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Three Sundays in a Week by Edgar Allan Poe · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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  Speaker 1: work in the public domain Three Sundays in a Week
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  Speaker 1: by Edgar Allan Poe. You hard headed, thunder headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty,
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  Speaker 1: fusty old savage, said I in fancy one afternoon to
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  Speaker 1: my grand uncle Rumbachen, shaking my fist at him, in imagination,
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  Speaker 1: only in imagination. The fact is, some trivial discrepancy did
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  Speaker 1: exist just then between what I said and what I
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  Speaker 1: had not the courage to say, between what I did
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  Speaker 1: and what I had half a mind to do. The
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  Speaker 1: old Porpoise, as I opened the drawing room door, was
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  Speaker 1: sitting with his feet upon the mantel piece and a
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  Speaker 1: bumper of port in his paw, making strenuous efforts to
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  Speaker 1: accomplish the ditty rempless ton verir vid vid ton ver plean,
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  Speaker 1: my dear uncle, said I, closing the door gently and
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  Speaker 1: approaching him with the blandest of smiles. You are always
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  Speaker 1: so very kind and can considerate, and have evinced your
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  Speaker 1: benevolence in so many, so very many ways, that that
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  Speaker 1: I feel I have only to suggest this little point
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  Speaker 1: to you once more, to make sure of your full acquiescence,
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  Speaker 1: hem said he good boy, go on, I am sure,
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  Speaker 1: my dearest uncle, you confounded, old rascal that you have
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  Speaker 1: no design, really seriously to oppose my union with Kate.
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  Speaker 1: This is merely a joke of yours I know.
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  Speaker 2: Ha ha ha.
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  Speaker 1: How very pleasant you are at times ha ha ha
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  Speaker 1: said he curse you, yes, to be sure, of course
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  Speaker 1: I knew you were jesting. Now, Uncle, all that Kate
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  Speaker 1: and myself wish at present is that you would oblige
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  Speaker 1: us with your advice as as regards the time, you know, Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: In short, when will it be most convenient for yourself
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  Speaker 1: that the wedding shall shall come off? Come off, you scoundrel?
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Better wait till it
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  Speaker 1: goes on?
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  Speaker 2: Ha ha ha he he he hi hi hi ho
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  Speaker 2: ho ho who who who?
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  Speaker 1: Oh that's good. Oh that's capital such a wit. But
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  Speaker 1: all we want, just now, you know, uncle, is that
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  Speaker 1: you would indicate the time precisely, Ah, precisely, yes, Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: that is, if it would be quite agreeable to yourself,
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't it, answer Bobby, if I were to leave it
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  Speaker 1: at random sometime within a year or so, for example,
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  Speaker 1: must I say precisely if you please uncle precisely. Well, then, Bobby,
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  Speaker 1: my boy, you're a fine fellow, aren't you, since you
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  Speaker 1: will have the exact time, aisle, why all ali you
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  Speaker 1: for once, dear uncle, hush, sir, drowning my voice, I'll
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  Speaker 1: oblige you for once. You shall have my consent and
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  Speaker 1: the plum we muse and forget the plum. Let me
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  Speaker 1: see when shall it be to day's Sunday? Isn't it? Well?
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  Speaker 1: Then you shall be married precisely, precisely. Now mind when
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  Speaker 1: three sundays come together in a week. Do you hear me? Sir?
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  Speaker 1: What are you gaping at? I say, ye shall have
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  Speaker 1: Kate and her plum, when three sundays come together in
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  Speaker 1: a week, But not till then, ye young scapegrace, not
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  Speaker 1: till then if I die for it, you know me,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a man of my word. Now be off here.
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  Speaker 1: He swallowed his bumper of port while I rushed from
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  Speaker 1: the room in despair. A very fine old English gentleman
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  Speaker 1: was my grand uncle Rumgudgeon. But unlike him of the song,
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  Speaker 1: he had his weak points. He was a little person, pompous, passionate,
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  Speaker 1: semi circular, somebody with a red nose, a thick skull,
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  Speaker 1: a long purse, and a strong sense of his own consequence.
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  Speaker 1: With the best heart in the world, he contrived, through
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  Speaker 1: a predominant whim of contradiction, to earn for himself, among
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  Speaker 1: those who only knew him superficially, the character of a curmudgeon.
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  Speaker 1: Like many excellent people, he seemed possessed with a spirit
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  Speaker 1: of tantalization, which might easily, at a casual glance, have
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  Speaker 1: been mistaken for malevolence. To every request, a positive no
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  Speaker 1: was his immediate answer. But in the end, in the long,
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  Speaker 1: long end, there were exceedingly few requests which he refused.
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  Speaker 1: Against all attacks upon his purse, he made the most
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  Speaker 1: sturdy defense, But the amount extorted from him at last
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  Speaker 1: was generally in direct ratio with the length of the
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  Speaker 1: siege and the stubbornness of the resistance. In charity, no
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  Speaker 1: one gave more liberally, or with a worse grace. For
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  Speaker 1: the fine arts, and especially for the best eels lettra
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  Speaker 1: he entertained a profound contempt with this. He had been
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  Speaker 1: inspired by Casimir Purier, whose per little query a qua
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  Speaker 1: on poet st I l Bond. He was in the
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  Speaker 1: habit of quoting with a very droll pronunciation as the
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  Speaker 1: ny plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own inkling
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  Speaker 1: for the muses had excited his entire displeasure. He assured
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  Speaker 1: me one day, when I asked him for a new
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  Speaker 1: copy of Horace, that the translation of podinacet non fit
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  Speaker 1: was a nasty poet for nothing fit, or remark which
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  Speaker 1: I took in high dudgeon. His repugnance to the humanities
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  Speaker 1: had also much increased of late by an accidental bias
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  Speaker 1: in favor of what he supposed to be natural science.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him for
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  Speaker 1: no less a personage than doctor W. L. D. The
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  Speaker 1: lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent,
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  Speaker 1: and just at the epoch of this story, for story
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  Speaker 1: it is getting to be. After all, my grand uncle
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  Speaker 1: Rumbagen was accessible and pacific only upon points which happened
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  Speaker 1: to chime in with the caprioles of the hobby he
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  Speaker 1: was riding for the rest. He laughed with his arms
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  Speaker 1: and legs, and his politics were stubborn and easily understood.
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  Speaker 1: He thought, with hoarseley that the people have nothing to
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  Speaker 1: do with the laws but to obey them. I had
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  Speaker 1: lived with the old gentleman all my life. My parents,
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  Speaker 1: in dying had bequeathed me to him as a rich legacy.
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  Speaker 1: I believe the old villain loved me as his own child, nearly,
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  Speaker 1: if not quite, as well as he loved Kate. But
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  Speaker 1: it was a dog's existence that he led me. After all.
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  Speaker 1: From my first year until my fifth he obliged me
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  Speaker 1: with very regular floggings. From five to fifteen he threatened
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  Speaker 1: me hourly with the House of Correction. From fifteen to twenty,
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  Speaker 1: not a day passed in which he did not promise
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  Speaker 1: to cut me off with a shilling. I was a
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  Speaker 1: sad dog, it is true, but then it was a
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  Speaker 1: part of my nature, a point of my faith in Kate. However,
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  Speaker 1: I had a firm friend, and I knew it. She
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  Speaker 1: was a good girl, and told me very sweetly that
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  Speaker 1: I might have her plumb and all whenever I could
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  Speaker 1: badger my grand uncle Rumbegen into the necessary consent. Poor girl,
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  Speaker 1: she was barely fifteen, and without this consent, her little
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  Speaker 1: amount in the funds was not come at able until
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  Speaker 1: five immeasurable summers had dragged their slow length along. What
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  Speaker 1: then to do at fifteen, or even at twenty one,
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  Speaker 1: for I had now passed my fifth Olympiad. Five years
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  Speaker 1: in prospect are very much the same as five hundred.
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  Speaker 1: In vain. We besieged the old gentleman with importunities. Here
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  Speaker 1: was a peace to resistance, as Messrs Jude and Kareem
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  Speaker 1: would say, which suited his perverse fancy to a t.
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  Speaker 1: It would have stiffed the indignation of Job himself to
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  Speaker 1: see how much like an old mouser he behaved to us,
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  Speaker 1: two poor wretched little mice. In his heart he wished
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  Speaker 1: for nothing more ardently than our union. He had made
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  Speaker 1: up his mind to this all along. In fact, he
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  Speaker 1: would have given ten thousand pounds from his own pocket.
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  Speaker 1: Kate's plumb was her own. If he could have invented
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  Speaker 1: any thing like an excuse for complying with our very
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  Speaker 1: natural wishes. But then we had been so imprudent as
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  Speaker 1: to broach the subject ourselves. Not to oppose it under
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  Speaker 1: such circumstances, I sincerely believe was not in his power.
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  Speaker 1: I have said already that he had his weak points,
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  Speaker 1: But in speaking of these I must not be understood
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  Speaker 1: as referring to his obstinacy, which was one of his
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  Speaker 1: strong points A sherman c e and etate pious, a foible.
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  Speaker 1: When I mention his weakness, I have allusioned to a bizarre,
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  Speaker 1: old womanish superstition which beset him. He was great in
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  Speaker 1: dreams portense e I d genus omni of rigmarole. He
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  Speaker 1: was excessively punctilious too upon small points of honor, and
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  Speaker 1: after his own fashion, was a man of his word
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  Speaker 1: beyond doubt. This was, in fact one of his hobbies,
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  Speaker 1: the spirit of his vows. He made no scruple of
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  Speaker 1: setting it not. But the letter was a bond inviolable. Now.
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  Speaker 1: It was this latter peculiarity in his disposition of which
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  Speaker 1: Kate's ingenuity enabled us, one fine day, not long after
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  Speaker 1: our interview in the dining room, to take a very
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  Speaker 1: unexpected advantage. And, having thus, in the fashion of all
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  Speaker 1: modern bards and orators, exhausted in prolegomena all the time
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  Speaker 1: at my command and nearly all the room at my disposal,
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  Speaker 1: I will sum up in a few words what constitutes
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  Speaker 1: the whole pith of the story. It happened, then, so
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  Speaker 1: the fates ordered it that among the naval acquaintances of
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  Speaker 1: my betrothed were two gentlemen who had just set foot
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  Speaker 1: upon the shores of England after a year's absence each
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  Speaker 1: in foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, my cousin
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  Speaker 1: and I preconcerdably paid Uncle Rumdadge in a visit on
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon of Sunday, October the tenth, just three weeks
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  Speaker 1: after the memorable decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes.
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  Speaker 1: For about half an hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics,
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  Speaker 1: but at last we contrived quite naturally to give it
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  Speaker 1: the following turn. Capt Pratt, well, I have been absent
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  Speaker 1: just one year dot, just one year to day as
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  Speaker 1: I live. Let me see, Yes, this is October the tenth.
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  Speaker 1: You remember, mister Rumgudgen, I called this day year to
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  Speaker 1: bid you good bye. And by the way, it does
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  Speaker 1: seem something like a coincidence, does it not, that our
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  Speaker 1: friend Captain Smitherton here has been absent exactly a year,
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  Speaker 1: also a year to day. Smitherton, yes, just one year
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  Speaker 1: to a fraction. You will remember, mister Rumgudgen, that I called,
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  Speaker 1: with Captain Pratdle on this very day last year to
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  Speaker 1: pay my parting respects Uncle, Yes, yes, yes, I remember
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  Speaker 1: it very well, very queer. Indeed, both of you gone
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  Speaker 1: just one year. A very strange coincidence. Indeed, just what
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  Speaker 1: doctor double l D would denominate, an extraordinary concurrence of events,
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Dubb, Kate interrupting, to be sure, Papa, it is
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  Speaker 1: something strange. But then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn't
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  Speaker 1: go altogether the same route, and that makes a difference,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Uncle, I don't know any such thing, you huzzy,
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  Speaker 1: How should I? I think it only makes the matter
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  Speaker 1: more remarkable, Doctor double l D. Kate, Why Papa, Captain
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  Speaker 1: Pratt went round Cape Horn and Captain Smitherton doubled the
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  Speaker 1: Cape of Good Hope, Uncle, precisely the one went east
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  Speaker 1: and the other went west, you jade, and they both
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  Speaker 1: have gone quite round the world by the bye, Doctor
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  Speaker 1: double l D. Myself hurriedly. Captain Pratt, you must come
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  Speaker 1: and spend the evening with us tomorrow, you and Smitherton.
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  Speaker 1: You can tell us all about your voyage, and we'll
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  Speaker 1: have a game of whist and Pratt wist, my dear fellow,
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  Speaker 1: you forget tomorrow will be Sunday some other evening. Kate oh, no, Fie,
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  Speaker 1: Robert's not quite so bad as that today's Sunday. Pratt.
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  Speaker 1: I beg both your pardons, but I can't be so
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  Speaker 1: much mistaken. I know tomorrow's Sunday, because Dash Smitherton much surprised.
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  Speaker 1: What are you all thinking about? Wasn't yesterday Sunday? I
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  Speaker 1: should like to know all yesterday? Indeed, you are out, Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: Today's Sunday, I say, don't I know, Pratt? Oh no,
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow's Sunday. Smitherton, you are all mad, every one of you.
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  Speaker 1: I am as positive that yesterday was Sunday as I
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  Speaker 1: am that I sit upon this chair, Kate jumping up eagerly.
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  Speaker 1: I see it. I see it all, Papa. This is
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  Speaker 1: a judgment upon you about about you know what. Let
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  Speaker 1: me alone and I'll explain it all in a minute.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very simple thing. Indeed, Captain Smitherton says that
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  Speaker 1: yesterday was Sunday, so it was. He is right. Cousin,
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  Speaker 1: Bobby and Uncle and I say that to day is Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: so it is. We are right. Captain Pratt maintains that
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow will be Sunday, so it will. He is right too.
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  Speaker 1: The fact is we are all right, and thus three
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  Speaker 1: sundays have come together in a week. Smitherton, after a
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  Speaker 1: pause by the bye pratt Kate has us completely. What
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  Speaker 1: fools we two are, mister Rumdutchen. The matter stands. Thus
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: the Earth, you know, is twenty four thousand miles in circumference.
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  Speaker 1: Now this globe of the Earth turns upon its own axis, revolves,
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  Speaker 1: spins round these twenty four thousand miles of extent, going
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  Speaker 1: from west to east in precisely twenty four hours. Do
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  Speaker 1: you understand, mister Rumudgeon, uncle to be sure? To be sure,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Dubb Smitherton drowning his voice, Well, sir, that is
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  Speaker 1: at the rate of one thousand miles per hour. Now
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  Speaker 1: suppose that I sail from this position a thousand miles east.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, I anticipate the rising of the sun here
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  Speaker 1: at London by just one hour. I see the sun
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  Speaker 1: rise one hour before you do. Proceeding in the same
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  Speaker 1: direction yet another thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by
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  Speaker 1: two hours, another thousand, and I anticipate it by three hours,
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  Speaker 1: and so on, until I go entirely round the globe
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  Speaker 1: and back to this spot. When having gone twenty four
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  Speaker 1: thousand miles east, I anticipate the rising of the l
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  Speaker 1: London sun by no less than twenty four hours. That
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  Speaker 1: is to say, I am a day in advance of
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  Speaker 1: your time. Understand eh, uncle, But Double L D. Smitherton
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  Speaker 1: speaking very loud, Captain Pratt, on the contrary, when he
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  Speaker 1: had sailed a thousand miles west of this position was
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  Speaker 1: an hour, and when he had sailed twenty four thousand
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  Speaker 1: miles west, was twenty four hours, or one day behind
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  Speaker 1: the time at London. Thus with me, yesterday was Sunday.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Thus with you to day is Sunday. And thus with
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Pratt tomorrow will be Sunday. And what is more, mister Rumgudgeon,
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  Speaker 1: it is positively clear that we are all right, for
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  Speaker 1: there can be no philosophical reason assigned why the idea
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  Speaker 1: of one of us should have preference over that of
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  Speaker 1: the other. Uncle my eyes, well, Kate, well, Bobby. This
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  Speaker 1: is a judgment upon me, as you say, But I
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  Speaker 1: am a man of my word mark that you shall
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  Speaker 1: have her, boy, plumb and all, when you please done
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  Speaker 1: up by Jove, three sundays all in a row. I'll
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  Speaker 1: go and take Double L. D's opinion upon that