Latest / Tales of the Long Bow / 001 - The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane

Transcript

001 - The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane · Tales of the Long Bow

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter one of Tales of the Longbow this LibriVox recording.
0:06
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
0:09
Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
0:15
Speaker 1: by Waine Cook. Tales of the Longbow by G. K. Chesterton,
0:21
Speaker 1: Chapter one, The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane. These tales
0:29
Speaker 1: concern the doing of things recognized as impossible to do,
0:34
Speaker 1: impossible to believe, and, as the weary reader may well
0:38
Speaker 1: cry aloud, impossible to read about. Did the narrator merely
0:44
Speaker 1: say that they happened without saying how they happened? They
0:49
Speaker 1: could easily be classified with the cow who jumped over
0:52
Speaker 1: the moon and the more introspective individual who jumped down
0:57
Speaker 1: his own throat. In short, they are all tall stories.
1:03
Speaker 1: And though tall stories may also be true stories, there
1:07
Speaker 1: is something in the very phrase appropriate to such a
1:10
Speaker 1: topsy turvidom, for the logician will presumably class a tall
1:15
Speaker 1: story with a corpulent epigram or a long legged essay.
1:21
Speaker 1: It is only proper that such impossible incidents should begin
1:26
Speaker 1: in the most prim and prosaic of all places, at
1:29
Speaker 1: the most prim and prosaic of all times, and apparently
1:35
Speaker 1: with the most prim and prosaic of all human beings.
1:40
Speaker 1: The place was a straight suburban road of strictly fenced
1:44
Speaker 1: suburban houses on the outskirts of a modern town. The
1:49
Speaker 1: time was about twenty minutes to eleven on Sunday morning,
1:53
Speaker 1: when a procession of suburban families in their Sunday clothes
1:58
Speaker 1: were passing decorous up the road to church. And the
2:03
Speaker 1: man was a very respectable retired military man named Colonel Crane,
2:08
Speaker 1: who was also going to church, as he had done
2:11
Speaker 1: every Sunday at the same hour for a long stretch
2:14
Speaker 1: of years. There was no obvious difference between them and
2:19
Speaker 1: his neighbors, except that he was a little less obvious.
2:25
Speaker 1: His house was only called White Lodge, and was therefore
2:29
Speaker 1: less alluring to the romantic passer by than rowan Mere
2:33
Speaker 1: on the one side, or Heatherbray on the other. He
2:38
Speaker 1: turned out spick and span for church as if for parade,
2:43
Speaker 1: but he was much too well dressed to be pointed
2:46
Speaker 1: out as a well dressed man. He was quite handsome
2:50
Speaker 1: in a dry sun baked style, but his bleached blonde
2:55
Speaker 1: hair was a colorless sort that could look either light
2:59
Speaker 1: brown or hale gray. And though his blue eyes were clear,
3:04
Speaker 1: they looked out a little heavily under lowered lids. Colonel
3:09
Speaker 1: Crane was something of a survival. He was not really old, indeed,
3:14
Speaker 1: he was barely middle aged, and had gained his last
3:18
Speaker 1: distinctions in the Great War. But a variety of causes
3:22
Speaker 1: has kept him true to the traditional type of the
3:26
Speaker 1: old professional soldier as it had existed before nineteen fourteen.
3:32
Speaker 1: When a small perish would have only one colonel, as
3:35
Speaker 1: it had only one curate, it would be quite unjust
3:41
Speaker 1: to call him a dugout. Indeed, it would be much
3:45
Speaker 1: truer to call him a dug in, for he had
3:48
Speaker 1: remained in the traditions as firmly and patiently as he
3:53
Speaker 1: had remained in the trenches. He was simply a man
3:57
Speaker 1: who happened to have no taste for change his habits,
4:01
Speaker 1: and had never worried about conventions enough to alter them.
4:07
Speaker 1: One of his excellent habits was to go to church
4:09
Speaker 1: at eleven o'clock, and he therefore went there, and did
4:14
Speaker 1: not know that there went with him something of an
4:18
Speaker 1: old world air and a passage in the history of England.
4:23
Speaker 1: As he came out of his front door. However, on
4:26
Speaker 1: that particular morning, he was twisting a scrap of paper
4:30
Speaker 1: in his fingers and frowning with somewhat unusual perplexity. Instead
4:35
Speaker 1: of walking straight to his garden gate, he walked once
4:38
Speaker 1: or twice up and down his front garden, swinging his
4:42
Speaker 1: black walking cane. The note had been handed into him
4:46
Speaker 1: at breakfast, and it evidently involved some practical problem calling
4:52
Speaker 1: for an immediate solution. He stood a few minutes with
4:56
Speaker 1: his eye riveted on a red daisy at the corner
4:59
Speaker 1: of the nearest flower, and then a new expression began
5:03
Speaker 1: to work in the muscles of his bronzed face, giving
5:07
Speaker 1: him a slightly grim hint of humor of which few
5:11
Speaker 1: except his intimates were aware. Folding up the paper and
5:15
Speaker 1: putting it into his waistcoat pocket, he strolled round the
5:19
Speaker 1: house to the back garden, behind which was the kitchen garden,
5:24
Speaker 1: in which an old servant, a sort of factotum or
5:27
Speaker 1: handyman named Archer, was acting as kitchen gardener. Archer also
5:34
Speaker 1: was a survival. Indeed, the two had survived together, had
5:39
Speaker 1: survived a number of things that had killed a good
5:41
Speaker 1: many other people. But though they had been together through
5:46
Speaker 1: the war that was also a revolution, and had a
5:49
Speaker 1: complete confidence in each other. The man archer had never
5:53
Speaker 1: been able to lose the oppressive manners of a man servant.
5:58
Speaker 1: He performed the duties of a gardener with the air
6:02
Speaker 1: of a butler. He really performed the duties very well
6:06
Speaker 1: and enjoyed them very much. Perhaps he enjoyed them all
6:10
Speaker 1: the more because he was a clever cockney to whom
6:14
Speaker 1: the country crafts were a new hobby. But somehow, whenever
6:20
Speaker 1: he said the seats, sir, it always sounded like I
6:25
Speaker 1: have put the sherry on the table, sir, And he
6:29
Speaker 1: could not say shaw I put our carrots without seeming
6:34
Speaker 1: to say, would you be requiring the claret? I help you?
6:40
Speaker 1: Not working on Sunday, said the colonel, with a much
6:43
Speaker 1: more pleasant smile than most people got from him, though
6:47
Speaker 1: he was always polite to everybody. You're getting too fond
6:51
Speaker 1: of these royal pursuits. You've become a rustic yokel. Al
6:56
Speaker 1: was venturing to examine the cabbage, Sir, replied the rustic yokel,
7:01
Speaker 1: with a painful precision of articulation without condition. Yesterday evening
7:07
Speaker 1: didn't strike me as being satisfactory. Glad you didn't sit
7:11
Speaker 1: up with them, answered the colonel. But it's luckily you're
7:14
Speaker 1: interested in cabbages. I want to talk to you about cabbages.
7:20
Speaker 1: About cabbages, Sir inquired the other respectfully, but the Colonel
7:25
Speaker 1: did not appear to pursue the topic, for he was
7:28
Speaker 1: gazing in sudden abstraction at another object in the vegetable
7:33
Speaker 1: plots in front of him. The colonel's garden, like the
7:37
Speaker 1: colonel's house, hat coat and demeanor, was well appointed in
7:42
Speaker 1: an unobtrusive fashion, and in the part of it devoted
7:46
Speaker 1: to flowers, there dwelt something indefinable that seemed older than
7:51
Speaker 1: the suburbs. The hedges, even in being as neat as Surbiton,
7:57
Speaker 1: managed to look as mellow as Hampton Court, as if
8:01
Speaker 1: their very artificiality belonged rather to Queen Anne than Queen Victoria,
8:08
Speaker 1: and the stone rimmed pond with a ring of irises
8:11
Speaker 1: somehow looked like a classic pool, and not merely an
8:15
Speaker 1: artificial puddle. It is idle to analyze how a man's
8:20
Speaker 1: soul and social type will somehow sulk into his surroundings. Anyhow,
8:26
Speaker 1: the soul of mister Archer had sunk into the kitchen
8:29
Speaker 1: garden so as to give it a fine shade of difference.
8:34
Speaker 1: He was, after all a practical man, and the practice
8:37
Speaker 1: of his new trade was much more of a real
8:40
Speaker 1: appetite with him than his words would suggest. Hence the
8:45
Speaker 1: kitchen garden was not artificial but autochthenous. It really looked
8:51
Speaker 1: like a corner of a farm in the country, and
8:53
Speaker 1: all sorts of practical devices were set up there. Strawberries
8:58
Speaker 1: were netted in against the birds, strings were stretched across
9:02
Speaker 1: with feathers fluttering from them, and in the middle of
9:05
Speaker 1: the principal bed stood an ancient and authentic scarecrow, perhaps
9:11
Speaker 1: the only incongruous intruder capable of disputing with the scarecrow.
9:16
Speaker 1: His rural reign was the curious boundary stone, which marked
9:20
Speaker 1: the edge of his domain, and which was in fact
9:25
Speaker 1: a shapeless south Sea idol, planted there with no more
9:29
Speaker 1: appropriateness than a door scraper. But Colonel Crane would not
9:34
Speaker 1: have been so complete a type of the old army
9:37
Speaker 1: man if he had not hidden somewhere a hobby connected
9:42
Speaker 1: with his travels. His hobby had at one time been
9:46
Speaker 1: savage folklore, and he had the relic of it on
9:50
Speaker 1: the edge of the kitchen garden at the moment, however,
9:54
Speaker 1: he was not looking at the idol, but at the
9:58
Speaker 1: scarecrow by the way, Archer, he said, don't you think
10:03
Speaker 1: the scarecrow wants a new hat? Archi'd only think overnessray, sir,
10:09
Speaker 1: said the gardener gravely. But look here, said the colonel.
10:14
Speaker 1: You must consider the philosophy of scarecrows, in theory that
10:18
Speaker 1: is supposed to convince some rather simple minded bird that
10:22
Speaker 1: I am walking in my garden. That thing with the
10:26
Speaker 1: unmentionable hat is me a trifle sketchy, perhaps sort of
10:32
Speaker 1: impressionous portrait, but hardly likely to impress. Man with a
10:37
Speaker 1: hat like that would never be really firm with a sparrow,
10:41
Speaker 1: conflict of wills and all that. And I bets a
10:44
Speaker 1: sparrow would come out on top. By the way, what's
10:47
Speaker 1: that stick tight? Unto it? I believe, sir, said archer.
10:52
Speaker 1: It is a wolster who represent a gun held at
10:56
Speaker 1: a highly unconvincing angle, observed crane. Man with hat like
11:01
Speaker 1: that would be sure to miss. Will you desol me
11:05
Speaker 1: to procure another hat, inquired the patient archer. No, no,
11:11
Speaker 1: answered his master carelessly, As the poor fellow's got such
11:14
Speaker 1: a rotten hat. I'll give him mine, like the scene
11:18
Speaker 1: of Saint Martin and the beggar, give yours, repeated Archer, respectfully,
11:24
Speaker 1: but faintly. The colonel took off his burnished top hat
11:28
Speaker 1: and gravely placed it on the head of the south
11:31
Speaker 1: Sea idol at his feet. It had a queer effect
11:35
Speaker 1: of bringing the grotesque lump of stone to life, as
11:38
Speaker 1: if a goblin in a top hat was grinning at
11:41
Speaker 1: the garden. You think the hat shouldn't be quite so new,
11:46
Speaker 1: he inquired, almost anxiously. Not done among the best scarecrows. Perhaps, Well,
11:51
Speaker 1: let's see what we can do to mellow it a little.
11:55
Speaker 1: He whirled up his walking stick over his head and
11:58
Speaker 1: laid a smacking stroke across the silk hat, smashing it
12:02
Speaker 1: over the hollow eyes of the idol. Softened with the
12:06
Speaker 1: touch of time now, I think, he remarked, holding out
12:10
Speaker 1: the silken remnants to the gardener. Put it on the scarecrow.
12:14
Speaker 1: My friend, I don't want it. You can bear witness.
12:18
Speaker 1: It's no use to me. Archer obeyed, like an automaton,
12:22
Speaker 1: an automaton with rather round eyes. We must hurry up,
12:27
Speaker 1: said the colonel cheerfully. I was early for church. But
12:30
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'm a bit late. Now do you propose
12:33
Speaker 1: to attend your without an at sah? Asked the other.
12:38
Speaker 1: Certainly not, most irreverent, said the colonel. Nobody should neglect
12:43
Speaker 1: to remove his hat on entering church. Well, if I
12:46
Speaker 1: haven't caught a hat, I shall neglect to remove it.
12:49
Speaker 1: Where is your reasoning power this morning? No? Now, just
12:52
Speaker 1: dig up one of your cabbages. Once more, The well
12:56
Speaker 1: trained servant managed to repeat the word catges with his
13:01
Speaker 1: own strict accent, but in its construction there was a
13:05
Speaker 1: hint of strangulation. Yes, go and pull up a cabbage.
13:09
Speaker 1: There's a good fellow, said the colonel. I really must
13:12
Speaker 1: be getting long. I believe I heard at strike eleven,
13:16
Speaker 1: mister Archer moved heavily in the direction of the plot
13:19
Speaker 1: of cabbages, which swelled with monstrous contours and many colors.
13:25
Speaker 1: Objects perhaps more worthy of the philosophic eye than is
13:29
Speaker 1: taken into account by the more flippant tongue. Vegetables are
13:34
Speaker 1: curious looking things, and less commonplace than they sound. If
13:39
Speaker 1: we called a cabbage a cactus, or some such queer name,
13:44
Speaker 1: we might see it as an equally queer thing. These
13:48
Speaker 1: philosophical truths did the colonel reveal by anticipating the dubious
13:53
Speaker 1: archer and dragging a great green cabbage with its trailing
13:57
Speaker 1: root out of the earth. He then picked up a
14:00
Speaker 1: sort of pruning knife and cut short the long tail
14:03
Speaker 1: of the route, scooped out the inside leaves so as
14:07
Speaker 1: to make a sort of hollow, and gravely reversing it,
14:12
Speaker 1: placed it on his head. Napoleon and other military princes
14:18
Speaker 1: have crowned themselves, and he, like the Caesars, wore a
14:23
Speaker 1: wreath that was, after all, made of green leaves or vegetation.
14:29
Speaker 1: Doubtless there are other comparisons that might occur to any
14:33
Speaker 1: philosophical historian who should look at it in the abstract.
14:38
Speaker 1: The people going to church certainly looked at it, but
14:42
Speaker 1: they did not look at it in the abstract. To them,
14:46
Speaker 1: it appeared singularly concrete, and indeed incredibly solid. The inhabitants
14:54
Speaker 1: of Roanmere and heather Bray followed the colonel as he
14:59
Speaker 1: strode almost jauntily up the road, with feelings that no
15:03
Speaker 1: philosophy could, for the moment meet. There seemed to be
15:08
Speaker 1: nothing to be said except that one of the most
15:11
Speaker 1: respectable and respected of their neighbors, one who might even
15:17
Speaker 1: be called, in a quiet way, a pattern of good form,
15:21
Speaker 1: if not a leader of fashion was walking solemnly up
15:26
Speaker 1: to church with a cabbage on the top of his head.
15:31
Speaker 1: There was indeed no corporate action to meet the crisis.
15:36
Speaker 1: Their world was not yet one in which a crowd
15:40
Speaker 1: can collect to shout, and still less to cheer. No
15:45
Speaker 1: rotten eggs could be collected from their tidy breakfast tables,
15:49
Speaker 1: and they were not of the sort to throw cabbage
15:51
Speaker 1: stalks at the cabbage. Perhaps there was just that amount
15:56
Speaker 1: of truth in the pathetically picturesque names on their front gate,
16:01
Speaker 1: name suggestive of mountains and mighty lakes, concealed somewhere on
16:05
Speaker 1: the premises. It was true that, in one sense such
16:10
Speaker 1: a house was a hermitage. Each of these men lived alone,
16:14
Speaker 1: and they could not be made into a mob. For
16:18
Speaker 1: miles around there was no public house and no public opinion.
16:24
Speaker 1: As the colonel approached the church porch and prepared reverently
16:28
Speaker 1: to remove his vegetarian headgear, he was hailed in a
16:33
Speaker 1: tone a little more hearty than the humane civility that
16:37
Speaker 1: was the slender bond of that society. He returned the
16:41
Speaker 1: greeting without embarrassment, and paused a moment as the man
16:46
Speaker 1: who had spoken to him plunged into further speech. He
16:50
Speaker 1: was a young doctor named Horace Hunter, tall, handsomely dressed,
16:54
Speaker 1: and confident in manner, and though his features were rather
16:59
Speaker 1: plain and his hair rather red, he was considered to
17:03
Speaker 1: have a certain fascination. Good morning, colonel, said the doctor,
17:08
Speaker 1: in his resounding tones, What a ferm m, What a
17:12
Speaker 1: fine day it is. Stars turned from their courses like comets,
17:17
Speaker 1: so to speak, and the world swerved into wilder possibilities
17:23
Speaker 1: at that crucial moment when doctor Hunter corrected himself and said,
17:28
Speaker 1: what a fine day instead of what a funny hat.
17:34
Speaker 1: As to why he corrected himself, a true picture of
17:38
Speaker 1: what passed through his mind might sound rather fanciful in itself.
17:44
Speaker 1: It would be less than explicit to say that he
17:46
Speaker 1: did so because of a long gray car waiting outside
17:50
Speaker 1: the White Lodge. It might not be a complete explanation
17:55
Speaker 1: to say it was due to a lady walking on
17:58
Speaker 1: stilts at a garden park. Some obscurity might remain even
18:04
Speaker 1: if we said that it had something to do with
18:07
Speaker 1: a soft shirt and a nickname. Nevertheless, all these things
18:13
Speaker 1: mingled in the medical gentleman's mind when he made his
18:16
Speaker 1: hurried decision. Above all, it might or might not be
18:22
Speaker 1: sufficient explanation to say that Horace Hunter was a very
18:26
Speaker 1: ambitious young man, that the ring in his voice and
18:30
Speaker 1: the confidence in his manner came from a very simple
18:33
Speaker 1: resolution to rise in the world, and that the world
18:37
Speaker 1: in question was rather worldly. He liked to be seen
18:44
Speaker 1: talking so confidently to Colonel Crane on that Sunday parade.
18:49
Speaker 1: Crane was comparatively poor, but he knew people, and people
18:54
Speaker 1: who knew people knew what people were doing now, whereas
19:00
Speaker 1: people who didn't know people could only wonder what in
19:04
Speaker 1: the world people would do next. A lady who came
19:10
Speaker 1: with the Duchess when she opened the bazaar had nodded
19:13
Speaker 1: to Crane and said hello, stalk, and the doctor had
19:19
Speaker 1: deduced that it was a sort of family joke and
19:23
Speaker 1: not a momentary ornithological confusion. And it was the Duchess
19:29
Speaker 1: who had started all that raising on stilts which the
19:33
Speaker 1: Vernon Smiths had introduced at Heatherbray. But it would have
19:37
Speaker 1: been devilish awkward not to have known what missus Vernon
19:40
Speaker 1: Smith meant when she said, of course you still it.
19:45
Speaker 1: You never knew what they would start next. He remembered
19:49
Speaker 1: how he himself had thought the first man in his
19:53
Speaker 1: soft shirt front was some funny fellow from nowhere, and
19:57
Speaker 1: then he began to see others here and there, and
20:01
Speaker 1: had found out that it was not a faux pas
20:04
Speaker 1: but a fashion. It was odd to imagine he would
20:08
Speaker 1: ever begin to see vegetable hats here and there, but
20:12
Speaker 1: you could never tell, and he wasn't going to make
20:16
Speaker 1: the same mistake again. His first medical impulse had been
20:21
Speaker 1: to add to the colonel's fancy costume with a straight waistcoat.
20:27
Speaker 1: But Crane did not look like a lunatic, and certainly
20:31
Speaker 1: did not look like a man playing a practical joke.
20:35
Speaker 1: He had not the stiff and self conscious solemnity of
20:39
Speaker 1: the joker. He took it quite naturally, and one thing
20:43
Speaker 1: was certain. If it really was the latest thing, the
20:48
Speaker 1: doctor must take it as naturally as the colonel did. So,
20:52
Speaker 1: he said it was a fine day, and was gratified
20:55
Speaker 1: to learn that there was no disagreement on that question.
21:00
Speaker 1: The doctor's dilemma, if we may apply the phrase, had
21:04
Speaker 1: been the whole neighborhood's dilemma. The doctor's decision was also
21:09
Speaker 1: the whole neighborhood's decision. It was not so much that
21:13
Speaker 1: most of the good people there shared and hunter serious
21:17
Speaker 1: social ambitions, but rather that they were naturally prone to
21:21
Speaker 1: negative and cautious decisions. They lived in a delicate dread
21:28
Speaker 1: of being interfered with, and they were just enough to
21:33
Speaker 1: apply the principle by not interfering with other people. They
21:38
Speaker 1: had also a subconscious sense that the mild and respectable
21:42
Speaker 1: military gentleman would not be altogether an easy person to
21:47
Speaker 1: interfere with. The consequence was that the colonel carried his
21:52
Speaker 1: monstrous green headgear about the streets of that suburb for
21:57
Speaker 1: nearly a week, and nobody ever mentioned the subject to him.
22:02
Speaker 1: It was about the end of that time, while the
22:05
Speaker 1: doctor had been scanning the horizon for aristocrats crowned with cabbage,
22:10
Speaker 1: and not seeing any, was summoning his natural impudence to speak,
22:17
Speaker 1: that the final interruption came. And with the interruption the explanation,
22:24
Speaker 1: the colonel had every appearance of having forgotten all about
22:28
Speaker 1: the hat. He took it off and on, like any
22:31
Speaker 1: other hat. He hung it on the hat peg in
22:34
Speaker 1: his narrow front hall, where there was nothing else but
22:37
Speaker 1: his sword, hung on two hooks, and an old brown
22:41
Speaker 1: map of the seventeenth century. He handed it to Archer
22:45
Speaker 1: when that correct character seemed to insist on his official
22:49
Speaker 1: right to hold it. He did not insist on his
22:52
Speaker 1: official right to brush it, for fear it should fall
22:56
Speaker 1: to pieces. But he occasionally gave it a cautious shake,
23:01
Speaker 1: accompanied with a look of restrained distaste. But the colonel
23:06
Speaker 1: himself never had any appearance of either like or disliking it.
23:12
Speaker 1: The unconventional thing had already become one of his conventions,
23:17
Speaker 1: the conventions which he never considered enough to violate. It
23:22
Speaker 1: is probable, therefore, that what ultimately took place was as
23:28
Speaker 1: much of a surprise to him as to anybody. Anyhow,
23:33
Speaker 1: The explanation or explosion came in the following fashion. Mister
23:39
Speaker 1: Vernon Smith, the mountaineer whose foot was on his native
23:43
Speaker 1: heath at Heatherbray, was a small, dapper gentleman with a
23:48
Speaker 1: big bridged nose, dark mustache, and dark eyes, with a
23:53
Speaker 1: settled expression of anxiety, though nobody knew what there was
23:57
Speaker 1: to be anxious about. In his very solidary social existence,
24:02
Speaker 1: he was a friend of doctor Hunter. One might almost say,
24:06
Speaker 1: a humble friend, for he had the negative snobbishness that
24:10
Speaker 1: could only admire the positive and progressive snobbishness of that
24:15
Speaker 1: soaring and social figure. A man like doctor Hunter likes
24:19
Speaker 1: to have a man like mister Smith before whom he
24:23
Speaker 1: can pose as a perfect man of the world. What
24:26
Speaker 1: appears more extraordinary, A man like mister Smith really likes
24:31
Speaker 1: to have a man like doctor Hunter to pose at him,
24:34
Speaker 1: and swagger over him and snub him. Anyhow, Vernon Smith
24:41
Speaker 1: had ventured to hint that the new hat of his
24:43
Speaker 1: neighbor Crane was not of a pattern familiar in every
24:47
Speaker 1: fashion plate, and doctor Hunter, bursting with the secret of
24:52
Speaker 1: his own original diplomacy, had snubbed the suggestion and snowed
24:57
Speaker 1: it under with frosty scorn, With shrewd resolute gestures, with large,
25:04
Speaker 1: lusy phrases. He had left on his friend's mind the
25:07
Speaker 1: impression that the whole social world would dissolve if a
25:12
Speaker 1: word were said on so delicate a topic. Mister Vernon
25:16
Speaker 1: Smith formed a general idea that the Colonel would explode
25:20
Speaker 1: with a loud bang at the very vaguest allusion to
25:24
Speaker 1: vegetables or the most harmless ademibration or verbal shadow of
25:29
Speaker 1: a hat, as usually happens in such cases. The words
25:34
Speaker 1: he was forbidden to say repeated themselves perpetually in his mind,
25:39
Speaker 1: with the rhythmic pressure of a pulse. It was his
25:43
Speaker 1: temptation at the moment to call all houses hats and
25:48
Speaker 1: all visitors vegetables. When Crane came out of his front
25:53
Speaker 1: gate that morning, he found his neighbor, Vernon Smith, standing
25:58
Speaker 1: outside between the spreading laburnum and the lamppost, talking to
26:03
Speaker 1: a young lady, a distant cousin of his family. This
26:07
Speaker 1: girl was an art student on her own, a little
26:10
Speaker 1: too much on her own for the standards of heather Bray,
26:14
Speaker 1: and therefore somewhat infer yet further beyond those of White Lodge.
26:20
Speaker 1: Her brown hair was bobbed, and the Colonel did not
26:24
Speaker 1: admire bobbed hair. On the other hand, she had a
26:29
Speaker 1: rather attractive face, with honest brown eyes a little too
26:33
Speaker 1: wide apart, which diminished the impression of beauty but increased
26:39
Speaker 1: the impression of honesty. She also had a very fresh
26:42
Speaker 1: and unaffected voice, and the Colonel had often heard it
26:46
Speaker 1: calling out scores at tennis on the other side of
26:49
Speaker 1: the garden wall. In some vague sort of way. It
26:53
Speaker 1: made him feel old. At least, he was not sure
26:57
Speaker 1: whether he felt older than he was or younger than
27:01
Speaker 1: he ought to be. It was not until they met
27:04
Speaker 1: under the lamp post that he knew her name was
27:07
Speaker 1: Audrey Smith, and he was faintly thankful for this single
27:12
Speaker 1: monosyllable Mister Vernon Smith presented her and very nearly said,
27:18
Speaker 1: may I introduce my cabbage instead of my cousin. The colonel,
27:24
Speaker 1: with unaffected dulness, said it was a fine day, and
27:29
Speaker 1: his neighbor, rallying from his last narrow escape, continued the
27:34
Speaker 1: talk with animation. His manner, as when he poked his
27:38
Speaker 1: big nose and beady black eyes into local meetings and committees,
27:43
Speaker 1: was at once hesitating and emphatic. This young lady is
27:48
Speaker 1: going in for art, he said, A poor lookout, isn't it.
27:53
Speaker 1: I expect we shall see her drawings in chalk on
27:55
Speaker 1: the paving stones, and expecting us to throw a penny
27:58
Speaker 1: into the into a tray or something. Here he had
28:03
Speaker 1: dodged another danger. But of course she thinks she is
28:07
Speaker 1: going to be an r a. I hope not, said
28:11
Speaker 1: the young woman, hotly pavement artists are much more honest
28:14
Speaker 1: than most of the r a's. I wish those friends
28:19
Speaker 1: of yours didn't give you such revolutionary ideas, said mister
28:23
Speaker 1: Vernon Smith. My cousin knows the most dreadful cranks, vegetarians
28:28
Speaker 1: and socialists. He chanced it, feeling that vegetarians were not
28:34
Speaker 1: quite the same as vegetables, and he felt sure the
28:37
Speaker 1: Colonel would share his horror of socialists, people who want
28:42
Speaker 1: is to be equal in all that. What I say
28:44
Speaker 1: is we're not equal and never can be. As I
28:47
Speaker 1: always say to Adri, if all the property we divided tomorrow,
28:51
Speaker 1: it would go back into the same hands as the
28:53
Speaker 1: law of nature. And if a man thinks he can
28:56
Speaker 1: get round a law of nature, why he's talking through
28:59
Speaker 1: his I mean he's mad as a uh recoiling from
29:03
Speaker 1: the omnipresent image. He groped madly in his mind for
29:07
Speaker 1: the alternative of a march hare, but before he could
29:12
Speaker 1: find it, the girl had cut in and completed sentence.
29:16
Speaker 1: She smiled serenely and said, in her clear and ringing tones,
29:21
Speaker 1: as bad as Colonel Crane's hatter, it is not unjust
29:27
Speaker 1: to mister Vernon Smith to say that he fled as
29:30
Speaker 1: from a dynamite explosion. It would be unjust to say
29:35
Speaker 1: that he deserted a lady in distress, for she did
29:38
Speaker 1: not look in the least like a distressed lady, and
29:42
Speaker 1: he himself was a very distressed gentleman. He attempted to
29:48
Speaker 1: wafer indoors with some wild pretext, and eventually vanished there
29:53
Speaker 1: himself with an equally random apology. But the other two
29:58
Speaker 1: took no notice of him. They continued to confront each other,
30:02
Speaker 1: and both were smiling. I think you must be the
30:06
Speaker 1: bravest man in England, she said. I don't mean anything
30:11
Speaker 1: about the war or the d s O and all
30:14
Speaker 1: that I mean about this. Oh oh yes, I do
30:17
Speaker 1: know a little about you, but there's one thing I
30:19
Speaker 1: don't know. Why do you do it? I think it
30:23
Speaker 1: is you who are the bravest woman in England, he answered,
30:26
Speaker 1: or at any rate, the bravest person in these parts.
30:29
Speaker 1: I've walked about this town for a week feeling like
30:32
Speaker 1: the last fool in creation and expecting somebody to say something,
30:37
Speaker 1: and not a soul has said a word. They seem
30:40
Speaker 1: all to be afraid of saying the wrong thing. I
30:43
Speaker 1: think they're deadly observed miss Smith. And if they don't
30:47
Speaker 1: have cabbages for hats, it's only because they have turnips
30:50
Speaker 1: for heads. No, said the colonel gently, I have many
30:55
Speaker 1: generous and friendly neighbors here, including your cousin. Believe me,
30:59
Speaker 1: there's a caste for conventions, and the world is wiser
31:02
Speaker 1: than you know. You are too young not to be intolerant,
31:06
Speaker 1: but I can see you've got the fighting spirit that
31:09
Speaker 1: is the best part of youth and intolerance. When you
31:13
Speaker 1: said that word just now, by jove, you look like Britamart.
31:17
Speaker 1: She is the militant suffragette and the fairy queen, isn't
31:20
Speaker 1: she answered the girl. I'm afraid I don't know my
31:23
Speaker 1: English literature as well as you do. You see, I'm
31:25
Speaker 1: an artist, or trying to be one, and some people
31:28
Speaker 1: say that narrows a person, but I can't help getting
31:32
Speaker 1: cross with all the barnest vulgarity they talk about everything.
31:36
Speaker 1: Look what he said about socialism. It was a little superficial,
31:40
Speaker 1: said Crane with a smile. And that, she concluded, is
31:44
Speaker 1: why I admire your hat, though I don't know why
31:47
Speaker 1: you wear it. This trivial conversation had a curious effect
31:52
Speaker 1: on the colonel there went with it a sort of
31:55
Speaker 1: warmth and a sense of crisis that he had not
31:58
Speaker 1: known since the war. A sudden purpose formed itself in
32:02
Speaker 1: his mind, and he spoke like one stepping across a frontier.
32:07
Speaker 1: Miss Smith. He said, I wonder if I might ask
32:11
Speaker 1: you to pay me a further compliment. It may be unconventional,
32:15
Speaker 1: but I believe you do not stand on these conventions.
32:18
Speaker 1: And our friend of mine will be calling on me
32:20
Speaker 1: shortly to wind up the rather unusual business or ceremonial
32:25
Speaker 1: of which you have chanced to see a part. If
32:28
Speaker 1: you would do me the honor of lunch with me
32:30
Speaker 1: tomorrow at half past one, the true story of the
32:33
Speaker 1: cabbage awaits you. I promise that you shall hear the
32:37
Speaker 1: real reason. I might even say, promise that you shall
32:41
Speaker 1: see the real reason why. Of course I will, said
32:45
Speaker 1: the unconventional one heartily, thanks awfully. The colonel took an
32:51
Speaker 1: intense interest in the appointments of the luncheon next day.
32:55
Speaker 1: With subconscious surprise, he found himself not only interested but excited.
33:02
Speaker 1: Like many of his type, he took pleasure in doing
33:05
Speaker 1: such things well, and he knew his way about in
33:08
Speaker 1: wine and cookery. But that would not alone explain his pleasure,
33:13
Speaker 1: for he knew that young women generally know very little
33:16
Speaker 1: about wine and emancipated young women, possibly least of all.
33:22
Speaker 1: And though he meant the cookery to be good, he
33:25
Speaker 1: knew that in one feature it would appear rather fantastic. Again,
33:30
Speaker 1: he was a good natured gentleman who would always have
33:33
Speaker 1: liked young people to enjoy a luncheon party, as he
33:37
Speaker 1: would have liked a child to enjoy a Christmas tree.
33:41
Speaker 1: But there seemed no reason why he should be restless
33:44
Speaker 1: and expectant about it, as if he were the child himself.
33:48
Speaker 1: There was no reason why he should have a sort
33:50
Speaker 1: of happy insomnia like a child on Christmas Eve. There
33:56
Speaker 1: was really no excuse for his pacing up and down
33:59
Speaker 1: the garden with his cigar smoking furiously far into the night.
34:04
Speaker 1: For as he gazed at the purple irises and the
34:07
Speaker 1: gray pool in the faint moonshine, something in his feelings passed,
34:12
Speaker 1: as if from the one tint to the other he
34:16
Speaker 1: had a new and unexpected reaction. For the first time,
34:22
Speaker 1: he really hated the masquerade he had made himself endure.
34:27
Speaker 1: He wished he could smash the cabbage as he had
34:30
Speaker 1: smashed the top hat. He was little more than forty
34:34
Speaker 1: years old, but he had never realized how much there
34:39
Speaker 1: was of what was dried and faded about his flippancy,
34:43
Speaker 1: till he felt unexpectedly swelling within him the monstrous and
34:49
Speaker 1: solemn vanity of a young man. Sometimes he looked up
34:54
Speaker 1: at the picturesque, the two picturesque outline of the villain
34:59
Speaker 1: next dark against the moonrise, and thought he heard faint
35:04
Speaker 1: voices in it, and something like a laugh. The visitor
35:10
Speaker 1: who called on the Colonel next morning may have been
35:13
Speaker 1: an old friend, but he was certainly an odd contrast.
35:18
Speaker 1: He was a very abstracted, rather untidy man in a
35:22
Speaker 1: rusty knickerbocker suit. He had a long head with straight
35:27
Speaker 1: hair of the dark red called auburn, one or two
35:30
Speaker 1: wisps of which stood on end, however he brushed it,
35:35
Speaker 1: and a long face, clean shaven and heavy about the
35:39
Speaker 1: jaw and chin, which he had a way of sinking
35:43
Speaker 1: and settling squarely into his cravat. His name was Hood,
35:48
Speaker 1: and he was apparently a lawyer, though he had not
35:52
Speaker 1: come on strictly legal business anyhow. He exchanged greetings with
35:57
Speaker 1: Crane with a quiet warmth and gratification, smiled at the
36:01
Speaker 1: old man servant as if he were an old joke,
36:04
Speaker 1: and showed every sign of an appetite for his luncheon.
36:08
Speaker 1: The appointed day was singularly warm and bright, and everything
36:12
Speaker 1: in the garden seemed to glitter. The goblin god of
36:16
Speaker 1: the south seas seemed really to grin, and the scarecrow
36:21
Speaker 1: really to have a new hat. The irises round the
36:25
Speaker 1: pool were swinging and flapping in a light breeze, and
36:29
Speaker 1: he remembered they were called flags, and thought of purple
36:33
Speaker 1: banners going into battle. She had come suddenly around the
36:38
Speaker 1: corner of the house. Her dress was of a dark
36:42
Speaker 1: but vivid blue, very plain and angular in outline, but
36:46
Speaker 1: not outrageously artistic, and in the morning light she looked
36:51
Speaker 1: less like a school girl and more like a serious
36:55
Speaker 1: woman of twenty five or thirty, a little older and
36:59
Speaker 1: a great deal more interesting. And something in this morning's
37:03
Speaker 1: seriousness increased the reaction of the night before. One single
37:09
Speaker 1: wave of thanksgiving went up from Crane to think that
37:13
Speaker 1: at least his grotesque green hat was gone and done
37:18
Speaker 1: with forever. He had worn it for a week without
37:21
Speaker 1: caring a curse for anybody. But during that ten minutes
37:26
Speaker 1: trivial talk under the lamp post, he felt as if
37:30
Speaker 1: he had suddenly grown Donkey's ears in the street. He
37:36
Speaker 1: had been reduced by the sunny weather to have a
37:38
Speaker 1: little table laid for three in a sort of veranda
37:41
Speaker 1: open to the garden. When the three sat down to it,
37:45
Speaker 1: he looked across at the lady had said a fear,
37:48
Speaker 1: I must exhibit myself as a crank, one of those
37:52
Speaker 1: cranks your cousin disapproves of, miss Smith. I hope it
37:55
Speaker 1: once spoiled this little luncheon for anybody else. But am
37:59
Speaker 1: going to have a vegetarian meal? Are you? She said?
38:04
Speaker 1: I should never have said you looked like a vegetarian.
38:07
Speaker 1: Just lately I've looked only like a fool, he said dispassionately.
38:12
Speaker 1: But I think I'd sooner look a fool than a
38:15
Speaker 1: vegetarian in the ordinary way. This is a rather special occasion.
38:21
Speaker 1: Perhaps my friend Hood had better begin. It's really his
38:24
Speaker 1: story more than mine. My name is Robert Owen, Hood
38:30
Speaker 1: said that gentleman, rather sardonically. That's how improbable reminiscences often begin.
38:37
Speaker 1: But the only point now is that my old friend
38:40
Speaker 1: here insulted me horribly by calling me Robin Hood. I
38:45
Speaker 1: should have called it a compliment, answered Audrey Smith. But
38:49
Speaker 1: why did he call you Robin Hood? Because I drew
38:54
Speaker 1: the long bow, said the lawyer. But to do you justice,
38:59
Speaker 1: said the colonel, it seems that you hit the bull's eye.
39:03
Speaker 1: As he spoke, Archer came in bearing a dish, which
39:06
Speaker 1: he placed before his master. He had already served the
39:09
Speaker 1: others with the earlier courses, but he carried this one
39:13
Speaker 1: with a pomp of one bringing in the boar's head
39:15
Speaker 1: at Christmas. It consisted of a plain boiled cabbage. I
39:22
Speaker 1: was challenged to do something went on hood, which my
39:26
Speaker 1: friend here declared to be impossible. In fact, any sane
39:30
Speaker 1: man would have declared it to be impossible. But I
39:33
Speaker 1: did it for all that only my friend, in the
39:36
Speaker 1: heat of rejecting and ridiculing the notion, made use of
39:40
Speaker 1: a hasty, solemnly expression. I might almost say he made
39:44
Speaker 1: a rash vow. My exact words were, said, Colonel Crane, solemnly.
39:50
Speaker 1: If you can do that, I'll eat my hat. He
39:55
Speaker 1: leaned forward thoughtfully and began to eat it. Then he
39:59
Speaker 1: resumed in the same reflective way. You see, all rash
40:03
Speaker 1: vows are verbal or nothing. There might be a debate
40:07
Speaker 1: about the logical and literal way in which my friend
40:10
Speaker 1: had fulfilled his rash vow, But I put it to
40:13
Speaker 1: myself in the same pedantic sort of way. It wasn't
40:17
Speaker 1: possible to eat any hat that I wore, but it
40:20
Speaker 1: might be possible to wear a hat that I could eat.
40:24
Speaker 1: Articles of dress could hardly be used for diet, but
40:27
Speaker 1: articles of diet could really be used for dress. It
40:31
Speaker 1: seemed to me that I might fairly be said to
40:33
Speaker 1: have made it my hat if I was systematically as
40:37
Speaker 1: a hat and no other. Putting up with all the disadvantages,
40:41
Speaker 1: making a blasted fool of myself was the fair price
40:45
Speaker 1: to be paid for the vow or wager. For one
40:48
Speaker 1: ought always to lose something on a wager. And he
40:52
Speaker 1: rose from the table with a gesture of apology. The
40:56
Speaker 1: girl stood up, I think as perfectly splendid, said, it's
41:01
Speaker 1: as well as one of those stories about looking for
41:03
Speaker 1: the holy Grail. The lawyer also had risen rather abruptly,
41:09
Speaker 1: and stood, stroking his long chin with his thumb and
41:12
Speaker 1: looking at his old friend under bent brows in a
41:16
Speaker 1: rather reflective manner. Well, you've subpoenaed me here as a witness,
41:20
Speaker 1: all right, he said, And now, with the permission of
41:23
Speaker 1: the court, I'll leave the witness box. I'm afraid I
41:27
Speaker 1: must be going. I've got important business at home. Good Bye,
41:31
Speaker 1: miss Smith. The girl returned his farewell a little mechanically,
41:35
Speaker 1: and Crane seemed to recover suddenly from a similar trance
41:40
Speaker 1: as he stepped after the retreating figure of his friend.
41:43
Speaker 1: I say, Owen, he said, hastily. I'm sorry you're leaving
41:47
Speaker 1: so early. Must you really go, yes, replied Owen Hood gravely.
41:54
Speaker 1: My private affairs are quite real and practical, I assure you.
41:59
Speaker 1: His grave man worked a little humorously at the corners
42:02
Speaker 1: as he added. The truth is, I don't think I
42:06
Speaker 1: mentioned it a bit. I'm thinking of getting married, buried,
42:10
Speaker 1: repeated the colonel, as if thunderstruck. Thanks for your compliments
42:15
Speaker 1: and congratulations, old fellow, said the sartic mister Hood. Yes,
42:20
Speaker 1: it's all been thought out. I have even decided whom
42:24
Speaker 1: I am going to marry. She knows about it herself.
42:27
Speaker 1: She has been warned. I really beg your pardon, said
42:31
Speaker 1: the colonel, in great distress. Of course, I congratulate you
42:34
Speaker 1: most heartily. And her even more heartily. Of course, I'm
42:38
Speaker 1: delighted to hear it. The truth is I was surprised,
42:41
Speaker 1: not so much in that way, not so much in
42:45
Speaker 1: what way, asked Hood. I suppose you mean that some
42:49
Speaker 1: would say I am on the way to be an
42:51
Speaker 1: old bachelor. But I've discovered it isn't half as much
42:54
Speaker 1: a matter of years as of ways. Men like me
42:58
Speaker 1: get elderly, more by choice than chance, And there's more
43:01
Speaker 1: choice and less chance in life than your modern fatalists
43:05
Speaker 1: make out. For such people. Fatalism falsifies even chronology. They're
43:11
Speaker 1: not unmarried because they're old. They're old because they're unmarried. Indeed,
43:17
Speaker 1: you are mistaken, said Crane earnestly, as I say, I
43:21
Speaker 1: was surprised, But my surprise was not so rude as
43:23
Speaker 1: you think. It wasn't that I thought there was anything
43:26
Speaker 1: unfitting about somehow. It was rather the other way, as
43:30
Speaker 1: if things could fit better than one thought, as if
43:34
Speaker 1: men anyhow little as I know about it, I really
43:37
Speaker 1: do congratulate you. I'll tell you about it before long,
43:41
Speaker 1: replied his friend. It's enough to say that it is
43:44
Speaker 1: now that it was all bound up with my succeeding.
43:48
Speaker 1: After all, in doing what I did. She was the inspiration.
43:52
Speaker 1: You know, I have done what is called an impossible thing,
43:56
Speaker 1: but believe me, she is really the impossible part. Well,
44:01
Speaker 1: I must not keep you from such an impossible engagement,
44:05
Speaker 1: said Crane, smiling. Really, I'm confoundedly glad to hear all this. Well,
44:09
Speaker 1: goodbye for the present. Colonel Crane stood watching the square
44:14
Speaker 1: shoulders and rested main of his old friend as they
44:17
Speaker 1: disappeared down the road. In a rather indescribable state of mind.
44:22
Speaker 1: As he turned hastily back towards his garden and his
44:24
Speaker 1: other guest, he was conscious of a change. Things seemed
44:29
Speaker 1: different in some light headed and iological fashion. He could
44:33
Speaker 1: not himself trace the connection. Indeed, he did not know
44:38
Speaker 1: whether it was a connection or a disconnection. He was
44:42
Speaker 1: very far from being a fool, But his brains were
44:46
Speaker 1: of the sort that are directed outwards to things, the
44:49
Speaker 1: brains of the soldier or the scientific man, and he
44:53
Speaker 1: had no practice in analyzing his own mind. He did
44:58
Speaker 1: not quite understand why the news about owen Hood should
45:02
Speaker 1: give him that dazed sense of a difference in things
45:06
Speaker 1: in general. Doubtless, he was very fond of owen Hood,
45:10
Speaker 1: but he had been fond of other people who got
45:13
Speaker 1: married without especially disturbing the atmosphere in his own back garden.
45:19
Speaker 1: He even dimply felt that mere affection might have worked
45:23
Speaker 1: the other way. That might have made him worry about
45:26
Speaker 1: Hood and wonder whether Hood was making a fool of himself,
45:31
Speaker 1: or even feel suspicious or jealous of missus Hood. If
45:35
Speaker 1: there had not been something else that made him feel
45:39
Speaker 1: quite the other way, he could not quite understand it.
45:43
Speaker 1: There seemed to be an increasing number of things that
45:46
Speaker 1: he could not understand. This world, in which he himself
45:50
Speaker 1: wore garlands of green cabbage, and in which his old
45:54
Speaker 1: friend the lawyer, got married suddenly like a man going mad.
45:59
Speaker 1: This world was a new world, at once fresh and frightening,
46:04
Speaker 1: in which he could hardly understand the figures that were
46:07
Speaker 1: walking about, even his own. The flowers in the flower
46:11
Speaker 1: pots had a new look about them, at once bright
46:16
Speaker 1: and nameless, And even the line of vegetables beyond could
46:20
Speaker 1: not altogether depress him with the memories of recent levity.
46:24
Speaker 1: Had he indeed been a prophet or a visionary seeing
46:28
Speaker 1: the future, he might have seen that green line of
46:32
Speaker 1: cabbages extending infinitely like a green sea to the horizon,
46:37
Speaker 1: For he stood at the beginning of a story which
46:40
Speaker 1: was not to terminate until his incongruous cabbage had come
46:45
Speaker 1: to mean something that he had never meant by it
46:49
Speaker 1: that green patch was to spread, like a great green conflagration,
46:54
Speaker 1: almost to the ends of the earth. But he was
46:58
Speaker 1: a practical person, and the very reverse of a prophet,
47:02
Speaker 1: And like many other practical persons, he often did things
47:06
Speaker 1: without very clearly knowing what he was doing. He had
47:10
Speaker 1: the innocence of some patriarch or primitive hero in the
47:14
Speaker 1: morning of the world, founding more than he could himself
47:18
Speaker 1: realize of his legend and his line. Indeed, he felt
47:24
Speaker 1: very much like somebody in the mourning of the world.
47:27
Speaker 1: But beyond that he could grasp nothing. Audrey Smith was
47:33
Speaker 1: standing not so very many yards away, for it was
47:36
Speaker 1: only for a few strides that he had followed his
47:39
Speaker 1: elder guest towards the gate. Yet her figure had fallen
47:43
Speaker 1: far enough back out of the foreground to take on
47:46
Speaker 1: the green framework of the garden, so that her dress
47:49
Speaker 1: might almost have been blue with a shade of distance.
47:53
Speaker 1: And when she spoke to him, even from that little
47:57
Speaker 1: way off, her voice took on in ever vi a
48:01
Speaker 1: new suggestion of one calling out familiarly and from afar
48:06
Speaker 1: off as one calls to an old companion. It moved
48:11
Speaker 1: him in a disproportionate fashion, though all she said was
48:16
Speaker 1: what became of your old hat? I lost it, he
48:19
Speaker 1: replied gravely. Obviously I had to lose it. I believe
48:23
Speaker 1: the scarecrow found it. Oh do, Let's go and look
48:27
Speaker 1: at the scarecrow, she cried. He led her without a
48:30
Speaker 1: word to the kitchen garden and gravely explained each of
48:34
Speaker 1: its outstanding features. From this serious mister Archer, resting on
48:39
Speaker 1: his spade, to the grotesque south the island God grinning
48:43
Speaker 1: at the corner of the plot. He spoke as with
48:47
Speaker 1: an increasing solemnity and verbosity, and all the time knew
48:52
Speaker 1: little or nothing of what he said. At last, she
48:55
Speaker 1: cut into his monolog with an abstraction that was almost rufe.
49:00
Speaker 1: Yet her brown eyes were bright and her sympathy undisguised.
49:06
Speaker 1: Don't talk about it, she cried, with illogical enthusiasm. It
49:11
Speaker 1: looks as if we were right in the middle of
49:13
Speaker 1: the country. It's as unique as the garden of Eden.
49:17
Speaker 1: It's simply the most delightful place. It was at this moment,
49:22
Speaker 1: for some unaccountable reason that the colonel who had lost
49:27
Speaker 1: his hat suddenly proceeded to lose his head. Standing in
49:33
Speaker 1: that grotesque, vegetable scenery, a black and stiff, yet somehow
49:39
Speaker 1: stately figure, he proceeded in the most traditional manner to
49:44
Speaker 1: offer the lady everything he possessed, not forgetting the scarecrow
49:50
Speaker 1: or the cabbages, a half humorous memory of which returned
49:54
Speaker 1: to him with the boomerang of bathos. When I think
49:59
Speaker 1: of the inc umbrances on the estate, he concluded gloomily. Well,
50:04
Speaker 1: there they are a scarecrow and a cannibal fetish, and
50:08
Speaker 1: a stupid man who has stuck in a wret of
50:11
Speaker 1: respectability and conventional ways. Very conventional, she said, especially in
50:17
Speaker 1: his taste and hats. That was the exception. I'm afraid,
50:22
Speaker 1: he said earnestly. You'll find these things very rare, and
50:26
Speaker 1: most things very dull. I can't help having fallen in
50:32
Speaker 1: love with you. But for all that, we are in
50:36
Speaker 1: different worlds, and you belong to a younger world, which
50:40
Speaker 1: says what it thinks and cannot see what most of
50:43
Speaker 1: our silences and our scruples meant. I suppose we are
50:48
Speaker 1: very rude, she said thoughtfully, And you must certainly excuse
50:53
Speaker 1: me if I do say what I think. I deserve
50:56
Speaker 1: no better, he replied mournfully. Well, I think I must
51:03
Speaker 1: be in love with you too, she replied, calmly. I
51:07
Speaker 1: don't see what time has to do with being fond
51:10
Speaker 1: of people. You are the most original person I ever knew.
51:14
Speaker 1: My dear, My dear, he protested, almost brokenly, I fear
51:19
Speaker 1: you are making a mistake. Whatever else I am, I
51:22
Speaker 1: am never set up to be original. You must remember,
51:27
Speaker 1: She replied that I have known a good many people
51:31
Speaker 1: who did set up to be original. An art school
51:34
Speaker 1: swarms with them, and are any number among those socialists
51:38
Speaker 1: and vegetarian friends of mine you were talking about. They
51:42
Speaker 1: would think nothing of wearing cabbages on their heads. Of course,
51:45
Speaker 1: any one of them would to be capable of getting
51:48
Speaker 1: inside a pumpkin if he could. Any one of them
51:51
Speaker 1: might appear in public dressed entirely in watercress, but that's
51:56
Speaker 1: just it. They might well wear watercress, for there are
51:59
Speaker 1: water creatures. They go with the stream. They do those
52:04
Speaker 1: things because those things are done, because they are done
52:07
Speaker 1: in their own bohemian set. Unconventionality is their convention. I
52:13
Speaker 1: don't mind it myself. I think it's great fun. But
52:16
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that I don't know real strength or
52:19
Speaker 1: independence when I see it. All that is just molten informless.
52:24
Speaker 1: But the really strong man is one who can make
52:27
Speaker 1: a mold and then break it. When a man like
52:30
Speaker 1: you can suddenly do a thing like that after twenty
52:33
Speaker 1: years of habit for the sake of his word, then
52:37
Speaker 1: somehow one really does feel that man is man and
52:41
Speaker 1: master of his fate. I doubt that I am messed
52:46
Speaker 1: of my fate, replied Crane, and I do not know
52:50
Speaker 1: whether I cease to be yesterday or two minutes ago.
52:55
Speaker 1: He stood there for a moment like a man in
52:57
Speaker 1: heavy armor. Indeed, the antiquate image is not inappropriate. And
53:02
Speaker 1: more ways than one, the new world within him was
53:06
Speaker 1: so alien from the whole habit in which he lived,
53:10
Speaker 1: from the very gait and gestures of his daily life,
53:13
Speaker 1: conducted through countless days, that his spirit had striven before
53:18
Speaker 1: it broke its shell. But it was also true that
53:22
Speaker 1: even if he could have done what every man wishes
53:24
Speaker 1: to do at such a moment, something supreme and satisfying,
53:30
Speaker 1: it would have been something in a sense formal, or
53:33
Speaker 1: it would not have satisfied him. He was one of
53:37
Speaker 1: those to whom it is natural to be ceremonial. Even
53:42
Speaker 1: the music in his mind, too deep and distant for
53:45
Speaker 1: him to catch or echo, was the music of old
53:49
Speaker 1: and ritual dances, and not of revelry. And it was
53:53
Speaker 1: not for nothing that he had built gradually about him
53:57
Speaker 1: that garden of the gray Stone Fountain, and the great
54:01
Speaker 1: hedge of you. He bent suddenly and kissed her hand.
54:08
Speaker 1: I like that, she said, You ought to have powdered
54:12
Speaker 1: hair and a sword. I apologize, he said, gravely. No
54:17
Speaker 1: mordred man is worthy of you. But indeed I fear
54:21
Speaker 1: in every sense I am not a very modern man.
54:26
Speaker 1: You must never wear that hat again, she said, indicating
54:29
Speaker 1: the battered original topper. To tell the truth, he observed mildly.
54:35
Speaker 1: I had not any attention of resuming that one. Silly,
54:40
Speaker 1: she said, briefly. I don't mean that hat. I mean
54:44
Speaker 1: that sort of hat. As a matter of fact, there
54:47
Speaker 1: can to be a finer hat than the cabbage, my dear,
54:52
Speaker 1: he protested, but she was loinging at him quite seriously.
54:56
Speaker 1: I told you I was an artist, and I don't
54:58
Speaker 1: know much about literature, She said, well, you do know it.
55:02
Speaker 1: It does really make a difference. Literary people let words
55:07
Speaker 1: get between them and things. We do, at least look
55:10
Speaker 1: at the things and not the names of the things.
55:14
Speaker 1: You think a cabbage is comic because the name sounds
55:17
Speaker 1: comic and even vulgar, something between cab and garbage, I suppose.
55:23
Speaker 1: But cabbage isn't really comic of vulgar. You wouldn't think
55:26
Speaker 1: so if you simply had to paint it. Haven't you
55:29
Speaker 1: seen Dutch Flemish galleries? And don't you know what great
55:32
Speaker 1: men painted cabbages. What they saw was certain colors and lines,
55:38
Speaker 1: very wonderful lines and colors. It may be all very
55:43
Speaker 1: well in a picture, he began, doubtfully. She suddenly laughed aloud,
55:49
Speaker 1: You idiot, she cried, don't you know you look perfectly splendid.
55:54
Speaker 1: The curves were like a great turban of leaves, and
55:57
Speaker 1: the root rose like the spike of a helmet. It
56:00
Speaker 1: was rather like the turbaned helmets on some of Rembrandt's figures,
56:04
Speaker 1: with a face like bronze and the shadows of green
56:07
Speaker 1: and purple. That's the sort of thing artists can see
56:11
Speaker 1: who keep their eyes and heads clear of words, And
56:15
Speaker 1: then you want to apologize for not wearing that stupid
56:19
Speaker 1: stove pipe covered with blacking when you went about wearing
56:22
Speaker 1: a colored crown like a king, and you were like
56:25
Speaker 1: a king in this country, for they all were afraid
56:29
Speaker 1: of you. As he continued a fraint protest, her laughter
56:34
Speaker 1: took on a more mischievous shade. If you'd stuck to
56:39
Speaker 1: it a little longer, I'd swear they'd all been wearing
56:43
Speaker 1: vegetables for hats. I swear I saw my cousin the
56:47
Speaker 1: other day standing with a sort of trowel and looking
56:50
Speaker 1: irresolutely at a cabbage. Then, after pause, she said, with
56:56
Speaker 1: a beautiful irreverency, what was it, mister Hood? Did you said?
57:00
Speaker 1: He couldn't do? But these are tales of topsy turvidom,
57:06
Speaker 1: even in the sense that they have to be told
57:09
Speaker 1: tale foremost, And he who would know the answer to
57:13
Speaker 1: that question must deliver himself up to the intolerable tedium
57:17
Speaker 1: of reading the story of the improbable success of mister
57:22
Speaker 1: owen Hood, and an interval must be allowed him before
57:26
Speaker 1: such torments are renewed. End of chapter one