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Men Like Gods Book 3 Chapter 4 - The Return of the Earthling · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section sixteen of Men Like Gods. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Men
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Speaker 1: Like Gods by H. G. Wells, Chapter sixteen. Too soon
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Speaker 1: the morning came when mister Barnstaple was to look his
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Speaker 1: last upon the fair hills of Utopia and face the
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Speaker 1: great experiment to which he had given himself. He had
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Speaker 1: been loath to sleep, and he had slept little that night,
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Speaker 1: and in the early dawn he was abroad, wearing for
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Speaker 1: the last time the sandals and the light white robe
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Speaker 1: that had become his utopian costume. Presently he would have
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Speaker 1: to struggle into socks and boots and trousers and collar,
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Speaker 1: the strangest gear. It would choke him, he felt, And
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Speaker 1: he stretched his bare arms to the sky and yawned
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Speaker 1: and breathed his lungs full. The valley below, still drowsed
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Speaker 1: beneath a coverlet of fleece he miss. He turned his
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Speaker 1: face uphill the sooner to meet the sun. Never before
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Speaker 1: had he been out among the utopian flowers at such
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Speaker 1: an early hour. It was amusing to see how some
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Speaker 1: of the great turnips had still drooped to sleep, and
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Speaker 1: many of the large blossoms were furled and hung. Many
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Speaker 1: of the leaves, too, were wrapped up as limp as
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Speaker 1: new hatched moths. The gossamer spiders had been busy, and
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Speaker 1: everything was very wet with dew. A great tiger came
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Speaker 1: upon him suddenly out of a side path, and stared
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Speaker 1: hard at him for some moments with round yellow eyes.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps it was trying to remember the forgotten instincts of
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Speaker 1: its breed. Some way up the road, he passed under
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Speaker 1: a vermilion archway and went up a flight of stone
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Speaker 1: stairs that promised to bring him earlier to the crest.
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Speaker 1: A number of friendly little birds, very gayly colored, flew
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Speaker 1: about him for a time, and one purchased impudently upon
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Speaker 1: his shoulder, but when he put up his hand to
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Speaker 1: caress it, it evaded him and flew away. He was
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Speaker 1: still ascending the staircase when the sun rose. It was
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Speaker 1: as if the hillside slipped off a veil of gray
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Speaker 1: and blue and barred the golden beauty of its body.
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Speaker 1: Mister Barnstable came to a landing place upon the staircase
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Speaker 1: and stopped and stood very still, watching the sunrise, search
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Speaker 1: and quicken the brooding deeps of the valley below. Far away,
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Speaker 1: like an arrow shot from east to west, appeared a
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Speaker 1: line of dazzling brightness on the sea serenity. He murmured, beauty,
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Speaker 1: all the works of men in perfect harmony, mines brought
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Speaker 1: to harmony according to his journalistic habit. He tried over phrases,
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Speaker 1: an energetic peace, confusions dispersed, a world of spirits crystal clear.
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Speaker 1: What was the use of words? For a time he
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Speaker 1: stood quite still, listening, for from the slow slope above,
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Speaker 1: a lark had gone heavenward, sprang sweet notes. He tried
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Speaker 1: to see that little speck of song, and was blinded
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Speaker 1: by the brightness, brightening blue of the sky. Presently the
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Speaker 1: lark came down and ceased. Utopia was silent, except for
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Speaker 1: a burst of childish laughter somewhere on the hillside below.
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Speaker 1: It dawned upon mister Barnstable, how peaceful was the Utopian
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Speaker 1: air in comparison with the tormented atmosphere of Earth. Here
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Speaker 1: was no yelping and howling of tired or irritated dogs,
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Speaker 1: no braying, bellowing, squealing, and distressful outcries of uneasy beasts,
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Speaker 1: no farmyard clamor, no shouts of anger, no barking and coughing,
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Speaker 1: No sounds of hammering, beating, sawing, grinding, mechanical hooting, whistling,
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Speaker 1: screaming in the lake, No clattering of distant trains, clanking
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Speaker 1: of automobile or other ill contrived mechanisms. The tiresome and
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Speaker 1: ugly noises of many an unpleasant creature were heard no more.
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Speaker 1: In Utopia. The ear, like the eye, was at peace.
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Speaker 1: The air, which had once been a mud of felted noises,
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Speaker 1: was now purified silence. Such sounds as one heard lay
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Speaker 1: upon like beautiful printing on a general sheet of fine paper.
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Speaker 1: His eyes returned to the landscape below, as the last
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Speaker 1: fleecy vestiges of mist dissolved away. Water tanks, roads, bridges, buildings, embankments, colonnades, groves, gardens, channels, cascades,
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Speaker 1: and fountains grew multitudinously clear, framed under a branch of
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Speaker 1: dark foliage, from a white stem to tree that gripped
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Speaker 1: a hole among the rocks at his side. Three thousand
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Speaker 1: years ago, this was a world like ours. Think of
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Speaker 1: it in a hundred generations. In three thousand years we
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Speaker 1: might make our poor waste of an earth, jungle and desert, slag, heap,
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Speaker 1: and slum into another such heaven of beauty and power.
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Speaker 1: Worlds there similar, but not the same. If I could
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Speaker 1: tell them what I have seen, suppose all men could
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Speaker 1: have visited Utopia, they would not believe it. If I
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Speaker 1: told them, no, they would bray like asses at me
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Speaker 1: and bark like dogs. They will have no world but
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Speaker 1: their own world. It hurts them to think of any
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Speaker 1: world but their own. Nothing can be done that has
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Speaker 1: not been done already. To think otherwise would be humiliation, death, torture, futility,
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Speaker 1: anything but humiliation. So they must sit among their weeds
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Speaker 1: and excrement, scratching and nodding stagely at one another, hoping
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Speaker 1: for a good dogfight, and to gloat upon pain and effort.
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Speaker 1: They do not share. Sure that mankind stank, stinks, and
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Speaker 1: must always stink. That stinking is very pleasant. Indeed, there
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Speaker 1: was nothing new under the sun. His thoughts were diverted
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Speaker 1: by two young girls who came running, one after the
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Speaker 1: other up the staircase. One was dark even to duskiness,
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Speaker 1: and her hands were full of blue flowers. The other,
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Speaker 1: who pursued her, was a year or so younger and
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Speaker 1: golden fair. They were full of limitless excitement of young
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Speaker 1: animals at play. The former one was so intent upon
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Speaker 1: the other that she discovered mister Barnstaple with a squeak
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Speaker 1: of surprise. After she had got into his landing. She
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Speaker 1: stared at him with a quick glance of inquiry, flashed
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Speaker 1: into impudent roguery, flung two blue flowers in his face,
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Speaker 1: and was off up the steps above. Her companion, intent
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Speaker 1: on capture, flew by. They flickered up the staircase like
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Speaker 1: two butterflies of buff and pink, halted far above, and
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Speaker 1: came together for a momentary consultation about the stranger, waved
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Speaker 1: hands at him, and vanished. Mister Barnstaple returned their greeting
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Speaker 1: and remained cheered. Point to which Licknus had directed mister
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Speaker 1: Barnstables stood out on the ridge between the great valley
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Speaker 1: in which he had spent the last few days and
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Speaker 1: a wild and steep glen, down which ran a torrent
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Speaker 1: that was dustined after some hundred of miles of winding
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Speaker 1: to reach the river of the plain. The viewpoint was
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Speaker 1: on the crest of a crag. It had been built
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Speaker 1: out upon great brackets, so that it hung sheer over
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Speaker 1: a bend in the torrent. Below, on the one hand,
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Speaker 1: was mountainous scenery and a rich of picturesque foam of
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Speaker 1: green vegetation in the depths. On the other spread the
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Speaker 1: broad garden spaces of a perfected landscape. For a time
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Speaker 1: mister Barnstable scrutinized this glen, into which he looked for
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Speaker 1: the first time, five hundred feet or so below him,
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Speaker 1: so that he felt he could have dropped a pebble
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Speaker 1: upon its outstretched wings. A buzzard was soaring. Many of
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Speaker 1: the trees below he thought must be fruit trees, but
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Speaker 1: they were too far off to see distinctly. Here and
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Speaker 1: there he would distinguish a footpath winding up among the
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Speaker 1: trees and rocks, And among the green masses were little
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Speaker 1: pavilions in which he knew the wayfarers might rest and
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Speaker 1: make tea for himself, and find biscuits and suchlike refreshments,
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Speaker 1: and possibly a couch and a book. The whole world,
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Speaker 1: he knew, was full of such summer houses and kindly shelters.
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Speaker 1: After a time he went back to the side of
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Speaker 1: this view place, up which he had come and regarded
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Speaker 1: the great valley that went out towards the sea, The
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Speaker 1: word pishka floated through his mind, For indeed below him
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Speaker 1: was the promised land of human desires, here at last
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Speaker 1: established and secure peace, power, health, happy activity, length of days,
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Speaker 1: and beauty. All that we seek was found here, and
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Speaker 1: every dream was realized. How long would it be? How
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Speaker 1: many centuries or thousands of years before a man would
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Speaker 1: be able to stand upon some high place on Earth
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Speaker 1: also and see mankind triumphant and holy and forever at peace.
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Speaker 1: He folded his arms under him upon the parapet and
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Speaker 1: mused profoundly. There was no knowledge in this utopia of
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Speaker 1: which Earth had not the germs. There was no power
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Speaker 1: used here. The earthlings might not use here but for
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Speaker 1: ignorance and darkness, and the spites of malice they permit.
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Speaker 1: Was Earth today towards such a world as this utopia?
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Speaker 1: Mister Barnstaple had been striving weekly all his life. If
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Speaker 1: the experiment before him succeeded, If presently he found himself
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Speaker 1: alive again on Earth, it would still be towards utopia
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Speaker 1: that his life would be directed, and he would not
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Speaker 1: be alone on Earth. There must be thousands, tens of thousands,
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Speaker 1: perhaps one hundreds of thousands, who were also struggling in
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Speaker 1: their minds and acts to find a way of escape
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Speaker 1: for themselves and for their children from the disorders and
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Speaker 1: indignities of the Age of Confusion. Hundreds of thousands who
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Speaker 1: wanted to put an end to wars and wait, to
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Speaker 1: heal and educate and restore, to set up the banner
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Speaker 1: of utopia over the shams and divisions that waste mankind. Yes,
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Speaker 1: but we failed, said mister Barnstable, and walked fretfully to
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Speaker 1: and fro tens and hundreds of thousands of men and women,
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Speaker 1: and we achieved so little. Perhaps every young man and
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Speaker 1: every young woman has had some dream at least of
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Speaker 1: serving and bettering the world. And we are scattered and wasted,
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Speaker 1: and the old things and the foul things, customs, delusions, habits,
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Speaker 1: tolerated treasons, base immediacies triumph over us. He went to
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Speaker 1: the parapet again and stood with his foot on a seat,
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Speaker 1: his elbow on his knee, and his chin in his hand,
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Speaker 1: staring at the loveliness of this world. He was to leave,
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Speaker 1: so soon we could do it. And suddenly it was
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Speaker 1: born in upon mister Barnstable, that he belonged now, soul
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Speaker 1: and body, to the Revolution, to the great revolution that
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Speaker 1: is a foot on earth, that marches and will never
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Speaker 1: desist nor rest again until old Earth is one city
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Speaker 1: and utopia set therein. He knew clearly that this revolution
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Speaker 1: is life, and that all other living is a trafficking
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Speaker 1: of life with death. And as this crystallized out in
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Speaker 1: his mind, he knew instantly that so presently it would
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Speaker 1: crystallize out in the minds of countless others, of those
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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of men and women on Earth whose
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Speaker 1: minds are set towards utopia. He stood there, he began
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Speaker 1: walking to and fro we shall do it, he said.
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Speaker 1: Earthly thought was barely awakened as yet to the task
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Speaker 1: and the possibilities before mankind. All human history so far
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Speaker 1: had been no more than the stirring of a sleeper,
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Speaker 1: a gathering discontent, a rebellion against the limitations set upon life,
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Speaker 1: the unintelligent protest of thwarted imaginations. All the conflicts and
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Speaker 1: insurrections and revolutions that had ever been on earth were
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Speaker 1: but indistinct preludes of the revolution that had still to come.
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Speaker 1: When he had started out upon this fantastic holiday, mister
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Speaker 1: Barnstable realized he had been in a mood of depression.
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Speaker 1: Earthly affairs had seemed utterly confused and hopeless to him.
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Speaker 1: But now with the viewpoint of utopia achieved, and with
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Speaker 1: his health renewed, he could see plainly enough how steadily
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Speaker 1: men on earth were feeling their way now, failure after failure,
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Speaker 1: towards the opening drive of the final revolution. He could
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Speaker 1: see a man in his own lifetime had been struggling
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Speaker 1: out of such entanglements as the lies of monarchy, the
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Speaker 1: lies of dogmatic religion and dogmatic morality, towards public self
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Speaker 1: respect and cleanliness of mind and body. They struggled now
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Speaker 1: also towards international charity and the liberation of their common
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Speaker 1: economic life from a network of pretenses, dishonesty, and impostures.
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Speaker 1: There is confusion in all struggles, retractions, and defeats, But
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Speaker 1: the whole effect, seen from the calm height of utopia,
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Speaker 1: was one of steadfast advance. There were blunders, there will
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Speaker 1: be setbacks, because the force of revolution still worked in
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Speaker 1: the twilight. The great effort and the great failure of
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Speaker 1: the socialist movement to create a new state in the
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Speaker 1: world had been contemporariously with mister Barnstable's life. Socialism had
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Speaker 1: been the gospel of his boyhood. He had participated in
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Speaker 1: its hopes, its doubts, its bitter internal conflicts. He had
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Speaker 1: seen the movement losing sweetness and gathering force in the
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Speaker 1: narrowness of the Marxist formula. He had seen it sacrifice
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Speaker 1: its constructive power for militant intensity in Russia. He had
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Speaker 1: marked its ability to overthrow, its inability to plan or build.
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Speaker 1: Like every liberal spirit in the world, he had shared
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Speaker 1: the chill of Bolshevik presumption and Bolshevik failure. And for
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Speaker 1: a time it had seemed to him that his open
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Speaker 1: bankruptcy of a great creative impulse was no less and
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Speaker 1: no more than a victory for reaction, that it gave
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Speaker 1: renewed life to all the shams impostures, corruptions, traditional anarchies,
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Speaker 1: and ascendancies that restrain and cripple human life. But now
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Speaker 1: from this high viewpoint in utopia, he saw clearly that
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Speaker 1: the phoenix of revolution flames down to ashes, only to
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Speaker 1: be born again. While the news is fitted round the
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Speaker 1: teacher's neck, the youths are reading his teachings. Revolutions arise
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Speaker 1: and die. The great revolution comes incessantly and inevitably. The
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Speaker 1: time was near, and in what life was left to him,
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Speaker 1: he himself might help to bring it near. And when
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Speaker 1: the forces of that last and real revolution would work
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Speaker 1: no longer in the twilight, but in the dawn, and
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Speaker 1: the thousand sorts of men and women, now far apart
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Speaker 1: and unorganized and mutually antagonistic, would be drawn together by
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Speaker 1: the growth of a common vision the world desired. The
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Speaker 1: Marxist had wasted the forces of revolution for fifty years.
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Speaker 1: He had had no vision. He had had only a
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Speaker 1: condemnation for established things. He had estranged all scientific enable
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Speaker 1: men by his pompous affectiation of the scientific. He had
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Speaker 1: terrified them by his intolerant orthodoxy. His delusion that all
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Speaker 1: ideas are begotten by material circumstances had made him negligent
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Speaker 1: of education and criticism. He had attempted to build social
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Speaker 1: unity on heat, and rejected every other driving force for
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Speaker 1: the bitterness of class war. But now, in its days
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Speaker 1: of doubt and exhaustion, vision was returning to socialism, and
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Speaker 1: the dreary spectacle of proletariat dictatorship gave way once more
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Speaker 1: to utopia, to the demand for a world fairly and
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Speaker 1: righteously at peace, its resources husbanded and exploited for the
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Speaker 1: common good, its every citizen free not only from servitude
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Speaker 1: but from ignorance, and its surplus energies directed said vastly
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Speaker 1: to the increase of knowledge and beauty. The attainment of
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Speaker 1: that vision by more and more minds was a thing
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Speaker 1: now no longer to be prevented. Earth would tread the
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Speaker 1: path Utopia had trod. She too, would weave law, duty,
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Speaker 1: and education into a larger sanity than man had ever known.
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Speaker 1: Men also would presently laugh at the things they had feared,
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Speaker 1: and brush aside the impostors that had overawed them, and
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Speaker 1: the absurdities that had tormented and crippled their lives. And
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Speaker 1: as this great revolution was achieved and Earth wheeled into daylight,
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Speaker 1: the burthen of human misery would lift and courage oust
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Speaker 1: sorrow from the hearts of men. Earth, which was now
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Speaker 1: no more than a wilderness, sometimes horrible and at best picturesque,
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Speaker 1: a wilderness inter shape with weedy scratchings for food, and
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Speaker 1: with hovels and slums and slag heaps. Earth too, would
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Speaker 1: grow rich with loveliness and fair, as this great land was.
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Speaker 1: Fair of Earth, also purified from disease, sweet minded and
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Speaker 1: strong and beautiful, would go proudly about their conquered planet
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Speaker 1: and lift their daring to the stars. Given the will,
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Speaker 1: said mister Barnstable, Given only the will. From some distant place,
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Speaker 1: came the sound of a sweet toned bell striking the hour.
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Speaker 1: The time for the serfs which he was dedicated, was
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Speaker 1: drawing near. He must descend and be taken to the
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Speaker 1: place where the experiment was to be made. He took
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Speaker 1: one last look at the glen, and then went back
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Speaker 1: to the broad prospectus of the great valley, with its
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Speaker 1: lakes and tanks and terraces, its groves and pavilions, its
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Speaker 1: busy buildings and high viaducts, its wide slopes of sunlits cultivation,
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Speaker 1: its universal gracious amenity. Farewell, Utopia, he said, and was
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Speaker 1: astonished to discover how deeply his emotions were stirred dear
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Speaker 1: dream of hope and loveliness. Farewell. He stood quite still,
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Speaker 1: in a mood of sorrowful deprivation, too deep for tears.
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Speaker 1: It seemed to him that the spirit of Utopia bent
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Speaker 1: down over him like a goddess, friendly, adorable, and inaccessible.
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Speaker 1: His very mind stood still. Never he whispered at last
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Speaker 1: for me, except to serve no. Presently he began to
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Speaker 1: descend the steps that wound down from the viewpoint. For
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Speaker 1: a time he noted little of things immediately about him.
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Speaker 1: Then the scent of roses evaded his attention, and he
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Speaker 1: found himself walking down a slanted pergola covered with great
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Speaker 1: white roses and very active with little green birds. He
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Speaker 1: stopped short and stood looking up at the leaves, light
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Speaker 1: saturated against the sky. He put up his hands and
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Speaker 1: drew down one of the great blossoms until it touched
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Speaker 1: his cheek. They took mister Barnstable back by aeroplane to
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Speaker 1: the point upon the glossy road where he had first
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Speaker 1: come to Utopia. Likeness came with him, and Crystal, who
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Speaker 1: was curious to see what would be done. A group
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Speaker 1: of twenty or thirty people, including Sungold, awaited him. The
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Speaker 1: ruined laboratory of Arden and Green Lake had been replaced
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Speaker 1: by fresh buildings, and there were additional erections on the
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Speaker 1: further side of the road, but Barnstable could recognize quite
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Speaker 1: clearly the place where mister Catskill had faced the leopard,
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Speaker 1: and where mister Burleigh had accosted him. Several new kinds
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Speaker 1: of flowers were now out, but the blue blossoms that
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Speaker 1: had charmed him on arrival still prevailed. His old car,
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Speaker 1: the yellow Peril looking now the clumsiest piece of iron
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Speaker 1: Maundery conceivable, stood on the road. He went and examined it.
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Speaker 1: It seemed to be in perfect order. It had been
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Speaker 1: clearly oiled, and the petrol tank was full. And a
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Speaker 1: little pavilion where his bag and all of his earthly clothes.
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Speaker 1: They were very clean, and they had been folded and pressed,
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Speaker 1: and he put them on. His shirt seemed a little
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Speaker 1: tight across the chest, and his collar are decidedly tight,
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Speaker 1: and his coat cut him a little under the arms.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps these garments had shrunken when they were disinfected. He
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Speaker 1: packed his bag and Crystal put him in the car
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Speaker 1: for him. Some gold explained very simply all that mister
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Speaker 1: Barnstable had to do. Across the road. Close by the
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Speaker 1: restored laboratory stretched a line as thin as gossamer. Steer
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Speaker 1: your car to that and break it, he said, that
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Speaker 1: is all you have to do. Then take this red flower,
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Speaker 1: put it down exactly where your wheel tracks show you
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Speaker 1: have entered your own world. Mister Barnstable was left beside
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Speaker 1: the car. The Utopians went back twenty or thirty yards
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Speaker 1: and stood in a circle about him. For a few moments.
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Speaker 1: Everyone was still. Mister Barnstable got into his car, started
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Speaker 1: his engine, let it throb for a minute, and then
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Speaker 1: put in the clutch. The yellow car began to move
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Speaker 1: towards the line of gossamer. He made a gesture with
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Speaker 1: one hand, which Likeness answered some Gold and others of
20:58
Speaker 1: the Utopians also made friendly movements, but Cristel was watching
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Speaker 1: too intently for any gesture. Goodbye, Cristel cried mister Barnstable,
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Speaker 1: and the boy responded with a stern Mister Barnstable accelerated,
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Speaker 1: set his teeth, and in spite of his will to
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Speaker 1: keep them open, shot his eyes. As he touched the
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Speaker 1: gossamer line, came that sense again of unendurable tension, and
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Speaker 1: that sound like the snapping of a bowstring. He had
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Speaker 1: an irresistible impulse to stop and go back. He took
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Speaker 1: his foot from the accelerator, and the car seemed to
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Speaker 1: fall a foot or so and stopped so heavily, and
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Speaker 1: suddenly that he was jerked forward against the steering wheel.
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Speaker 1: The oppression lifted. He opened his eyes and looked about him.
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Speaker 1: The car was standing in a field from which the
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Speaker 1: hay had recently been carried. He was tilted on one
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Speaker 1: side because of a roll in the ground. A hedge
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Speaker 1: in which there was an open black gate separated this
21:55
Speaker 1: hay field from the high road. Close at hand was
21:58
Speaker 1: a bored advertisement of so Maidenhead Hotel. On the far
22:02
Speaker 1: side of the road were level fields against the background
22:05
Speaker 1: of low wooded hills. Away to the left of the
22:08
Speaker 1: little inn, he turned his head and saw Windsor Castle
22:10
Speaker 1: in the remote distance, rising above popular studded meadows. It was, not,
22:16
Speaker 1: as his utopians had promised him, the exact spot of
22:19
Speaker 1: his departure from our Earth, but it was certainly less
22:22
Speaker 1: than one hundred yards away. He had sat still for
22:25
Speaker 1: some moments, mentally rehearsing what he had to do. Then
22:29
Speaker 1: he started the Yellow Peril again and drove it close
22:32
Speaker 1: up to the black kat. He got out and stood
22:35
Speaker 1: with his red flower in his hand. He had to
22:37
Speaker 1: go back to the exact spot at which he had
22:40
Speaker 1: re entered this universe and put that flower down there.
22:43
Speaker 1: It would be quite easy to determine that point by
22:45
Speaker 1: the track the car had made in the stubble, But
22:48
Speaker 1: he felt an extraordinary reluctance to obey these instructions. He
22:52
Speaker 1: wanted to keep this flower. It was the last thing,
22:54
Speaker 1: the only thing he had now from that golden world
22:58
Speaker 1: that in a sweet savor on his head hands. It
23:01
Speaker 1: was extraordinary that he had brought no more than this
23:04
Speaker 1: with him. Why had he not brought a lot of flowers?
23:07
Speaker 1: Why had they given him nothing, no little thing, out
23:11
Speaker 1: of all their wealth and beauty. He wanted intensely to
23:14
Speaker 1: keep this flower. He was moved to substitute a spray
23:18
Speaker 1: of honeysuckle from the hedge close at hand, but then
23:21
Speaker 1: he remembered that that would be infected stuff for them.
23:25
Speaker 1: He must do as he was told. He walked back
23:28
Speaker 1: along the track of his car to its beginning, stood
23:32
Speaker 1: for a moment, hesitating, tore a single petal from that
23:35
Speaker 1: glowing bloom, and then laid down the rest of the
23:38
Speaker 1: great flower carefully in the very center of his track,
23:42
Speaker 1: the petal that he put in his pocket. Then, with
23:44
Speaker 1: a heavy heart, he went back slowly to his car
23:47
Speaker 1: and stood beside it, watching the star of almost luminous red.
23:51
Speaker 1: His grief and emotion were very great. He was bitterly
23:55
Speaker 1: sorrowful now at having left Utopia. It was evident the
23:59
Speaker 1: great drought was still going on, for the fields and
24:01
Speaker 1: the hedges were more parched and brown than he had
24:04
Speaker 1: ever seen an English field before. Along the road lay
24:07
Speaker 1: a thin cloud of dust that passing cars continually renewed.
24:12
Speaker 1: This old world seemed to him to be so full
24:15
Speaker 1: of unlovely sights and sounds and odors already half forgotten.
24:20
Speaker 1: There was the honking of distant cars, the uproar of
24:22
Speaker 1: a train, a thirsty cow mourning its discomfort. There was
24:27
Speaker 1: the irritation of dust in his nostrils, and the smell
24:30
Speaker 1: of sweltering tar. There was barbed wire and the hedge nearby,
24:34
Speaker 1: and along the top of the black gate, and horse
24:37
Speaker 1: dumb in the scraps of dirty paper at his feet.
24:40
Speaker 1: The lovely world from which he had been driven had
24:43
Speaker 1: shrunken now to a spot of shining scarlet. Something happened
24:48
Speaker 1: very quickly. It was as if a hand appeared for
24:50
Speaker 1: a moment and took the flower. In a moment it
24:53
Speaker 1: had gone. A little eddy of dust swirled, drifted and sank.
24:57
Speaker 1: It was the end. At the thought of the traffic
25:01
Speaker 1: on the main road, mister Barnstaples stooped down so as
25:04
Speaker 1: to hide his face from the passer byers. For some
25:07
Speaker 1: minutes he was unable to regain his self control. He
25:10
Speaker 1: stood with his arm covering his face, leaning against the
25:13
Speaker 1: shabby brown hood of his car. At last, this gust
25:16
Speaker 1: of sorrow came to an end, and he could get
25:18
Speaker 1: in again, start up the engine, and steer into the
25:21
Speaker 1: main road. He turned eastward haphazard. He left the black
25:26
Speaker 1: gate open behind him. He went along very slowly, for
25:29
Speaker 1: as yet he had formed no idea of withering he
25:32
Speaker 1: was going. He began to think that, probably this old
25:35
Speaker 1: world of ours, he was being sought for as a
25:38
Speaker 1: person who had mysteriously disappeared, someone might discover him. He
25:42
Speaker 1: would become the focus of a thousand impossible questions that
25:46
Speaker 1: would be very tiresome and disagreeable. He had not thought
25:50
Speaker 1: of this in utopia. And utopia it seemed quite possible
25:54
Speaker 1: that he could come back into earth unobserved. Now on earth,
25:57
Speaker 1: that confidence seemed foolish. Saw a head of him the
26:01
Speaker 1: board of a modest tea room. It occurred that he
26:03
Speaker 1: might alight there, see a newspaper, ask a discreet questions
26:07
Speaker 1: so and find out what had been happening to the world,
26:10
Speaker 1: and whether he had indeed been missing. He found a
26:14
Speaker 1: table already laid for tea under the window in the
26:17
Speaker 1: center of the room, a larger table born asportia in
26:20
Speaker 1: a big green pot, in a selection of papers, chiefly
26:23
Speaker 1: out of date illustrated papers, but there was also a
26:26
Speaker 1: copy of the morning's Daily Express. He seized upon this eagerly,
26:31
Speaker 1: fearful that he would find it full of the mysterious
26:34
Speaker 1: disappearance of mister Burleigh, Lord Barlington, mister Rubert Cutskill, mister Hunker,
26:39
Speaker 1: Father Emerton, and Lady Stella, not to mention the lesser lights. Gradually,
26:45
Speaker 1: as he turned it over his fears vanished. There was
26:47
Speaker 1: not a word about any of them. But surely, he
26:51
Speaker 1: protested to himself, now clinging to his idea, their friends
26:55
Speaker 1: must have missed them. He read through the whole paper.
27:00
Speaker 1: Of one only did he find mention, and that was
27:02
Speaker 1: the last name he would have expected to find. Mister
27:06
Speaker 1: Freddy Mush. The Princess de Mondina Francista Prize for English
27:13
Speaker 1: Literature had been given away to nobody in particular by
27:16
Speaker 1: mister Graceful gloss owing to the unavoidable absence of mister
27:22
Speaker 1: Freddy mush abroad. The problem of why there had been
27:25
Speaker 1: no hue and cry for the others opened a vast
27:28
Speaker 1: field of worldly speculation of mister Barnstable, in which he
27:32
Speaker 1: wandered for a time. His mind went back to that
27:35
Speaker 1: bright red blossom lying among the cut stems of the
27:38
Speaker 1: grass and the moan field, and to the hand that
27:41
Speaker 1: seemed to take it. With that, the door that had
27:44
Speaker 1: opened so marvelously between that stage and beautiful world and
27:49
Speaker 1: our own had closed again. Wonder took possession of mister
27:53
Speaker 1: Barnstable's mind. That dear world of honesty and health was
27:58
Speaker 1: beyond the utmost boundaries of our utterly unaccessible to him
28:02
Speaker 1: now for evermore. And yet, as he had been told,
28:07
Speaker 1: it was but one of countless universes that moved together
28:10
Speaker 1: in time, that lie against one another endlessly like the
28:14
Speaker 1: leaves of a book, And all of them are as
28:19
Speaker 1: nothing in the endless multitudes of systems and dimensions that
28:23
Speaker 1: surround them. Could I but rotate my arm out of
28:26
Speaker 1: the limits set to it, One of the utopians had
28:29
Speaker 1: said to him, I could thrust it into a thousand universes.
28:34
Speaker 1: A waitress with his teapot recalled him to mundane things.
28:39
Speaker 1: The meal served to him seemed tasteless and unclean. He
28:43
Speaker 1: drank the queer brew of the tea because he was thirsty,
28:46
Speaker 1: but he ate scarcely a mouthful. Presently he chanced to
28:52
Speaker 1: put his hand in his pocket and touch something soft.
28:55
Speaker 1: He drew out the pedal he torn from the red flower.
28:58
Speaker 1: It had lost its glowing red, and as he held
29:01
Speaker 1: it out in the stuffy air of the room, it
29:03
Speaker 1: seemed to writhe. As it shriveled and blackened, its delicate
29:07
Speaker 1: scent gave place to a mawkish odor. Manifestly, he said,
29:14
Speaker 1: I should have expected this. He dropped the lump of
29:17
Speaker 1: decay on his plate, then picked it up again and
29:20
Speaker 1: thrust it into the soil in the pot of espideria.
29:25
Speaker 1: He took up the Daily Express again and turned it over,
29:28
Speaker 1: trying to recover his sense of this world's affairs. For
29:31
Speaker 1: a long time, mister Barnstable meditated over the Daily Express
29:35
Speaker 1: in the tea room at Collinbrooke. His thoughts went far
29:39
Speaker 1: so that presently the newspaper slipped to the ground unheeded,
29:43
Speaker 1: He roused himself with a sigh and called for his
29:46
Speaker 1: bill paying. He became aware of a pocket book still
29:50
Speaker 1: full of pound notes. This will be the cheapest holiday
29:55
Speaker 1: I have ever had, he thought, I've spent no money
29:57
Speaker 1: at all. He inquired for the post office because he
30:01
Speaker 1: had a telegram to send. Two hours later he stopped
30:05
Speaker 1: outside the gate of his little villa at Sindurnham. He
30:09
Speaker 1: said it open. The customary bit of stick with which
30:12
Speaker 1: he did this was in its usual place, and steered
30:15
Speaker 1: the yellow parel with the dexterity of use, and went
30:19
Speaker 1: past the curved flower bed to the door of his shed.
30:22
Speaker 1: Missus Barnstable appeared in the porch. Alfred, you're back at last, Yes,
30:28
Speaker 1: I'm back. You got my telegram ten minutes ago. Where
30:32
Speaker 1: have you been all this time? It's more than a month. Oh,
30:36
Speaker 1: just drifting and dreaming. I've had a wonderful time. You
30:41
Speaker 1: ought to have written, you really ought to have written.
30:43
Speaker 1: You did, Alfred. I didn't bother, the doctor said. I
30:48
Speaker 1: wasn't to bother. I told you, is there any tea going?
30:52
Speaker 1: Where are the boys? The boys are up? Let me
30:55
Speaker 1: make you some fresh tea. She did so, and came
30:58
Speaker 1: and sat down in the cane and share in front
31:00
Speaker 1: of him and the tea table. I am glad to
31:03
Speaker 1: have you back, though I could scold you. You look
31:07
Speaker 1: wonderfully well, she said, I've never seen your skin so
31:10
Speaker 1: clear and brown. I've been in good air all the time.
31:14
Speaker 1: Did you get to the lakes? Not quite. It's been
31:18
Speaker 1: good air everywhere, healthy air. You never got lost. Never
31:23
Speaker 1: I had ideas of you getting lost, losing your memory.
31:26
Speaker 1: Such things happen, you didn't. My memory is as bright
31:30
Speaker 1: as a jewel. But where did you go? I just
31:34
Speaker 1: wandered and dreamt, lost in a daydream. Often I didn't
31:38
Speaker 1: ask the name of the place where I was staying.
31:41
Speaker 1: I stayed in one place and then in another. I
31:44
Speaker 1: never asked their names. I left my mind passive, quite passive.
31:48
Speaker 1: I've had a tremendous rest from everything. I've hardly given
31:51
Speaker 1: a thought to politics, or money, or social questions, at
31:55
Speaker 1: least the sort of thing we call social questions, and
31:58
Speaker 1: any of these worries since as I started, is that
32:02
Speaker 1: this week's Liberal. He took it, turned it over, and
32:06
Speaker 1: at last tossed it on the sofa. Poorl Peeve, He said,
32:10
Speaker 1: of course I must leave that paper. He's like wallpaper
32:13
Speaker 1: on it, A damp wall just blotches and rustles and
32:18
Speaker 1: fails to stick. Gives me mental romatics. Missus Barnstables stared
32:23
Speaker 1: at him doubtfully. But I always thought that liberal was
32:26
Speaker 1: such a safe job. I don't want a safe job.
32:29
Speaker 1: Now I can do better. There's other work for me,
32:34
Speaker 1: don't you worry? I can take hold of things surely
32:36
Speaker 1: enough after this rest? How are the boys? I'm a
32:41
Speaker 1: little anxious about Frankie. Mister Barnstable had picked up The Times.
32:46
Speaker 1: An odd advertisement in the agony column had caught his eye.
32:50
Speaker 1: It ran cecil your absence, excitingly remarked, WOULD like to
32:55
Speaker 1: know what you wish us to tell people? Right fully,
32:58
Speaker 1: Scotch address die ill with worry. All instructions will be followed.
33:06
Speaker 1: I beg your pardon, my dear, he said, putting the
33:08
Speaker 1: paper aside. I was saying that he doesn't seem to
33:12
Speaker 1: be settling down to business. He doesn't like it. I
33:15
Speaker 1: wish you could have a talk with him. He's fretting
33:18
Speaker 1: because he doesn't know enough. He says he wants to
33:21
Speaker 1: be a science student at the Polytech and go on
33:23
Speaker 1: learning things well. He can sensible boy. I didn't think,
33:28
Speaker 1: he added in him. I meant to have a talk
33:30
Speaker 1: to him, But this meets me halfway. Certainly he shall
33:33
Speaker 1: study science. But the boy has to earn a living,
33:36
Speaker 1: But that will come. If he wants to study science,
33:39
Speaker 1: he shall. Mister Barnstable spoke in a tone that was
33:43
Speaker 1: altogether new to missus Barnstable, a tone of immediate quiet
33:47
Speaker 1: and assured determination. It surprised her still more that he
33:52
Speaker 1: should use this tone without seeming to be aware that
33:55
Speaker 1: he had used it. He bit his slice of bread
33:58
Speaker 1: and butter, and she can see that something in the
34:01
Speaker 1: taste surprised and displeased him. He glanced doubtfully at the
34:04
Speaker 1: remnant of the slice in his hand. Of course, he said,
34:09
Speaker 1: London butter, three days whare left about? Funny how quickly
34:14
Speaker 1: one's tastes alter. He picked up the Times again and
34:18
Speaker 1: ran his eyes over its columns. This world is really
34:22
Speaker 1: very childish, he said, very I had forgotten imaginary Bolshevik plots,
34:29
Speaker 1: sen fein proclamations. The Prince polled, obvious lies about the Chinese,
34:34
Speaker 1: obvious lies about Egypt. People pulling wickham Stee's leg, sham
34:39
Speaker 1: poyous articles about Trinity Sunday, the Hitchi murder rather a
34:44
Speaker 1: nasty one, the pomp fort Rembrandt insurance letter from indignant Pierre,
34:49
Speaker 1: about death duties, dreary sport boating, tennis, schoolboy cricket, collapse
34:55
Speaker 1: of harrow as those such things were the slightest importance.
35:00
Speaker 1: How silly it is, all of it. It's like coming
35:03
Speaker 1: back to the quarrels of servants. In the Chatter of children,
35:07
Speaker 1: he found Missus Barnstable regarding him intently. I haven't seen
35:10
Speaker 1: a paper from the day I started until this morning,
35:13
Speaker 1: he explained. He put down the paper and stood up.
35:16
Speaker 1: For some minutes. Missus Barnstable had been doubting whether she
35:20
Speaker 1: was not the victim of an absurd hallucination. Now she
35:24
Speaker 1: realized that she was in the presence of the most
35:25
Speaker 1: amazing fact she had ever observed. Yes, she said, it
35:30
Speaker 1: is so, don't move keep like that. I know it
35:35
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous, Alfred, but you've grown taller. It's not simply
35:40
Speaker 1: that your stoop has gone. You have grown oh two
35:43
Speaker 1: or three inches. Mister Barnstable stared at her, and then
35:47
Speaker 1: held out his arm. Certainly, he was showing an unusual
35:50
Speaker 1: length of wrist. He tried to judge whether his trousers
35:53
Speaker 1: had also the same grown out of look, Missus Barnstable
35:57
Speaker 1: came up to him, almost respectfully. She stood beside him
36:00
Speaker 1: and put her shoulder against his arm. Your shoulder used
36:04
Speaker 1: to be exactly love of mine, she said, See where
36:07
Speaker 1: we are now. She looked up into his eyes as
36:11
Speaker 1: though she was very glad indeed to have him back
36:13
Speaker 1: with her. But mister Barnstable remained lost in thought. It
36:17
Speaker 1: must be the extreme freshness of the year. I have
36:20
Speaker 1: been in some wonderful air, wonderful but at my age
36:24
Speaker 1: to have grown, and I feel as they have grown
36:26
Speaker 1: inside out, mind and body. Missus Barnstable presently began to
36:31
Speaker 1: put the tea things together for removal. You seem to
36:36
Speaker 1: have avoided the big towns I did, and kept the
36:40
Speaker 1: country roads and lanes. Practically. It was all new country
36:44
Speaker 1: to me, beautiful, wonderful. His wife still watched him. You
36:50
Speaker 1: must take me there someday, she said, I can see
36:54
Speaker 1: that it has done you a world of good. End
36:58
Speaker 1: of Chapter sixteen And of Men Like Gods by H. G.
37:03
Speaker 1: Wells