaker 1: do with the rest of one's time. I don't like
7:25
Speaker 1: all this fuss about feeling things. It only makes people miserable.
7:29
Speaker 1: In my present frame of mind, I'm in favor of
7:32
Speaker 1: doing things, all of which, hump he said, with a
7:36
Speaker 1: sudden lift of the voice that always went in him,
7:39
Speaker 1: with a rushing, irrational return of merely animal spirits, all
7:43
Speaker 1: of which I have put into a song against songs
7:47
Speaker 1: that I will now sing you. I shouldn't sing it here,
7:52
Speaker 1: said Humphrey Pump, picking up his gun and putting it
7:55
Speaker 1: under his arm. You look large in this open place,
7:59
Speaker 1: and you sound large, arge. But I'll take you to
8:01
Speaker 1: the hole in heaven you've been talking about so much,
8:04
Speaker 1: and hide you as I used to hide you from
8:06
Speaker 1: that tutor I couldn't catch his name, man who could
8:09
Speaker 1: only get drunk on Greek wine at square Wimpole's hump,
8:13
Speaker 1: cried the captain, I abdicate the throne of Ithaca. You
8:17
Speaker 1: are far wiser than Ulysses. Here I have had my
8:20
Speaker 1: heart torn with temptations to ten thousand things, between suicide
8:24
Speaker 1: and abduction, and all by the mere sight of that
8:27
Speaker 1: hole in the heath where we used to have picnics,
8:31
Speaker 1: and all that time I'd forgotten. We used to call
8:33
Speaker 1: it the hole in heaven, and by God, what a
8:36
Speaker 1: good name in both senses. I thought you'd have remembered it.
8:41
Speaker 1: Captain said the innkeeper, from the joke, young mister Matthew's Maid,
8:47
Speaker 1: in the heat of some savage hand to hand struggle
8:50
Speaker 1: in Albania, said mister Dolroy, sadly, pressing his palm across
8:54
Speaker 1: his brow. I must have forgotten for one fatal instant
8:57
Speaker 1: the joke, young mister Matthew's Maid. It wasn't very good,
9:01
Speaker 1: said mister Pump, simply, Ah, his aunt was the one
9:05
Speaker 1: for things like that. She went too far with old gudgeon.
9:08
Speaker 1: Though with these words he jumped and seemed to be
9:12
Speaker 1: swallowed up by the earth. But they had merely strolled
9:16
Speaker 1: the few yards needed to bring them to the edge
9:18
Speaker 1: of the sand pit on the heath of which they
9:21
Speaker 1: had been speaking. And it is one of the truths
9:24
Speaker 1: concealed by Heaven from Lord Ivywood, and revealed by Heaven
9:28
Speaker 1: to mister Pump, that a hiding place can be covered
9:31
Speaker 1: when you are close to it, and yet be open
9:34
Speaker 1: and visible from some spot of vantage far off from
9:39
Speaker 1: the side by which they approached it. The sudden hollow
9:42
Speaker 1: of sand, a kind of collapsed chamber in the heath,
9:46
Speaker 1: seemed covered with a natural curve of fern and furs,
9:50
Speaker 1: and flashed out of sight like a fairy. It's all right,
9:54
Speaker 1: he called out from under a floor or roof of leaves.
9:58
Speaker 1: You'll remember it all when you get there. This is
10:01
Speaker 1: the place to sing your song, Captain, Lord bless me, Captain.
10:04
Speaker 1: I don't remember your singing that Irish song you made
10:07
Speaker 1: up at college, bellowing it like a bowl of bashon
10:12
Speaker 1: all about hearts and sleeves or some such thing. And
10:15
Speaker 1: her ladyship and the tutor never heard a breath, because
10:18
Speaker 1: that bank of sand breaks everything. It's worth knowing all this,
10:23
Speaker 1: you know. It's a pity. It's not part of a
10:25
Speaker 1: young gentleman's education. Now you shall sing me the song
10:29
Speaker 1: in favor of having no feelings, or whatever you call it.
10:34
Speaker 1: Dolroy was staring about him at the cavern of his
10:37
Speaker 1: old picnics, so forgotten and so startlingly familiar, he seemed
10:42
Speaker 1: to have lost all thought of singing anything, and simply
10:46
Speaker 1: to be groping in the dark house of his own boyhood.
10:50
Speaker 1: There was a slight trickle from a natural spring in
10:53
Speaker 1: the sandstone, just under the ferns, and he remembered they
10:56
Speaker 1: used to try to boil the water in a kettle.
10:59
Speaker 1: He remembered to quarrel about who had upset the kettle, which,
11:04
Speaker 1: in the morbidity of first love, had given him for
11:07
Speaker 1: days the tortures of the damned. When the energetic Pump
11:11
Speaker 1: broke once more through the rather thorny roof, on an
11:14
Speaker 1: impulse to accumulate their other eccentric possessions, Patrick remembered about
11:19
Speaker 1: a thorn and a finger that made his heart stop
11:22
Speaker 1: with something that was pain and perfect music. When Pump
11:26
Speaker 1: returned with the rum keg and the cheese and rolled
11:29
Speaker 1: them with a kick down the shelving sandy side of
11:32
Speaker 1: the hole, he remembered, with almost wrathful laughter, that in
11:37
Speaker 1: the old days he had rolled down that slope himself
11:40
Speaker 1: and thought it rather a fine thing to do. He
11:43
Speaker 1: felt then, as if he were rolling down a smooth
11:46
Speaker 1: side of the matter horn. He observed now that the
11:49
Speaker 1: height was rather less than that of the second story
11:54
Speaker 1: of one of the stunted cottages he had noted on
11:56
Speaker 1: his return. He suddenly understood he had had grown bigger,
12:01
Speaker 1: bigger in a bodily sense. He had doubts about any
12:04
Speaker 1: other the hole in heaven. He said, what a good name,
12:10
Speaker 1: what a good poet, I was? In those days the
12:13
Speaker 1: hole in heaven, But does it let one in or
12:16
Speaker 1: let one out? In the last level shafts of the
12:20
Speaker 1: fallen sun, the fantastic shadow of the long eared quadruped
12:25
Speaker 1: whom Pump had now tethered to a new and nearer pasture,
12:29
Speaker 1: fell across the last sunlit scrap of sand. Doalroy looked
12:34
Speaker 1: at the long, exaggerated shadow of the ass and laughed
12:38
Speaker 1: that short, explosive laugh he had uttered when the doors
12:41
Speaker 1: of the Harems had been closed after the Turkish War.
12:45
Speaker 1: He was normally a man much too loquacious, but he
12:49
Speaker 1: never explained those laughs. Humphrey Pump plunged down again into
12:55
Speaker 1: the sunken nest and began to broach the cask of
12:58
Speaker 1: rum in his own secret style, saying, we can get
13:01
Speaker 1: something else somehow tomorrow. For to night we can eat
13:05
Speaker 1: cheese and drink rum, especially as there's a water on tap,
13:09
Speaker 1: so to speak. And now Captain sing us the song
13:13
Speaker 1: against songs. Patrick Dolroy drank a little rum out of
13:18
Speaker 1: a small medicine glass, which the generally unaccountable mister Pump
13:23
Speaker 1: unaccountably procured from his waistcoat pocket. But Patrick's color had risen,
13:29
Speaker 1: his brow was almost as red as his hair, and
13:32
Speaker 1: he was evidently reluctant. I don't see why I should
13:35
Speaker 1: sing all the songs, he said, Why the devil don't
13:38
Speaker 1: you sing a song yourself? And now, come to think
13:41
Speaker 1: of it, he cried, with an accumulating brogue, not perhaps
13:45
Speaker 1: wholly unaffected by the rum, which he had not, in
13:47
Speaker 1: fact drunk for years. And now I come to think
13:51
Speaker 1: of it, what about that song of yours? All me
13:54
Speaker 1: use coming back in this blessed and cursed place? And
13:57
Speaker 1: I remember that song of yours that never resisted, nor
14:00
Speaker 1: ever will. Don't you remember, Humphrey Pump, that night when
14:05
Speaker 1: I sang ye no less than seventeen songs of me
14:08
Speaker 1: own composition. I remember it very well, answered the Englishman
14:13
Speaker 1: with restraint. And don't ye remember? Went on the exhilarated
14:17
Speaker 1: Irishman with solemnity, that unless YE could produce a poetic
14:21
Speaker 1: lyric of your own, written and sung by yourself, I
14:26
Speaker 1: threatened to sing again, said the impenetrable Pump. Yes, I know.
14:32
Speaker 1: He calmly proceeded to take out of his pockets, which
14:35
Speaker 1: were alas more like those of a poacher than an innkeeper,
14:39
Speaker 1: a folded and faded piece of paper. I wrote it.
14:42
Speaker 1: When you asked me, he said, simply, I have never
14:46
Speaker 1: tried to sing it, but I'll sing it myself when
14:49
Speaker 1: you've sung your song against anybody singing at all. All right,
14:54
Speaker 1: cried the somewhat excited captain to hear a song from you.
14:58
Speaker 1: Why I'll sing anything. This is the song against song hump,
15:04
Speaker 1: and again he let his voice out like a bellow
15:06
Speaker 1: against the evening silence. The song of the sorrow of
15:11
Speaker 1: Meli's song is a weary song and a dreary song.
15:15
Speaker 1: The glory of Marianna's grange had got into great decay.
15:21
Speaker 1: The song of the Raven never more has never been
15:24
Speaker 1: called a cheery song. And the brightest things in Baudelaire
15:29
Speaker 1: are anything else but gay. But who will write us
15:33
Speaker 1: a writing song, or a hunting song, or a drinking
15:36
Speaker 1: song fit for them that arose and rode when day
15:40
Speaker 1: and the wine were red. But bring me a quart
15:43
Speaker 1: of claret out, and I will write you a clinking song,
15:47
Speaker 1: a song of war, and a song of wine, and
15:50
Speaker 1: a song to wake the dead. The song of the
15:54
Speaker 1: Fury of Frogolette is a florid song and a torrid song.
15:59
Speaker 1: The song of the sorrow of Tara is sung to
16:01
Speaker 1: a harp unstrung. The song of the cheerful Shropshire kid
16:07
Speaker 1: I consider a perfectly horrid song, And the song of
16:11
Speaker 1: the happy Futurist is a song that can't be sung.
16:16
Speaker 1: But who will write us a writing song or a
16:18
Speaker 1: fighting song, or a drinking song fit for the fathers
16:22
Speaker 1: of you and me that knew how to think and thrive.
16:27
Speaker 1: But the song of beauty and art and love is
16:30
Speaker 1: simply an utterly stinking song to double you up and
16:34
Speaker 1: drag you down, and damn your soul alive. Take some more, rum,
16:40
Speaker 1: concluded the Irish officer affably, and let's hear your song
16:44
Speaker 1: at last, with the gravity inseparable from the deep conveniality
16:50
Speaker 1: of country people, mister Pump unfolded the paper on which
16:54
Speaker 1: he had recorded the only antagonistic emotion that was strong
16:58
Speaker 1: enough in him to screw his infinite English tolerance to
17:01
Speaker 1: the pitch of song. He read out the title very
17:05
Speaker 1: carefully and in full, Song against Grocers by Humphrey Pump,
17:10
Speaker 1: Sole proprietor of the old ship Pebblewick, Good accommodation for
17:15
Speaker 1: man and beast, celebrated as the House at which both
17:18
Speaker 1: Queen Charlotte and Jonathan Wilde put up on different occasions,
17:21
Speaker 1: and where the ice cream man is mistaken for Bonaparte.
17:25
Speaker 1: This song is written against grocers. God made the wicked
17:30
Speaker 1: grocer for a mystery and a sign that men might
17:34
Speaker 1: shun the awful shops and go to inns and dine.
17:39
Speaker 1: Were the bacons on the rafter and the wine is
17:42
Speaker 1: in the wood, and God has made good laughter has
17:45
Speaker 1: seen that they are good. The evil hearted grocer would
17:50
Speaker 1: call his mother ma'am and bow at her and bob
17:53
Speaker 1: at her her aged soul to dam and rub his
17:56
Speaker 1: horrid hands and ask what article it was next, though
18:01
Speaker 1: mortise inarticulo should be her proper text. His props are
18:06
Speaker 1: not his children, but pert lads, under paid, who call
18:10
Speaker 1: out cash and bang about to work his wicked trade.
18:15
Speaker 1: He keeps a lady in a cage most cruelly all day,
18:18
Speaker 1: and makes her count and calls her miss until she
18:21
Speaker 1: fades away. The righteous minds of innkeepers induce them now
18:26
Speaker 1: and then to crack a bottle with a friend, or
18:29
Speaker 1: treat unmoneyed men. But who hath seen the grocer treat
18:33
Speaker 1: housemaids to his teas or crack a bottle of fish sauce,
18:37
Speaker 1: or stand a man to cheese. He sells us sands
18:42
Speaker 1: of Araby as sugar for cash down. He sweeps his
18:46
Speaker 1: shop and sells the dust, the purest salt in town.
18:50
Speaker 1: He crams the cans of poisoned meat, poor subjects of
18:53
Speaker 1: the king, And when they die by thousands, why he
18:57
Speaker 1: laughs like anything. The grocer gross in spirits and in wine,
19:03
Speaker 1: not frankly and in fellowship as men in inns do dine,
19:07
Speaker 1: but packed with soap and sardines, and carried off by
19:10
Speaker 1: grooms for to be snatched by duchesses and drunk in
19:14
Speaker 1: dressing rooms. The hell instructed grocer has a temple made
19:19
Speaker 1: of tin, and the ruin of good innkeepers is loudly
19:23
Speaker 1: urged therein. But now the sands are running short from
19:27
Speaker 1: sugar of a sort. The grocer trembles for his time,
19:32
Speaker 1: just like his weight is short. Captain Dolroy was getting
19:37
Speaker 1: considerably heated with his nautical liquor, and his appreciation of
19:41
Speaker 1: Pump's song was not merely noisy but active. He leaped
19:45
Speaker 1: to his feet and waved his glass. Ye ought to
19:48
Speaker 1: be poet, laiate hump ye're right, you're right. We'll stand
19:52
Speaker 1: all this no longer. He dashed wildly up the sand
19:56
Speaker 1: slope and pointed with the sign post towards the dark shore,
20:00
Speaker 1: where the low shed of corrugated iron stood almost isolated.
20:05
Speaker 1: There's your tin temple, he said, Let's burn it. They
20:09
Speaker 1: were some way along the coast from the large watering
20:12
Speaker 1: place of Pebblewick, and between the gathering twilight and the
20:15
Speaker 1: rolling country, it could not be clearly seen. Nothing was
20:19
Speaker 1: now in sight but the corrugated iron hall by the beach,
20:23
Speaker 1: and three half built red brick villas. Dalroy appeared to
20:28
Speaker 1: regard the hall and the empty houses with great malevolence.
20:32
Speaker 1: Look at it, said he Babylon. He brandished the Inn
20:37
Speaker 1: sign in the air like a banner, and began to
20:40
Speaker 1: stride towards the place, showering curses. In forty days, he called,
20:45
Speaker 1: shall Pebblewick be destroyed? Dogs shall lap the blood of
20:49
Speaker 1: j Levison Secretary, and unicorns come back. Pat cried, Humphrey,
20:55
Speaker 1: you've had too much rum. Lions shall howl in its
20:59
Speaker 1: high places, fusciferated the captain. Donkeys will howl anyhow, said Pump.
21:04
Speaker 1: But I suppose the other donkey must follow and loading
21:08
Speaker 1: and untethering the quadruped. He began to lead him along
21:14
Speaker 1: end of chapter six