Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / Tono-Bungay Book 4 Chapter 1 - Parts 7-9

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Tono-Bungay Book 4 Chapter 1 - Parts 7-9 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Book, fourth chapter, first parts seven to nine of Tono Bungay.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by William tom Coe Tono
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Speaker 1: Bungay by H. G. Wells, Book, fourth chapter, first parts
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Speaker 1: seven to nine. Seven and now my story converges on
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Speaker 1: what in that queer corner of refuge, out of the
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Speaker 1: world was destined to be my uncle's death bed. There
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Speaker 1: is a background of the Pyrenees of blue hills and
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Speaker 1: sunlit houses of the old castle of Luzon, and the
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Speaker 1: noisy cascading river, and for a foreground, the dim, stuffy room,
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Speaker 1: whose windows both the releegus and hostess conspire to shut,
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Speaker 1: with its waxed floor, its four poster bed, its characteristically
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Speaker 1: French chairs and fireplace, its champagne bottles and dirty basins,
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Speaker 1: and used towels and packets of somatose on the table,
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Speaker 1: and in the sickly air of the confined space in
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Speaker 1: behind the curtains of the bed lay my little uncle,
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Speaker 1: with an effect of being enthroned and secluded, or sat
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Speaker 1: up or writhed and tossed. In his last dealings of life,
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Speaker 1: one went and drew back the edge of the curtains
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Speaker 1: if one wanted to speak to him or look at him.
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Speaker 1: Usually he was propped up against the pillows, because so
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Speaker 1: he breathed more easily. He slept hardly at all. I
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Speaker 1: have a confused memory of vigils and mornings and afternoons
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Speaker 1: spent by that bedside, and how the really juice hovered
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Speaker 1: about me, and how meek and good and inefficient she was,
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Speaker 1: and how horribly black were her nails. Other figures come
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Speaker 1: and go, and particularly the doctor, a young man, plumpy
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Speaker 1: rococo in bicycling dress with fine waxen features, a little
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Speaker 1: pointed beard, and the long black, frizzy hair and huge
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Speaker 1: tie of a minor poet. Bright and clear cut and
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Speaker 1: irrelevant are memories of the Basque hostess of my uncle's inn,
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Speaker 1: and of the family of Spanish people who entertained me
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Speaker 1: and prepared the most amazingly elaborate meals for me, with
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Speaker 1: soup and salad and chicken and remarkable sweets. They were
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Speaker 1: all very kind and sympathetic people, systematically so and constantly
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Speaker 1: without attracting attention. I was trying to get newspapers from home.
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Speaker 1: My uncle is central to all these impressions. I have
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Speaker 1: tried to make you picture him time after time, as
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Speaker 1: a young man of the Wimblehurst chemist's shop, as a
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Speaker 1: shabby assisted in Tottenham Court Road, as the adventurer of
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Speaker 1: the early days of Tono Bungay, as the confident, preposterous plutocrat.
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Speaker 1: And now I have to tell of him strangely changed
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Speaker 1: under the shadow of oncoming death, with his skin lax
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Speaker 1: and yellow and glistening with sweat, his eyes large and glassy,
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Speaker 1: his countenance unfamiliar through the growth of a beard, his
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Speaker 1: nose pinched and thin. Never had he looked so small
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Speaker 1: as now. And he talked to me in a whispering,
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Speaker 1: strained voice, of great issues, of why his life had
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Speaker 1: been and whither he was going, poor little man. That
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Speaker 1: last phase is, as it were, disconnected from all the
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Speaker 1: other phases. It was as if he crawled out from
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Speaker 1: the ruins of his career and looked about him before
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Speaker 1: he died. For he had quite clear minded states in
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Speaker 1: the intervals of his delirium. He knew he was almost
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Speaker 1: certainly dying, in a way that took the burden of
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Speaker 1: his cares off his mind. There was no more need
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Speaker 1: to face, no more flights or invasions, no punishments. It
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Speaker 1: has been a great career, George, he said, But I
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Speaker 1: shall be glad to rest, Glad to rest, glad to rest.
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Speaker 1: His mind ran rather upon his career, and usually I
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Speaker 1: am glad to recall with a note of satisfaction and approval.
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Speaker 1: In his delirious phases, he would most often exaggerate this
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Speaker 1: self satisfaction and talk of his splendors. He would pluck
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Speaker 1: at the sheet and stare before him and whisper half
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Speaker 1: audible fragments of sentences. What is this great place, these
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Speaker 1: cloud capped towers, these any pinnacles, lion sky pointing lion house,
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Speaker 1: the residence of one of our great merchant princes. Terrace
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Speaker 1: above terrace, reaching to the heavens. Kingdoms Caesar never knew
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Speaker 1: a great poet, George Z. Kingdoms Caesar never knew under
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Speaker 1: entirely new management, greatness, millions, universities. He stands on the terrace,
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Speaker 1: on the upper terrace, directing, directing by the globe, directing
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Speaker 1: the trade. It was hard at times to tell when
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Speaker 1: his sane talk ceased and his delirium began. The secret
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Speaker 1: springs of his life, The vain imaginations were revealed. I
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Speaker 1: sometimes think that all the life of man sprawls abed,
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Speaker 1: careless and unkempt, until it must needs clothe and wash itself,
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Speaker 1: and come forth seemly enact and speech for the encounter
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Speaker 1: with one's fellow men. I suspect that all things unspoken
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Speaker 1: in our souls partake somewhat of the laxity of delirium
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Speaker 1: and dementia. Certainly from those slimy, tormented lips above the
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Speaker 1: bristling gray Beard came nothing but dreams and disconnected fancies.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes he raved about Neil, threaten Neil. What has he
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Speaker 1: got invested? He said? Does he think he can escape me?
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Speaker 1: If I followed him up Ruin Ruin, one would think
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Speaker 1: I had taken his money. And sometimes he reverted to
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Speaker 1: our airship flight. It's too long, joy, George, too long
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Speaker 1: and too cold. I'm too old, a man, too old
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Speaker 1: for this sort of thing. You know you're not saving
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Speaker 1: you're killing me. Towards the end, it became evident our
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Speaker 1: identity was discovered. I found the press, and especially Boom's
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Speaker 1: section of it, had made a sort of hue and
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Speaker 1: cry for us. Sent special commissioners to hunt for us,
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Speaker 1: and though none of these emissaries reached us until my
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Speaker 1: uncle was dead, one felt the forewash of that storm
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Speaker 1: of energy. The thing got into the popular French press.
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Speaker 1: People became curious in their manner towards us, and a
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Speaker 1: number of fresh faces appeared about the weak little struggle
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Speaker 1: that went on in the closeness behind the curtains of
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Speaker 1: the bed. The young doctor insisted on consultations, and a
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Speaker 1: motor car came up from bea Ritz, and suddenly odd
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Speaker 1: people with questioning eyes began to poke in with inquiries
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Speaker 1: and help. Though nothing was said, I could feel that
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Speaker 1: we were no longer regarded as simple middle class tourists.
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Speaker 1: About me as I went, I perceived almost as though
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Speaker 1: it trailed visibly the prestige of finance and a criminal notoriety.
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Speaker 1: Local personages of a plump and prosperous quality appeared in
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Speaker 1: the inn, making inquiries. The Luzon priest became helpful. People
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Speaker 1: watched our window and stared at me as I went
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Speaker 1: to and fro. And then we had a rayed from
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Speaker 1: a little English clergyman and his amiable, capable wife in
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Speaker 1: severely Angelican blacks who swooped down upon us like virtuous
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Speaker 1: but resolute vultures from the adjacent village of Saint Jean
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Speaker 1: de Pouloc. The clergyman was one of those odd types
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Speaker 1: that oscillate between remote country towns in England and the
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Speaker 1: conduct of English church services on mutual terms in enterprising
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Speaker 1: hotels abroad. A tremulous, obstinate little being with sporadic hairs
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Speaker 1: upon his face, spectacles, a red button nose, and aged
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Speaker 1: black raiment. He was evidently enormously impressed by my uncle's
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Speaker 1: monetary greatness and by his own inkling of our identity,
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Speaker 1: and he shone and brimmed over with tact and fussy helpfulness.
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Speaker 1: He was eager to share the watching of the bedside
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Speaker 1: with me. He proffered services with both hands, and as
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Speaker 1: I was now getting into touch with affairs in London again,
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Speaker 1: and trying to disentangle the gigantic details of the smash
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Speaker 1: from the papers I had succeeded in getting from Beerritz,
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Speaker 1: I accepted his offers pretty generously and began the studies
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Speaker 1: in modern finance that lay before me. I had got
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Speaker 1: so out of touch with the old traditions of religion
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Speaker 1: that I overlooked the manifest possibility of his attacking my poor,
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Speaker 1: sinking vestiges of an uncle with theological solicitudes. My attention
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Speaker 1: was called to that, however, very speedily, by a polite
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Speaker 1: but urgent quarrel between myself and the Basque landlady as
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Speaker 1: to the necessity of her hanging a cheap crucifix in
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Speaker 1: the shadow over the bed, where it might catch my
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Speaker 1: uncle's eye, where indeed I found it had caught his eye.
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Speaker 1: Good Lord, I cried, is that still going on? That night?
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Speaker 1: The little clergyman watched, and in the small hours he
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Speaker 1: raised a false alarm that my uncle was dying, and
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Speaker 1: made an extraordinary fuss He raised the house. I shall
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Speaker 1: never forget that scene, I think, which began with a
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Speaker 1: tapping at my bedroom door just after I had fallen asleep,
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Speaker 1: and his voice, if you want to see your uncle
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Speaker 1: before he goes, you must come now. The stuffy little
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Speaker 1: room was crowded when I reached it, and lit by
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Speaker 1: three flickering candles. I felt I was back in the
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Speaker 1: eighteenth century. There lay my poor uncle, amidst indescribably tumbled bedclothes,
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Speaker 1: weary of life beyond measure, weary and rambling, and the
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Speaker 1: little clergyman trying to hold his hand and his attention,
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Speaker 1: and repeating over and over again, mister pond dravo, mister ponderevo,
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Speaker 1: it is all right, it is all right. Only believe,
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Speaker 1: believe on me, and ye shall be saved. Close at
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Speaker 1: hand was a doctor with one of those cruel and
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Speaker 1: idiotic injection needles modern science puts in the hands of
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Speaker 1: these half educated young men, keeping my uncle flickeringly alive
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Speaker 1: for no reason whatever. The really jeus hovered sleepily in
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Speaker 1: the background with an overdue and neglected dose. In addition,
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Speaker 1: the landlady had not only got up herself, but roused
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Speaker 1: an aged crone of a mother and a partially imbecile husband.
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Speaker 1: And there was also a fattish, stolid man in gray
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Speaker 1: alpaca with an air of importance. Who he was? And
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Speaker 1: now he got there? I don't know, I rather fancy,
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Speaker 1: the doctor explained him to me in French. I did
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Speaker 1: not understand. And they were all there, wearily, nocturnal, hastily
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Speaker 1: and carelessly dressed, intent upon the life that flickered and sank,
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Speaker 1: making a public and curious show of its going. Queer
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Speaker 1: shapes of human beings lit by three uncertain candles, and
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Speaker 1: every soul of them keenly and avidly resolved to be
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Speaker 1: in at the death. The doctor stood, The others were
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Speaker 1: all sitting on chairs the landlady had brought in and
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Speaker 1: arranged for them, and my uncle spoilt the climax and
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Speaker 1: did not die. I replaced the little clergyman on the
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Speaker 1: chair by the bedside, and he hovered about the room.
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Speaker 1: I think he whispered to me mysteriously as he gave
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Speaker 1: place to me. I believe it is well with him.
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Speaker 1: I heard him trying to render the stock phrases of
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Speaker 1: low Church piety into French for the benefit of the
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Speaker 1: stolid man in gray alpaca. Then he knocked a glass
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Speaker 1: off the table and scrabbled for the fragments. From the
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Speaker 1: first I doubted the theory of an immediate death. I
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Speaker 1: consulted the doctor in urgent whispers. I turned round to
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Speaker 1: get champagne, and nearly fell over the clergyman's legs. He
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Speaker 1: was on his knees at the additional chair. The Basque
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Speaker 1: landlady had got on my arrival, and he was praying aloud, Oh,
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Speaker 1: Heavenly Father, have mercy on this thy child. I hustled
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Speaker 1: him up and out of the way, and in another
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Speaker 1: minute he was down at another chair, praying again, and
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Speaker 1: barring the path of the villageuse, who had found me
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Speaker 1: the corkscrew. Something put into my head that tremendous blasphemy
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Speaker 1: of Carlyle's about the last mew of a drowning kitten.
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Speaker 1: He found a third chair vacant presently. It was as
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Speaker 1: if he was playing a game good Heavens. I said,
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Speaker 1: we must clear these people out, and with a certain
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Speaker 1: urgency I did. I had a temporary lapse of memory
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Speaker 1: and forgot all my French. I drove them out, mainly
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Speaker 1: by gesture, and opened the window to the universal horror.
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Speaker 1: I intimated the death scene must postponed, and as a
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Speaker 1: matter of fact, my uncle did not die until the
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Speaker 1: next night. I did not let the little clergyman come
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Speaker 1: near him again, and I was watchful for any sign
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Speaker 1: that his mind had been troubled, but he made none.
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Speaker 1: He talked once about that Parson chap didn't bother you.
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Speaker 1: I asked, wanted something? He said. I kept silence, listening
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Speaker 1: keenly to his mutterings. I understood him to say they
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Speaker 1: wanted too much his face puckered like a child's going
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Speaker 1: to cry. You can't get a safe six percent, he said.
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Speaker 1: I had, for a moment a wild suspicion that those
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Speaker 1: urgent talks had not been altogether spiritual, But that I
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Speaker 1: think was a quite unworthy and unjust suspicion. The little
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Speaker 1: clergyman was as simple and honest as the day. My
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Speaker 1: uncle was simply generalizing about his class. But it may
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Speaker 1: have been these talks that set loose some long torment
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Speaker 1: string of ideas in my uncle's brain, ideas the things
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Speaker 1: of this world had long suppressed and hidden altogether. Near
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Speaker 1: the end, he suddenly became clear minded and lucid, albeit
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Speaker 1: very weak, and his voice was little but clear. George,
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Speaker 1: he said, I'm here, I said, close beside you, George.
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Speaker 1: You have always been responsible for the science. George, you
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Speaker 1: know better than I do. Is is it proved? What proved?
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Speaker 1: Either way? I don't understand death ends all, after so
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Speaker 1: much such splendid beginnings. Somewhere something. I stared at him, amazed.
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Speaker 1: His sunken eyes were very grave. What do you expect?
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Speaker 1: I said, in wonder. He would not answer. Aspirations, he whispered.
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Speaker 1: He fell into a broken monolog regardless of me, trailing
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Speaker 1: clouds of glory, he said, And first rate poet, first
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Speaker 1: rate George was always hard. Always. For a long time
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Speaker 1: there was silence. Then he made a gesture that he
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Speaker 1: wished to speak. Seems to me, George, I bent my
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Speaker 1: head down, and he tried to lift his hand to
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Speaker 1: my shoulder. I raised him a little on his pillows
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Speaker 1: and listened. It seems to me, George, always, there must
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Speaker 1: be something in me that won't die. He looked at
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Speaker 1: me as though the decision rested with me. I think
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Speaker 1: he said something. Then, for a moment his mind wandered
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Speaker 1: just a little link. He whispered, almost pleadingly, and lay
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Speaker 1: quite still. But presently he was uneasy again. Some other world, perhaps,
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Speaker 1: I said, who knows, some other world? Not the same
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Speaker 1: scope for enterprise, I said, no. He became silent. I
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Speaker 1: sat leaning down to him and following out my own thoughts,
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Speaker 1: And presently the RealAge use resumed her periodic conflict, with
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Speaker 1: the window fastening. For a time he struggled for breath.
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Speaker 1: It seemed such nonsense that he should have to suffer
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Speaker 1: so poor, silly little man, George. He whispered, and his
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Speaker 1: weak little hand came out. Perhaps he said no more,
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Speaker 1: but I perceived from the expression of his eyes that
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Speaker 1: he thought the question had been put. Yes, I think so,
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Speaker 1: I said, stoutly. Aren't you sure? Oh? Practically sure, said I.
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Speaker 1: And I think He tried to squeeze my hand. And
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Speaker 1: there I sat, holding his hand tight and trying to
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Speaker 1: think what seeds of immortality could be found in all
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Speaker 1: his being, what sort of ghost there was in him
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Speaker 1: to wander out into the bleak immensities. Queer fancies came
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Speaker 1: to me. He lay still for a long time, save
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Speaker 1: for a brief struggle or so for breath, And and
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Speaker 1: again I wept his mouth and lips. I fell into
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Speaker 1: a pit of thought. I did not remark at first
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Speaker 1: the change that was creeping over his face. He lay
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Speaker 1: back on his pillow, made a faint zeeing sound that ceased,
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Speaker 1: and presently and quite quietly, he died, greatly comforted by
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Speaker 1: my assurance. I do not know when he died. His
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Speaker 1: hand relaxed insensibly. Suddenly, with a start, with a shock,
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Speaker 1: I found that his mouth had fallen open, and that
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Speaker 1: he was dead. Eight It was dark night when I
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Speaker 1: left his death bed and went back to my own inn.
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Speaker 1: Down the straggling street of Luzan that returned to my
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Speaker 1: inn sticks in my memory also as a thing apart,
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Speaker 1: as an experience. Apart. Within was a subdued bustle of women,
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Speaker 1: a flitting of lights, and the doing of petty offices
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Speaker 1: to that queer, exhausted thing that had once been my
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Speaker 1: active and urgent little uncle. For me, those offices were
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Speaker 1: irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door and went out
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Speaker 1: into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street, lit
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Speaker 1: by blurred specks of light in great voids of darkness,
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Speaker 1: and never a soul. Abroad, That warm veil of fog
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Speaker 1: produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by
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Speaker 1: the roadside peered through it as if from another world.
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Speaker 1: The stillness of the night was marked by an occasional
18:27
Speaker 1: remote baying of dogs. All these people kept dogs because
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Speaker 1: of the near neighborhood of the frontier death. It was
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Speaker 1: one of those rare seasons of relief when for a
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Speaker 1: little time one walks a little outside of and beside life.
18:45
Speaker 1: I felt, as I sometimes feel after the end of
18:47
Speaker 1: a play. I saw the whole business of my uncle's
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Speaker 1: life as something familiar and completed. It was done like
18:54
Speaker 1: a play one leaves, like a book one closes. I
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Speaker 1: thought of the push and the promotions, the noise of London,
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Speaker 1: the crowded, various company of people through which our lives
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Speaker 1: had gone, the public meetings, the excitements, the dinners and disputations,
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Speaker 1: and suddenly it appeared to me that none of these
19:14
Speaker 1: things existed. It came to me like a discovery, that
19:18
Speaker 1: none of these things existed. Before and after I have
19:22
Speaker 1: thought and called life a fatis megloria, but never have
19:26
Speaker 1: I felt its truth as I did that night. We
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Speaker 1: had parted. We two who had kept company so long
19:33
Speaker 1: had parted. But there was I knew no end to
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Speaker 1: him or me. He had died a dream death and
19:40
Speaker 1: ended a dream. His pain dream was over. It seemed
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Speaker 1: to me almost as though I had died too. What
19:47
Speaker 1: did it matter, since it was on reality, all of it,
19:52
Speaker 1: the pain and desire, the beginning and the end. There
19:56
Speaker 1: was no reality except this solitary road, this q solitary
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Speaker 1: road along which one went rather puzzled, rather tired. Part
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Speaker 1: of the fog became a big mastiff. They came towards
20:08
Speaker 1: me and stopped and slunk round me. Growling, barked gruffly
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Speaker 1: and shortly, and presently became fog again. My mind swayed
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Speaker 1: back to the ancient beliefs and fears of our race.
20:21
Speaker 1: My doubts and disbeliefs slipped from me like a loosely
20:24
Speaker 1: fitting garment. I wondered, quite simply, what dogs bade about
20:29
Speaker 1: the path of that other walker in the darkness, What shapes,
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Speaker 1: what lights it might be loomed about him as he
20:36
Speaker 1: went his way from our last encounter on earth, along
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Speaker 1: the paths that are reel and the way that endures forever.
20:45
Speaker 1: Nine last belated figure in that grouping round my uncle's
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Speaker 1: death bed is my aunt. When it was beyond all
20:53
Speaker 1: hope that my uncle could live, I threw aside whatever
20:56
Speaker 1: concealment remained to us and telegraphed directly to her. But
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Speaker 1: she came too late to see him living. She saw
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Speaker 1: him calm and still, strangely unlike his habitual garrulous animation
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Speaker 1: and unfamiliar inflexibility. It isn't like him, she whispered, awed
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Speaker 1: by his alien dignity. I remember her chiefly as she
21:17
Speaker 1: talked and wept upon the bridge below the old castle
21:21
Speaker 1: we had got rid of some amateurish reporters from bea
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Speaker 1: Ritz and had walked together in the hot morning sunshine
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Speaker 1: down through Port Luzon. There for a time we stood,
21:31
Speaker 1: leaning on the parapet of the bridge and surveying the
21:34
Speaker 1: distant peaks, the rich blue masses of the Pyrenees. For
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Speaker 1: a long time we said nothing, And then she began talking.
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Speaker 1: Life's a rum, go George, She began, Who would have
21:47
Speaker 1: thought when I used to darn your stockings at old
21:50
Speaker 1: Wimblehurst that this would be the end of the story.
21:53
Speaker 1: It seems far away now, that little shop, his and
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Speaker 1: my first home. The glow of the bottles, the big
22:01
Speaker 1: colored bottles. Do you remember how the light shone on
22:05
Speaker 1: the mahogany drawers, the little gilt letters old amjig and snap.
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Speaker 1: I can remember it, all bright and shining like a
22:14
Speaker 1: Dutch picture, real and yesterday. And here we are in
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Speaker 1: a dream. You a man, and me an old woman, George,
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Speaker 1: and poor little Teddy who used to rush about and
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Speaker 1: talk making that noise he did. Oh, she choked and
22:31
Speaker 1: the tears flowed unrestrained. She wept, and I was glad
22:35
Speaker 1: to see her weeping. She stood leaning over the bridge,
22:39
Speaker 1: her tear wet handkerchief gripped in her clenched hand. Just
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Speaker 1: an hour in the old shop again, and him talking
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Speaker 1: before things got done, before they got hold of him
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Speaker 1: and fooled him. Men oughtn't to be so tempted with
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Speaker 1: business and things. They didn't hurt him, George, she asked suddenly.
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Speaker 1: For a moment, I was puzzled here, I mean, she said, no,
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Speaker 1: I lied, stoutly, suppressing the memory of that foolish injection
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Speaker 1: needle I had caught the young doctor using. I wonder, George,
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Speaker 1: if they'll let him talk in heaven? She faced me. Oh, George, Dear,
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Speaker 1: my heart aches, and I don't know what I say.
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Speaker 1: And do give me your arm to lean on. It's
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Speaker 1: good to have you, dear, and lean upon you. Yes,
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Speaker 1: I know you care for me. That's why I'm talking.
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Speaker 1: We've always loved one another and never said anything about it.
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Speaker 1: And you understand, and I understand. But my heart's torn
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Speaker 1: to pieces by this, torn to rags, and things drop out.
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Speaker 1: I've kept in it. It's true he wasn't a husband
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Speaker 1: much for me at the last, but he was my child, George.
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Speaker 1: He was my child, and all my children, my silly child.
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Speaker 1: And life has knocked him about for me, and I've
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Speaker 1: never had a say in the matter, never a say.
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Speaker 1: It's puffed him up and smashed him like an old
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Speaker 1: bag under my eyes. I was clever enough to see it,
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Speaker 1: and not clever enough to prevent it, And all I
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Speaker 1: could do was to jeer. I've had to make what
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Speaker 1: I could of it, like most people, like most of us.
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Speaker 1: But it wasn't fair, George. It wasn't fair. Life and death,
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Speaker 1: great serious things. Why couldn't they leave him alone? And
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Speaker 1: his lies and ways? If we could see the lightness
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Speaker 1: of it, why couldn't they leave him alone? She repeated
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Speaker 1: in a whisper, as we went towards the inn end
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Speaker 1: of book, fourth chapter, first parts seven to nine. Recording
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Speaker 1: by William tom Cooe