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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Obliterated Man · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section fourteen of the Country of the Blind and Other
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  Speaker 1: Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley, the obliterated man
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  Speaker 1: I was, you shall hear immediately Why I am not now?
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  Speaker 1: Egbert Craddock Cummins. The name remains. I am still Heaven
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  Speaker 1: help me, dramatic critic to the fiery cross. What I
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  Speaker 1: shall be in a little while? I do not know.
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  Speaker 1: I write in great trouble and confusion of mind. I
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  Speaker 1: will do what I can to make myself clear in
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  Speaker 1: the face of terrible difficulties. You must bear with me
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  Speaker 1: a little. When a man is rapidly losing his own identity,
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  Speaker 1: he naturally finds a difficulty in expressing himself. I will
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  Speaker 1: make it perfectly plain in a minute. When once I
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  Speaker 1: get my grip upon the story, let me see where
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  Speaker 1: am I? I wish I knew? Ah, I have it
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  Speaker 1: dead self, Egbert Craddock Cummins. In the past, I should
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  Speaker 1: have disliked writing anything quite so full of I as
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  Speaker 1: this story must be. It is full of eyes before
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  Speaker 1: and behind, like the beast in revelation, the one with
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  Speaker 1: a head like a calf. I am afraid, but my
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  Speaker 1: tastes have changed since I became a dramatic critic and
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  Speaker 1: studied the masters G A. S, G B S, G
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  Speaker 1: R S and the others. Everything has changed since then.
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  Speaker 1: At least the story is about myself, so that there
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  Speaker 1: is some excuse for me. And it is really not egotism, because,
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  Speaker 1: as I say, since those days, my identity has undergone
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  Speaker 1: an entire alteration that past. I was in those days,
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  Speaker 1: rather a nice fellow, rather shy, taste for gray in
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  Speaker 1: my clothes, weedy little mustache face, interesting slight stutter which
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  Speaker 1: I had caught in my early life from a schoolfellow.
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  Speaker 1: Engaged to a very nice girl named Delia, fairly new
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  Speaker 1: she was cigarettes liked me because I was human and
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  Speaker 1: original considered. I was like Lamb on the strength of
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  Speaker 1: the stutter, I believe father an eminent authority on postage stamps.
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  Speaker 1: She read a great deal in the British Museum, a
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  Speaker 1: perfect pairing ground for literary people. That British Museum. You
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  Speaker 1: should read George Egerton and Justin Huntley mc arthy and
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  Speaker 1: Kissing and the rest of them. We loved in our
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  Speaker 1: intellectual way and shared the brightest hopes all gone now,
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  Speaker 1: and her father liked me because I seemed honestly eager
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  Speaker 1: to hear about stamps. She had no mother. Indeed, I
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  Speaker 1: had the happiest prospects a young man could have. I
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  Speaker 1: never went to theaters in those days. My aunt Charlotte,
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  Speaker 1: before she died, had told me not to. Then Barnaby,
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  Speaker 1: the editor of The Fiery Cross, made me, in spite
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  Speaker 1: of my spasmodic efforts to escape dramatic critic. He is
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  Speaker 1: a fine, healthy man, Barnaby, with an enormous head of
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  Speaker 1: frizzy black hair and a convincing manner. And he caught
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  Speaker 1: me on the staircase going to see Wembley. He had
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  Speaker 1: been dining and was more than usually buoyant. Hello Cummins,
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  Speaker 1: he said, the very man I want. He caught me
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  Speaker 1: by the shoulder or the collar or something, ran me
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  Speaker 1: up the little passage and flung me over the waist
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  Speaker 1: paper basket into the arm chair in his office. Pray
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  Speaker 1: be seated, he said. As he did so. Then he
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  Speaker 1: ran across the room and came back with some pink
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  Speaker 1: and yellow tickets and pushed them into my hand. Opera comique,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: he said. Thursday Friday, the Surrey Saturday, the frivolity, that's
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  Speaker 1: all I think. But I began glad your frey, he said,
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  Speaker 1: snatching some proofs off the desk and beginning to read.
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  Speaker 1: I don't quite understand, I said, eh, he said, at
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  Speaker 1: the top of his voice, as though he thought I
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  Speaker 1: had gone, and was startled at my remark. Do you
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  Speaker 1: want me to criticize these plays? Do something with them?
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  Speaker 1: Did you think it was a treat but I can't.
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  Speaker 1: Did you call me a fool? Well, I've never been
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  Speaker 1: to a theater in my life, Virgin Soil, but I
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  Speaker 1: don't know anything about it. You know, that's just it
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  Speaker 1: new view, no habits, no cliches. In stock Ow's is
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  Speaker 1: a live paper, not a bag of tricks. None of
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  Speaker 1: your clockwork professional journalism in this office. And I can
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  Speaker 1: rely on your integrity, but I've conscientious scruples. He caught
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  Speaker 1: me up suddenly and put me outside his door. Go
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  Speaker 1: and talk to Wembley about that, he said, he'll explain.
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  Speaker 1: As I stood perplexed, he opened the door again and said,
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  Speaker 1: I forgot this, thrust a fourth ticket into my hand
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  Speaker 1: it was for that night in twenty minutes time, and
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  Speaker 1: slammed the door upon me. His expression was quite calm,
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  Speaker 1: but I caught his eye. I hate arguments. I decided
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  Speaker 1: that I would take his hint and become, to my
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  Speaker 1: own destruction a dramatic critic. I walked slowly down the
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  Speaker 1: passage to Wembley. That Barnaby has a remarkable persuasive way.
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  Speaker 1: He has made few suggestions during our very pleasant intercourse
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  Speaker 1: of four years that he has not ultimately won me
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  Speaker 1: round to adopting. It may be, of course, that I
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  Speaker 1: am of a yielding disposition. Certainly I am too apt
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  Speaker 1: to take my color from my circumstances. It is, indeed
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  Speaker 1: to my unfortunate susceptibility to vivid impressions, that all my
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  Speaker 1: misfortunes are due. I have already alluded to the slight
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  Speaker 1: stammer I had acquired from a schoolfellow in my youth. However,
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  Speaker 1: this is a digression. I went home in a cab
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  Speaker 1: to dress. I will not trouble the reader with my
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  Speaker 1: thoughts about the first night audience strange assembly, as it
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  Speaker 1: is those I reserve for my memoirs, nor the humiliating
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  Speaker 1: story of how I got lost during the entract in
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  Speaker 1: a lot of red plush passages and saw the third
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  Speaker 1: act from the gallery The only point upon which I
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  Speaker 1: wished to lay stress was the remarkable effect of the
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  Speaker 1: acting upon me. You must remember I had lived a
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  Speaker 1: quiet and retired life and had never been to the
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  Speaker 1: theater before, and that I am extremely sensitive to vivid impressions.
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  Speaker 1: At the risk of repetition, I must insist upon these points.
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  Speaker 1: The first effect was a profound amazement, not untinctured by alarm.
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  Speaker 1: The phenomenal unnaturalness of acting is a thing discounted in
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  Speaker 1: the minds of most people. By early visits to the theater.
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  Speaker 1: They get used to the fantastic gestures, the flamboyant emotions,
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  Speaker 1: the weird mouthings, melodious snortings, agonizing yelps, lip gnawings, glaring horrors,
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  Speaker 1: and other emotional symbolism of the stage. It becomes at
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  Speaker 1: last a mere deaf and dumb language to them, which
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  Speaker 1: they read intelligently. Pari passu with the hearing of the dialog.
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  Speaker 1: But all this was new to me. The thing was
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  Speaker 1: called a modern comedy. The people were supposed to be
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  Speaker 1: English and were dressed like fashionable Americans of the current epoch,
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  Speaker 1: and I fell into the natural error of supposing that
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  Speaker 1: the actors were trying to represent human beings. I looked
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  Speaker 1: round on my first night audience with a kind of wonder,
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  Speaker 1: discovered as all new dramatic critics do that it rested
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  Speaker 1: with me to reform the drama, And after a supper,
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  Speaker 1: choked with emotion, went off to the office to write
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a column piebald with new paragraphs, as all my stuff is,
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  Speaker 1: it fills out so and purple with indignation. Barnaby was delighted,
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  Speaker 1: but I could not sleep that night. I dreamt of actors,
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  Speaker 1: actors glaring, actors smiting their chests, actors flinging out a
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  Speaker 1: handful of extended fingers, actors smiling, bitterly, laughing, despairingly, falling, hopelessly,
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  Speaker 1: dying idiotically. I got up at eleven with a slight headache,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: read my notice in the Fiery Cross, breakfasted, and went
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: back to my room to shave. It's my habit to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: do so. Then an odd thing happened. I could not
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  Speaker 1: find my razor. Suddenly it occurred to me that I
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  Speaker 1: had not unpacked it the day before, Ah said I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in front of the looking glass. Then hullo, quite involuntarily.
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  Speaker 1: When I had thought of my portmanteau, I had flung
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  Speaker 1: up the left arm, fingers fully extended, and clutched at
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  Speaker 1: my diaphragm with my right hand. I am an acutely
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  Speaker 1: self conscious man at all times. The gesture struck me
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  Speaker 1: as absolutely novel. For me, I repeated it for my
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  Speaker 1: own satisfaction. Odd then, rather puzzled, I turned to my portmanteau.
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  Speaker 1: After shaving, My mind reverted to the acting I had seen,
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  Speaker 1: and I entertained myself before the cheval glass with some
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  Speaker 1: imitations of Jaffery's more exaggerated gestures. Really one might think
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  Speaker 1: it a disease, I said, stage walkitis. There's many a
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  Speaker 1: truth spoken in jest, then, if I remember rightly. I
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  Speaker 1: went off to see Wembley, and afterwards lunched at the
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  Speaker 1: British Museum with Delia. We actually spoke about our prospects
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  Speaker 1: in the light of my new appointment. But that appointment
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  Speaker 1: was the beginning of my downfall. From that day I
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  Speaker 1: necessarily became a persistent theater girl, and almost insensibly I
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  Speaker 1: began to change. The next thing I noticed after the
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  Speaker 1: gesture about the razor, was to catch myself bowing ineffably
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  Speaker 1: when I met Delia and stooping in an old fashioned
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  Speaker 1: courtly way over her hand directly I caught myself. I
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  Speaker 1: straightened myself up and became very uncomfortable. I remember she
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  Speaker 1: looked at me curiously. Then in the office I found
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  Speaker 1: myself doing nervous business, fingers on teeth. When Barnaby asked
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  Speaker 1: me a question I could not very well answer. Then,
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  Speaker 1: in some trifling difference with Delia, I clasped my hand
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  Speaker 1: to my brow and I pranced through my social transactions,
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  Speaker 1: at times singularly like an actor. I tried not to.
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  Speaker 1: No one could be more keenly alive to the arrant
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  Speaker 1: absurdity of the histrionic bearing and I did. It began
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  Speaker 1: to dawn on me what it all meant. The acting
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  Speaker 1: I saw was too much for my delicate, strung nervous system.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I have always, I know, been too amenable to the
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  Speaker 1: suggestions of my circumstances. Night after night of concentrated attention
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  Speaker 1: to the conventional attitudes and intonation of the English stage
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  Speaker 1: was gradually affecting my speech and courage. I was giving
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  Speaker 1: way to the infection of sympathetic imitation. Night after night,
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  Speaker 1: my plastic nervous system took the print of some new
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  Speaker 1: amazing gesture, some new emotional exaggeration and retained it a
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  Speaker 1: kind of theatrical veneer, threatened to plait over and obliterate
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  Speaker 1: my private individuality altogether. I saw myself in a kind
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  Speaker 1: of vision. Sitting by myself one night, my new self
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: seemed to me to glide, posing and gesticulating across the room.
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  Speaker 1: He clutched his throat, he opened his fingers, he opened
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  Speaker 1: his legs, in walking like a high lass marionette. He
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  Speaker 1: went from attitude to attitude. He might have been clock work.
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  Speaker 1: Directly after this, I made an ineffectual attempt to resign
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  Speaker 1: my theatrical work, but Barnaby persisted in talking about the
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  Speaker 1: Pollywiddle divorce all the time I was with him, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I could get no opportunity of saying what I wished.
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  Speaker 1: And then Delia's manner began to change towards me. The
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  Speaker 1: ease of our intercourse vanished. I felt she was learning
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  Speaker 1: to dislike me. I grinned and capered and scowled and
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  Speaker 1: posed at her in a thousand ways, and knew with
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  Speaker 1: what a voiceless agony that I did it. All the time.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I tried to resign again, and Barnaby talked about X
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and Z and Y, in the new Review, and gave
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: me a strong cigar to smoke, and so routed me.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And then I walked up the Assyrian Gallery in the
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  Speaker 1: manner of irving to meet Delia, and so precipitated the crisis. Ah, dear,
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  Speaker 1: I said, with more sprightliness and emotion in my voice
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  Speaker 1: than had ever been in all my life before I
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: became to my own undoing a dramatic critic. She held
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: out her hand rather coldly, scrutinizing my face. As she
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  Speaker 1: did so, I prepared, with a new and grace to
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  Speaker 1: walk by her side. Egbert, she said, standing still and thought.
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  Speaker 1: Then she looked at me. I said nothing, I felt
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  Speaker 1: what was coming. I tried to be the old Egbert
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  Speaker 1: Craddock Cummings, of shambling gait and stammering sincerity, whom she loved.
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  Speaker 1: But I felt, even as I did so, that I
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  Speaker 1: was a new thing, a thing of surging emotions and
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  Speaker 1: mysterious fixity, like no human being that ever lived except
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  Speaker 1: upon the stage. Egbert, she said, you are not yourself. Ah.
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  Speaker 1: Involuntarily I clutched my diaphragm and averted my head, as
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  Speaker 1: is the way with them. There. She said, what do
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  Speaker 1: you mean? I said, whispering in vocal italics. You know
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  Speaker 1: how they do it, turning on her perplexity on face,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: right hand down left on brow. I knew quite well
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  Speaker 1: what she meant. I knew quite well the dramatic unreality
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  Speaker 1: of my behavior, but I struggled against it in vain
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean? I said, and in a kind
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  Speaker 1: of hoarse whisper, I don't understand. She really looked as
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  Speaker 1: though she disliked me. What do you keep on posing for?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: She said, I don't like it. You didn't used to?
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  Speaker 1: Didn't use to, I said, slowly, repeating this twice. I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: glared up and down the gallery with short, sharp glances.
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  Speaker 1: We are alone, I said, swiftly. Listen. I poked my
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  Speaker 1: forefinger towards her and glared at her. I am under
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  Speaker 1: a curse. I saw her hand tighten upon her sunshade.
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  Speaker 1: You are under some bad influence or other, said Delia.
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  Speaker 1: You should give it up. I never knew any one
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  Speaker 1: change as you have done, Delia, I said, lapsing into
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the pathetic. Pity me, Oh, Delia, pity me, She eyed
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: me critically. Why you keep playing the fool like this?
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, she said, anyhow, I really cannot go
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: about with a man who behaves as you do. You
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: made us both ridiculous on Wednesday. Frankly, I dislike you
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  Speaker 1: as you are now. I met you here to tell
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you so, as it about the only place where we
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: can be sure of being alone together, Delia said I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: with intensity. Knuckles of clenched hands. White. You don't mean
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  Speaker 1: I do, said Delia. A woman's lot is sad enough
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  Speaker 1: at the best of times, but with you. I clapped
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  Speaker 1: my hand on my brow. So good bye, said Delia
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: without emotion. Oh, Delia, I said, not this. Good Bye,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: mister Cummins, she said. By a violent effort, I controlled
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: myself and touched her hand. I tried to say some
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: word of explanation to her. She looked into my working
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: face and winced. I must do it, she said hopelessly.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Then she turned from me and began walking rapidly down
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  Speaker 1: the gallery. Heavens, how the human agony cried within me.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I loved Delia, but nothing found expression. I was already
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: too deeply crusted with my acquired self. Good By, I said,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: at last, watching her retreating figure. How I hated myself
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  Speaker 1: for doing it. After she had vanished, I repeated in
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a dreamy way good bye, looking hopelessly round me. Then,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: with a kind of heart broken cry, I shook my
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: clenched fists in the air, staggered to the pedestal of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: a winged figure, buried my face in my arms, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: made my shoulders heave. Something within me said as as
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I did so, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the museum policeman, who was attracted by my cry of agony,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: that I was not intoxicated, but merely suffering from a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: transient indisposition. But even this great sorrow has not availed
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to save me from my fate. I see it, Everyone
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sees it. I grow more theatrical every day, and no
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: one could be more painfully aware of the pungent silliness
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of theatrical ways. The quiet, nervous but pleasing E. C.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Cummings vanishes. I cannot save him. I am driven like
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a dead leaf before the winds of march. My tailor
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: even enters into the spirit of my disorder. He has
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a peculiar sense of what is fitting. I tried to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: get a dull gray suit from him this spring, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: he foisted a brilliant blue upon me. And I see
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: he has put braid down the sides of my new
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: dressed trousers. My hair dresser insists upon giving me a wave.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I am beginning to associate with actors. I detest them,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: but it is only in their company that I can
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: feel I am not glaringly conspicuous. Their talk infects me.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I notice a growing tendency to dramatic brevity, to dashes
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and pauses in my style, to a punctuation of bows
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and attitudes. Barnaby has remarked it too. I offended Wembley
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: by calling him dear boy yesterday. I dread the end,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: but I cannot escape from it. The fact is I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: am being obliterated, living a gray, retired life all my youth.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I came to the theater a delicate sketch of a man,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a thing of tints and faint lines. Dear gorgeous coloring
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: has effaced me altogether. People forget how much mode of expression,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: method of movement are a matter of contagion. I have
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: heard of stage struck people before and thought it a
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: figure of speech. I spoke of it jestingly as a disease.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: It is is no jest. It is a disease, and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I have got it badly. Deep down within me, I
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: protest against the wrong done to my personality unavailingly for
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: three hours or more a week. I have to go
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: and concentrate my attention on some fresh play, and the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: suggestions of the drama strengthen their awful hold upon me.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: My manners grow so flamboyant, my passions so professional, that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I doubt, as I said at the outset, whether it
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: is really myself that behaves in such a manner. I
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: feel merely the core to this dramatic casing that grows
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: thicker and presses upon me, me and mine. I feel
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: like King John's abbot in his cope of lead. I
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: doubt indeed whether I should not abandon the struggle altogether,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: leave this sad world of ordinary life for which I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: am so ill fitted, abandon the name of Cummins for
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: some professional pseudonym, complete my self effacement and a thing
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of tricks and tatters of posing and pretense. Go upon
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the stage. It seems my only resort to hold the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: mirror up to nature, For in the ordinary life, I
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: will confess, no one now seems to regard me as
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: both sane and sober. Only upon the stage I feel convinced.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Will people take me seriously? That will be the end
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: of it. I know that will be the end of it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And yet I will frankly confess all that marks off
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: your actor from your common man I detest. I am
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: still largely of my Aunt Charlotte's opinion that play acting
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is unworthy of a pure minded man's attention, much more participation.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Even now I would resign my dramatic criticism and try
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a rest. Only I can't get hold of Barnaby letters
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of resignation. He never notices. He says it is against
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the etiquette of journalism to write to your editor. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: when I go to see him, he gives me another
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: big cigar and some strong whisky and soda. And then
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: something always turns up to prevent my explanation. End of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Section fourteen.