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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - A Slip Under the Microscope · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section eighteen of the Country of the Blind and Other
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Speaker 1: Stories by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in
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Speaker 1: the public domain read by Peter Yearsley a slip under
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Speaker 1: the microscope. Outside the laboratory windows was a watery gray fog,
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Speaker 1: and within a close warmth and the yellow light of
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Speaker 1: the green shaded gas lamps that stood two to each
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Speaker 1: table down its narrow length. On each table stood a
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Speaker 1: couple of glass jars containing the mangled vestiges of the crayfish, mussels, frogs,
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Speaker 1: and guinea pigs upon which the students had been working.
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Speaker 1: And down the side of the room facing the windows
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Speaker 1: were shelves bearing bleached dissections in spirits, surmounted by a
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Speaker 1: row of beautifully executed anatomical drawings in white wood frames,
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Speaker 1: and overhanging a row of cubicle lockers. All the doors
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Speaker 1: of the laboratory were paneled with blackboard, and on these
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Speaker 1: were the half erased diagrams of the previous day's work.
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Speaker 1: The laboratory was empty save for the demonstrator who sat
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Speaker 1: near the preparation room door, and silent save for a low,
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Speaker 1: continuous murmur and the clicking of the rocker microtome at
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Speaker 1: which he was working, but scattered about the room were
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Speaker 1: traces of numerous students, hand bags, polished boxes of instruments.
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Speaker 1: In one place a large drawing covered by newspaper, and
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Speaker 1: in another a prettily bound copy of News from Nowhere,
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Speaker 1: a book oddly at variance with its surroundings. These things
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Speaker 1: had been put down hastily as the students had arrived
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Speaker 1: and hurried at once to secure their seats in the
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Speaker 1: adjacent lecture theater. Deadened by the closed door, the measured
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Speaker 1: accents of the professor sounded as a featureless muttering. Presently faint.
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Speaker 1: Through the closed windows. Came the sound of the oratory
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Speaker 1: clock striking the hour of eleven. The clicking of the
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Speaker 1: microtome ceased, and the demonstrator looked at his watch. Rose
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Speaker 1: thrust his hands into his pockets and walked slowly down
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Speaker 1: the laboratory towards the lecture theater door. He stood listening
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Speaker 1: for a moment, and then his eye fell on the
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Speaker 1: little volume by William Morris. He picked it up, glanced
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Speaker 1: at the title, smiled, opened it, looked at the name
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Speaker 1: on the fly leaf, ran the leaves through with his hand,
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Speaker 1: and put it down almost immediately. The even murmur of
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Speaker 1: the lecturer ceased. There was a sudden burst of pencils
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Speaker 1: rattling on the desks in the lecture theater, a stirring,
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Speaker 1: a scraping of feet, and a number of voices speaking together.
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Speaker 1: Then a firm footfall approached the door, which began to
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Speaker 1: open and stood ajar as some indistinctly heard question arrested
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Speaker 1: the newcomer. The demonstrator turned, walked slowly back past the
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Speaker 1: microtome and left the laboratory by the preparation room. As
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Speaker 1: he did so, first one and then several students carrying
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Speaker 1: notebooks entered the laboratory from the lecture theatre and distributed
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Speaker 1: themselves among the little tables, or stood in a group
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Speaker 1: about the doorway. They were an exceptionally heterogeneous assembly. For
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Speaker 1: while Oxford and Cambridge still recoil from the blushing prospect
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Speaker 1: of mixed classes, the College of Science anticipated America in
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Speaker 1: the matter years ago mixed socially too, For the prestige
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Speaker 1: of the college is high, and its scholarships, free of
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Speaker 1: any age limit, dredged deeper even than do those of
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Speaker 1: the scott universities. The class numbered one and twenty, but
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Speaker 1: some remained in the theatre, questioning the professor, copying the
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Speaker 1: blackboard diagrams before they were washed off, or examining the
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Speaker 1: special specimens he had produced to illustrate the day's teaching.
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Speaker 1: Of the nine who had come into the laboratory, three
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Speaker 1: were girls, one of whom a little fair woman wearing
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Speaker 1: spectacles and dressed in grayish green, was peering out of
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Speaker 1: the window at the fog, while the other two, both
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Speaker 1: wholesome looking plane faced schoolgirls, unrolled and put on the
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Speaker 1: brown Holland aprons they wore while dissecting. Of the men,
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Speaker 1: two went down the laboratory to their places, one a pallid,
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Speaker 1: dark bearded man who had once been a tailor, the
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Speaker 1: other a pleasant, featured, ruddy young man of twenty dressed
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Speaker 1: in a well fitting brown suit, Young Wedderburn, the son
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Speaker 1: of Wedderburn, the eye specialist. The others formed a little
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Speaker 1: knot near the theater door. One of these, a dwarfed, spectacled
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Speaker 1: figure with a hunchback, sat on a bent wood stool.
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Speaker 1: Two others, one a short, dark youngster, and the other
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Speaker 1: a flaxen haired, reddish complexioned young man, stood leaning side
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Speaker 1: by side a against the slate sink, while the fourth
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Speaker 1: stood facing them, and maintained the larger share of the conversation.
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Speaker 1: This last person was named Hill. He was a sturdily
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Speaker 1: built young fellow of the same age as Wedderburn. He
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Speaker 1: had a white face, dark gray eyes, hair of an
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Speaker 1: indeterminate color, and prominent irregular features. He talked rather louder
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Speaker 1: than was needful, and thrust his hands deeply into his pockets.
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Speaker 1: His collar was frayed and blue with the starch of
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Speaker 1: a careless lawn dress. His clothes were evidently ready made,
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Speaker 1: and there was a patch on the side of his
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Speaker 1: boot near the toe. And as he talked or listened
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Speaker 1: to the others, he glanced now at again towards the
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Speaker 1: lecture theater door. They were discussing the depressing peroration of
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Speaker 1: the lecture they had just heard. The last lecture. It
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Speaker 1: was in the introductory course in zoology from ovened over
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Speaker 1: is the goal of the higher vertebrata, the lecturer had
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Speaker 1: said in his melancholy tones, and so had neatly rounded
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Speaker 1: off the sketch of comparative anatomy he had been developing.
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Speaker 1: The spectacle Hunchback had repeated it with noisy appreciation, had
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Speaker 1: tossed it towards the fair haired student with an evident provocation,
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Speaker 1: and had started one of these vague rambling discussions on generalities,
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Speaker 1: so unaccountably dear to the student mind all the world over,
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Speaker 1: that is our goal. Perhaps I admit it, as far
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Speaker 1: as science goes, said the fair haired student, rising to
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Speaker 1: the challenge. But there are things above science. Science, said Hill, confidently,
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Speaker 1: is systematic knowledge. Ideas that don't come into the system
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Speaker 1: must anyhow be loose ideas. He was not quite sure
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Speaker 1: whether that was a clever saying or a fatuity until
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Speaker 1: his hearers took it seriously. The thing I cannot understand,
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Speaker 1: said the hunchback at large, is whether Hill is a
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Speaker 1: materialist or not. There is one thing above matter, said Hill, promptly,
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Speaker 1: feeling he had a better thing, this time, aware too
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Speaker 1: of some one in the doorway behind him, and raising
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Speaker 1: his voice a trifle for her benefit. And that is
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Speaker 1: the delusion, that there is something above matter. So we
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Speaker 1: have your gospel at last, said the fair student. It's
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Speaker 1: all a delusion, is it? All our aspirations to lead
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Speaker 1: something more than dogs lives, all our work for anything
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Speaker 1: beyond ourselves. But see how inconsistent you are your socialism
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Speaker 1: for instance, why do you trouble about the interests of
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Speaker 1: the race. Why do you concern yourself about the beggar
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Speaker 1: in the gutter? Why are you bothering yourself to lend
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Speaker 1: that book? He indicated William Morris by a movement of
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Speaker 1: the head to every one in the lab girl said
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Speaker 1: the hunchback indistinct, and glanced guiltily over his shoulder. The
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Speaker 1: girl in brown with the brown eyes had come into
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Speaker 1: the laboratory and stood on the other side of the
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Speaker 1: table behind him, with her rolled up apron in one hand,
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Speaker 1: looking over her shoulder, listening to the discussion. She did
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Speaker 1: not notice the hunchback because she was glancing from Hill
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Speaker 1: to his interlocutor. Hill's consciousness of her presence betrayed itself
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Speaker 1: to her only in his studious ignorance of the fact.
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Speaker 1: But she understood that, and it pleased her. I see
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Speaker 1: no reason, said he, why a man should live like
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Speaker 1: a brute, because he knows of nothing beyond matter and
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Speaker 1: does not expect to exist a hundred years. Hence, why
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Speaker 1: shouldn't he said the fair haired student. Why should he
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Speaker 1: said Hill, What inducement has he? That's the way with
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Speaker 1: all you religious people, is all a business of inducements.
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Speaker 1: Cannot a man seek after righteousness for righteousness sake? There
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Speaker 1: was a pause. The fair man answered with a kind
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Speaker 1: of vocal padding, But you see inducement when I said
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Speaker 1: inducement to gain time, And then the hunchback came to
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Speaker 1: his rescue and inserted a question. He was a terrible
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Speaker 1: person in the debating society with his questions, and they
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Speaker 1: invariably took one form a demand for a definition. What
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Speaker 1: your definition of righteousness? Said the hunchback. At this stage,
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Speaker 1: Hill experienced a sudden loss of complacency at this question,
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Speaker 1: But even as it was asked, relief came in the
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Speaker 1: person of Brooks, the laboratory attendant, who entered by the
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Speaker 1: preparation room door, carrying a number of freshly killed guinea
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Speaker 1: pigs by their hind legs. This is the last batch
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Speaker 1: of material accession, said the youngster, who had not previously spoken.
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Speaker 1: Brooks advanced up the laboratory, smacking down a couple of
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Speaker 1: guinea pigs at each table. The rest of the class,
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Speaker 1: scenting the prey from afar, came crowding in by the
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Speaker 1: lecture theater door, and the discussion perished abruptly as the
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Speaker 1: students who were not already in their places, hurried to
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Speaker 1: them to secure the choice of a specimen. There was
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Speaker 1: a noise of keys rattling on split rings as lockers
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Speaker 1: were opened and dissecting instruments taken out. Hill was already
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Speaker 1: standing by his table and his box of scalpels was
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Speaker 1: sticking out of his pocket. The girl in brown came
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Speaker 1: a step towards him, and, leaning over his table, said softly,
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Speaker 1: did you see I'd returned your book, mister Hill. During
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Speaker 1: the whole scene, she and the book had been vividly
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Speaker 1: present in his consciousness, but he made a clumsy pretense
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Speaker 1: of looking at the book and seeing it for the
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Speaker 1: first time. Oh yes, he said, taking it up. I see,
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Speaker 1: did you like it? I want to ask you some
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Speaker 1: questions about it some time, certainly, said Hill. I should
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Speaker 1: be glad. He stopped awkwardly. You liked it, he said,
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Speaker 1: It's a wonderful book. Only some things I don't understand.
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Speaker 1: Then suddenly the laboratory was hushed by a curious, braying noise.
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Speaker 1: It was the demonstrator. He was at the blackboard, ready
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Speaker 1: to begin the day's instruction, and it was his custom
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Speaker 1: to demand silence by a sound midway between the er
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Speaker 1: of common intercourse and the blast of a trumpet. The
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Speaker 1: girl in Brown slipped back to her place. It was
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Speaker 1: immediately in front of Hills, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith,
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Speaker 1: took a notebook out of the drawer of his table,
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Speaker 1: turned over its leaves, hastily, drew a stumpy pencil from
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Speaker 1: his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of
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Speaker 1: the coming demonstration. For demonstrations and lectures are the sacred
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Speaker 1: text of the college students books, saving only the professor's own.
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Speaker 1: You may it is even expedient to ignore. Hill was
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Speaker 1: the son of a Landport cobbler, and had been hooked
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Speaker 1: by a chance blue paper the authorities had thrown out
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Speaker 1: to the Landport Technical College. He kept himself in London
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Speaker 1: on his allowance of a guinea a week, and found
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Speaker 1: that with proper care his clothing allowance an occasional waterproof collar,
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Speaker 1: that is, and ink, and needles and cotton, and suchlike
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Speaker 1: necessaries for a man about town. This was his first
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Speaker 1: year and his first session, But the brown old man
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Speaker 1: in Landport had already got himself detested in many public
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Speaker 1: houses by boasting of his son. The professor Hill was
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Speaker 1: a vigorous youngster with a serene contempt for the clergy
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Speaker 1: of all denominations, and a fine ambition to reconstruct the world.
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Speaker 1: He regarded his scholarship as a brilliant opportunity. He had
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Speaker 1: begun to read at seven, and had read steadily whatever
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Speaker 1: came in his way, good or bad. Since then. His
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Speaker 1: worldly experience had been limited to the island of Portsea,
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Speaker 1: and acquired chiefly in the wholesale boot factory in which
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Speaker 1: he had worked by day after passing the seventh standard
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Speaker 1: of the board school. He had a considerable gift of speech,
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Speaker 1: as the college debating society, which met amidst the crushing
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Speaker 1: machines and mine models in the metallurgical theater downstairs, already
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Speaker 1: recognized by a violent battering of desks whenever he rose.
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Speaker 1: And he was just at that fine emotional age when
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Speaker 1: life opens at the end of a narrow pass, like
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Speaker 1: a broad valley at one's feet, full of the promise
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Speaker 1: of wonderful discoveries and tremendous achievements, and his own limitations,
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Speaker 1: save that he knew that he knew neither Latin nor
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Speaker 1: French were all unknown to him. At first, his interest
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Speaker 1: had been divided pretty equally between his biological work at
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Speaker 1: the same college and social and theological theorizing, an employment
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Speaker 1: which he took in deadly earnest of a night when
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Speaker 1: the big Museum library was not open. He would sit
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Speaker 1: on the bed of his room in Chelsea with his
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Speaker 1: coat and a muffler on and write out the lecture
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Speaker 1: notes and revise his dissection memoranda until Thorpe called him
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Speaker 1: out by a whistle. The landlady objected to open the
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Speaker 1: door to attic visitors, and then the two would go
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Speaker 1: prowling about the shadowy, shiny gas lit streets, talking very
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Speaker 1: much in the fashion of the sample just given, of
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Speaker 1: the God idea and righteousness and Carlyle and the reorganization
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Speaker 1: of society. And in the midst of it all, Hill,
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Speaker 1: arguing not only for Thorpe but for the casual passer by,
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Speaker 1: would lose the thread of his argument, glancing at some
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Speaker 1: pretty painted face that looked meaningly at him as he
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Speaker 1: past science and righteousness. But once or twice lately there
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Speaker 1: had been signs that a third interest was creeping into
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Speaker 1: his life, and he had found his attention wandering from
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Speaker 1: the fate of the mesoblastic Somites or the probable meaning
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Speaker 1: of the blastopore to the thought of the girl with
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Speaker 1: the brown eyes who sat at the table before him.
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Speaker 1: She was a paying student. She descended inconceivable social altitudes
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Speaker 1: to speak to him. At the thought of the education
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Speaker 1: she must have had and the accomplishments she must possess,
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Speaker 1: the soul of Hill became abject within him. She had
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Speaker 1: spoken to him first over a difficulty about the ali
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Speaker 1: scenoid of a rabbit's skull, and he had found that
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Speaker 1: in biology, at least he had no reason for self abasement.
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Speaker 1: And from that, after the manner of young people, starting
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Speaker 1: from any starting point, they got to generalities. And while
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Speaker 1: Hill attacked her upon the question of socialism, some instinct
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Speaker 1: told him to spare her a direct assault upon her religion.
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Speaker 1: She was gathering resolution to undertake what she told herself
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Speaker 1: was his esthetic education. She was a year or two
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Speaker 1: older than he, though the thought never occurred to him
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Speaker 1: the loan of news from nowhere was the beginning of
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Speaker 1: a series of cross loans upon some absurd first principle
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Speaker 1: of his. Hill had never wasted time upon poetry, and
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Speaker 1: it seemed an appalling deficiency to her. One day in
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Speaker 1: the lunch hour, when she chanced upon him alone in
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Speaker 1: the little museum where the skeletons were arranged, shamefully eating
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Speaker 1: the bun that constituted his midday meal. She retreated and
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Speaker 1: returned to lend him, with a slightly furtive air, a
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Speaker 1: volume of Browning. He stood sideways towards her and took
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Speaker 1: the book rather clumsily because he was holding the bun
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Speaker 1: in the other hand, and in the retrospect his voice
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Speaker 1: lacked the cheerful clearness he could have wished that occurred
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Speaker 1: after the examination in comparative anatomy. On the day before
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Speaker 1: the college turned out its students and was carefully locked
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Speaker 1: up by the officials for the Christmas holidays. The excitement
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Speaker 1: of cramming for the first trial of strength had for
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Speaker 1: a little while dominated Hill to the exclusion of his
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Speaker 1: other interests. In the forecasts of the result, in which
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Speaker 1: every one indulged, he was surprised to find that no
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Speaker 1: one regarded him as a possible competitor for the Harvey
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Speaker 1: Commemoration medal, of which this and the two subsequent examinations disposed.
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Speaker 1: It was about this time that Wedderburn, who so far
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Speaker 1: had lived inconspicuously on the uttermost margin of Hill's perceptions
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Speaker 1: began to take on the appearance of an obstacle. By
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Speaker 1: a mutual agreement, the nocturnal prowlings with Thorpe ceased for
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Speaker 1: the three weeks before the examination, and his landlady pointed
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Speaker 1: out that she really could not supply so much lamp
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Speaker 1: oil at the price. He walked to and fro from
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Speaker 1: the college with little slips of mnemonics in his hand
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Speaker 1: lists of crayfish appendages, rabbits, skull bones, and vertebrate nerves,
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Speaker 1: for example, and became a positive nuisance to foot passengers
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Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. But by a natural reaction, Poetry
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Speaker 1: and the Girl with the Brown Eyes ruled the Christmas holiday.
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Speaker 1: The pending results of the examination became such a secondary
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Speaker 1: consideration that Hill marveled at his father's excitement, even had
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Speaker 1: he wished it. There was no comparative anatomy to read
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Speaker 1: in Landport, and he was too poor to buy books.
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Speaker 1: But the stock of poets in the library was extensive,
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Speaker 1: and Hill's attack was magnificently sustained. He saturated himself with
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Speaker 1: the fluent numbers of Longfellow and Tennyson, and fortified himself
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Speaker 1: with Shakespeare found a kindred soul in Pope and a
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Speaker 1: master in Shelley, had heard and fled the siren voices
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Speaker 1: of Eliza Cook and missus Hemans. But he read no
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Speaker 1: more Browning, because he hoped for the loan of other
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Speaker 1: volumes from Miss Haysman. When he returned to London. He
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Speaker 1: walked from his lodgings to the College with that volume
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Speaker 1: of Browning in his shiny black bag, and his mind
19:42
Speaker 1: teeming with the finest general propositions about poetry. Indeed, he
19:48
Speaker 1: framed first this little speech and then that with which
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Speaker 1: to grace the return. The morning was an exceptionally pleasant
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Speaker 1: one for London. There was a clear, hard, frog lost
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Speaker 1: and undeniable blue in the sky. A thin haze softened
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Speaker 1: every outline, and warm shafts of sunlight struck between the
20:08
Speaker 1: house blocks and turned the sunny side of the street
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Speaker 1: to amber and gold. In the hall of the College,
20:15
Speaker 1: he pulled off his glove and signed his name with
20:19
Speaker 1: fingers so stiff with cold that the characteristic dash under
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Speaker 1: the signature he cultivated became a quivering line. He imagined
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Speaker 1: Miss Haysman about him everywhere he turned. At the staircase,
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Speaker 1: and there below he saw a crowd struggling at the
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Speaker 1: foot of the noticeboard. This possibly was the biology list.
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Speaker 1: He forgot Browning and miss Haysman for the moment and
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Speaker 1: joined the scrimmage. And at last, with his cheek flattened
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Speaker 1: against the sleeve of the man on the step above him,
20:51
Speaker 1: he read the list Class one H. J. Somers Wedderburn,
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Speaker 1: William Hill, and thereafter followed a second class that is
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Speaker 1: outside our present sympathies. It was characteristic that he did
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Speaker 1: not trouble to look for Thorpe on the physics list,
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Speaker 1: but backed out of the struggle at once, and, in
21:12
Speaker 1: a curious emotional state between pride over common second class
21:17
Speaker 1: humanity and acute disappointment at Wedderburn's success, went on his
21:23
Speaker 1: way upstairs. At the top, as he was hanging up
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Speaker 1: his coat in the passage, the zoological demonstrator, a young
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Speaker 1: man from Oxford who secretly regarded him as a blatant
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Speaker 1: mugger of the very worst type, offered his heartiest congratulations.
21:42
Speaker 1: At the laboratory door, Hill stopped for a second to
21:45
Speaker 1: get his breath, and then entered. He looked straight up
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Speaker 1: the laboratory and saw all five girl students grouped in
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Speaker 1: their places, and Wedderburn, the once retiring Wedderburn, leaning rather
22:00
Speaker 1: gracefully against the window, playing with the blind tassel, and
22:04
Speaker 1: talking apparently to the five of them. Now Hill could
22:09
Speaker 1: talk bravely enough and even over bearingly to one girl,
22:14
Speaker 1: and he could have made a speech to a roomful
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Speaker 1: of girls. But this business of standing at ease and
22:20
Speaker 1: appreciating fencing, and returning quick remarks round a group was
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Speaker 1: he knew altogether beyond him coming up the staircase. His
22:30
Speaker 1: feelings for Wedderbourn had been generous, a certain admiration, perhaps,
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Speaker 1: a willingness to shake his hand conspicuously and heartily as
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Speaker 1: one who had fought but the first round. But before
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Speaker 1: Christmas Wedderburn had never gone up to that end of
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Speaker 1: the room to talk. In a flash, Hill's mist of
22:52
Speaker 1: vague excitement condensed abruptly to a vivid dislike of Wedderbourn.
22:57
Speaker 1: Possibly his expression changed as he came up to his place.
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Speaker 1: Wedderbourn nodded carelessly to him, and the others glanced round.
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Speaker 1: Miss Haysman looked at him and away again, the faintest
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Speaker 1: touch of her eyes. I can't agree with you, mister Wedderburn,
23:15
Speaker 1: She said, I must congratulate you on your first class,
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Speaker 1: Miss Deal, said the spectacled girl in green, turning round
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Speaker 1: and beaming at him. It's nothing, said Hill, staring at
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Speaker 1: Wedderbourn and Miss Haysman, talking together, and eager to hear
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Speaker 1: what they talked about. We poor folks in the second class,
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Speaker 1: don't think so, said the girl in spectacles. What was it?
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Speaker 1: Wedderburn was saying something about William Morris. Hill did not
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Speaker 1: answer the girl in spectacles, and the smile died out
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Speaker 1: of his face. He could not hear, and failed to
23:49
Speaker 1: see how he could cut in. Confound Wedderburn. He sat down,
23:54
Speaker 1: opened his bag, hesitated whether to return the volume of
23:58
Speaker 1: Browning forthwith in the sight of all, and instead drew
24:02
Speaker 1: out his new note books for the short course in
24:05
Speaker 1: elementary botany that was now beginning and which would terminate
24:09
Speaker 1: in February. As he did so, a fat, heavy man
24:13
Speaker 1: with a white face and pale gray eyes Bindon the
24:17
Speaker 1: professor of Botany, who came up from Kew for January
24:21
Speaker 1: and February, came in by the lecture theater door and passed,
24:25
Speaker 1: rubbing his hands together and smiling in silent affability, down
24:30
Speaker 1: the laboratory. In the subsequent six weeks, Hill experienced some
24:36
Speaker 1: very rapid and curiously complex emotional developments. For the most part,
24:41
Speaker 1: he had Wedderburn in focus, a fact that Miss Haysman
24:45
Speaker 1: never suspected, she told Hill, for in the comparative privacy
24:51
Speaker 1: of the museum, she talked a good deal to him
24:54
Speaker 1: of socialism and Browning and general propositions. That she had
24:59
Speaker 1: met Wedderburn at the house of some people she knew,
25:02
Speaker 1: and he's inherited his cleverness for his father, you know,
25:06
Speaker 1: is the great eye specialist. My father is a cobbler,
25:10
Speaker 1: said Hill, quite irrelevantly, and perceived the want of dignity
25:14
Speaker 1: even as he said it. But the gleam of jealousy
25:17
Speaker 1: did not offend her. She conceived herself the fundamental source
25:21
Speaker 1: of it. He suffered bitterly from a sense of Wedderburn's
25:26
Speaker 1: unfairness and a realization of his own handicap. Here was
25:31
Speaker 1: this Wedderburn had picked up a prominent man for a father,
25:35
Speaker 1: and instead of his losing so many marks on the
25:38
Speaker 1: score of that advantage, it was counted to him for righteousness.
25:43
Speaker 1: And while Hill had to introduce himself and talked to
25:47
Speaker 1: Miss Haysman clumsily over mangled guinea pigs in the laboratory.
25:52
Speaker 1: This Wedderburn, in some back stairs way, had access to
25:57
Speaker 1: her social altitudes and could verse in a polished argo
26:01
Speaker 1: that Hill understood, perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking, not
26:06
Speaker 1: of course, that he wanted to. Then it seemed to
26:09
Speaker 1: Hill that for Wedderburn to come there day after day
26:13
Speaker 1: with cuffs unfrayed, neatly tailored, precisely barbered, quietly perfect, was
26:21
Speaker 1: in itself an ill bred sneering sort of proceeding. Moreover,
26:25
Speaker 1: it was a stealthy thing for Wedderburn to behave insignificantly
26:30
Speaker 1: for a space, to mock modesty, to lead Hill to
26:33
Speaker 1: fancies that he himself was beyond dispute the man of
26:38
Speaker 1: the year, and then suddenly to dart in front of him,
26:40
Speaker 1: and incontinently to swell up in this fashion. In addition
26:45
Speaker 1: to these things, Wedderburn displayed an increasing disposition to join
26:49
Speaker 1: in any conversational grouping that included miss Haysman, and would
26:55
Speaker 1: venture and indeed seek occasion to pass opinions derogatory to
27:00
Speaker 1: socialism and atheism. He goaded Hill to incivilities by neat,
27:07
Speaker 1: shallow and exceedingly effective personalities about the socialist leaders until
27:13
Speaker 1: Hill hated Bernard Shaw's graceful egotisms, William Morris's limited editions
27:20
Speaker 1: and luxurious wallpapers, and Walter Crane's charmingly absurd ideal working
27:27
Speaker 1: men about as much as he hated Wedderburn. The dissertations
27:33
Speaker 1: in the laboratory that had been his glory in the
27:35
Speaker 1: previous term became a danger, degenerated into inglorious tussles with Wedderburn,
27:42
Speaker 1: and Hill kept to them only out of an obscure
27:45
Speaker 1: perception that his honor was involved in the debating society.
27:49
Speaker 1: Hill knew quite clearly that to a thunderous accompaniment of
27:53
Speaker 1: banged desks he could have pulverized Wedderburn. Only Wedderburn never
28:00
Speaker 1: tended the debating society to be pulverized, because nauseous affectation
28:06
Speaker 1: he dined late. You must not imagine that these things
28:11
Speaker 1: presented themselves in quite such a crude form. To Hill's perception,
28:16
Speaker 1: Hill was a born generalizer. Wedderburn, to him, was not
28:21
Speaker 1: so much an individual obstacle as a type the salient
28:25
Speaker 1: angle of a class. The economic theories that, after infinite ferment,
28:31
Speaker 1: had shaped themselves in Hill's mind, became abruptly concrete at
28:36
Speaker 1: the contact. The world became full of easy mannered, graceful,
28:42
Speaker 1: gracefully dressed, conversationally dexterous, finally shallow, Wedderburn's bishops, Wedderburn's wedderburn
28:52
Speaker 1: MP's professors, Wedderburn wedderburn landlords, all with finger bowl, shiverlet
29:00
Speaker 1: and epigrammatic cities of refuge from a sturdy debater, and
29:06
Speaker 1: everyone ill clothed or ill dressed, from the cobbler to
29:11
Speaker 1: the cab runner, was a man and a brother, a
29:14
Speaker 1: fellow sufferer to Hill's imagination, so that he became, as
29:18
Speaker 1: it were, a champion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit
29:23
Speaker 1: to outward seeming only a self assertive, ill mannered young man,
29:28
Speaker 1: and an unsuccessful champion at that. Again and again, a
29:34
Speaker 1: skirmish over the afternoon tea that the Girl's students had
29:37
Speaker 1: inaugurated left Hill with flushed cheeks and a tattered temper,
29:43
Speaker 1: and the debating society noticed a new quality of sarcastic
29:47
Speaker 1: bitterness in his speeches. You will understand now how it
29:52
Speaker 1: was necessary, if only in the interests of humanity, that
29:56
Speaker 1: Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcoming examination, and outshine
30:01
Speaker 1: him in the eyes of miss Hayesman, and you will
30:04
Speaker 1: perceive too how Miss Hayesman fell into some common feminine
30:09
Speaker 1: misconceptions the Hill Wedderburn quarrel. For in his unostentatious way,
30:15
Speaker 1: Wedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill veiled rivalry became a tribute to
30:21
Speaker 1: her indefinable charm. She was the queen of beauty in
30:26
Speaker 1: a tournament of scalpels and stumpy pencils, to her confidential
30:31
Speaker 1: friend's secret annoyance. It even troubled her conscience, for she
30:36
Speaker 1: was a good girl and painfully aware from Ruskin and
30:40
Speaker 1: contemporary fiction how entirely men's activities are determined by women's attitudes.
30:47
Speaker 1: And if Hill never by any chance mentioned the topic
30:52
Speaker 1: of love to her, she only credited him with the
30:56
Speaker 1: finer modesty for that omission. So the time came on
31:01
Speaker 1: for the second examination, and Hills increasing pallor confirmed the
31:07
Speaker 1: general rumor that he was working hard in the aerated
31:11
Speaker 1: bread shop near South Kensington Station. You would see him
31:15
Speaker 1: breaking his bun and sipping his milk, with his eyes
31:19
Speaker 1: intent upon a paper of closely written notes. In his bedroom,
31:23
Speaker 1: there were propositions about buds and stems round his looking glass,
31:28
Speaker 1: a diagram to catch his eye if soap should chance
31:32
Speaker 1: to spare it above his washing basin. He missed several
31:36
Speaker 1: meetings of the Debating Society, but he found the chance
31:40
Speaker 1: encounters with Miss Haysman in the spacious ways of the
31:44
Speaker 1: adjacent art museum, or in the little museum at the
31:47
Speaker 1: top of the college, or in the College corridors more
31:51
Speaker 1: frequent and very RESTful. In particular, they used to meet
31:55
Speaker 1: in a little gallery full of wrought iron chests and
31:58
Speaker 1: gates near the Art Life Library, and there Hill used
32:02
Speaker 1: to talk under the gentle stimulus of her flattering attention
32:07
Speaker 1: of Browning and his personal ambitions. A characteristic she found
32:12
Speaker 1: remarkable in him was his freedom from avarice. He contemplated
32:17
Speaker 1: quite calmly the prospect of living all his life on
32:21
Speaker 1: an income below a hundred pounds a year, but he
32:24
Speaker 1: was determined to be famous, to make recognizably in his
32:28
Speaker 1: own proper person the world a better place to live in.
32:32
Speaker 1: He took Bradley and John Burns for his leaders and models,
32:37
Speaker 1: poor even impecunious great men, But Miss Haysman thought that
32:43
Speaker 1: such lives were deficient on the esetic side, by which,
32:47
Speaker 1: though she did not know it, she meant good wall
32:51
Speaker 1: paper and upholstery, pretty books, tasteful clothes, concerts, and meals
32:58
Speaker 1: nicely cooked and respectful served. At last came the day
33:03
Speaker 1: of the second examination, and the professor of Botany, a fussy,
33:08
Speaker 1: conscientious man, rearranged all the tables in a long, narrow
33:12
Speaker 1: laboratory to prevent copying, and put his demonstrator on a
33:16
Speaker 1: chair on a table where he felt, he said, like
33:20
Speaker 1: a hindoo god to see all the cheating, and stuck
33:25
Speaker 1: a notice outside the door, door closed for no earthly
33:29
Speaker 1: reason that any human being could discover. And all the
33:32
Speaker 1: morning from ten till one, the quill of Wedderburn shrieked
33:37
Speaker 1: defiance at Hills, and the quills of the others chased
33:41
Speaker 1: their leaders in a tireless pack. And so also it
33:45
Speaker 1: was in the afternoon Wedderbourn was a little quieter than usual,
33:50
Speaker 1: and Hill's face was hot all day, and his overcoat
33:53
Speaker 1: bulged with text books and note books against the last
33:58
Speaker 1: moment's revision. And the next day, in the morning and
34:02
Speaker 1: in the afternoon was the practical examination, when sections had
34:07
Speaker 1: to be cut and slides identified. In the morning, Hill
34:11
Speaker 1: was depressed because he knew he had cut a thick section,
34:16
Speaker 1: And in the afternoon came the mysterious slip. It was
34:21
Speaker 1: just the kind of thing that the botanical professor was
34:24
Speaker 1: always doing. Like the income tax, it offered a premium
34:29
Speaker 1: to the cheat. It was a preparation under the microscope,
34:32
Speaker 1: a little glass slip held in its place on the
34:35
Speaker 1: stage of the instrument by light steel clips, and the
34:39
Speaker 1: inscription set forth that the slip was not to be moved.
34:44
Speaker 1: Each student was to go in turn to it, sketch it,
34:47
Speaker 1: write in his book of answers what he considered it
34:50
Speaker 1: to be, and returned to his place. Now, to move
34:55
Speaker 1: such a slip is a thing one can do by
34:57
Speaker 1: a chance movement of the finger, and in a fraction
35:00
Speaker 1: of a second. The professor's reason for decreeing that the
35:05
Speaker 1: slip should not be moved depended on the fact that
35:08
Speaker 1: the object he wanted identified was characteristic of a certain
35:12
Speaker 1: tree stem. In the position in which it was placed,
35:16
Speaker 1: it was a difficult thing to recognize, but once the
35:19
Speaker 1: slip was moved so as to bring other parts of
35:22
Speaker 1: the preparation into view, its nature was obvious enough Hill
35:26
Speaker 1: came to this flushed from a contest with staining reagents,
35:31
Speaker 1: sat down on the little stool before the microscope, turned
35:35
Speaker 1: the mirror to get the best light, and then, out
35:38
Speaker 1: of sheer habit shifted the slips. At once. He remembered
35:42
Speaker 1: the prohibition, and with an almost continuous motion of his hands,
35:48
Speaker 1: moved it back and sat paralyzed with astonishment at his action.
35:53
Speaker 1: Then slowly he turned his head. The professor was out
35:57
Speaker 1: of the room. The demonstrator sat aloft on his impromptu rostrum,
36:01
Speaker 1: reading the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. The rest of
36:05
Speaker 1: the examinees were busy and with their backs to him.
36:09
Speaker 1: Should he own up to the accident. Now he knew
36:12
Speaker 1: quite clearly what the thing was. It was a lenticel,
36:16
Speaker 1: a characteristic preparation from the elder tree. His eyes roved
36:21
Speaker 1: over his intent fellow students, and Wedderburn suddenly glanced over
36:25
Speaker 1: his shoulder at him, with a queer expression in his eyes.
36:29
Speaker 1: The mental excitement that had kept Hill at an abnormal
36:33
Speaker 1: pitch of vigor these two days gave way to a
36:36
Speaker 1: curious nervous tension. His book of answers was beside him.
36:40
Speaker 1: He did not write down what the thing was, But
36:44
Speaker 1: with one eye at the microscope, he began making a
36:46
Speaker 1: hasty sketch of it. His mind was full of this
36:50
Speaker 1: grotesque puzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprung upon him.
36:55
Speaker 1: Should he identify it? Or should he leave this question unanswered?
36:59
Speaker 1: In that case, Wedderburn would probably come out first in
37:03
Speaker 1: the second result, How could he tell now whether he
37:06
Speaker 1: might not have identified the thing without shifting it. It
37:11
Speaker 1: was possible that Wedderburn had failed to recognize it. Of course,
37:14
Speaker 1: suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide. He looked up
37:19
Speaker 1: at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which to
37:21
Speaker 1: make up his mind. He gathered up his book of
37:24
Speaker 1: answers and the colored pencils he used in illustrating his replies,
37:28
Speaker 1: and walked back to his seat. He read through his
37:32
Speaker 1: manuscript and then sat thinking and gnawing his knuckle. It
37:37
Speaker 1: would look queer now if he owned up. He must
37:40
Speaker 1: beat Wedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen,
37:45
Speaker 1: John Burns and Bradley. Besides, he reflected the glimpse of
37:49
Speaker 1: the rest of the slip he had had was, after
37:52
Speaker 1: all quite accidental forced upon him. By chance a kind
37:56
Speaker 1: of providential revelation, rather than an unfair advantage. It was
38:00
Speaker 1: not nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that, as
38:04
Speaker 1: it was a broom who believed in the efficacy of
38:07
Speaker 1: prayer to pray daily for a first class five minutes more,
38:13
Speaker 1: said the demonstrator, folding up his paper and becoming observant.
38:17
Speaker 1: Hill watched the clock hands until two minutes remained. Then
38:22
Speaker 1: he opened the book of Answers, and, with hot ears
38:25
Speaker 1: and an affectation of ease, gave his drawing of the
38:29
Speaker 1: lent cell its name. When the second past list appeared,
38:35
Speaker 1: the previous positions of Wedderburn and Hill were reversed, and
38:38
Speaker 1: the spectacled girl in Green, who knew the demonstrator in
38:42
Speaker 1: private life, where he was practically human, said that in
38:46
Speaker 1: the result of the two examinations taken together, Hill had
38:50
Speaker 1: the advantage of a mark one hundred sixty seven to
38:54
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty six out of a possible two hundred.
38:59
Speaker 1: Everyone ad mid Hill in a way, though the suspicion
39:03
Speaker 1: of mugging clung to him, But Hill was to find
39:06
Speaker 1: congratulations and Miss Haysman's enhanced opinion of him, and even
39:11
Speaker 1: the decided decline in the crest of Wedderburn, tainted by
39:15
Speaker 1: an unhappy memory, he felt a remarkable access of energy
39:20
Speaker 1: at first, and the note of a democracy marching to triumph.
39:25
Speaker 1: Returned to his debating society speeches. He worked at his
39:28
Speaker 1: comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal and effect, and he went
39:32
Speaker 1: on with his esthetic education. But through it all a
39:36
Speaker 1: vivid little picture was continually coming before his mind's eye
39:41
Speaker 1: of a sneakish person manipulating a slide. No human being
39:46
Speaker 1: had witnessed the act, and he was cock sure that
39:49
Speaker 1: no higher power existed to see it. But for all
39:52
Speaker 1: that it worried him, memories are not dead things, but alive.
39:57
Speaker 1: They dwindle in disuse, but they harden and develop in
40:02
Speaker 1: all sorts of queer ways if they are being continually
40:05
Speaker 1: fretted curiously enough, though at the time he perceived clearly
40:10
Speaker 1: that the shifting was accidental, as the days wore on,
40:14
Speaker 1: his memory became confused about it, until at last he
40:17
Speaker 1: was not sure, although he assured himself that he was
40:21
Speaker 1: sure whether the movement had been absolutely involuntary. Then it
40:27
Speaker 1: is possible that Hill's dietary was conducive to morbid conscientiousness.
40:32
Speaker 1: A breakfast frequently eaten in a hurry, a mid day
40:36
Speaker 1: bun and at such hours after five as chanced to
40:41
Speaker 1: be convenient, such meat, as his means determined, usually in
40:45
Speaker 1: a chop house in a back street off the Brompton Road.
40:49
Speaker 1: Occasionally he treated himself to thropny on ninepenny classics, and
40:53
Speaker 1: they usually represented a suppression of potatoes or chops. It
40:59
Speaker 1: is indisputable that outbreaks of self abasement and emotional revival
41:04
Speaker 1: have a distinct relation to periods of scarcity. But apart
41:09
Speaker 1: from this influence on the feelings, there was in Hill
41:13
Speaker 1: a distinct aversion to falsity that the blasphemous Landport cobbler
41:19
Speaker 1: had inculcated by strap and tongue from his earliest years.
41:25
Speaker 1: Of one fact about professed atheists, I am convinced they
41:30
Speaker 1: may be. They usually are fools, void of subtlety, revilers
41:36
Speaker 1: of holy institutions, brutal speakers, and mischievous knaves. But they
41:41
Speaker 1: lie with difficulty. If it were not so, if they
41:45
Speaker 1: had the faintest grasp of the idea of compromise, they
41:49
Speaker 1: would simply be liberal churchmen. And moreover, this memory poisoned
41:55
Speaker 1: his regard for miss Haysman, for she now so evidently preferred.
41:59
Speaker 1: He m to Wedderburn that he felt sure he cared
42:03
Speaker 1: for her, and began reciprocating her attentions by timid marks
42:07
Speaker 1: of personal regard. At one time he even bought a
42:11
Speaker 1: bunch of violets, carried it about in his pocket, and
42:15
Speaker 1: produced it with a stumbling explanation withered and dead in
42:20
Speaker 1: the gallery of old iron. It poisoned too the denunciation
42:25
Speaker 1: of capitalist dishonesty that had been one of his life's pleasures.
42:29
Speaker 1: And lastly, it poisoned his triumph in Wedderburn. Previously, he
42:35
Speaker 1: had been Wedderburn's superior in his own eyes, and had
42:39
Speaker 1: raged simply at a want of recognition. Now he began
42:43
Speaker 1: to fret at the darker suspicion of positive inferiority. He
42:49
Speaker 1: fancied he found justifications for his position in Browning, but
42:53
Speaker 1: they vanished on analysis. At last, moved curiously enough by
42:59
Speaker 1: exactly the same motive forces that had resulted in his dishonesty,
43:03
Speaker 1: he went to Professor Bindon and made a clean breast
43:07
Speaker 1: of the whole affair. As Hill was a paid student
43:11
Speaker 1: Professor Bindon did not ask him to sit down, and
43:14
Speaker 1: he stood before the professor's desk as he made his confession.
43:18
Speaker 1: It's a curious story, said Professor Bindon, slowly realizing how
43:22
Speaker 1: the thing reflected on himself and then letting his anger rise.
43:27
Speaker 1: A most remarkable story. I can't understand your doing it,
43:31
Speaker 1: and I can't understand this avowal. You're a type of
43:34
Speaker 1: student Cambridge men would never dream. I suppose I ought
43:38
Speaker 1: to have thought, why did you cheat? I didn't cheat,
43:43
Speaker 1: said Hill, But you have just been telling me you did.
43:47
Speaker 1: I thought I explained, either you cheated or you did
43:50
Speaker 1: not cheat. I said my motion was involuntary. I am
43:54
Speaker 1: not a metaphysician. I am a servant of science, of fact.
43:58
Speaker 1: You were told not to move the slip. You did
44:02
Speaker 1: move the slip. If that is not cheating? If I
44:05
Speaker 1: was a cheat, said Hill, with the note of hysterics
44:08
Speaker 1: in his voice. Should I come here and tell you your repentance?
44:12
Speaker 1: Of course does you credit, said Professor Bindon. But it
44:16
Speaker 1: does not alter the original facts, No, sir, said Hill,
44:21
Speaker 1: giving in in utter self abasement. Even now you cause
44:25
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of trouble. The examinational list will have
44:28
Speaker 1: to be revised. I suppose so, sir, suppose, so of
44:32
Speaker 1: course it must be revised. And I don't see how
44:34
Speaker 1: I can conscientiously pass you, not pass me, said Hill,
44:39
Speaker 1: fail me. It's the rule in all examinations. Or where
44:43
Speaker 1: should we be? What else did you expect? You don't
44:47
Speaker 1: want to shirk the consequences of your own acts, I thought, perhaps,
44:51
Speaker 1: said Hill, and then fail me. I thought, as I
44:55
Speaker 1: told you, you would simply deduct the marks given for
44:58
Speaker 1: that slip. Impossible, said Bindon. Besides, it would still leave
45:03
Speaker 1: you above Wedderbourne. Deduct only the marks preposterous, The departmental
45:08
Speaker 1: regulations distinctly say, but it's my own adbition, sir. The
45:12
Speaker 1: regulations say nothing whatever of the manner in which the
45:15
Speaker 1: matter comes to light. They simply provide it will ruin
45:19
Speaker 1: me if I fail this examination. They won't renew my scholarship.
45:24
Speaker 1: You should have thought of that before. But sir, consider
45:27
Speaker 1: all my circumstances. I cannot consider anything. Professors in this
45:32
Speaker 1: college are machines. The regulations will not even let us
45:37
Speaker 1: recommend our students for appointments. I am a machine, and
45:42
Speaker 1: you have worked me. I have to do. It's very hard, sir.
45:46
Speaker 1: Possibly it is if I am to be failed this examination,
45:50
Speaker 1: I might as well go home at once, that is
45:53
Speaker 1: as you think proper. Bindon's voice softened a little. He
45:57
Speaker 1: perceived that he had been unjust, and provided he did
46:01
Speaker 1: not contradict himself, he was disposed to amelioration as a
46:06
Speaker 1: private person. He said, I think this confession of yours
46:09
Speaker 1: goes far to mitigate your offense. But you have set
46:12
Speaker 1: the machinery in motion, and now it must take its course.
46:17
Speaker 1: I I am really sorry you gave way. A wave
46:21
Speaker 1: of emotion prevented Hill from answering. Suddenly, very vividly, he
46:26
Speaker 1: saw the heavily lined face of the old Landport cobbler
46:30
Speaker 1: his father. Good lord, what a fool I have been,
46:33
Speaker 1: he said, hotly and abruptly. I hope, said Bindon, that
46:38
Speaker 1: it will be a lesson to you. But curiously enough
46:42
Speaker 1: they were not thinking of quite the same indiscretion. There
46:46
Speaker 1: was a pause. I would like a day to think, sir,
46:50
Speaker 1: and then I will let you know about going home,
46:53
Speaker 1: I mean, said Hill, moving towards the door. The next day,
46:58
Speaker 1: Hill's place was vacant. The spectacled girl in green was,
47:03
Speaker 1: as usual, first with the news Wedderbourn and Miss Haysman
47:07
Speaker 1: were talking of a performance of the Meister Singers when
47:10
Speaker 1: she came up to them. Have you heard, she said? Heard?
47:14
Speaker 1: What there was cheating in the examination? Cheating? Said Wedderburn,
47:19
Speaker 1: with his face suddenly hot. How that slide moved? Never?
47:24
Speaker 1: It was that slide that we weren't to move? Nonsense,
47:29
Speaker 1: said Wedderburn. Why how could they find out? Who? Do
47:32
Speaker 1: they say it was? Mister Hill? Hill? Mister Hill, not surely,
47:38
Speaker 1: not the immaculate Hill, said Wedderburn, recovering. I don't believe it,
47:43
Speaker 1: said Miss Hayesman. How do you know? I didn't, said
47:47
Speaker 1: the girl in Spectacles, But I know it now for
47:50
Speaker 1: a fact. Mister Hill went and confessed to Professor Bindon himself.
47:55
Speaker 1: Why jove, said Wedderburn, Hill, of all people. But I'm
48:00
Speaker 1: always inclined to distrust these philanthropists on principle. Ah, you
48:06
Speaker 1: quite sure, said Miss Hayesman, with a catch in her breath. Quite,
48:11
Speaker 1: It's dreadful, isn't it? But you know what can you expect?
48:15
Speaker 1: His father is a cobbler. Then Miss Haysman astonished the
48:19
Speaker 1: girl in Spectacles. I don't care. I will not believe it.
48:23
Speaker 1: She said, flushing darkly under her warm tinted skin. I
48:27
Speaker 1: will not believe it until he has told me so himself,
48:31
Speaker 1: face to face. I would scarcely believe it. Then, and abruptly,
48:35
Speaker 1: she turned her back on the Girl in Spectacles and
48:38
Speaker 1: walked to her own place. It's true all the same,
48:42
Speaker 1: said the Girl in spectacles, peering and smiling at Wedderburn.
48:46
Speaker 1: But Wedderburn did not answer her. She was indeed one
48:51
Speaker 1: of those people who seemed destined to make unanswered remarks.
48:57
Speaker 1: End of Section eighteen