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The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth Book 3 Chapter 2 - The Giant Lovers · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book three, chapter two of the Food of the Gods
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  Speaker 1: and How It Came to Earth. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Alexei Talander, Davis, California. The Food of the Gods
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  Speaker 1: and How It Came to Earth by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Book three, Chapter two, The Giant Lovers. Now, it chanced
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  Speaker 1: in the days when Catahan was campaigning against the boom
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  Speaker 1: Children before the general elections, that was amidst the most
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  Speaker 1: tragic and terrible circumstances to bring him into power, that
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  Speaker 1: the giant Princess, that Serene Highness, whose early nutrition had
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  Speaker 1: played so great a part in the brilliant career of
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  Speaker 1: doctor Winkles, had come from the Kingdom of her father
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  Speaker 1: to England on an occasion that was deemed important. She
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  Speaker 1: was affeanced for reasons of state, to a certain Prince,
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  Speaker 1: and the wedding was to be made an event of
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  Speaker 1: international significance. They had risen mysterious delays. Rumor and imagination
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  Speaker 1: collaborated in the story, and many things were said. There
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  Speaker 1: were suggestions of every calcuitrated prince, who declared he would
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  Speaker 1: not be made to look like a fool. At least
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  Speaker 1: to this extent, people sympathized with him. That is the
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  Speaker 1: most significant aspect of the affair. Now may seem a
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  Speaker 1: strange thing, but it is fact that the giant Princess,
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  Speaker 1: when she came to England knew of no other giants.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever she had lived in a world where attacked is
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  Speaker 1: almost to passion and reservations the heir of one's life,
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  Speaker 1: they had kept a thing from her. They had headed
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  Speaker 1: her about from sight or suspicion of any gigantic form
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  Speaker 1: until her appointed coming to England was due. Until she
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  Speaker 1: met young Wedwood, she had no Inkland that there was
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  Speaker 1: such a thing as none of the giant in the world.
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  Speaker 1: In the kingdom of the father of the Princess, there
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  Speaker 1: were wild wastes of upland and mountains where she had
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  Speaker 1: been accustomed to rome freely. She loved the sun rise
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  Speaker 1: and the sunset, and all the great drama of the
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  Speaker 1: open heavens more than anything else in the world. But
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  Speaker 1: among a people at once so democratic and so veheming
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  Speaker 1: loyal as the English, her freedom was much restricted. People
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  Speaker 1: came in breaks in excursion trains, and organized multitudes to
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  Speaker 1: see her. They would cycle long distances to stare at her,
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  Speaker 1: and it was necessary to rise betimes if she would
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  Speaker 1: walk in peace. It was still near the dawn that
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  Speaker 1: morning when Young Wedwood came upon her. The great park
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  Speaker 1: near the palace where she lodged, stretched for a score
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  Speaker 1: of miles or more west and south of the western
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  Speaker 1: palace gates. The chestnut trees of its avenues reached high
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  Speaker 1: above her head, each one as she passed. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: to proper a more abundant wealth of blossom. For a
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  Speaker 1: time she was content with sight and scent. But at
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  Speaker 1: last she was won over by these offers, and set
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  Speaker 1: herself so busy to choose and pick that she did
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  Speaker 1: not perceive Young Wedwood until k was close upon her.
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  Speaker 1: She moved among the chestnut trees with a destined lover,
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  Speaker 1: drawing near to her unanticipated, unsuspected, she thrust her hands
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  Speaker 1: in among the branches, breaking them and gathering them. She
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  Speaker 1: was alone in the world. Then she looked up, and
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  Speaker 1: in that moment she was mate. It. We must needs
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  Speaker 1: put our imaginations to his statue to see the beauty.
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  Speaker 1: He saw that unapproachable greatness that prevents our immediate sympathy
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  Speaker 1: with her did not exist for him. There she stood
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  Speaker 1: a gracious girl, the first created being that had ever
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  Speaker 1: seen a mate for him, light and slender, lightly clad,
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  Speaker 1: the fresh breeze of the dawn, molding the suddenly folding
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  Speaker 1: robe upon her, against the soft, strong lines of her form,
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  Speaker 1: and with a great mass of blossoming chestnut branches in
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  Speaker 1: her hands. The collar of her robe opened to show
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  Speaker 1: the whiteness of her neck and a soft, shadowed roundness
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  Speaker 1: that passed out of sight towards her shoulders. The breeze
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  Speaker 1: had stolen a strand or so of her hair and
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  Speaker 1: strained its red tipped brown across her cheek. Her eyes
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  Speaker 1: were open blue, and her lips rested, always in the
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  Speaker 1: promise of a smile. As she reached among the branches,
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  Speaker 1: she turned upon him with a start, saw him, and
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  Speaker 1: for his face they regarded one another. For her, the
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  Speaker 1: sight of him was so amazing, so incredible, as to
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  Speaker 1: be for some moments at least terrible. He came to
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  Speaker 1: her with the shock of a supernatural apperuption. He broke
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  Speaker 1: all the established law of her world. He was a
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  Speaker 1: youth of one and twenty then slenderly built with his
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  Speaker 1: father's darkness, in his father's gravity, he was clapped in
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  Speaker 1: a sober, soft brown leather, close fitting easy garments, and
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  Speaker 1: in brown hose that shaped him bravely. His head was
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  Speaker 1: uncovered with on all weathers. They stood regarding one another,
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  Speaker 1: she incredulously amazed, and he with his heart beating fast.
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  Speaker 1: It was a moment without a prelude, the cardinal meaning
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  Speaker 1: of their lives. For him, there was less surprise. He
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  Speaker 1: had been seeking her, and yet his heart beat fast.
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  Speaker 1: He came towards her slowly, with his eyes upon her face.
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  Speaker 1: You are the princess, he said. My father has told
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  Speaker 1: me you are the princess who was given the food
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  Speaker 1: of the gods. I am the princess, yes, she said,
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  Speaker 1: with eyes of wonder. But what are you? I am
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  Speaker 1: the son of the man who made the food of
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  Speaker 1: the gods. The food of the gods. Yes, the food
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  Speaker 1: of the gods. But her face expressed infinite perplexity. What
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  Speaker 1: I don't understand the food of the gods. You have
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  Speaker 1: not heard the food of the gods. No, she found
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  Speaker 1: herself trembling violently. The color left her face. I did
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  Speaker 1: not know, she said, do you mean he waited for her?
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  Speaker 1: Do you mean there are other giants? He repeated, Did
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  Speaker 1: you not know? And she answered, with the growing amazement
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  Speaker 1: of realization. No, the whole world, in all the meaning
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  Speaker 1: of the world, was charging for her. A branch of
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  Speaker 1: chestnuts slipped from her hand. Do you mean to say,
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  Speaker 1: she repeated, stupidly, that there are other giants in the world,
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  Speaker 1: that some food. He caught her amazement. You know nothing,
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  Speaker 1: he cried. You have never heard of us, you whom
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  Speaker 1: the food is made a king to us. There was
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  Speaker 1: terror still in the eyes that stared at him. Her
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  Speaker 1: hand rose towards her throat and fell again. She whispered. No.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to her that she must weep her faint,
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  Speaker 1: that in a moment she had ruled over herself, and
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  Speaker 1: she was speaking and thinking clearly. All this has been
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  Speaker 1: kept from me, she said. It is like a dream.
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  Speaker 1: I have dreamt, have dreamt such things, but waking No.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me, Tell me what are you? What is the
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  Speaker 1: food of the gods? Tell me, slowly and clearly, why
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  Speaker 1: have they kept it from me? That I am not alone? Two?
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  Speaker 1: Tell me, she said, and Young Redwood, trimmed, ueless and excited,
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  Speaker 1: set himself to tell her it was poor and broken.
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  Speaker 1: Telling for a time of the food of the gods
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  Speaker 1: and the giant children who were scattered over the world,
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  Speaker 1: he must figure them both flushed and startled in their breathing,
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  Speaker 1: getting at one another's meaning through endless half heard, half
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  Speaker 1: spoken phrases, repeating, making perplexing breaks and new departures, a
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  Speaker 1: wonderful talk in which he awakened from the ignorance of
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  Speaker 1: all her life, and very slowly it became clear to
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  Speaker 1: her that she was no exception to the order of mankind,
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  Speaker 1: but one of a scattered brotherhood, who had all eaten
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  Speaker 1: the food and grown forever out of the little limits
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  Speaker 1: of the folk beneath their feet. Young Wordwood spoke of
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  Speaker 1: his father, of Cosser, of the brothers scattered throughout the country,
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  Speaker 1: of the great dawn of wider meaning than had come
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  Speaker 1: at last into the history of the world. We are
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  Speaker 1: in the beginning of a beginning, he said. This word
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  Speaker 1: of theirs is only the prelude to the world the
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  Speaker 1: food will make. My father believes, and I also believe
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  Speaker 1: that a time will come when littleness will have passed
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  Speaker 1: altogether out of the world of man, when giants shall
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  Speaker 1: go freely about this earth, their earth, doing continually and
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  Speaker 1: more splendid things. But that that is to come, we
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  Speaker 1: are not even the first generation of that. We are
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  Speaker 1: the first experiments. And of these things, she said, I
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  Speaker 1: knew nothing. There are times when it seems to me
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  Speaker 1: almost as if we had come too soon. Someone I
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  Speaker 1: suppose had to come first. But the world was all
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  Speaker 1: unprepared for our coming, and for the coming of all
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  Speaker 1: the lesser great things that drew their greatness from the food.
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  Speaker 1: They have been blunders, they have been conflicts. The little
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  Speaker 1: people hate our kind. They are hard towards us because
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  Speaker 1: they are so little, and because our feet are heavy
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  Speaker 1: on the things that make their lives. But at any
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  Speaker 1: rate they hate us now they will have none of us,
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  Speaker 1: only if we could shrink back to the common side
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  Speaker 1: of them when they begin to forgive. They are happy
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  Speaker 1: in houses that are prison sells to us. Their cities
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  Speaker 1: are too small for us. We go in misery along
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  Speaker 1: their narrow ways. We cannot worship in their churches. We
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  Speaker 1: see over their walls and over their protections. We look
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  Speaker 1: inadvertently into their upper windows. We look over their customs.
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  Speaker 1: Their laws are no more than a net about our feet.
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  Speaker 1: Every time we stumble, we hear them shout every time
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  Speaker 1: we blunder against their limits or stretch out to any
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  Speaker 1: spacious act. Our easy paces are wild flights to them,
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  Speaker 1: and all they deem great and wonderful no more than
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  Speaker 1: dolls pyramids to us. Their penniness of method and appliance
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  Speaker 1: and imagination hampers and defeats our powers. There are no
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  Speaker 1: machines to the power of our hands, no helps to
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  Speaker 1: fit our needs. They hold our greatness in servitude by
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  Speaker 1: a thousand invisible bands. We are stronger man for man
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  Speaker 1: a hundred times, but we are disarmed. Our very greatness
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  Speaker 1: makes us debtors. They claim the land we stand upon.
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  Speaker 1: They tax our ampler need of food and shelter. And
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  Speaker 1: for all these things we must toil with the tools
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  Speaker 1: these dwarfs can make us, and to satisfy their dwarf
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  Speaker 1: as fancies, they pin us in in every way. Even
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  Speaker 1: to live one must cross their boundaries. Even to meet
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  Speaker 1: you here to day, I have passed the limit. All
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  Speaker 1: that is reasonable and desirable in life. They make out
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  Speaker 1: of bounds for us. We may not go into the towns,
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  Speaker 1: we may not cross the bridges. We may not step
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  Speaker 1: on their plowed fields, or into the harbors, or of
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  Speaker 1: the game they kill. I am cut off now from
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  Speaker 1: all our brethren except the three sons of Cosser, And
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  Speaker 1: even that way the passage narrows day by day. Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: think they sought occasion against us to do some more
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  Speaker 1: evil thing. But we are strong, she said, we should
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  Speaker 1: be strong. Yes, we feel, all of us. You too,
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  Speaker 1: I know, must feel that we have power, power to
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  Speaker 1: do great things, power insurgent in us. But before we
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  Speaker 1: can do anything, he flung out a hand that seemed
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  Speaker 1: to sweep away a world. Though I thought I was
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  Speaker 1: alone in the world, She said, after a pause, I
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  Speaker 1: have thought of these things they have taught me always,
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  Speaker 1: as strength was almost a sin, that it was better
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  Speaker 1: to be little than great, that all true religion was
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  Speaker 1: to shelter the weak and little, encourage the weak and little,
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  Speaker 1: help them to multiply, multiply, till at last they crawled
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  Speaker 1: over one another to sacrifice all our strength in their cause.
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  Speaker 1: But always I have doubted the thing they taught this life.
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  Speaker 1: He said. These bodies of ours are not for dying, no,
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  Speaker 1: nor to live in futility. But if we would not
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  Speaker 1: do that, it is already plain to all our brethren,
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  Speaker 1: A cla longflict must come. I know not what bitterness
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  Speaker 1: of conflict must presently come before the little folks will
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  Speaker 1: suffer us to live as we need to live. All
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  Speaker 1: the brethren have thought of that cosser of whom I
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  Speaker 1: told you, He too has thought of that. They are
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  Speaker 1: very little and weak in their way. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: all the means of death are in their hands and
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  Speaker 1: made for their hands. For hundreds of thousands of years,
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  Speaker 1: these little people whose world we invade have been learning
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  Speaker 1: how to kill one another. They are very able at that.
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  Speaker 1: They are able in many ways, And besides, they can
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  Speaker 1: deceive and change suddenly. I do not know. There comes
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  Speaker 1: a conflict you you perhaps are different from us. For us,
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  Speaker 1: assuredly the conflict comes, the thing they call war. We
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  Speaker 1: know it in a way, we prepare for it. But
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  Speaker 1: you know, those little people, we do not know how
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  Speaker 1: to kill. At least we do not want to kill. Look,
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  Speaker 1: she interrupted, and he heard a yelping horn. He turned
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  Speaker 1: to the direction of her eyes and found a bright
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  Speaker 1: yellow motor car with a dark goggled driver and fur
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  Speaker 1: cloud passengers whooping, throbbing, and buzzing resentfully at his heel.
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  Speaker 1: He moved his foot, and the mechanism, with three angry snorts,
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  Speaker 1: resumed its fussy way towards the town, filling up the
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  Speaker 1: roadway floated up to him. Then some one said, look,
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  Speaker 1: did you see? There is the monster princess over beyond
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  Speaker 1: the trees. And although goggled faces came round the stair,
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  Speaker 1: I say, said another that won't do all. This, she said,
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  Speaker 1: is more amazing than I can tell. That they should
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  Speaker 1: not have told you, he said, and loved his sentence
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  Speaker 1: incomplete until you came upon me. I had lived in
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  Speaker 1: a world where I was great alone. I had made
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  Speaker 1: myself a life for that. I had thought I was
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  Speaker 1: the victim of some strange freak of nature. And now
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  Speaker 1: my world has crumbled down in half an hour, and
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  Speaker 1: I see another world, other conditions, wider possibilities, Fellowship, Fellowship,
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  Speaker 1: he answered, I want you to tell me more. Yet,
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  Speaker 1: and much more, she said, You know this passes through
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  Speaker 1: my mind like a tale that is told you even
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  Speaker 1: in a day, perhaps or after several days, I shall
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  Speaker 1: believe in you now. Now I am drieving. Listen, the
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  Speaker 1: first stroke of a clock above the palace offices far
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  Speaker 1: away had penetrated to them. Each counted mechanically seven. This,
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  Speaker 1: she said, should be the hour of my return. They
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  Speaker 1: will be taking the bowl of my coffee into the
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  Speaker 1: hall where I sleep. The little officials and servants, you
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  Speaker 1: cannot dream how grave they are, will be stirring about
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  Speaker 1: their little duties. They will wonder. But I want to
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  Speaker 1: talk to you, she thought, But I want to think too.
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  Speaker 1: I want now to think alone and think out this
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  Speaker 1: change in things, Think away the old solitude and think
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  Speaker 1: you and those others into my world. I shall go.
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  Speaker 1: I shall go back to day to my place in
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  Speaker 1: the pack castle, and tomorrow, as the dawn comes, I
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  Speaker 1: shall come again here. I shall be here waiting for
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  Speaker 1: you all day. I shall dream and dream of this
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  Speaker 1: new world you have given me. Even now I can
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  Speaker 1: scarcely believe. She took a step back and surveyed him
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  Speaker 1: from the feet to the face. Their eyes met and
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  Speaker 1: locked for a moment. Yes, she said, with a little
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  Speaker 1: laugh that was half a sob You are real, but
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  Speaker 1: it is very wonderful, do you think. Indeed, suppose tomorrow
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  Speaker 1: I come and find you a pigmy like the others. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I must think, and so for to day, as the
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  Speaker 1: little people do. She held out her hand, and for
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  Speaker 1: the first time they touched one another. Their hands clasped firmly,
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  Speaker 1: and their eyes met again. Good Bye, she said, for
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  Speaker 1: to day, good bye, good Bye, brother giant. He hesitated
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  Speaker 1: with some unspoken thing, and at last he answered her
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  Speaker 1: simply good bye. For a space they held each other's hands,
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  Speaker 1: studying each the other's face, and many times after they
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  Speaker 1: had parted, she looked back, half doubtfully at him. Standing
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  Speaker 1: still in the place where they had met. She walked
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  Speaker 1: in her apartments across the great yard of the palace,
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  Speaker 1: like one who walks in a dream, with a vast
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  Speaker 1: branch of chestnut trailing from her hand. Three these two
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  Speaker 1: met altogether fourteen times before the beginning of the end.
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  Speaker 1: They met in the great park, or on the heights
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  Speaker 1: and among the gorges of the rusty roaded heatherly of Morland,
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  Speaker 1: set with dusky pine woods that stretched to the southwest.
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  Speaker 1: Twice they met in the great Avenue of Chestnuts, and
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  Speaker 1: five times near the broad ornamental water the king her
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  Speaker 1: great grandfather had made. There was a place where a
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  Speaker 1: great trim lawn set with tall conifers, sloped graciously to
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  Speaker 1: the water. Was edge, and there she would sit, and
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  Speaker 1: he would lie at her knees and look up in
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  Speaker 1: her face and talk, telling of all the things that
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  Speaker 1: had been, and of the work his father had set
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  Speaker 1: before him, and of the great and spacious dream of
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  Speaker 1: what the giant people should one day be. Commonly they
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  Speaker 1: met in the early dawn, but once they met there
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  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, and found presently a multitude appearing, eavesdroppers
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  Speaker 1: about them, cyclist pedestrians peeping from the bushes, rustling as
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  Speaker 1: sparrows will rustle about one in the London parks, amidst
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  Speaker 1: the dead leaves and the woods behind, gliding down the
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  Speaker 1: lakes in boats towards the point of view, trying to
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  Speaker 1: get nearer to them. And here it was the first
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  Speaker 1: hit that offered of the enormous interest the countryside was
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  Speaker 1: taking in their meeting. And once it was the seventh time,
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  Speaker 1: and it precipitated the scandal. They met out upon the
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  Speaker 1: breezing moorland under a clear moonlight and talked to him
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  Speaker 1: whispers there, for the night was warm and still. Very
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  Speaker 1: soon they had passed from the realization that in them
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  Speaker 1: and through them, a new world of giant tree shaped
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  Speaker 1: itself in the earth, from the contemplation the great struggle
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  Speaker 1: between big and little, in which they were clearly destined
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  Speaker 1: to participate, to interest at once more personal and more spacious.
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  Speaker 1: Each time they met and talked and looked on one another,
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  Speaker 1: it crept a little more out of their sub conscious
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  Speaker 1: being towards recognition that something more dear and wonderful than
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  Speaker 1: friendship was between them, and walked between them, and drew
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  Speaker 1: their hands together, And in a little while they came
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  Speaker 1: to the world itself and found themselves lovers, the Adam
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  Speaker 1: and Eve of renewed race in the world. They set
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  Speaker 1: foot side by side into the wonderful Valley of Love,
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  Speaker 1: with its deep and quiet places. The world changed about
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  Speaker 1: them with their changing mood, until presently it had become,
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  Speaker 1: as it were, a tabernacular beauty about their meetings, and
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  Speaker 1: the stars were no more than flowers of light beneath
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  Speaker 1: the feet of their love, and the dawn and sunset
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  Speaker 1: the colored hangings. By the way, they ceased to be
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: beings of flesh and blood to one another and themselves,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: they passed into a bodily texture of times and desire.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: They gave it first whispers and then silence, and drew
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: close and looked into one another's moonlit and shadowy faces
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: under the infinite arch of the sky, and the still
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: black pine trees stood about them like sentinels. The beating
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: steps of time were hushed into silence, and it seemed
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to them the universe hung still. Only their hearts were
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: audible beating. They seemed to be living together in a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: world where there is no death, and indeed so it
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was with them. Then it seemed to them that they sounded,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And indeed they sounded such hidden splendors in the very
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: heart of things as none had ever reached before, even
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: for mean and little souls, lovers of revelation of splendors.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And these were giant lovers who had eaten the food
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of the gods. You may imagine the spreading consternation in
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: this ordered world, where it became known that the princess,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: who was their fiance to the prince, the Princess her
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: serene Highness, with royal blood in her veins, met frequently
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: met the hypertrophied offspring of a common professor of chemistry,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a creature of no rank, no position, no wealth, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: talk to him as though there were no kings, and princess,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: no order, no reverence. Nothing but giants and pigmies in
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the world talk to him, and it was only too
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: certain held him as her lover. If those newspaper fellows
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: get hold of it, gas, Sir Arthur poodle Bootlick, I
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: am told, whispered the old Bishop of Phrump's new story. Upstairs,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: said the first footman, as he nibbled among the deserted things.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So far as I can make out this here giant princess,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: they say, said the lady who kept the stationers shop
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: by the main entrance to the palace, where the little
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Americans get their tickets for the state apartments. And then
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: we are authorized to deny, said Picaroon in gossip. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: so the whole trouble came about four. They say that
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: we must part, The princess said to her lover. But why,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: he cried, What new folly have these people got into
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: their heads? Do you know? She asked? That to love
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: me is high treason, My dear, he cried, But does
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it matter? What is their right right without a shadow
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of reason? And their treason and their loyalty to us?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: You shall hear, she said, and told him of the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: things that had been told to her. It was the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: queerest little man who came to me with a soft,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: beautifully modulated voice, a softly moving little gentleman who sidled
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: into the room like a cat and put his pretty
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: white hand up so whenever he had anything significant to say.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: He is bald, but not of course nakedly bald, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: his nose and face are chuvvy rosy little things, and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: his beard is trimmed to a point in quite the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: loveliest way. He pretended to have emotions several times and
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: made his eyes shine. You know, he is quite a
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: friend of the real royal family here. And he called
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: me his dear young lady, and was perfectly sympathetic even
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. My dear young lady, he said, you
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: know you mustn't several times, and then you owe a duty.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Where do they make such men? He likes it, she said,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: But I don't see he told me serious things. You
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: don't think, he said, turning on her abruptly, that there's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: anything in the sort of thing He said, there's something
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: in it, Quite certainly, she said, She you mean, I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: mean that without knowing it, we have been tramping on
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the most sacred conceptions of the little folks. We who
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: are royal are a class apart. We worshiped prisoners, processional toys.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We paid for worship by losing our elementary freedom. And
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I was to have married that prince. You know nothing
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of him, though, well, a pigmy prince. He doesn't matter.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: It seems it would have strengthened the bonds between my
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: country and another. And this country also was to profit.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Imagine it, strengthening the bonds. And now they want me
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to go on with it as though there was nothing
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: between us two. Nothing. Yes, but that isn't all, he said.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: You're a specialist intact. Yes, he said. It would be
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: better for you, better for all the giants if we
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: too abstain from conversation, that was how he put it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: But what can he do if we don't, He said,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you might have your freedom. I he said, with a stress,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: My dear young lady, It will be better. It would
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: be more dignified if you parted willingly, That was all
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: he said, with a stress. Unwillingly. But what business is
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: it of these little wretches? Where we love, how we love?
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: What have they and their will to do with us?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: They do not think that, of course, he said, you
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: disregard all this. It seems utterly foolish to me that
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: their laws should fetter us, that we, at the first
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: spring of life, should be tripped by their old engagements,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: their aimless institutions. I oh, we disregard it. I am
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: yours so far? Yes, so far? Isn't that all? But they,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: if they want to part us? What can they do?
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know? But what can they do? Who cares
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: what they can do or what they will do? I
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: am yours and you are mine? What is there more
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: than that? I am you yours, and you are mine forever.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Do you think I will stop for their little rules,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: for their little prohibitions, their scarlet boards, indeed, and keep
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: from you? Yes? But still, what can they do? You mean?
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: He said? What are we to do? Yes? We we
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: can go on. But if they seek to prevent us?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He clenched his hands. He looked round, as if the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: little people were already coming to prevent them, then turned
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: away from her and looked about the world. Yes, he said,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Your question was the right one. What can they do
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: here la this little land? She said, and stopped. He
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: seemed to di survey at all. They are everywhere, but
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: we might whither we could go. We could swim the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: seas together. Beyond the seas, I never been. Beyond the seas.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: see no more than little people. And there are rote
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and deserted valleys. There are hidden lakes and snow girdled
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: uplands untrodden by the feet of men. There. But to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: get there we must fight our way day after day,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: through millions of millions of mankind. It is our only
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: hope in this crowded land. There is no fastness, no shelter.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: What place is there for us among these multitudes? They
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: who are a little can hide from one another. But
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: where are we to hide? There is no place where
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: we could eat, no place where we could sleep. If
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: we fled night and day, they would pursue our footsteps.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: A thought came to him. There is one place, he said,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: even in this island, where the place our brothers have
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: made over Beyond there they've made great banks about their house,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: north and south, and east and west. They've made deep
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: pits and hidden places. And even now one came over
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to me quite recently, he said. I did not altogether
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: heed what he said. Then but he spoke of arms.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: It may be there we should find shelter. For many days,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: he said, after a pause, I have not seen our brothers, dear.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I have been dreaming. I have been forgetting. The days
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: have passed, and I have done nothing but look to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: see you again. I must go to them and talk
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: to them, and tell them of you and of all
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the things that hang over us. If they will help us,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: they can help us, then indeed we might hope. I
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: do not know how strong their place is, but certainly
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Cosser will have made it strong before all this, before
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you came to me. I remember, now, there was trouble boring.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: There was an election, when all the little people settle
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: things by counting heads. It must be over now. There
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: were threats against all our race, against all our race,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that is, but you. I must see our brothers. I
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: must tell them all that has happened between us, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: all the threatens. Now five. He did not come to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: their next meeting until she had waited some time. They
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: were to meet that day about mid day, in a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: great space of park that fitted into a bend of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the river. And as she waited, looking ever southward under
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: her hand, it came to her that the world was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: very still, that indeed, it was broodingly still. And then
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: she perceived that, in spite of the lateness of the hour,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a customary retinue of voluntary spies had failed her. Left
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and right. When she came to look, there was no
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: one in sight, and there was never a boat upon
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the silver curve of the Thames. She tried to find
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: a reason for this strange stillness in the world. Then
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a grateful sight for her. She saw young Redwood far away,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: over a gap in the tree masses that bounded her view. Immediately,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the trees hid him, and presently he was thrusting through them,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And in sight again she could see there was something different.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: And then she saw that he was hurrying unusually, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: then that he limped. He gestured to her, and she
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: walked towards him. His face became clearer, and she saw
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: with infinite concern that he winced at every stride. She
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: ran towards him, her mind full of questions of vague fear.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: He drew near to her and spoke without a greeting.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Are we to part? He panted? No? She answered, why,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: what is the matter? But if we do not part,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: it is now, what is the matter. I do not
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: want to part, he said, Only he broke off abruptly
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to ask he will not part from me. She met
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: his eyes with a steadfast Look what has happened, she pressed.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Not for a time, what time? Years? Perhaps part? No,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: you have thought, he insisted, I will not part. She
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: took his hand. If if this meant death, now, I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: would not let you go. If it meant death, he said,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and she felt his grip upon her fingers. It looked
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: about him as if he feared to see the little
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: people coming as he spoke. And then it may mean death.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Now tell me, she said. They tried to stop my coming.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: How And as I came out of my workshop where
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I make the food of the gods for the causes
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to store in their camp, I found a little officer
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of police, a man in blue with white clean gloves,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: who begoned me to stop. This way is closed, said he.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I thought little of that. I read round my workshops
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: on another road runs west, and there was another officer.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: This road is closed, he said, and added all the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: roads are closed. And then I argued with him a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: little They are public roads, I said, that's it, said he.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: You swore them for the public very well, said I,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I'll take to the fields, And then up lapped others
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: from behind a hedge and said, these fields are private. Curse,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: you're public and private. I said, I'm going to my princess.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And I stooped down and picked him up very gently,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: kicking and shout him, and put him out of my way.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And a minute all the fields about me seemed to
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: lie with running men. I saw one on horseback, gallant
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: thing beside me and reading something as he rode, shouting it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: He finished and turned and galloped away from me, head down.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't make it out. And then behind me I
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: heard the crack of guns, guns, guns, just as they
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: shooted the rats. The bullets came through the air with
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a sound like things tearing. One stung me in the leg.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And you came on to you here, and then left
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: them shouting and running and shooting behind me. And now
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: now it is only the beginning. They mean that we
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: shall part, even now they are coming after me. We
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: will not. No. But if we will not part, then
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you must come with me to our brothers. Which ways,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: he said, to the east, yonders away, my pursuers will
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: be coming. This then is the way we must go
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: along this avenue of trees. Let me go first, so
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that if they are waiting. He made a stride, but
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: she had seized his arm. No cried she, I come
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: close to you, holding you. Perhaps I am royal, Perhaps
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I am sacred. If I hold you would God be
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: we could fly with my arms about you. It may
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: be they will not shoot at you. She clasped his
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: shoulder and seized his hand. As she spoke, she pressed
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: herself nearer to him. It may be they will not
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: shoot you, she repeated, and with a sudden passion of tenderness,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: he took her into his arms and kissed her cheek.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: For a space he held her, even if it is death,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: she whispered. She put her hands about his neck and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: lifted her face to his dearest, kiss me once more.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: He drew her to him. Silently. They kissed one another
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: on the lips, and for another moment clung to one another,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: then hand in hand, and she striving always to keep
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: her body nearer his. They set forward, if haply they
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: might reach the camp of refuge the sons of Cossar
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: had made before the pursuit of the little people overtook them.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: And as they crossed the great spaces of the park
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: behind the castle, there came horsemen galloping out from among
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the trees and vainly seeking to keep pace with their
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: giant strides, and prisonly ahead of them were houses and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: men with guns running out of the houses. At the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: sight of that, though he sought to go on, and
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: was ever even disposed to fight, and pushed through, she
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: made him turn aside towards the south. As they fled,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: a bullet would by them overhead. End of book three,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Chapter two of The Food of the Gods and How
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: It Came to Earth. Recording by Alexei to Lander, Davis, California,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: www dot alyxtlander dot com