Latest / Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) / 15 - Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) by G K Chesterton

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15 - Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) by G K Chesterton · Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading)

0:01
Speaker 1: Across green fields, and breaking through blooming hedges, toiled six
0:06
Speaker 1: draggled detectives about five miles out of London. The optimist
0:11
Speaker 1: of the party had at first proposed that they should
0:14
Speaker 1: follow the balloon across South England in handsome cabs, but
0:18
Speaker 1: he was ultimately convinced of the persistent refusal of the
0:22
Speaker 1: balloon to follow the roads and the still more persistent
0:26
Speaker 1: refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon. Consequently, the tireless,
0:31
Speaker 1: though exasperated travelers broke through black thickets and plowed through
0:36
Speaker 1: plowed fields till each was turned into a figure two,
0:39
Speaker 1: outrageous to be mistaken for a tramp. Those green hills
0:43
Speaker 1: of Surrey saw the final collapse and tragedy of the
0:47
Speaker 1: admirable light gray suit in which Sime had set out
0:50
Speaker 1: from Saffron Park. His silk hat was broken over his
0:55
Speaker 1: nose by a swinging bough, his coat tails were torn
0:59
Speaker 1: to the shoulder by a resting thorns, the clay of
1:02
Speaker 1: England was splashed up to his collar. But he still
1:05
Speaker 1: carried his yellow beard forward with a silent and furious determination,
1:10
Speaker 1: and his eyes were still fixed on that floating ball
1:13
Speaker 1: of gas which in the full flush of sunset seemed
1:17
Speaker 1: colored like a sunset cloud.
1:21
Speaker 2: After all, he said, It is very peaceful.
1:27
Speaker 3: It is singularly strangely beautiful, said the professor.
1:32
Speaker 4: I wish the beastly guess bag would burst.
1:35
Speaker 1: Now, said doctor Bull.
1:38
Speaker 5: I hope it won't. It might hurt the old boy, hurt.
1:42
Speaker 1: Him, said the vindictive professor.
1:45
Speaker 4: Hurt him, not as much as I'd hurt him if
1:48
Speaker 4: I could get up with him, little snowdrop.
1:52
Speaker 5: I don't want to hurt him somehow.
1:54
Speaker 1: Said doctor Bull. What cried the secretary bitterly.
2:00
Speaker 6: Do you believe all that tale about his being our
2:03
Speaker 6: man in the dark room? Sunday would say he was anybody.
2:09
Speaker 5: I don't know whether I believe it or not, said
2:11
Speaker 5: doctor Bull. But it isn't that that I mean. I
2:15
Speaker 5: can't wish old Sunday's balloon to burst, because.
2:18
Speaker 1: Well, said Simon impatiently.
2:22
Speaker 5: Because well, because he's so jolly like a balloon himself.
2:27
Speaker 1: Said doctor Bull desperately.
2:30
Speaker 5: I don't understand a word of all that idea. If
2:32
Speaker 5: he's being the same man who give us all our
2:34
Speaker 5: blue cards, it seems to make everything nonsense. But I
2:38
Speaker 5: don't care who knows it. I always had a sympathy
2:41
Speaker 5: full Sunday himself wicked as he was, just as if
2:45
Speaker 5: he was a great bouncing baby. How can I explain it?
2:48
Speaker 5: My queer sympathy was it didn't prevent my fighting him.
2:53
Speaker 5: Shall I make it clear? If I say that I
2:55
Speaker 5: liked him because he was so fat, you will not,
2:59
Speaker 5: said secretary. I've got it now, cried Bull. It was
3:05
Speaker 5: because he was so fat and so light, just like
3:07
Speaker 5: a balloon. We always think of fat people as heavy.
3:10
Speaker 5: But he could have danced against the sylph. I see
3:13
Speaker 5: now it. I mean moderate strength is shown in violence,
3:16
Speaker 5: Supreme strength is shown in levity. It was like the
3:19
Speaker 5: old speculations, what would happen if an elephant could leap
3:22
Speaker 5: up in the sky like a grasshopper?
3:25
Speaker 1: Our elephants, said Sime, looking upwards, has.
3:29
Speaker 2: Leaped into the sky like a grasshopper.
3:32
Speaker 5: And somehow concluded Bull, that's why I can't help liking
3:37
Speaker 5: old Sunday. No, it's non admiration of force or any
3:40
Speaker 5: silly thing like that. There is a kind of gayety
3:43
Speaker 5: in the thing, as if he were bursting with some
3:45
Speaker 5: good news. Haven't you sometimes felt it on a spring day?
3:50
Speaker 3: You know?
3:50
Speaker 5: Nature plays tricks but somehow that day proves that they
3:53
Speaker 5: are good natured tricks. I never read the Bible myself,
3:56
Speaker 5: but that part they laugh at is literally true. Why
4:00
Speaker 5: leave he high hills? The hills do leap, at least
4:03
Speaker 5: they try to. Why do I like Sunday? How can
4:06
Speaker 5: I tell you? Because he's such a bounder.
4:10
Speaker 1: There was a long silence, and then the Secretary said,
4:14
Speaker 1: in a curious, strained voice.
4:17
Speaker 6: You do not know Sunday at all. Perhaps it is
4:22
Speaker 6: because you are better than I and do not know hell.
4:27
Speaker 6: I was a fierce fellow and a trifle more bid
4:31
Speaker 6: from the first. The man who sits in darkness and
4:34
Speaker 6: who chose us all shows me because I had all
4:39
Speaker 6: the crazy look of a conspirator, because my smile went crooked,
4:44
Speaker 6: and my eyes were gloomy even when I smiled. But
4:50
Speaker 6: there must have been something in me that answered the
4:53
Speaker 6: nerves in all these anarchic men. For when I first
4:57
Speaker 6: saw Sunday, he expressed to me, not your airy vitality,
5:03
Speaker 6: but something both growth and sad in the nature of things.
5:10
Speaker 6: I found him smoking in a twilight room, a room
5:15
Speaker 6: with brown blind down, infinitely more depressing than the genial
5:21
Speaker 6: darkness in which our master lives. He sat there on
5:26
Speaker 6: a bench, a huge heap of a man, dark and
5:31
Speaker 6: out of shape. He listened to all my words, without
5:36
Speaker 6: speaking or even stirring. I poured out my most passionate
5:43
Speaker 6: appeals and asked my most eloquent questions. Then, after a
5:49
Speaker 6: long silence, the thing began to shake, and I thought
5:55
Speaker 6: it were shaken by some secret malady. It shook like
6:00
Speaker 6: a loathsome and living jelly. It reminded me of everything
6:06
Speaker 6: I had ever read about the base bodies that are
6:10
Speaker 6: the origin of life, the deep sea lumps and protoplasm.
6:18
Speaker 6: It seemed like the final form of matter, the most
6:22
Speaker 6: shapeless and the most shameful. I could only tell myself
6:29
Speaker 6: from its shudderings that it was something at least, that
6:34
Speaker 6: such a monster could be miserable. And then it broke
6:38
Speaker 6: upon me that the bestial mountain was shaking with a
6:43
Speaker 6: lonely laughter, and the laughter was at me. Do you
6:51
Speaker 6: ask me to forgive him?
6:52
Speaker 2: That?
6:54
Speaker 6: It is no small thing to be laughed at by
6:57
Speaker 6: something at once lower and stronger than oneself.
7:05
Speaker 7: Surely you fellows are exaggerating wildly.
7:08
Speaker 1: Cut in the clear voice of Inspector.
7:10
Speaker 7: Ratcliffe, President Sundy is a terrible fellow for one's intellect,
7:16
Speaker 7: But he is not such a Bonham streaks physically as
7:18
Speaker 7: you make out. He received me in an ordinary office,
7:22
Speaker 7: in a gray check coat, in broad daylight. He talked
7:26
Speaker 7: to me in an ordinary way. But I'll tell you
7:29
Speaker 7: what is a trifle creepy about Sunday. His realm is
7:33
Speaker 7: neat his clothes on meat. Everything seems in order, but
7:37
Speaker 7: he's absent minded. Sometimes his great bright eyes go quite
7:43
Speaker 7: blind for hours. He forgets that you are there now.
7:48
Speaker 7: Absent mindedness is just a bit too awful in a
7:51
Speaker 7: bad man. We think of a wicked man as being vigilant.
7:55
Speaker 7: We can't think of a wicked man who is honestly
7:58
Speaker 7: and sincerely dreamy, because we daren't think of a wicked
8:02
Speaker 7: man alone with himself. An absent minded man means a
8:07
Speaker 7: good natured man. It means a man who, if he
8:10
Speaker 7: happens to see you, will apologize. But how will you
8:14
Speaker 7: bear an absent minded man who, if he happens to
8:17
Speaker 7: see you, will kill you. That is what tries the
8:22
Speaker 7: nerves abstraction combined with cruelty. Men have felt it sometimes
8:28
Speaker 7: when they went through wild forests and felt that the
8:31
Speaker 7: animals there were at once innocent and pitiless. They might
8:37
Speaker 7: ignore or slay. How would you like to pass ten
8:42
Speaker 7: mortal hours in a parlor with an absent minded tiger?
8:49
Speaker 2: What do you think of Sunday, Goggle, asked Sime.
8:53
Speaker 4: And I think of Sunday on principle.
8:56
Speaker 1: Said Goggle, simply.
8:58
Speaker 7: Any more than I stared so Monday.
9:02
Speaker 2: Well that is a point of view, said Sime thoughtfully.
9:06
Speaker 2: What do you say, professor?
9:09
Speaker 1: The professor was walking with bent head and trailing stick,
9:13
Speaker 1: and he did not answer at all. Fight our professor,
9:18
Speaker 1: said Sime, genially, that's what you think of Sunday. The
9:23
Speaker 1: professor spoke up at last, very slowly.
9:28
Speaker 4: I think something, he said, that I cannot say clearly.
9:34
Speaker 4: Or rather, I think something that I cannot even think clearly,
9:40
Speaker 4: But it is something like this. My early life, as
9:43
Speaker 4: you know, was a bit too large and loose. Well,
9:48
Speaker 4: when I saw Sunday's face, I thought it was too large.
9:52
Speaker 4: Everybody does. But I also thought it was too loose.
9:57
Speaker 4: The face was so big that one couldn't focus it
10:01
Speaker 4: or make it a face at all. The eye was
10:03
Speaker 4: so far away from the nose that it wasn't an eye.
10:08
Speaker 4: The mouth was so much by itself that one had
10:11
Speaker 4: to think of it by itself. The whole thing is
10:14
Speaker 4: too hard to explain.
10:17
Speaker 1: He paused for a little, still trailing his stick, and
10:21
Speaker 1: then went on.
10:23
Speaker 4: But put it this way, walking up a road at night,
10:27
Speaker 4: I've seen a lamp and a lighted window and a
10:30
Speaker 4: cloud make together the most complete and unmistakable face. If
10:35
Speaker 4: anyone in Heaven has that face, I shall know him again.
10:39
Speaker 4: Yet when I walked a little farther, I found that
10:42
Speaker 4: there was no face. That the window was ten yards away,
10:46
Speaker 4: the lamp ten hundred yards, the cloud beyond the world. Well,
10:53
Speaker 4: Sunday's face escaped me. It ran away to right and left,
10:58
Speaker 4: as such chance pictures run away. And so his face
11:02
Speaker 4: has made me, somehow doubt whether there are any faces.
11:08
Speaker 4: I don't know whether your face bull is a face
11:12
Speaker 4: or a combination. In perspective, perhaps one black disc of
11:16
Speaker 4: your beastly glasses is quite close and another fifty miles away. Oh,
11:22
Speaker 4: the doubts of materialists are not worth a dump. Sunday
11:26
Speaker 4: has taught me the last and the worst doubts, the
11:30
Speaker 4: doubts of a spiritualist. I am a Buddhist, I suppose
11:35
Speaker 4: and Buddhism is not a creed. It is a doubt.
11:39
Speaker 4: My poor dear Bull, I do not believe that you
11:42
Speaker 4: really have a face. I have not faith enough to
11:46
Speaker 4: believe in matter.
11:49
Speaker 1: Sime's eyes were still fixed upon the errant orb, which
11:52
Speaker 1: bruddened in the evening light. Looked like some rosier and
11:56
Speaker 1: more innocent world.
12:00
Speaker 2: An odd thing, he said, about all your descriptions. Each
12:05
Speaker 2: man of you finds Sunday quite different. Yet each man
12:08
Speaker 2: of you can only find one thing to compare him
12:10
Speaker 2: to the universe itself. Bull finds him like the earth
12:15
Speaker 2: in spring gogle, like the sun at noonday. The Secretary
12:19
Speaker 2: is reminded of the shapeless protoplasm, and the inspector of
12:22
Speaker 2: the carelessness of virgin forests. The Professor says, He's like
12:26
Speaker 2: a changing landscape. This is queer, but it's queerer still
12:31
Speaker 2: that I also have my odd notion about the president.
12:34
Speaker 2: And I also find that I think of Sunday as
12:37
Speaker 2: I think of the whole world.
12:39
Speaker 5: Get on a little faster, Sime, said, ball Never mind
12:44
Speaker 5: the balloon.
12:46
Speaker 2: When I first saw Sunday, said Sime, slowly, I only
12:50
Speaker 2: saw his back. And when I saw his back, I
12:53
Speaker 2: knew he was the worst man in the world. His
12:56
Speaker 2: neck and shoulders were brutal, like those of some apish gods.
13:00
Speaker 2: His head had a stoop that was hardly human. It's
13:02
Speaker 2: like the stoop of an ox. In fact, I had
13:05
Speaker 2: once the revolting fantasy that this was not a man
13:08
Speaker 2: at all, but a beast dressed up in men's clothes.
13:13
Speaker 2: Get on, said Baul, And then the queer thing happened.
13:18
Speaker 2: I had seen his back from the street, as he
13:20
Speaker 2: sat in the balcony. Then I entered the hotel, and
13:23
Speaker 2: coming round the other side of him, saw his face
13:26
Speaker 2: in the sunlight. His face frightened mee as it did everyone,
13:31
Speaker 2: but not because it was brutal, not because it was evil.
13:34
Speaker 2: On the contrary, it frightened me because it was so beautiful,
13:40
Speaker 2: because it was so good.
13:43
Speaker 1: Sime, exclaimed the secretary, Are you ill?
13:49
Speaker 2: It was like the face of some ancient archangel, judging
13:52
Speaker 2: justly after heroic wars. There was laughter in the eyes,
13:55
Speaker 2: and in the mouth, honor and sorrow. There was the
13:58
Speaker 2: same white hair, the same great gray clad shoulders that
14:01
Speaker 2: i'd seen from behind. But when I saw him behind,
14:04
Speaker 2: I was certain he was an animal. And when I
14:07
Speaker 2: saw him in front.
14:09
Speaker 1: I knew he was a god, phan, said the professor,
14:14
Speaker 1: dreamily was a.
14:15
Speaker 4: God and an animal.
14:19
Speaker 2: Then and again, and always.
14:21
Speaker 1: Went on Sime like a man talking to himself.
14:25
Speaker 2: That has been for me the mystery of Sunday, and
14:28
Speaker 2: it's also the mystery of the world. When I see
14:31
Speaker 2: the horror we're back. I'm sure the noble face is
14:34
Speaker 2: but a mask when I see the face, But for
14:38
Speaker 2: an instant I know the back is only a jest.
14:42
Speaker 2: Bad is so bad that we cannot but think good
14:45
Speaker 2: an accident. Good is so good that we feel certain
14:48
Speaker 2: that evil could be explained. But that all came to
14:51
Speaker 2: a kind of crest yesterday when I raced Sunday for
14:54
Speaker 2: the cab and was just behind him all the way.
14:58
Speaker 7: Had you any time for thinking that.
15:00
Speaker 1: Asked Ratcliff. Time, replied Sime.
15:05
Speaker 2: For one outrageous thought. I was suddenly possessed with the
15:10
Speaker 2: idea that the blind, blank back of his head really
15:14
Speaker 2: was his face, an awful, eyeless face staring at me.
15:19
Speaker 2: I fancied that the figure running in front of me
15:22
Speaker 2: was really a figure running backwards and dancing as he ran.
15:27
Speaker 1: Horrible, said doctor Bull, and shuddered.
15:31
Speaker 2: Horrible is not the word, said Sime. It is exactly
15:35
Speaker 2: the worst instance of my life. And yet ten minutes afterwards,
15:39
Speaker 2: when he put his head out of the cab and
15:40
Speaker 2: made a grimace like a gargoyle, I knew that he
15:44
Speaker 2: was only like a father playing hide and secret his children.
15:48
Speaker 6: It is a.
15:49
Speaker 1: Long game, said the secretary, and frowned at his broken boots.
15:55
Speaker 2: Listen to me, cried.
15:56
Speaker 1: Sime, with extraordinary emphasis.
16:00
Speaker 2: Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world?
16:03
Speaker 2: It is that we have only known the back of
16:05
Speaker 2: the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal.
16:10
Speaker 2: That is not a tree but the back of a tree.
16:13
Speaker 2: That is not a cloud but the back of a cloud.
16:16
Speaker 2: Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face?
16:21
Speaker 2: If we could only get round in front.
16:23
Speaker 1: Look, cried out bull clamorously.
16:27
Speaker 5: The balloonist cleaned down.
16:29
Speaker 1: There was no need to cry out to Sime, who
16:32
Speaker 1: had never taken his eyes off it. He saw the
16:35
Speaker 1: great luminous globe suddenly stagger in the sky right itself,
16:40
Speaker 1: and then sink slowly behind the trees like a setting sun.
16:44
Speaker 1: The man called Gogol, who had hardly spoken through all
16:48
Speaker 1: their weary travels, suddenly threw up his hands like a
16:51
Speaker 1: lost spirit.
16:54
Speaker 7: He is dead, he cried.
16:56
Speaker 2: And now I know he was my friend, my friend
17:00
Speaker 2: in the dark, dead.
17:02
Speaker 1: Snorted the secretary.
17:04
Speaker 6: You will not find him dead easily. If he has
17:08
Speaker 6: been tipped out of the car. We shall find him
17:12
Speaker 6: rolling as a colt rolls in a field, kicking his
17:16
Speaker 6: legs for fun.
17:19
Speaker 1: Clashing his hoofs, said the professor.
17:22
Speaker 4: The colts do, and so did Peern.
17:26
Speaker 1: Pan again, said doctor Bull irritably.
17:30
Speaker 5: You seem to think Pan is everything.
17:32
Speaker 3: So he is, said the professor in Greek, he means everything.
17:40
Speaker 1: Don't forget, said the Secretary, looking.
17:43
Speaker 6: Down, that he also means panic.
17:48
Speaker 1: Sime had stood without hearing any of the exclamations. It's
17:53
Speaker 1: fell over there, he said shortly.
17:55
Speaker 2: Let's follow it.
17:57
Speaker 1: Then he added, with an indescribable gesture.
18:01
Speaker 2: Oh, if he's cheated as all by getting killed, he'll
18:04
Speaker 2: be like one of his locks.
18:07
Speaker 1: He strode off towards the distant trees with a new energy,
18:11
Speaker 1: his rags and ribbons fluttering in the wind. The others
18:14
Speaker 1: followed him in a more foot sore and dubious manner,
18:18
Speaker 1: and almost at the same moment, all six men realized
18:22
Speaker 1: that they were not alone in the little field. Across
18:26
Speaker 1: the square of turf, a tall man was advancing towards them,
18:30
Speaker 1: leaning on a strange long staff like a scepter. He
18:34
Speaker 1: was clad in a fine but old fashioned suit with
18:38
Speaker 1: knee breeches. Its color was that shade between blue, violet
18:43
Speaker 1: and gray which can be seen in certain shadows of
18:46
Speaker 1: the woodland. His hair was whitish gray, and at the
18:50
Speaker 1: first glance, taken along with his knee breeches, looked as
18:54
Speaker 1: if it was powdered. His advance was very quiet, but
18:59
Speaker 1: for the so over frost upon his head, he might
19:02
Speaker 1: have been one to the shadows of the wood.
19:06
Speaker 8: Gentlemen, he said, my master has a carriage waiting for
19:10
Speaker 8: you in the road just by.
19:12
Speaker 1: Who is your master, asked Sime, standing quite still.
19:17
Speaker 8: I was told you knew his name.
19:19
Speaker 1: Said the man respectfully. There was a silence, and then
19:24
Speaker 1: the secretary said.
19:26
Speaker 6: Where is this carriage?
19:29
Speaker 8: It has been waiting only a few moments, said the stranger.
19:33
Speaker 8: My master has only just come home.
19:36
Speaker 1: Sime looked left and right upon the patch of green
19:39
Speaker 1: field in which he found himself. The hedges were ordinary hedges,
19:45
Speaker 1: the trees seemed ordinary trees. Yet he felt like a
19:49
Speaker 1: man entrapped in fairyland. He looked the mysterious ambassador up
19:54
Speaker 1: and down, but he could discover nothing except that the
19:58
Speaker 1: man's coat was the exact color of the purple shadows,
20:02
Speaker 1: and that the man's face was the exact color of
20:05
Speaker 1: the red and brown and golden sky.
20:08
Speaker 2: Show us the place, said.
20:10
Speaker 1: Sime, briefly, and without a word. The man in the
20:14
Speaker 1: violet coat turned his back and walked towards a gap
20:17
Speaker 1: in the hedge, which let in suddenly the light of
20:20
Speaker 1: a white road. As the six wanderers broke out upon
20:25
Speaker 1: this thoroughfare, they saw the white road blocked by what
20:28
Speaker 1: looked like a long row of carriages, such a row
20:32
Speaker 1: of carriages as might close the approach to some house
20:35
Speaker 1: in park Lane. Along the side of these carriages stood
20:39
Speaker 1: a rank of splendid servants, all dressed in the gray
20:43
Speaker 1: blue uniform, and all having a certain quality of stateliness
20:48
Speaker 1: and freedom which would not commonly belong to the servants
20:51
Speaker 1: of a gentleman, but rather to the officials and ambassadors
20:55
Speaker 1: of a great king. There were no less than six
20:59
Speaker 1: cares carriages waiting, one for each of the tattered and
21:03
Speaker 1: miserable band. All the attendants, as if in court dress,
21:08
Speaker 1: wore swords, and as each man crawled into his carriage,
21:12
Speaker 1: they drew them and saluted with a sudden blaze of steel.
21:17
Speaker 5: What can it all mean?
21:19
Speaker 1: Asked full of Sime, as they separated.
21:23
Speaker 5: Is this another joke of Sunday's?
21:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, said Sime, as he sank wearily back
21:29
Speaker 1: in the cushions of his carriage.
21:31
Speaker 2: But if it is, it's one of the jokes you
21:34
Speaker 2: talk about. Is a good natured one.
21:38
Speaker 1: The six adventurers had passed through many adventures, but not
21:42
Speaker 1: one had carried them so utterly off their feet as
21:45
Speaker 1: this last adventure of comfort. They had all become inured
21:50
Speaker 1: to things going roughly, but things suddenly going smoothly swamped them.
21:56
Speaker 1: They could not even feebly imagine what the carriages were.
22:00
Speaker 1: It was enough for them to know that they were carriages,
22:04
Speaker 1: and carriages with cushions. They could not conceive who the
22:08
Speaker 1: old man was who had led them, but it was
22:11
Speaker 1: quite enough that he had certainly led them to the carriages.
22:17
Speaker 1: Syme drove through a drifting darkness of trees in utter abandonment.
22:22
Speaker 1: It was typical of him that, while he had carried
22:25
Speaker 1: his bearded chin forward fiercely, so long as anything could
22:28
Speaker 1: be done. When the whole business was taken out of
22:31
Speaker 1: his hands, he fell back on the cushions in a
22:34
Speaker 1: frank collapse. Very gradually and very vaguely, he realized into
22:41
Speaker 1: what rich roads the carriage was carrying him. He saw
22:45
Speaker 1: that they passed the stone gates of what might have
22:48
Speaker 1: been a park. That they began gradually to climb a hill, which,
22:53
Speaker 1: while wooded on both sides, was somewhat more orderly than
22:57
Speaker 1: a forest. Then there began to grow upon him, as
23:01
Speaker 1: upon a man slowly waking from a healthy sleep, a
23:04
Speaker 1: pleasure in everything. He felt that the hedges were what
23:09
Speaker 1: hedges should be, living walls, that the hedges like a
23:14
Speaker 1: human army, disciplined but all the more alive. He saw
23:19
Speaker 1: high elms behind the hedges, and vaguely thought how happy
23:23
Speaker 1: boys would be climbing there. Then his carriage took a
23:27
Speaker 1: turn of the path, and he saw, suddenly and quietly,
23:31
Speaker 1: like a long low sunset cloud, a long low house,
23:36
Speaker 1: mellow in the mild light of sunset. All the six
23:41
Speaker 1: friends compared notes afterwards and quarreled, but they all agreed
23:45
Speaker 1: that in some unaccountable way, the place reminded them of
23:49
Speaker 1: their boyhood. It was either this elm top or that
23:54
Speaker 1: crooked path. It was either this scrap of orchard or
23:57
Speaker 1: that shape of a window. But each man of them
24:01
Speaker 1: declared that he could remember this place before he could
24:05
Speaker 1: remember his mother. When the carriages eventually rolled up to
24:10
Speaker 1: a large, low, cavernous gateway, another man in the same uniform,
24:16
Speaker 1: but wearing a silver star on the gray breast of
24:18
Speaker 1: his coat, came out to meet them. This impressive person
24:24
Speaker 1: said to the bewildered.
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Speaker 5: Sime, refreshments all provided for you in your room.
24:31
Speaker 1: Sime, under the influence of the same mesmeric sleep of amazement,
24:36
Speaker 1: went up the large oaken stairs after the respectful attendant.
24:41
Speaker 1: He entered a splendid suite of apartments that seemed to
24:44
Speaker 1: be designed specially for him. He walked up to a
24:47
Speaker 1: long mirror with the ordinary instinct of his class to
24:51
Speaker 1: pull his tie straight or to smooth his hair, and
24:55
Speaker 1: there he saw the frightful figure that he was, blood
24:59
Speaker 1: running down his face from where the bough had struck him,
25:02
Speaker 1: his hair standing out like yellow rags of rank grass,
25:06
Speaker 1: his clothes torn into long, wavering tatters. At once, the
25:12
Speaker 1: whole enigma sprang up simply as the question of how
25:16
Speaker 1: he had got there and how he was to get
25:19
Speaker 1: out again. Exactly at the same moment, a man in blue,
25:24
Speaker 1: who had been appointed as his balet, said, very solemnly, I.
25:30
Speaker 9: Have put out your clothes, sir.
25:33
Speaker 1: Clothes, said Sime sardonically.
25:37
Speaker 2: I've no clothes except these, And.
25:40
Speaker 1: He lifted two long strips of his frock coat in
25:43
Speaker 1: fascinating festoons and made a movement as if to twirl
25:47
Speaker 1: like a ballet girl.
25:49
Speaker 9: My master asks me to say, said the attendant, that
25:54
Speaker 9: there is a fancy dress ball tonight, and that he
25:57
Speaker 9: desires you to put on the costume that I have
26:00
Speaker 9: laid out. Meanwhile, sir, there's a bottle of burgundy and
26:04
Speaker 9: some cold pheasant, which he hopes you will not refuse,
26:09
Speaker 9: as it is some hours before supper.
26:12
Speaker 2: Cold pheasant is a good thing.
26:15
Speaker 1: Said Sime reflectively, and.
26:17
Speaker 2: Burghing Day is a spanking good thing. But really I
26:20
Speaker 2: do not want either of them so much as I
26:22
Speaker 2: want to know what the devil all this means. And
26:25
Speaker 2: what's a costume you've got laid out for me? Where
26:29
Speaker 2: is it?
26:30
Speaker 1: The servant lifted off a kind of ottoman, a long
26:33
Speaker 1: peacock blue drapery, rather of the nature of a domino,
26:37
Speaker 1: on the front of which was emblazoned a large golden sun,
26:41
Speaker 1: and which was splashed here and there with flaming stars
26:45
Speaker 1: and crescents.
26:47
Speaker 9: You are to be dressed as Thursday, sir, said the valet.
26:51
Speaker 1: Somewhat affably dressed a Thursday, said Sime in meditation.
26:58
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound a warm costume.
27:00
Speaker 1: Oh yes, sir, said the other eagerly.
27:05
Speaker 9: The Thursday costume is quite warm, sir. It fastens up
27:09
Speaker 9: to the chin.
27:11
Speaker 2: Well, I don't understand anything.
27:14
Speaker 1: Said Sime, sighing.
27:17
Speaker 2: I've been used so long to uncomfortable adventures that comfortable
27:20
Speaker 2: adventures knocked me out. Still, I may be allowed to
27:24
Speaker 2: ask why should be particularly like Thursday in a green
27:28
Speaker 2: frock spotted all over with the sun and moon. Those
27:32
Speaker 2: orbs I think shine on other days. I on saw
27:35
Speaker 2: the moon on Tuesday. I remember.
27:38
Speaker 9: Beg pardon, sir, said the valet. Bible also provided for you.
27:45
Speaker 1: And with a respectful and rigid dinger, he pointed out
27:48
Speaker 1: a passage in the first chapter of Genesis. Sime read it,
27:53
Speaker 1: wondering it was that in which the fourth day of
27:57
Speaker 1: the week is associated with the creation of the sun
28:00
Speaker 1: and moon. Here, however, they reckoned from a Christian Sunday.
28:06
Speaker 2: It is getting wilder and wilder.
28:09
Speaker 1: Said Sime, as he sat down in a chair.
28:13
Speaker 2: Who are these people who provide cold pheasants and burgundy
28:16
Speaker 2: and green clothes and bibles? Did he provide everything?
28:21
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, everything, said the attendant gravely.
28:26
Speaker 9: Shall I help you on with your cottotome?
28:30
Speaker 2: Oh?
28:30
Speaker 1: Hits the bally thing on, said sim impatiently. But though
28:35
Speaker 1: he affected to despise the mummery, he felt a curious
28:39
Speaker 1: freedom and naturalness in his movements as the blue and
28:43
Speaker 1: gold garment fell about him, And when he found that
28:47
Speaker 1: he had to wear a sword, it stirred a boyish dream.
28:51
Speaker 1: As he passed out of the room, he flung the
28:53
Speaker 1: folds across his shoulder with a gesture. His sword stood
28:57
Speaker 1: out at an angle, and he had all the swagger
29:00
Speaker 1: of a troubadour. For these disguises did not disguise but reveal.
29:08
Speaker 1: End of Chapter fourteen