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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter Fifth Section 3-5 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter five, sections three, four and five of
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  Speaker 1: In the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Bershacht In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter five, sections three, four and five. Section three.
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  Speaker 1: I sought them in Vain the next morning, but after
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  Speaker 1: midday I came in quick succession on a perplexing multitude
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  Speaker 1: of clues. After failing to find any young couple that
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  Speaker 1: corresponded to young Verrall and Netty, I presently discovered an
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  Speaker 1: unsatisfactory quartette of couples. Any of these four couples might
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  Speaker 1: have been the one I sought with regard to none
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  Speaker 1: of them was their conviction. They had all arrived either
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  Speaker 1: on Wednesday or Thursday. Two couples were still in occupation
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  Speaker 1: of their rooms, but neither of these were at home.
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  Speaker 1: Late in the afternoon, I reduced my list by eliminating
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  Speaker 1: a young man in drab with side whiskers and long cuffs,
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  Speaker 1: accompanied by a lady of thirty or more of consciously
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  Speaker 1: ladylike type. I was disgusted at the sight of them.
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  Speaker 1: The other two young people had gone for a long walk,
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  Speaker 1: and though I watched their boarding house until the fiery
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  Speaker 1: clouds shone out above, sharing and mingling in an unusually
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  Speaker 1: splendid sunset, I missed them. Then I discovered them, dining
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  Speaker 1: at a separate table in the bow window, with red
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  Speaker 1: shaded candles between them, peering out ever and again at
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  Speaker 1: this splendor that was neither night nor day. The girl
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  Speaker 1: in her pink evening dress looked very light and pretty
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  Speaker 1: to me, pretty enough to enrage me. She had well
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  Speaker 1: shaped arms and white, well modeled shoulders, and the turn
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  Speaker 1: of her cheek and the fair hair about her ears
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  Speaker 1: was full of subtle delights. But she was not Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: and the happy man with her was that odd, degenerate
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  Speaker 1: type our old aristocracy produced, with such odd frequency, chinless,
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  Speaker 1: large bony nose, small fair head, languid expression, and a
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  Speaker 1: neck that had demanded and received a veritable sleeve of collar.
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  Speaker 1: I stood outside in the meteor's livid light, hating them
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  Speaker 1: and cursing them for having delayed me so long. I
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  Speaker 1: stood until it was evident they remarked me a black
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  Speaker 1: shape of envy. Silhouetted against the glare that finished Shaphambury.
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  Speaker 1: The question I now had to debate was which of
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  Speaker 1: the remaining couples I had to pursue. I walked back
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  Speaker 1: to the parade, trying to reason my next step out,
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  Speaker 1: and muttering to myself, because there was something in that
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  Speaker 1: luminous wonderfulness that touched one's brain and made one feel
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  Speaker 1: a little light headed. One couple had gone to London,
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  Speaker 1: the other had gone to the bungalow village at bone Cliff.
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  Speaker 1: Where I wondered was bone Cliff? I came upon my
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  Speaker 1: wooden legged man at the top of his steps, Hullo,
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  Speaker 1: said I. He pointed seaward with his pipe, his silver
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  Speaker 1: ring shone in the skylight rum He said, what is
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  Speaker 1: I asked? Search Lights smoke, ships going north. If it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't for this blasted milky way gone green up there
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  Speaker 1: we might see. He was too intent to heed my
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  Speaker 1: questions for a time. Then he vouchsafed over his shoulder.
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  Speaker 1: No bungalow village, rather artists and such nice goings on
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  Speaker 1: mixed bathing. Something scandalous, Yes, but where is it? I said,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly exasperated. There he said, what's that? Flicker, a gun flash,
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  Speaker 1: or I'm a lost soul, you'd hear, I said, long
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  Speaker 1: before it was near enough to see a flash. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't answer, only by making it clear I would distract
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  Speaker 1: him until he told me what I wanted to know.
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  Speaker 1: Could I get him to turn from his absorbed contemplation
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  Speaker 1: of that phantom dance between the sea rim and the shine? Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: I gripped his arm and shook him. Then he turned
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  Speaker 1: upon me, cursing seven miles, He said, along this road,
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  Speaker 1: and now go to Ell with yer. I answered with
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  Speaker 1: some foul insult by way of thanks, And so we parted,
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  Speaker 1: and I set off towards the Bungalow village. I found
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  Speaker 1: a policeman standing stargazing a little way beyond the end
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  Speaker 1: of the parade, and verified the wooden legged man's directions.
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  Speaker 1: It's alone only road, you know, he called after me.
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  Speaker 1: I had an odd intuition that now, at last I
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  Speaker 1: was on the right track. I left the dark masses
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  Speaker 1: of Shaphambury behind me and pushed out into the dim
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  Speaker 1: pallor of that night with the quiet assurance of a
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  Speaker 1: traveler who nears his end. The incidents of that long
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  Speaker 1: tramp I do not recall in any orderly succession. The
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  Speaker 1: one progressive thing is my memory of a growing fatigue.
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  Speaker 1: The sea was, for the most part smooth and shining
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  Speaker 1: like a mirror, a great expanse of reflecting silver, barred
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  Speaker 1: by slow, broad undulations. But at one time a little
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  Speaker 1: breeze breathed like a faint sigh, and ruffled their long
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  Speaker 1: bodies into faint, scaly ripples that never completely died out again.
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  Speaker 1: The way was sometimes sandy, thick with silvery colorless sand,
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes chalky and lumpy, with lumps that had shining facets.
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  Speaker 1: A black scrub was scattered, sometimes in thickets, sometimes in
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  Speaker 1: single bunches along the somnolent hummocks of sand. At one
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  Speaker 1: place came grass and ghostly great sheep looming up among
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  Speaker 1: the gray. After a time, black pine woods intervened and
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  Speaker 1: made sustained darkness along the road, woods that frayed out
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  Speaker 1: at the edges to weirdly warped and stunted trees. Then
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  Speaker 1: isolated pine witches would appear and make their rigid gestures
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  Speaker 1: at me. As I passed grotesquely incongruous amidst these forms,
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  Speaker 1: I presently came on estate boards appealing houses can be
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  Speaker 1: built to suit purchaser, to the silence, to the shadows
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  Speaker 1: and the glare. Once I remember the persistent barking of
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  Speaker 1: a dog from somewhere inland of me, and several times
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  Speaker 1: I took out and examined my revolver very carefully. I must,
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  Speaker 1: of course, have been full of my intent when I
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  Speaker 1: did that. I must have been thinking of Nettie and revenge.
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  Speaker 1: But I cannot now recall those emotions at all. Only
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  Speaker 1: I see again, very distinctly, the greenish gleams that ran
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  Speaker 1: over lock and barrel as I turned the weapon in
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  Speaker 1: my hand. Then there was the sky, the wonderful, luminous, starless,
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  Speaker 1: moonless sky, and the empty blue deeps of the edge
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  Speaker 1: of it, between the meteor and the sea. And once
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  Speaker 1: strange phantoms I saw far out upon the shine, and
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  Speaker 1: very small and distant, three long black warships, without masts
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  Speaker 1: or sails or smoke or any lights, dark, deadly, furtive things,
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  Speaker 1: traveling very swiftly and keeping an equal distance. And when
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  Speaker 1: I looked again, they were very small, and then the
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  Speaker 1: shine had swallowed them up. Then once a flash, and
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  Speaker 1: what I thought was a gun, until I looked up
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  Speaker 1: and saw a fading trail of greenish light still hanging
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  Speaker 1: in the sky. And after that there was a shiver
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  Speaker 1: and a whispering in the air, a stronger throbbing in
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  Speaker 1: one's arteries, a sense of refreshment, a renewal of purpose.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhere upon my way the road forked, but I do
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  Speaker 1: not remember whether that was near Shaphambury or near the
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  Speaker 1: end of my walk. The hesitation between two rutted, unmade
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  Speaker 1: roads alone remains clear in my mind. At last, I
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  Speaker 1: grew weary. I came to piled heaps of decaying seaweed
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  Speaker 1: and cart tracks running this way and that. And then
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  Speaker 1: I had missed the road and was stumbling among sand hummocks.
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  Speaker 1: Quite close to the sea. I came out on the
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  Speaker 1: edge of the dimly glittering sandy beach, and something phosphorescent
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  Speaker 1: drew me to the water's edge. I bent down and
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  Speaker 1: peered at the little luminous specks that floated in the ripples. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: with a sigh, I stood erect and contemplated the lonely
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  Speaker 1: peace of that last wonderful night. The meteor had now
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  Speaker 1: trailed its shining nets across the whole space of the sky,
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  Speaker 1: and was beginning to set. In the east, the blue
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  Speaker 1: was coming to its own again. The sea was an
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  Speaker 1: intense edge of blackness, and now escaped from that great shine,
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  Speaker 1: and faint and still tremulously valiant, one weak, elusive star
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  Speaker 1: could just be seen hovering on the verge of the invisible.
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  Speaker 1: How beautiful it was, How still and beautiful. Peace, Peace,
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  Speaker 1: the peace that passeth understanding, robed in light descending. My
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  Speaker 1: heart swelled, and suddenly I was weeping. There was something
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  Speaker 1: new and strange in my blood. It came to me
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  Speaker 1: that indeed I did not want to kill. I did
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  Speaker 1: not want to kill. I did not want to be
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  Speaker 1: the servant of my passions any more. A great desire
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  Speaker 1: had come to me to escape from life, from the daylight,
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  Speaker 1: which is heat and conflict and desire, into that cool
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  Speaker 1: night of eternity and rest. I had played, I had done.
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  Speaker 1: I stood upon the edge of the great ocean, and
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  Speaker 1: I was filled with an inarticulate spirit of prayer. And
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  Speaker 1: I desired greatly peace from myself. And presently there in
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  Speaker 1: the east would come again the red, discoloring curtain over
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  Speaker 1: these mysteries, the finite world again, the gray and growing
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  Speaker 1: harsh certainties of dawn, my resolve, I knew, would take
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  Speaker 1: up with me again. This was a rest for me,
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  Speaker 1: an interlude. But tomorrow I should be William Leadford, once more,
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  Speaker 1: ill nourished, ill dressed, ill equipped and clumsy, a thief
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  Speaker 1: and shamed, a wound upon the face of life, a
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  Speaker 1: source of trouble and sorrow, even to the mother I loved.
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  Speaker 1: No hope in life left for me now, but revenge
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  Speaker 1: before my death. Why this paltry thing, revenge? It entered
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  Speaker 1: into my thoughts that I might end the matter now
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  Speaker 1: and let these others go. To wade out into the sea,
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  Speaker 1: into this warm lapping that mingled the natures of water
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  Speaker 1: and light, to stand there breast high, to thrust my
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  Speaker 1: revolver barrel into my mouth, Why not? I swung about
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  Speaker 1: with an effort. I walked slowly up the beach, thinking,
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  Speaker 1: I turned and looked back at the sea. No, something
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  Speaker 1: within me said, no, I must think it was troublesome
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  Speaker 1: to go further. Because the hummocks and the tangled bushes began.
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  Speaker 1: I sat down amidst a black cluster of shrubs and
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  Speaker 1: rested chin on hand. I drew my revolver from my
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  Speaker 1: pocket and looked at it and held it in my hand.
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  Speaker 1: Life or death. I seemed to be probing the very
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  Speaker 1: deeps of being, but indeed imperceptibly, I fell asleep and
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  Speaker 1: sat dreaming. Section four. Two people were bathing in the
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  Speaker 1: sea I had awakened. It was still that white and
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  Speaker 1: wonderful night, and the blue band of clear sky was
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  Speaker 1: no wider than before. These people must have come into
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  Speaker 1: sight as I fell asleep, and awakened me almost at once.
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  Speaker 1: They waded breast deep in the water, emerging coming shoreward,
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  Speaker 1: a woman with her hair coiled about her head, and
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  Speaker 1: in pursuit of her, a man, graceful figures of black
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  Speaker 1: and silver, with a bright green surge flowing off from them,
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  Speaker 1: a pattering of flashing wavelets about them. He smote the
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  Speaker 1: water and splashed it toward her. She retaliated, and then
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  Speaker 1: they were knee deep, and then for an instant their
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  Speaker 1: feet broke the long silver margin of the sea. Each
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  Speaker 1: wore a tightly fitting bathing dress that hid nothing of
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  Speaker 1: the shining, dripping beauty of their youthful forms. She glanced
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  Speaker 1: over her shoulder and found him nearer than she thought. Started, gesticulated,
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  Speaker 1: gave a little cry that pierced me to the heart,
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  Speaker 1: and fled up the beach, obliquely toward me, running like
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  Speaker 1: the wind, and past me. Vanished amidst the black distorted bushes,
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  Speaker 1: and was gone she and her pursuer. In a moment
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  Speaker 1: over the ridge of sand, I heard him shout between
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  Speaker 1: exhaustion and laughter. And suddenly I was a thing of
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  Speaker 1: beastial fury, standing up with hands held up and clenched,
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  Speaker 1: rigid in gesture of impotent, threatening against the sky. For
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  Speaker 1: this striving, swift thing of light and beauty was Nettie,
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  Speaker 1: and this was the man for whom I had been betrayed,
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  Speaker 1: And it blazed upon me. I might have died there
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  Speaker 1: by the sheer ebbing of my will unavenged. In another moment,
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  Speaker 1: I was running and stumbling, revolver in hand, in quiet,
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  Speaker 1: unsuspected pursuit of them through the soft and noiseless sand.
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  Speaker 1: Section five. I came up over the little ridge and
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  Speaker 1: discovered the bungalow village I had been seeking, nestling in
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  Speaker 1: a crescent lap of dunes. A door slammed. The two
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  Speaker 1: runners had vanished, and I halted, staring. There was a
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  Speaker 1: group of three bungalows nearer to me than the others
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  Speaker 1: into one of these three they had gone, and I
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  Speaker 1: was too late to see which all had doors and
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  Speaker 1: windows carelessly open, and none showed a light. This place,
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  Speaker 1: upon which I had at last happened, was a fruit
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  Speaker 1: of the reaction of artistic, minded and carelessly living people
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  Speaker 1: against the costly, uncomfortable, social stiffness of the more formal
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  Speaker 1: seaside resorts of that time. It was. You must understand
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  Speaker 1: the custom of the steam railway companies to sell their
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  Speaker 1: carriages after they had been obsolete for a sufficient length
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  Speaker 1: of years, and some genius had hit upon the possibility
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  Speaker 1: of turning these into little habitable cabins for the summer holiday.
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  Speaker 1: The thing had become a fashion with a certain bohemian
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  Speaker 1: spirited class. They added cabin to cabin, and these little
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  Speaker 1: improvised homes, gaily painted and with broad verandahs and supplementary
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  Speaker 1: lean tobes added to their accommodation, made the brightest contrast
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  Speaker 1: conceivable to the dull, rigidities of the decorous resorts. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: there were many discomforts in such camping that had to
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  Speaker 1: be faced cheerfully, and so this broad sandy beach was
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  Speaker 1: sacred to high spirits, and the young art, Muslin and banjos,
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  Speaker 1: Chinese lanterns, and frying leading notes I find in the
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  Speaker 1: impression of those who once knew such places well. But
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  Speaker 1: so far as I was concerned, this odd settlement of
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  Speaker 1: pleasure squatters was a mystery as well as a surprise,
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  Speaker 1: enhanced rather than mitigated by an imaginative suggestion, or so
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  Speaker 1: I had received from the wooden legged man as Shaphambury,
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  Speaker 1: I saw the thing as no gathering of light hearts
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  Speaker 1: and gay idleness, but grimly after the manner of poor
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  Speaker 1: men poisoned by the suppression of all their cravings. After
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  Speaker 1: joy to the poor man, to the grimy workers, beauty
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  Speaker 1: and cleanness were absolutely denied out of a life of
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  Speaker 1: greasy dirt, of muddy desires. They watched their happier fellows
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  Speaker 1: with a bitter envy and foul, tormenting suspicions. Fancy a
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  Speaker 1: world in which the common people held love to be
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  Speaker 1: a sort of beastliness, own sister to being drunk. There
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  Speaker 1: was in the old time always something cruel at the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of this business of sexual love. At least, that
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  Speaker 1: is the impression I have brought with me across the
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  Speaker 1: gulf of the Great Change to succeed in love seemed
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  Speaker 1: such a triumph as no other success could give. But
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  Speaker 1: to fail was as if one was tainted. I felt
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  Speaker 1: no sense of singularity. That this threat of savagery should
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  Speaker 1: run through these emotions of mine and become now the
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  Speaker 1: whole strand of these emotions, I believed, and I think
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  Speaker 1: I was right in believing that the love of all
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  Speaker 1: true lovers was a sort of defiance. Then that they
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  Speaker 1: closed a system in each other's arms and mocked the
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  Speaker 1: world without you loved against the world, and these two
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  Speaker 1: loved at me. They had their business with one another
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  Speaker 1: under the threat of a watchful, fierceness, a sword, a
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  Speaker 1: sharp sword, the keenest edge in life lay among their roses.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever may be true of this for others, for me
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  Speaker 1: and my imagination, at any rate, it was altogether true.
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  Speaker 1: I was never for dalliance. I was never a jesting lover.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted fiercely. I made love impatiently. Perhaps I had
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  Speaker 1: written irrelevant love letters for that very reason, because with
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  Speaker 1: this stark theme, I could not play the thought of
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  Speaker 1: Nettie's shining form, of her shrinking bold abandoned to her
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  Speaker 1: easy conqueror, gave me now a body of rage that
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  Speaker 1: was nearly too strong for my heart and nerves and
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  Speaker 1: the tense powers of my merely physical being. I came
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  Speaker 1: down among the pale sand heaps, slowly towards that queer
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  Speaker 1: village of careless sensuality, and now within my puny body,
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  Speaker 1: I was coldly sharp, set for pain and death, a
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  Speaker 1: darkly gleaming hate, a sword of evil drawn. End of
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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter five, Sections three, four and five read
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  Speaker 1: by Behrschacht