Latest / Classic Science Fiction Books / 24 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

24 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Classic Science Fiction Books

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four, The Enigmas of Lady Joan. On an
0:06
Speaker 1: evening when the sky was clear and only its fringes
0:10
Speaker 1: embroidered with the purple arabesques of the sunset, Joan Brett
0:14
Speaker 1: was walking on the upper lawn of the terraced garden
0:17
Speaker 1: at Ivywood, where the peacocks trailed themselves about. She was
0:22
Speaker 1: not unlike one of the peacocks herself in beauty, and
0:27
Speaker 1: some might have said in inutility. She had the proud
0:31
Speaker 1: head and the sweeping train. Nor was she, in these
0:35
Speaker 1: days devoid of the occasional disposition to scream. For indeed,
0:42
Speaker 1: for some time past she had felt her existence closing
0:45
Speaker 1: round her with an incomprehensible quietude, and that is harder
0:50
Speaker 1: for the patience than an incomprehensible noise. Whenever she looked
0:56
Speaker 1: at the old yew hedges of the garden, they seemed
0:58
Speaker 1: to be higher than when she saw them last, as
1:02
Speaker 1: if those living walls could still grow to shut her in.
1:07
Speaker 1: Whenever from the turret window she had a sight of
1:10
Speaker 1: the sea, it seemed to be farther away. Indeed, the
1:14
Speaker 1: whole closing of the end of the turret wing with
1:17
Speaker 1: the new wall of eastern woodwork seemed to symbolize all
1:21
Speaker 1: her shapeless sensations in her childhood. The wing had ended
1:27
Speaker 1: with a broken down door and a disused staircase. They
1:31
Speaker 1: led to an uncultivated copse and an abandoned railway tunnel
1:35
Speaker 1: to which neither she nor any one else ever wanted
1:38
Speaker 1: to go. Still she knew what they led to. Now
1:43
Speaker 1: it seemed that this scrap of land had been sold
1:45
Speaker 1: and added to the adjoining estate, And about the adjoining
1:49
Speaker 1: estate nobody seemed to know anything. In particular, the sense
1:54
Speaker 1: of things closing in increased upon her. All sorts of
2:00
Speaker 1: silly little details magnified the sensation. She could discover nothing
2:06
Speaker 1: about this new landlord's next door, so to speak, since
2:11
Speaker 1: he was, it seemed, an elderly man who preferred to
2:14
Speaker 1: live in the greatest privacy. Miss Browning, Lord Iverywood's secretary
2:20
Speaker 1: could give her no further information than that he was
2:24
Speaker 1: a gentleman from the Mediterranean coast, which singular form of
2:29
Speaker 1: words seemed to have been put into her mouth, as
2:34
Speaker 1: a Mediterranean gentleman might mean anything from an American gentleman
2:39
Speaker 1: living in Venice to a black African on the edge
2:42
Speaker 1: of the Atlas. The description did not illuminate, and probably
2:47
Speaker 1: was not intended to do so. She occasionally saw his
2:52
Speaker 1: liveried servants going about, and their liveries were not like
2:56
Speaker 1: English liveries. She was, also, though in her somewhat morbid state,
3:02
Speaker 1: annoyed by the fact that the uniforms of the old
3:06
Speaker 1: Pebblewick militia had been changed under the influence of the
3:10
Speaker 1: Turkish prestige in the recent war. They wore fezzes like
3:15
Speaker 1: the French zouave, which were certainly much more practical than
3:20
Speaker 1: the heavy helmets they used to wear. It was a
3:24
Speaker 1: small matter, but it annoyed Lady Joan, who was, like
3:29
Speaker 1: so many clever women, at once subtle and conservative. It
3:34
Speaker 1: made her feel as if the whole world was being
3:37
Speaker 1: altered outside and she was not allowed to know about it.
3:43
Speaker 1: But she had deeper spiritual troubles also, while under the
3:48
Speaker 1: pathetic entreaties of old Lady Ivywood and her own sick mother,
3:53
Speaker 1: she stayed on week after week at Ivywood House. If
3:59
Speaker 1: the matter be staated cynically, as she herself was quite
4:03
Speaker 1: capable of stating it, she was engaged in the established
4:07
Speaker 1: feminine occupation of trying to like a man. But the
4:13
Speaker 1: cynicism would have been false, as cynicism nearly always is,
4:18
Speaker 1: For during the most crucial days of that period, she
4:22
Speaker 1: had really liked the man. She had liked him when
4:27
Speaker 1: he was brought in with Pump's bullet in his leg
4:30
Speaker 1: and was still the strongest and calmest man in the room.
4:35
Speaker 1: She had liked him when the hurt took a dangerous turn,
4:38
Speaker 1: and when he bore pain to admiration. She had liked
4:43
Speaker 1: him when he showed no malice against the Angridorian. She
4:47
Speaker 1: had liked him with something like enthusiasm on the night
4:51
Speaker 1: he rose, rigid on his rude crutch, and crushing all remonstrance,
4:56
Speaker 1: made his rash and swift rush to London. But despite
5:02
Speaker 1: the queer closing in sensations of which we have spoken,
5:06
Speaker 1: she never liked him better than that evening, when he
5:09
Speaker 1: lifted himself laboriously on his crutch up the terraces of
5:13
Speaker 1: the old garden and came to speak to her as
5:16
Speaker 1: she stood among the peacocks. He even tried to pat
5:21
Speaker 1: a peacock in a hazy way, as if it were
5:24
Speaker 1: a dog. He told her that these beautiful birds were
5:29
Speaker 1: of course, imported from the east by the semi eastern
5:33
Speaker 1: Empire of Macedonia. But all the same, Joan had a
5:37
Speaker 1: dim suspicion that he had never noticed before that there
5:40
Speaker 1: were any peacocks at Ivywood. His greatest fault was a
5:46
Speaker 1: pride in the faultlessness of his mental and moral strength.
5:51
Speaker 1: But if he had only known something faintly comic in
5:55
Speaker 1: the unconscious side of him, did him more good with
5:58
Speaker 1: the woman than all the rest. They were said to
6:02
Speaker 1: be the birds of Juno, he said, But I have
6:06
Speaker 1: little doubt that Juno likes so much else of the
6:10
Speaker 1: Homeric mythology has also an Asiatic origin. I always thought,
6:16
Speaker 1: said Joan, that Juno was rather too stately for the Cerralio.
6:22
Speaker 1: You ought to know, replied Ivywood with a courteous gesture,
6:28
Speaker 1: For I never saw any one who looked so like
6:31
Speaker 1: Juno as you do. But indeed, there is a great
6:36
Speaker 1: deal of misunderstanding about the Arabian or Indian view of women.
6:41
Speaker 1: It is somehow too simple and solid for our paradoxical
6:45
Speaker 1: Christendom to comprehend. Even the vulgar joke against the Turks
6:51
Speaker 1: that they like their bride's fat has in it a
6:55
Speaker 1: sort of distorted shadow of what I mean. They do
7:00
Speaker 1: not look so much at the individual as at womanhood
7:04
Speaker 1: and the power of nature. I sometimes think, said Joan,
7:10
Speaker 1: that these fascinating theories are a little strained. Your friend
7:15
Speaker 1: Misisra told me the other day that women had the
7:18
Speaker 1: highest freedom in Turkey as they were allowed to wedd trousers.
7:24
Speaker 1: Ivy Woods smiled, his rare and dry smile. The prophet
7:29
Speaker 1: has something of a simplicity often found with genius, he answered.
7:35
Speaker 1: I will not deny that some of the arguments he
7:38
Speaker 1: has employed have seemed to me crude and even fanciful.
7:43
Speaker 1: But he is right at the root. There is a
7:46
Speaker 1: kind of freedom that consists in never rebelling against nature,
7:51
Speaker 1: and I think they understand it in the Orient better
7:54
Speaker 1: than we do in the West. You see, Joan, it
7:58
Speaker 1: is all very well to talk about love in our narrow, personal,
8:03
Speaker 1: romantic way, but there is something higher than the love
8:07
Speaker 1: of a lover or the love of love. What is that,
8:12
Speaker 1: asked Joan, looking downe the love of fate, said Lord Ivywood,
8:19
Speaker 1: with something like spiritual passion in his eyes. Doesn't Nietzsche
8:25
Speaker 1: say somewhere that the delight in destiny is the mark
8:28
Speaker 1: of the hero. We are mistaken if we think that
8:32
Speaker 1: the heroes and saints of Islam say Kismet with bowed
8:36
Speaker 1: heads and in sorrow, they say Kismet with a shout
8:41
Speaker 1: of joy, that which is fitting. That is what they
8:46
Speaker 1: really mean. In the Arabian tales, the most perfect prince
8:53
Speaker 1: is wedded to the most perfect princess because it is
8:56
Speaker 1: fitting the spirit. Your giants, the genie achieve it. That
9:03
Speaker 1: is the purposes of nature. In the selfish, sentimental European novels,
9:09
Speaker 1: the loveliest princess on earth might have run away with
9:13
Speaker 1: her middle aged drawing master. Thest things are not in
9:18
Speaker 1: the path. The Turk rides out to wed the fairest
9:22
Speaker 1: queen of the earth. He conquers, empires to do it,
9:27
Speaker 1: and he is not ashamed of his laurels. The crumpled
9:33
Speaker 1: violet clouds around the edge of the silver Evening looked
9:36
Speaker 1: to Lady Joan more and more like vivid violet embroideries
9:41
Speaker 1: hemming some silver curtain in the closed corridor at Ivywood.
9:46
Speaker 1: The peacocks looked more lustrous and beautiful than they ever
9:50
Speaker 1: had before. But for the first time she really felt
9:54
Speaker 1: they came out of the land of the Arabian nights. Doan,
10:00
Speaker 1: said Philip Ivywood, very softly in the Twilight. I am
10:05
Speaker 1: not ashamed of my laurels. I see no meaning in
10:10
Speaker 1: what these Christians call humility. I will be the greatest
10:15
Speaker 1: man in the world if I can, and I think
10:18
Speaker 1: I can. Therefore, something that is higher than love itself.
10:24
Speaker 1: Fate and what is fitting make it right that I
10:29
Speaker 1: should wed the most beautiful woman in the world. And
10:34
Speaker 1: she stands among the peacocks and is more beautiful and
10:38
Speaker 1: more proud than they. Jon's troubled eyes were on the
10:44
Speaker 1: violet horizon, and her troubled lips could utter nothing but
10:49
Speaker 1: something like don't Joan, said Philip again, I have told
10:56
Speaker 1: you you are the woman one of the great heroes
11:00
Speaker 1: could have desired. Let me now tell you something I
11:03
Speaker 1: could have told no one to whom I had not.
11:06
Speaker 1: Thus spoken of love and betrothal. When I was twenty
11:11
Speaker 1: years old in a town in Germany, pursuing my education,
11:16
Speaker 1: I did what the West calls falling in love. She
11:21
Speaker 1: was a fisher girl from the coast. For this town
11:25
Speaker 1: was near the sea. My story might have ended there.
11:29
Speaker 1: I could not have entered diplomacy with such a wife.
11:33
Speaker 1: But I should not have minded then. But a little
11:37
Speaker 1: while after I wandered into the edges of Flanders and
11:41
Speaker 1: found myself standing above some of the last grand reaches
11:45
Speaker 1: of the Rhine, and things came over me, but for
11:50
Speaker 1: which I might be crying stinking fish. To this day
11:55
Speaker 1: I thought, how many holy or lovely nooks that river
12:00
Speaker 1: had left behind, and gone on It might, anywhere in
12:05
Speaker 1: Switzerland have spent its weak youth in a spirit over
12:09
Speaker 1: a high crag, or anywhere in the Rhinelands, lost itself
12:14
Speaker 1: in a marsh covered with flowers. But it went on
12:18
Speaker 1: to the perfect sea, which is the fulfillment of a river.
12:25
Speaker 1: Again Joan could not speak, and again it was Philip
12:30
Speaker 1: who went on, Here is yet another thing that could
12:34
Speaker 1: not be said till the hand of the Prince had
12:37
Speaker 1: been offered to the princess. It may be that in
12:41
Speaker 1: the East they carried too far this matter of infant marriages.
12:46
Speaker 1: But look round on the mad young marriages that go
12:50
Speaker 1: to pieces everywhere, and ask yourself whether you don't wish
12:55
Speaker 1: they had been infant marriages. People talk in the newspapers
13:00
Speaker 1: of the heartlessness of royal marriages, but you and I
13:05
Speaker 1: do not believe the newspapers. I suppose we know there
13:10
Speaker 1: is no king in England, nor has been since his
13:14
Speaker 1: head fell before Whitehall. You know that you and I
13:19
Speaker 1: and the families are the kings of England, and our
13:23
Speaker 1: marriages are royal marriages. Let the suburbs call them heartless.
13:30
Speaker 1: Let us say they need the brave heart. That is
13:33
Speaker 1: the only badge of aristocracy, Joan, he said, very gently.
13:42
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have been near a crag in Switzerland, or
13:47
Speaker 1: a marsh covered with flowers. Perhaps you have known a
13:53
Speaker 1: fisher girl. But there is something greater and simpler than
13:58
Speaker 1: all that, something you find in the great epochs of
14:03
Speaker 1: the East, the beautiful woman and the great man and fate.
14:12
Speaker 1: My lord, said Joan, using the formal phrase by an
14:17
Speaker 1: unfathomable instinct. Will you alarm me a little more time
14:22
Speaker 1: to think of this, and let there be no notion
14:25
Speaker 1: of disloyalty if my decision is one way or the other.
14:31
Speaker 1: Why of course, said Ivywood, bowing over his crutch, and
14:37
Speaker 1: he limped off, picking his way among the peacocks. For
14:44
Speaker 1: days afterward, Joan tried to build the foundations of her
14:48
Speaker 1: earthly destiny. She was still quite young, but she felt
14:53
Speaker 1: as if she had lived thousands of years worrying over
14:58
Speaker 1: the same question. She told herself again and again, and
15:03
Speaker 1: truly that many a better woman than she had taken
15:07
Speaker 1: a second best, which was not so first class as
15:11
Speaker 1: second best. But there was something complicated in the very atmosphere.
15:18
Speaker 1: She liked listening to Philip Ivywood at his best, as
15:22
Speaker 1: any one likes listening to a man who can really
15:25
Speaker 1: play the violin. But the great trouble always is that
15:30
Speaker 1: at certain awful moments you cannot be certain whether it
15:35
Speaker 1: is the violin or the man. Moreover, there was a
15:40
Speaker 1: curious tone and spirit in the Ivywood household, especially after
15:46
Speaker 1: the wound and convalescence of Ivywood, about which she could
15:50
Speaker 1: say nothing except that it annoyed her. Somehow, there was
15:55
Speaker 1: something in it glorious but also languorous, by an impulse
16:01
Speaker 1: by no means uncommon among intelligent, fashionable people. She felt
16:06
Speaker 1: a desire to talk to a sensible woman of the
16:09
Speaker 1: middle or lower classes, and almost threw herself on the
16:13
Speaker 1: bosom of Miss Browning for sympathy. But Miss Browning, with
16:18
Speaker 1: her curling, reddish hair and white, very clever face, struck
16:23
Speaker 1: the same indescribable note. Lord Ivywood was assumed as a
16:29
Speaker 1: first principle, as if he were Father Time or the
16:32
Speaker 1: clerk of the weather. He was called he the fifth
16:37
Speaker 1: time he was called he. Joan could not understand why
16:42
Speaker 1: she seemed to smell the plants in the hot conservatory
16:47
Speaker 1: you see, said miss Browning. We mustn't interfere with his career.
16:52
Speaker 1: That is the important thing. And really, I think the
16:55
Speaker 1: quieter we keep about everything, the better. I'm sure he
16:59
Speaker 1: is maturing very big plans. You heard what the prophet
17:03
Speaker 1: said the other night. The last thing the prophet said
17:07
Speaker 1: to me, said the darker lady, in a dogged manner,
17:12
Speaker 1: was that when we English see the English youth, we
17:15
Speaker 1: cry out he is crescent. But when we see the
17:19
Speaker 1: English aged man, we cry out he is cross. A
17:26
Speaker 1: lady with so clever a face could not but laugh faintly.
17:31
Speaker 1: But she continued on a determined theme. The prophet said,
17:35
Speaker 1: you know that all real love had in it an
17:39
Speaker 1: element of fate, and I am sure that is his
17:43
Speaker 1: view too. People cluster round a center as little stars
17:49
Speaker 1: do round a star, because a star is a magnet.
17:55
Speaker 1: You are never wrong when destiny blows behind you like
17:59
Speaker 1: a great big wind, and I think many things have
18:02
Speaker 1: been judged unfairly that way. It's all very well to
18:07
Speaker 1: talk about the infant marriages in India, Miss Browning, said, Joan.
18:15
Speaker 1: Are you interested in the infant marriages in India? Well
18:20
Speaker 1: said miss Browning. Is your sister interested in them? I'll
18:25
Speaker 1: run and ask her, cried Joan, plunging across the room
18:29
Speaker 1: to where missus Macintosh was sitting at a table scribbling
18:33
Speaker 1: secretarial notes. Well said missus Macintosh, turning up a rich haired,
18:40
Speaker 1: resolute head, more handsome than her sister's. I believe the
18:45
Speaker 1: Indian way is best When people are left to themselves
18:50
Speaker 1: in early youth. Any of them might marry anything. We
18:54
Speaker 1: might have married a nigger, or a fishwife, or a criminal. Now,
19:01
Speaker 1: missus Macintosh, said Joan, with black browed severity. You well
19:07
Speaker 1: know you would never have married a fish wife. Where
19:11
Speaker 1: is Enid? She ended suddenly. Lady Enid said, Miss Browning
19:18
Speaker 1: is looking at music in the music room. I think
19:23
Speaker 1: Joan walked swiftly through several long salons and found her
19:27
Speaker 1: fair haired and pallid relative actually at the piano. Enid
19:32
Speaker 1: cried Joan. You know I've always been fond of you.
19:37
Speaker 1: For God's sake, Tell me what is the matter with
19:40
Speaker 1: this house? I admire Philip as everybody does. But what
19:45
Speaker 1: is the matter with the house? Why do all these
19:49
Speaker 1: rooms and gardens seem to be shutting me in and
19:52
Speaker 1: in and in? Why does everything look more and more
19:55
Speaker 1: the same? Why does everybody say the same thing?
20:01
Speaker 2: Oh?
20:01
Speaker 1: I don't often talk metaphysics, but there is a purpose
20:05
Speaker 1: in this. That's the only way of putting it. There
20:08
Speaker 1: is a purpose, and I don't know what it is.
20:14
Speaker 1: Lady Enid Wimpole played a preliminary bar or two on
20:17
Speaker 1: the piano. Then she said, nor do I, Joan, I
20:22
Speaker 1: don't indeed, I know exactly what you mean. But it's
20:26
Speaker 1: just because there is a purpose that I have faith
20:29
Speaker 1: in him and trust him. She began softly to play
20:34
Speaker 1: a ballad tune of the Rhineland, and perhaps the music
20:38
Speaker 1: suggested her next remark. Suppose you are looking at some
20:42
Speaker 1: of the last reaches of the Rhine where it flows
20:46
Speaker 1: in it, cried Joan. If you say into the north Sea,
20:52
Speaker 1: I shall scream, scream? Do you hear louder than all
20:58
Speaker 1: the peacocks together? Well, expostulated lady Enid, looking up rather wildly.
21:06
Speaker 1: The rhine does flow into the north Sea, doesn't it,
21:11
Speaker 1: I dare say, said Joan recklessly. But the rhine might
21:16
Speaker 1: have flowed into the round pond before you would have
21:18
Speaker 1: known or cared until until what asked Enid? And her
21:25
Speaker 1: music suddenly ceased? Until something happened that I cannot understand,
21:32
Speaker 1: said Joan, moving away. You are something I cannot understand,
21:38
Speaker 1: said Enid wimple, But I will play something else if
21:42
Speaker 1: this annoys you, and she fingered the music again with
21:46
Speaker 1: an eyed choice. Joan walked back through the corridor of
21:51
Speaker 1: the music room and restlessly resumed her seat in the
21:54
Speaker 1: room with the two lady secretaries. Well, asked the red
22:00
Speaker 1: haired and good humored missus Macintosh, without looking up from
22:04
Speaker 1: her work of scribbling. Have you discovered anything? For some moments,
22:11
Speaker 1: Joan appeared to be in a blacker state of brooding
22:14
Speaker 1: than usual. Then she said, in a candid and friendly tone,
22:20
Speaker 1: which somehow contrasted with her knit and swarthy brows. No, really,
22:27
Speaker 1: at least, I think I've only found out two things,
22:30
Speaker 1: and there are only things about myself. I've discovered that
22:35
Speaker 1: I do like heroism, but I don't like hero worship, surely,
22:42
Speaker 1: said miss Browning in the girten manner. The one always
22:46
Speaker 1: flows from the other. I hope not, said Joan. But
22:51
Speaker 1: what else can you do with the hero, asked missus Macintosh,
22:57
Speaker 1: still without looking up from her writing. Except worship him.
23:02
Speaker 1: You might crucify him, said Joan, with a sudden return
23:07
Speaker 1: of savage restlessness as she rose from her chair. Things
23:11
Speaker 1: seem to happen, then, aren't you tired, asked the Miss Browning,
23:18
Speaker 1: who had the clever face. Yes, said Joan, And the
23:23
Speaker 1: worst sort of tiredness, when you don't even know what
23:27
Speaker 1: you're tired of. To tell the honest truth, I think
23:31
Speaker 1: I'm tired of this house. It's very old, of course,
23:36
Speaker 1: and parts of it are still dismal, said Miss Browning.
23:40
Speaker 1: But he has enormously improved it. The decoration with the
23:45
Speaker 1: moon and stars down in the wing with the turret
23:48
Speaker 1: is really away. In the distant music room, Lady Enid,
23:53
Speaker 1: having found the music she preferred, was fingering its prelude
23:57
Speaker 1: on the piano. At the first few notes of it,
24:01
Speaker 1: Joan Brett stood up like a tigress. Thanks, she said,
24:08
Speaker 1: with a hoarse softness. That's it of course, and that's
24:14
Speaker 1: just what we all are. She's found the right tune.
24:19
Speaker 1: Now what tune is it, asked the wondering secretary, The
24:27
Speaker 1: tune of harpsack, but sultary dulcimer, and all kinds of music,
24:34
Speaker 1: said Joan, softly and fiercely. When we shall bow down
24:39
Speaker 1: and worship the golden image that nebukat Nez of the
24:43
Speaker 1: king has set up. Girls, women, do you know what
24:48
Speaker 1: this place is? Do you know why it is all
24:51
Speaker 1: doors within doors, and lattice behind lattice, and everything is
24:56
Speaker 1: curtained and cushioned. And why the flowers that are so
24:59
Speaker 1: free vagrant here are not the flowers of our hills.
25:04
Speaker 1: From the distant and slowly darkening music room, Enid Wimple's
25:09
Speaker 1: song came thin and clear.
25:13
Speaker 3: Less than the does bey thy chariot, wee less than
25:24
Speaker 3: the rost that never ever stands thy sword.
25:31
Speaker 1: Do you know what we are? Demanded Joan Brett. Again,
25:36
Speaker 1: we are a harem? Why what can you mean? Cried
25:42
Speaker 1: the younger girl in great agitation. Why Lord ivy Wood
25:46
Speaker 1: has never I know he has never, I'm not sure,
25:51
Speaker 1: said Joan, even whether he would ever, I shall never
25:56
Speaker 1: understand that man, nor anybody else. But I tell you
26:01
Speaker 1: that is the spirit, that is what we are. And
26:06
Speaker 1: this room stinks of polygamy as certainly as it smells
26:10
Speaker 1: of tube roses. Why, Joan cried, Lady Enid, entering the
26:16
Speaker 1: room like a well bred ghost. What on earth is
26:19
Speaker 1: the matter with you? You all look as white as sheets.
26:25
Speaker 1: Joan took no heed of her, but went on with
26:28
Speaker 1: her own obstinate argument. And besides, she said, if there's
26:35
Speaker 1: one thing we do know about him, it is that
26:37
Speaker 1: he believes, on principle in doing things slowly. He calls
26:42
Speaker 1: it evolution and relativity and the expanding of an idea
26:47
Speaker 1: into larger ideas. How do we know he isn't doing
26:51
Speaker 1: that slowly, getting as accustomed to living like this, so
26:56
Speaker 1: that it may be the less shock when he goes further,
27:01
Speaker 1: steeping us in the atmosphere before he actually introduces. And
27:05
Speaker 1: she shuddered, the institution. Is it any more calmly outrageous
27:12
Speaker 1: a scheme than any other of Ivywood's schemes than a
27:16
Speaker 1: seapoy commander in chief, or missi isra preaching in Westminster Abbey,
27:21
Speaker 1: or the destructions of all the inns in England. I
27:26
Speaker 1: will not wait and expand. I will not be evolved.
27:32
Speaker 1: I will not develop into something that is not me.
27:37
Speaker 1: My feat shall be outside these walls if I walk
27:40
Speaker 1: the roads for it afterward, or I will scream as
27:44
Speaker 1: I would scream trapped in any den by the docks.
27:50
Speaker 1: She swept down the rooms towards the turret with a
27:53
Speaker 1: sudden passion for solitude. But as she passed the astronomical
27:58
Speaker 1: wood carving that had c up the end of the
28:01
Speaker 1: old wing, Enid saw her strike it with her clinched hand.
28:07
Speaker 1: It was in the turret that she had a strange experience.
28:12
Speaker 1: She was again later on, using its isolation to worry
28:16
Speaker 1: out the best way of having it out with Philip
28:19
Speaker 1: when he should return from his fitit to London, For
28:23
Speaker 1: to tell old Lady Ivywood what was on her mind
28:27
Speaker 1: would be about as kind and useful as describing Chinese
28:31
Speaker 1: tortures to her baby. The evening was very quiet, of
28:36
Speaker 1: the pale, gray sort, and all that side of Ivywood
28:41
Speaker 1: lay before her eyes undisturbed. She was the more surprised
28:47
Speaker 1: when her dreaming took note of a sort of stirring
28:50
Speaker 1: in the gray purple dusk of the bushes of whisperings,
28:54
Speaker 1: and of many footsteps. Then the silence settled down again,
29:00
Speaker 1: and then it was startlingly broken by a big voice
29:05
Speaker 1: singing in the dark distance. It was accompanied by faint
29:10
Speaker 1: sounds that might have been from the fingering of some
29:13
Speaker 1: lute or viole.
29:16
Speaker 2: Lady, the lies die in the skies, lay, and let
29:26
Speaker 2: us die. When onner dies, Your dear dropped glove was
29:33
Speaker 2: like a gauntlet flung When you and I were young,
29:41
Speaker 2: for something more than splenders stood.
29:47
Speaker 1: And ease was not the only good about the woods
29:53
Speaker 1: in Ivy.
29:56
Speaker 4: When you and I way.
30:02
Speaker 2: Lady, the stars are.
30:05
Speaker 1: Falling, pale and small.
30:10
Speaker 2: Lay, We will not live if life.
30:15
Speaker 1: Be forgetting those good stars.
30:20
Speaker 4: In heaven hang. When all the world was young, for
30:28
Speaker 4: more than gold was in a ring, and love.
30:34
Speaker 2: Was not a little thing between the trees in Hivy.
30:42
Speaker 2: When all the world was young.
30:50
Speaker 1: The singing ceased, and the bustle in the bushes could
30:54
Speaker 1: hardly be called more than a whisper, But sounds of
30:58
Speaker 1: the same sort, and someone louder seemed wafted round corners
31:03
Speaker 1: from other sides of the house, and the whole night
31:06
Speaker 1: seemed full of something that was alive, but was more
31:10
Speaker 1: than a single man. She heard a cry behind her,
31:15
Speaker 1: and Enid rushed into the room as white as one
31:18
Speaker 1: of the lilies. What awful thing is happening, she cried.
31:23
Speaker 1: The courtyard is full of men shouting, and there are
31:27
Speaker 1: torches everywhere. And Joan heard a tramp of men marching,
31:32
Speaker 1: and heard afar off another song, sang on a more
31:36
Speaker 1: derisive note, something like that Ivy would, Lord Ivy would
31:42
Speaker 1: be rout the tree as Ivy would, I think, said
31:48
Speaker 1: Joan thoughtfully. It is the end of the world. But
31:53
Speaker 1: where are the police, wailed her cousin. They don't seem
31:58
Speaker 1: to be anywhere about since they wore the zis we
32:01
Speaker 1: shall be murdered? Or Three thundering and measured blows shook
32:06
Speaker 1: the decorative wood paneling at the end of the wing,
32:09
Speaker 1: as if admittance were demanded with the club of a giant.
32:14
Speaker 1: Enid remembered that she had thought Jon's little blow energetic,
32:19
Speaker 1: and shuddered. Both the girls stared at the stars and
32:24
Speaker 1: moons and suns blazoned on that sacred wall that leapt
32:29
Speaker 1: and shuddered under the strokes of the doom. Then the
32:34
Speaker 1: sun fell from heaven, and the moon and stars dropped
32:39
Speaker 1: down and were scattered about the Persian carpet, and by
32:44
Speaker 1: the opening of the End of the World, Patrick Dalroy
32:49
Speaker 1: came in carrying a mandolin. End of Chapter twenty four