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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories - The Door in the Wall · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section thirty one of the Country of the Blind and
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Speaker 1: Other Stories by H. G. Wells. This librivoc recording is
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Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Peter Yearsley. The Door
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Speaker 1: in the Wall, Part one, one confidential evening. Not three
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Speaker 1: months ago, Lionel Wallace told me this story of the
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Speaker 1: Door in the Wall, and at the time I thought that,
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Speaker 1: so far as he was concerned, it was a true story.
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Speaker 1: He told it me with such a direct simplicity of
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Speaker 1: conviction that I could not do otherwise than believe in him.
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Speaker 1: But in the morning, in my own flat, I woke
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Speaker 1: to a different atmosphere, And as I lay in bed
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Speaker 1: and recalled the things he had told me, stripped of
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Speaker 1: the glamor of his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focused,
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Speaker 1: shaded table light, the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped around him
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Speaker 1: and me, and the pleasant, bright things, the dessert and
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Speaker 1: glass and napery of the dinner we had shared, making
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Speaker 1: them for a time a bright little world, quite cut
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Speaker 1: off from every day realities. I saw it all as
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Speaker 1: frankly incredible. He was mystifying, I said, And then how
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Speaker 1: well he did it. It isn't quite the thing I
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Speaker 1: should have expected him of all people to do well. Afterwards,
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Speaker 1: as I sat up in bed and sipped my morning tea,
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Speaker 1: I found myself trying to account for the flavor of
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Speaker 1: reality that perplexed me in his impossible reminiscences, by supposing
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Speaker 1: they did in some way suggest present convey. I hardly
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Speaker 1: know which word to use experiences it was otherwise impossible
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Speaker 1: to tell. Well. I don't resort to that explanation. Now
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Speaker 1: I have got over my intervening doubts. I believe now
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Speaker 1: as I believed at the moment of telling, that Wallace did,
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Speaker 1: to the very best of his ability, strip the truth
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Speaker 1: of his secret for me. But whether he himself saw
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Speaker 1: or only thought he saw, whether he himself was the
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Speaker 1: possessor of an inestimable privilege or the victim of a
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Speaker 1: fantastic dream, I cannot pretend to guess even the facts
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Speaker 1: of his death, which ended my doubts forever throw no
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Speaker 1: light on that. That much the reader must judge for himself.
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Speaker 1: I forget now what chance comment or criticism of mine
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Speaker 1: moved so reticent a man to confide in me. He was,
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Speaker 1: I think, defending himself against an imputation of slackness and unreliability.
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Speaker 1: I had made in relation to a great public movement
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Speaker 1: in which he had disappointed me. But he plunged suddenly.
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Speaker 1: I have, he said, a preoccupation, I know, he went on,
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Speaker 1: after a pause, I have been negligent. The act is,
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Speaker 1: it isn't a case of ghosts or apparitions. But it's
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Speaker 1: an odd thing to tell of, Reedmond. I am haunted.
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Speaker 1: I am haunted by something that rather takes a light
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Speaker 1: out of things, that fills me with longings. He paused,
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Speaker 1: checked by that English shyness that so often overcomes us
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Speaker 1: when we would speak of moving or grave or beautiful things.
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Speaker 1: You were at Saint Athelstand's all through, he said, And
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Speaker 1: for a moment that seemed to me quite irrelevant. Well,
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Speaker 1: and he paused. Then, very haltingly at first, but afterwards
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Speaker 1: more easily, he began to tell of the thing that
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Speaker 1: was hidden in his life, the haunting memory of a
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Speaker 1: beauty and a happiness that filled his heart with insatiable
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Speaker 1: longings that made all the interests and spectacle of worldly
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Speaker 1: life seem dull and tedious and vain. To him. Now
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Speaker 1: that I have the clue to it, the thing seems
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Speaker 1: written visibly in his face. I have a photograph in
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Speaker 1: which that look of detachment has been caught and intensified.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of what a woman once said of him,
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Speaker 1: a woman who had loved him greatly. Suddenly, she said,
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Speaker 1: the interest goes out of him. He forgets you. He
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Speaker 1: doesn't care a rap for you under his very nose.
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Speaker 1: Yet the interest was not always out of him, And
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Speaker 1: when he was holding his attention to a thing, Wallis
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Speaker 1: could contrive to be an extremely successful man. His career, indeed,
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Speaker 1: is set with successes. He left me behind him long ago.
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Speaker 1: He sawed up over my head and cut a figure
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Speaker 1: in the world that I couldn't cut anyhow. He was
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Speaker 1: still a year short of forty, and they say now
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Speaker 1: that he would been in office, and very probably in
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Speaker 1: the new cabinet if he had lived at school. He
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Speaker 1: always beat me without effort, as it were by nature.
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Speaker 1: We were at school together at Saint Athelstan's College in
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Speaker 1: West Kensington, for almost all our school time. He came
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Speaker 1: into the school as my coequal, but he left far
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Speaker 1: above me in a blaze of scholarships and brilliant performance.
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Speaker 1: Yet I think I made a fair average running. And
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Speaker 1: it was at school I heard first of the door
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Speaker 1: in the wall that I was to hear of a
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Speaker 1: second time, only a month before his death. To him,
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Speaker 1: at least the door in the wall was at a
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Speaker 1: real door leading through a real wall to immortal realities.
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Speaker 1: Of that I am now quite assured. And it came
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Speaker 1: into his life quite early, when he was a little fellow,
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Speaker 1: between five and six. I remember how as he sat
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Speaker 1: making his confession to me with a slow gravity, he
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Speaker 1: reasoned and reckoned with the date of it. There was,
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Speaker 1: he said, a crimson, Virginia creeper in it all, one
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Speaker 1: bright uniform crimson in a clear amber sunshine against a
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Speaker 1: white wall. That came into the impression somehow, though I
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Speaker 1: don't clearly remember how. And there were horse chestnut leaves
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Speaker 1: upon the clean pavement outside the green door. They were
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Speaker 1: blotched yellow and green, you know, not brown nor dirty,
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Speaker 1: so that they must have been new fallen. I take
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Speaker 1: it that means October. I look out for horse chestnut
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Speaker 1: leaves every year, and I ought to know if I'm
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Speaker 1: right in that. I was about five years and four
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Speaker 1: months old. He was, he said, rather a precocious little boy.
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Speaker 1: He lug to talk at an abnormally early age, and
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Speaker 1: he was so sane and old fashioned, as people say that,
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Speaker 1: he was permitted an amount of initiative that most children
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Speaker 1: scarcely attain by seven or eight. His mother died when
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Speaker 1: he was two, and he was under the less vigilant
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Speaker 1: and authoritative care of a nursery governess. His father was
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Speaker 1: a stern, preoccupied lawyer, who gave him little attention and
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Speaker 1: expected great things of him. For all his brightness, he
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Speaker 1: found life a little gray and dull, I think, And
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Speaker 1: one day he wondered he could not recall the particular
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Speaker 1: neglect that enabled him to get away, nor the course
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Speaker 1: he took among the West Kensington roads. All that had
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Speaker 1: faded among the incurable blurs of memory. But the white
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Speaker 1: wall and the green door stood out quite distinctly as
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Speaker 1: his memory of that childish experience ran. He did, at
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Speaker 1: the very first sight of that door experience a peculiar emotion,
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Speaker 1: an attraction, a disare to get to the door and
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Speaker 1: open it and walk in. And at the same time
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Speaker 1: he had the clearest conviction that either it was unwise
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Speaker 1: or it was wrong of him. He could not tell which.
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Speaker 1: To yield to this attraction, he insisted upon it as
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Speaker 1: a curious thing that he knew from the very beginning,
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Speaker 1: unless memory has played him the queerest trick, that the
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Speaker 1: door was unfastened, and that he could go in as
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Speaker 1: he chose. I seemed to see the figure of that
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Speaker 1: little boy drawn and repelled, and it was very clear
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Speaker 1: in his mind too, though why it should be so
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Speaker 1: was never explained, that his father would be very angry
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Speaker 1: if he went in through that door. Wallace described all
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Speaker 1: these moments of hesitation to me with the utmost particularity.
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Speaker 1: He went right past the door, and then, with his
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Speaker 1: hands in his pockets, and making an infantile attempt to whistle,
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Speaker 1: strolled right along beyond the end of the wall. There
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Speaker 1: he recalls a number of mean, dirty shops, and particularly
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Speaker 1: that of a plumber and decorator with a dusty disorder
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Speaker 1: of earthenware, pipes, sheet lead ball taps, pattern books of wallpaper,
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Speaker 1: and tins of enamel. He stood pretending to examine these things,
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Speaker 1: and coveting passionately desiring the green door. Then he said
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Speaker 1: he had a gust of emotion. He made a run
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Speaker 1: for it, lest hesitation should grip him again. He went
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Speaker 1: plump with outstretched hand through the green door, and let
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Speaker 1: it slam behind him, and so in a trice he
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Speaker 1: came into the garden that has haunted all his life.
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Speaker 1: It was very difficult for Wallace to give me his
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Speaker 1: full sense of that garden into which he came. There
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Speaker 1: was something in the very air of it that exhilarated,
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Speaker 1: that gave one a sense of lightness and good happening
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Speaker 1: and well being. There was something in the sight of
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Speaker 1: it that made all its color clean and perfect and
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Speaker 1: subtly luminous. In the instant of coming into it, one
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Speaker 1: was exquisitely glad, as only in rare moments, and when
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Speaker 1: one is young and joyful one can be glad in
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Speaker 1: this world. And everything was beautiful there, Wallace mused, before
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Speaker 1: he went on telling me. You see, he said, with
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Speaker 1: the doubtful inflection of a man who pauses at incredible things.
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Speaker 1: There were two great panthers there, yes, spotted panthers, And
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Speaker 1: I was not afraid. There was a long, wide path
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Speaker 1: with marble edged flower boarders on either side, and these
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Speaker 1: two huge, velvety beasts were playing there with a ball.
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Speaker 1: One looked up and came towards me. A little curious
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Speaker 1: as it seemed, it came right up to me, rubbed
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Speaker 1: its soft round ear, very gently against the small hand
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Speaker 1: I held out and purred. It was, I tell you,
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Speaker 1: an enchanted garden, I know. And the size, oh, it
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Speaker 1: stretched far and wide this way, and that I believe
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Speaker 1: there were hills far away Heaven knows where West Kensington
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Speaker 1: had suddenly got to. And somehow it was just like
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Speaker 1: coming home, you know. In the very moment the door
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Speaker 1: swung to behind me, I forgot the road with its
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Speaker 1: fallen chestnut leaves, its cabs and tradesmen's carts. I forgot
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Speaker 1: the sort of gravitational pull back to the discipline and
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Speaker 1: obedience of home. I forgot all hesitations and fear, forgot discretion,
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Speaker 1: forgot all the intimate realities of this life. I became
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Speaker 1: in a moment, a very glad and wonder happy little
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Speaker 1: boy in another world. It was a world with a
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Speaker 1: different quality, a warmer, more penetrating and mellower light, with
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Speaker 1: a faint clear gladness in its air, and wisps of
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Speaker 1: suntouched cloud in the blueness of its sky. And before
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Speaker 1: me ran this long, wide path, invitingly with weedless beds
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Speaker 1: on either side, rich with untended flowers, and these two
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Speaker 1: great panthers I put my little hands fearlessly on their
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Speaker 1: soft fur, and caressed their round ears and the sensitive
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Speaker 1: corners under their ears, and played with them, and it
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Speaker 1: was as though they welcomed me home. There was a
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Speaker 1: keen sense of home coming in my mind. And when
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Speaker 1: presently a tall, fair girl appeared in the pathway and
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Speaker 1: came to meet me, smiling and said well to me,
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Speaker 1: and lifted me and kissed me, and put me down
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Speaker 1: and led me by the hand, there was no amazement,
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Speaker 1: but only an impression of delightful rightness, of being reminded
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Speaker 1: of happy things that had, in some strange way been overlooked.
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Speaker 1: There were broad red steps, I remember, that came into
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Speaker 1: view between spikes of delphinium, and up these we went
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Speaker 1: to a great avenue between very old and shady dark trees.
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Speaker 1: All down this avenue, you know, between the red chapped stems,
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Speaker 1: were marble seats of honor and statuary, and very tame
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Speaker 1: and friendly white doves. Along this cool avenue, my girl
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Speaker 1: friend led me. Looking down. I recall the pleasant lines,
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Speaker 1: the finely modeled chin of her sweet kind face, asking
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Speaker 1: me questions in a soft, agreeable voice, and telling me things,
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Speaker 1: pleasant things. I know, though what they were I was
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Speaker 1: never able to recall. Presently, a little cappuchin monkey, very
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Speaker 1: clean with a fur of ruddy brown and kindly hazel eyes,
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Speaker 1: came down a tree to us and ran beside me,
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Speaker 1: looking up to me and grinning, and presently leapt to
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Speaker 1: my shoulder. So we two went on our way in
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Speaker 1: great happiness. He paused, go on, I said, I remember
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Speaker 1: little things. We passed an old man musing among laurels,
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Speaker 1: I remember, and a place gay with parakeets, And came
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Speaker 1: through a broad shaded colonnade to a spacious, cool palace,
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Speaker 1: full of pleasant fountains, full of beautiful things, full of
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Speaker 1: the quality and promise of heart's desire. And there were
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Speaker 1: many things and many people, some that still seemed to
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Speaker 1: stand out clearly, and some that are a little vague.
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Speaker 1: But all these people were beautiful and kind in some way.
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Speaker 1: I don't know how it was conveyed to me that
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Speaker 1: they all were kind to me, glad to have me there,
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Speaker 1: and filling me with gladness by their gestures, by the
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Speaker 1: touch of their hands, by the welcome and love in
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Speaker 1: their eyes. Yes, he mused, for a while, playmates, I
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Speaker 1: found there that was very much to me, because I
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Speaker 1: was a lonely little boy. They played delightful games in
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Speaker 1: a grass covered court where there was a sun dial
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Speaker 1: set about with flowers, and as one played, one loved.
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Speaker 1: But it's odd. There's a gap in my memory. I
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Speaker 1: don't remember the games we played. I never remembered afterwards.
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Speaker 1: As a child, I spent long hours trying, even with tears,
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Speaker 1: to recall the form of that happiness. I wanted to
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Speaker 1: play it all over again in my nursery by my no.
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Speaker 1: All I remember is the happiness, and two dear playfellows
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Speaker 1: who were most with me. Then presently came a somber
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Speaker 1: dark woman with a grave, pale face and dreamy eyes.
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Speaker 1: A somber woman wearing a soft, long robe of pale purple,
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Speaker 1: who carried a book and beckoned, and took me aside
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Speaker 1: with her into a gallery above a hall. Though my
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Speaker 1: playmates were loth to have me go, and ceased their
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Speaker 1: game and stood watching as I was carried away. Come
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Speaker 1: back to us, They cried, come back to us soon.
16:37
Speaker 1: I looked up at her face, but she heeded them,
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Speaker 1: not at all. Her face was very gentle and grave.
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Speaker 1: She took me to a seat in the gallery, and
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Speaker 1: I stood beside her, ready to look at her book.
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Speaker 1: As she opened it upon her knee, the pages fell open.
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Speaker 1: She pointed, and I looked, marveling, for in the living
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Speaker 1: pages of that book I saw my It was a
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Speaker 1: story about myself, and in it were all the things
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Speaker 1: that had happened to me since ever I was born.
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Speaker 1: It was wonderful to me, because the pages of that
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Speaker 1: book were not pictures, you understand, but realities. Wallis paused, gravely,
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Speaker 1: looked at me doubtfully. Go on, I said, I understand
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Speaker 1: they were realities. Yes, they must have been. People moved,
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Speaker 1: and things came and went in them. My dear mother,
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Speaker 1: whom I had near forgotten, then my father, stern and upright,
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Speaker 1: the servants, the nursery, all the familiar things of home.
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Speaker 1: Then the front door, and the busy streets with traffic
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Speaker 1: to and fro. I looked and marveled, and looked half
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Speaker 1: doubtfully again into the woman's face, and turned the pages over,
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Speaker 1: skipping this and that, to see more of this book,
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Speaker 1: and more, and so at last I came to myself,
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Speaker 1: hovering and hesitating outside the green door, in the long
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Speaker 1: white wall, and felt again the conflict and the fear
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Speaker 1: and next, I cried, and would have turned on, but
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Speaker 1: the cool hand of the grave woman delayed me. Next,
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Speaker 1: I insisted and struggled gently with her hand, pulling up
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Speaker 1: her fingers with all my childish strength. And as she
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Speaker 1: yielded and the page came over, she bent down upon
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Speaker 1: me like a shadow, and kissed my brow. But the
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Speaker 1: page did not show the enchanted garden, nor the panthers,
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Speaker 1: nor the girl who had led me by the hand,
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Speaker 1: nor the playfellows who had been so loth to let
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Speaker 1: me go. It showed a long gray street in West Kensington,
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Speaker 1: in that chill hour of afternoon before the lamps are lit.
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Speaker 1: And I was there, a wretched little figure, weeping aloud
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Speaker 1: for all that I could do to restrain myself. And
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Speaker 1: I was weeping because I could not return to my
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Speaker 1: dear playfellows who had called after me, come back to us,
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Speaker 1: come back to us. Soon I was there. This was
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Speaker 1: no page in a book, but harsh reality, that enchanted place,
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Speaker 1: and the restraining hand of the grave mother at whose
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Speaker 1: knee I stood had gone. Whither had they gone? He
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Speaker 1: halted again and remained for a time, staring into the fire.
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Speaker 1: Oh the woefulness of that return. He murmured, well, I said,
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Speaker 1: After a minute or so, poor little wretch, I was
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Speaker 1: brought back to this gray world again. As I realized
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Speaker 1: the fullness of what had happened to me, I gave
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Speaker 1: way to quite ungovernable grief. And the shame and humiliation
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Speaker 1: of that public weeping, and my disgraceful home coming remain
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Speaker 1: with me. Still. I see again in the benevolent looking
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Speaker 1: old gentleman in gold spectacles who stopped and spoke to me,
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Speaker 1: prodding me first with his umbrella full little chap said he,
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Speaker 1: and are you lost then? And me a London boy
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Speaker 1: of five and more? And he must needs bring in
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Speaker 1: a kindly young policeman and make a crowd of me,
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Speaker 1: and so march me home. Sobbing, conspicuous and frightened. I
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Speaker 1: came back from the enchanted garden to the steps of
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Speaker 1: my father's house. That is as well as I can
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Speaker 1: remember my vision of that garden, the garden that haunts
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Speaker 1: me still. Of course, I can convey nothing of that
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Speaker 1: indescribable quality of translucent unreality, that difference from the common
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Speaker 1: things of experience that hung about it all, But that
20:51
Speaker 1: that is what happened. If it was a dream, I
20:55
Speaker 1: am sure it was a daytime and altogether extraordinary mumm. Naturally,
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Speaker 1: there followed a terrible questioning by my aunt, my father,
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Speaker 1: the nurse, the governess. Everyone. I tried to tell them,
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Speaker 1: and my father gave me my first thrashing for telling lies. Well,
21:17
Speaker 1: afterwards I tried to tell my aunt. She punished me
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Speaker 1: again for my wicked persistence. Then, as I said, everyone
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Speaker 1: was forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word
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Speaker 1: about it. Even my fairy tale books were taken away
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Speaker 1: from me for a time because I was too imaginative. Eh, yes,
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Speaker 1: they did that. My father belonged to the old school,
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Speaker 1: and my story was driven back upon myself. I whispered
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Speaker 1: it to my pillow, my pillow that was often damp
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Speaker 1: and salt, to my whispering lips with childish tears. And
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Speaker 1: I added always to my official and less fervent prayers,
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Speaker 1: this one heartfelt request. Please God, I may dream of
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Speaker 1: the garden. Oh, take me back to my garden. Take
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Speaker 1: me back to my garden. I dreamt often of the garden.
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Speaker 1: I may have added to it, I may have changed it.
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Speaker 1: I do not know. All this, you understand, is an
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Speaker 1: attempt to reconstruct from fragmentary memories, a very early experience.
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Speaker 1: Between that and the other consecutive memories of my boyhood,
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Speaker 1: there is a gulf. A time came when it seemed
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Speaker 1: impossible I should ever speak of that wonder glimpse again,
22:38
Speaker 1: I asked an obvious question. No, he said, I don't
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Speaker 1: remember that I ever attempted to find my way back
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Speaker 1: to the garden in those early years. This seems odd
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Speaker 1: to me now, but I think that very probably a
22:54
Speaker 1: closer watch was kept on my movements after this misadventure
22:58
Speaker 1: to prevent my going astray. No, it wasn't till you
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Speaker 1: knew me that I tried for the garden again. And
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Speaker 1: I believe there was a period, incredible as it seems now,
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Speaker 1: when I forgot the garden altogether, when I was about
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Speaker 1: eight or nine. It may have been do you remember
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Speaker 1: me as a kid at Saint Ethel Stands? Rather, I
23:20
Speaker 1: didn't show any signs, did I in those days of
23:23
Speaker 1: having a secret dream? But two, he looked up with
23:29
Speaker 1: a sudden smile. Did you ever play Northwest Passage? With me? No,
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Speaker 1: of course you didn't come my way. It was the
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Speaker 1: sort of game, he went on, that every imaginative child
23:41
Speaker 1: plays all day. The idea was the discovery of a
23:45
Speaker 1: northwest passage to school. The way to school was plain enough.
23:49
Speaker 1: The game consisted in finding some way that wasn't plain,
23:54
Speaker 1: starting off ten minutes early in some almost hopeless direction,
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Speaker 1: and working my way round through unaccustomed streets to my goal.
24:04
Speaker 1: And one day I got entangled among some rather low
24:07
Speaker 1: class streets on the other side of Campden Hill, and
24:10
Speaker 1: I began to think that for once the game would
24:13
Speaker 1: be against me, and that I should get to school late.
24:17
Speaker 1: I tried rather desperately a street that seemed a cul
24:20
Speaker 1: de sac, and found a passage at the end. I
24:23
Speaker 1: hurried through that with renewed hope. I shall do it, yet,
24:27
Speaker 1: I said, and passed a row of frowsy little shops
24:32
Speaker 1: that were inexplicably familiar to me. And behold there was
24:36
Speaker 1: my long white wall and the green door that led
24:40
Speaker 1: to the enchanted garden. The thing whacked upon me suddenly. Then,
24:45
Speaker 1: after all that garden, that wonderful garden, wasn't a dream,
24:50
Speaker 1: he paused. I suppose my second experience with the green
24:55
Speaker 1: door marks the world of difference there is between the
24:59
Speaker 1: busy life a schoolboy and the infinite leisure of a child. Anyhow,
25:05
Speaker 1: this second time, I didn't for a moment think of
25:09
Speaker 1: going in straight away. You see, for one thing, my
25:13
Speaker 1: mind was full of the idea of getting to school
25:15
Speaker 1: in time, set on not breaking my record for punctuality.
25:21
Speaker 1: I must surely have felt some little desire at least
25:25
Speaker 1: to try the door. Yes, I must have felt that,
25:29
Speaker 1: But I seemed to remember the attraction of the door
25:32
Speaker 1: mainly as another obstacle to my overmastering determination to get
25:37
Speaker 1: to school. I was immensely interested by this discovery I
25:41
Speaker 1: had made. Of course, I went on with my mind
25:44
Speaker 1: full of it. But I went on. It didn't check me.
25:48
Speaker 1: I ran past, tugging out my watch, found I had
25:52
Speaker 1: ten minutes still to spare, and then I was going
25:55
Speaker 1: downhill into familiar surroundings. I got to school breathless, it
26:00
Speaker 1: is true, and wet with perspiration. But in time I
26:05
Speaker 1: can remember hanging up my coat and hat, went right
26:09
Speaker 1: by it and left it behind me. Are they he
26:13
Speaker 1: looked at me thoughtfully. Of course I didn't know then
26:17
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't always be there. Schoolboys have limited imaginations,
26:23
Speaker 1: I suppose. I thought it was an awfully jolly thing
26:26
Speaker 1: to have it there, To know my way back to it.
26:29
Speaker 1: But there was the school tugging at me. I expect
26:33
Speaker 1: I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning,
26:37
Speaker 1: recalling what I could of the beautiful, strange people I
26:40
Speaker 1: should presently see again. Oddly enough, I had no doubt
26:44
Speaker 1: in my mind that they would be glad to see me. Yes,
26:49
Speaker 1: I must have thought of the garden that morning just
26:52
Speaker 1: as a jolly sort of place to which one might
26:55
Speaker 1: resort in the interludes of a strenuous scholastic career. I
27:00
Speaker 1: didn't go that day at all. The next day was
27:03
Speaker 1: a half holiday, and that may have weighed with me.
27:07
Speaker 1: Perhaps too, my state of inattention brought down in positions
27:11
Speaker 1: upon me and docked the margin of time necessary for
27:15
Speaker 1: the detour. I don't know. What I do know is
27:19
Speaker 1: that in the meantime, the enchanted garden was so much
27:22
Speaker 1: upon my mind that I could not keep it to myself.
27:26
Speaker 1: I told what was his name, a thirty looking youngster
27:30
Speaker 1: we used to call squiff young Hopkins, said I Hopkins
27:35
Speaker 1: it was. I did not like telling him. I had
27:37
Speaker 1: a feeling that in some way it was against the
27:40
Speaker 1: rules to tell him, but I did. He was walking
27:43
Speaker 1: part of the way home with me. He was talkative,
27:46
Speaker 1: and if we had not talked about the enchanted Garden,
27:49
Speaker 1: we should have talked of something else. And it was
27:52
Speaker 1: intolerable to me to think about any other subject, so
27:56
Speaker 1: I blabbed. Well, he told my secret. The next day,
28:01
Speaker 1: in the play interval, I found myself surrounded by half
28:04
Speaker 1: a dozen bigger boys, half teasing and wholly curious to
28:08
Speaker 1: hear more of the enchanted Garden. There was that big
28:12
Speaker 1: force it. You remember him, and Carnaby and Morley Reynolds.
28:17
Speaker 1: You weren't there by any chance, now, I think I
28:20
Speaker 1: should have remembered if you were a boy is a
28:23
Speaker 1: creature of odd feelings. I was, I really believe, in
28:28
Speaker 1: spite of my secret self disgust, a little flattered to
28:32
Speaker 1: have the attention of these big fellows. I remember particularly
28:36
Speaker 1: a moment of pleasure caused by the praise of Crowshaw.
28:40
Speaker 1: You remember Crowshaw Major, the son of Crawshaw, the composer,
28:44
Speaker 1: who said it was the best lie he had ever heard.
28:48
Speaker 1: But at the same time there was a really painful
28:51
Speaker 1: undertow of shame at telling what I felt was indeed
28:56
Speaker 1: a sacred secret. That beast force. It made a joke
28:59
Speaker 1: about the girling green. Wallace's voice sank with the keen
29:04
Speaker 1: memory of that shame. I pretended not to hear. He said. Well,
29:10
Speaker 1: then Carnaby suddenly called me a young liar and disputed
29:14
Speaker 1: with me when I said the thing was true. I
29:17
Speaker 1: said I knew where to find the green door, could
29:20
Speaker 1: lead them all there in ten minutes. Carnaby became outrageously
29:24
Speaker 1: virtuous and said I'd have to and bear out my
29:28
Speaker 1: words or suffer. Did you ever have Carnaby twist your arm?
29:33
Speaker 1: Then perhaps you'll understand how it went with me. I
29:37
Speaker 1: swore my story was true. There was nobody in the
29:40
Speaker 1: school then to save a Chap from Carnaby. Though Croshaw
29:44
Speaker 1: put in a word or so, Carnaby had got his game.
29:48
Speaker 1: I grew excited, and red eared and a little frightened.
29:52
Speaker 1: I behaved altogether like a silly little chap. And the
29:56
Speaker 1: outcome of it all was that instead of starting alone
30:00
Speaker 1: for my enchanted garden, I led the way presently, cheeks flushed, ears,
30:06
Speaker 1: hot eyes smarting, and my soul one burning misery and shame.
30:12
Speaker 1: For a party of six mocking, curious and threatening school fellows.
30:19
Speaker 1: We never found the white wall and the green door
30:23
Speaker 1: you mean, I mean I couldn't find it. I would
30:26
Speaker 1: have found it if I could, And afterwards, when I
30:30
Speaker 1: could go alone, I couldn't find it. I never found it.
30:35
Speaker 1: I seemed now to have been always looking for it
30:38
Speaker 1: through my schoolboy days, but I never came upon it.
30:41
Speaker 1: Never did the fellows make it disagreeable. Beastly Carna beheld
30:47
Speaker 1: a council over me for wanton lying. I remember how
30:51
Speaker 1: I sneaked home and upstairs to hide the marks of
30:55
Speaker 1: my blubbering. But when I cried myself to sleep at last,
30:59
Speaker 1: it wasn't for Carnaby, but for the garden, for the
31:03
Speaker 1: beautiful afternoon I had hoped for, for the sweet, friendly women,
31:08
Speaker 1: and the waiting playfellows, and the game I had hoped
31:11
Speaker 1: to learn again, that beautiful, forgotten game. I believed firmly
31:17
Speaker 1: that if I had not told, I had bad times
31:21
Speaker 1: after that, crying at night and wool gathering by day.
31:26
Speaker 1: For two terms, I slackened and had bad reports. Do
31:30
Speaker 1: you remember, of course you would. It was you Yore
31:34
Speaker 1: beating me in mathematics that brought me back to the
31:37
Speaker 1: grind again Part three. For a time, my friend stared
31:43
Speaker 1: silently into the red heart of the fire. Then he said,
31:47
Speaker 1: I never saw it again until I was seventeen. It
31:51
Speaker 1: leapt upon me for the third time. As I was
31:53
Speaker 1: driving to Paddington, on my way to Oxford and a scholarship.
31:57
Speaker 1: I had just one momentary glimpse. I was leaning over
32:02
Speaker 1: the apron of my hansom, smoking a cigarette and no doubt,
32:06
Speaker 1: thinking myself no end of a man of the world.
32:11
Speaker 1: And suddenly there was the door, the wall, the dear
32:14
Speaker 1: sense of unforgettable and still attainable things we clattered by.
32:20
Speaker 1: I too taken by surprise to stop my cab until
32:24
Speaker 1: we were well past and round a corner. Then I
32:28
Speaker 1: had a queer moment, a double and divergent movement of
32:31
Speaker 1: my will. I tapped the little door in the roof
32:34
Speaker 1: of the cab and brought my arm down to pull
32:36
Speaker 1: out my watch. Yes, sir, said the cabman smartly. Ah, well,
32:41
Speaker 1: it's nothing, I cried, my mistake. We haven't much time gone,
32:46
Speaker 1: and he went on. I got my scholarship, and the
32:50
Speaker 1: night after I was told of that, I sat over
32:54
Speaker 1: my fire in my little upper room, my study in
32:58
Speaker 1: my father's house, with his praise, his rare praise, and
33:04
Speaker 1: his sound counsels ringing in my ears, and I smoked
33:09
Speaker 1: my favorite pipe, the formidable bulldog of adolescence, and thought
33:15
Speaker 1: of that door in the long white wall. If I
33:19
Speaker 1: had stopped, I thought I should have missed my scholarship.
33:23
Speaker 1: I should have missed Oxford. Muddled all the fine career
33:27
Speaker 1: before me, I begin to see things better. I fell
33:31
Speaker 1: musing deeply. But I did not doubt then this career
33:36
Speaker 1: of mine was a thing that merited sacrifice. Those dear friends,
33:42
Speaker 1: and that clear atmosphere seemed very sweet to me, very fine,
33:47
Speaker 1: but remote. My grip was fixing now upon the world.
33:52
Speaker 1: I saw another door opening, the door of my career.
33:55
Speaker 1: He stared again into the fire. Its red light picked
33:59
Speaker 1: out a stubborn strength in his face for just one
34:03
Speaker 1: flickering moment, and then it vanished again. Well, he said,
34:08
Speaker 1: and sighed, I have served that career. I have done
34:13
Speaker 1: much work, much hard work. But I have dreamt of
34:17
Speaker 1: the enchanted garden a thousand dreams, and seen its door,
34:22
Speaker 1: or at least glimpsed its door. Four times since then, yes,
34:28
Speaker 1: four times. For a while, this world was so bright
34:32
Speaker 1: and interesting, seemed so full of meaning and opportunity, that
34:36
Speaker 1: the half effaced charm of the garden was by comparison,
34:41
Speaker 1: gentle and remote, who wants to pat panthers on the
34:45
Speaker 1: way to dinner with pretty women and distinguished men. I
34:50
Speaker 1: came down to London from Oxford, a man of bold
34:53
Speaker 1: promise that I have done something to redeem something, and
34:58
Speaker 1: yet there have been des appointments. Twice I have been
35:02
Speaker 1: in love. I will not dwell on that. But once,
35:08
Speaker 1: as I went to someone who I knew, doubted whether
35:12
Speaker 1: I dared to come, I took a short cut at
35:15
Speaker 1: a venture through an unfrequented road near Earl's Court, and
35:20
Speaker 1: so happened on a white wall and a familiar green door. Odd,
35:25
Speaker 1: said I to myself, But I thought this place was
35:28
Speaker 1: on Campden Hill. It's the place I never could find,
35:31
Speaker 1: somehow like Counting Stonehenge, the place of that queer day
35:36
Speaker 1: dream of mine. And I went by it intent upon
35:40
Speaker 1: my purpose. It had no appeal to me. That afternoon
35:45
Speaker 1: I had just a moment's impulse to try the door.
35:49
Speaker 1: Three steps aside were needed at the most, though I
35:53
Speaker 1: was sure enough in my heart that it would open
35:55
Speaker 1: to me, And then I thought that doing so might
35:59
Speaker 1: delay me on the way to that appointment in which
36:03
Speaker 1: I thought my honor was involved. Afterwards, I was sorry
36:08
Speaker 1: for my punctuality. Might at least have peeped in, I thought,
36:12
Speaker 1: and waved a hand to those panthers. But I knew
36:15
Speaker 1: enough by this time not to seek again belatedly that
36:20
Speaker 1: which is not found by seeking. Yes, that time made
36:25
Speaker 1: me very sorry. Years of hard work after that, and
36:29
Speaker 1: never a sight of the door. It's only recently that
36:32
Speaker 1: it has come back to me. With it, there has
36:35
Speaker 1: come a sense as though some thin tarnish had spread
36:39
Speaker 1: itself over my world. I began to think of it
36:42
Speaker 1: as a sorrowful and bitter thing, that I should never
36:46
Speaker 1: see that door again. Perhaps I was suffering a little
36:49
Speaker 1: from overwork. Perhaps it was what I've heard spoken of
36:53
Speaker 1: as the feeling of forty. I don't know, but certainly
36:59
Speaker 1: the keen that makes effort easy has gone out of
37:03
Speaker 1: things recently, and that just at a time, with all
37:08
Speaker 1: these new political developments, when I ought to be working. Oh,
37:13
Speaker 1: isn't it? But I do begin to find life toilsome
37:18
Speaker 1: its rewards as I come near them cheap. I began
37:22
Speaker 1: a little while ago to want the garden quite badly. Yes,
37:26
Speaker 1: and I've seen it three times the garden. No the door,
37:31
Speaker 1: and I haven't gone in. He leant over the table
37:35
Speaker 1: to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as
37:38
Speaker 1: he spoke, thrice, I have had my chance thrice. If
37:43
Speaker 1: ever that door offers itself to me again, I swore
37:47
Speaker 1: I will go in. Out of this dust and heat,
37:50
Speaker 1: out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these
37:54
Speaker 1: toilsome futilities, I will go and never return. This time
37:59
Speaker 1: I will stay. I swore it. And when the time came,
38:04
Speaker 1: I didn't go. Three times in one year have I
38:10
Speaker 1: passed that door and failed to enter? Three times in
38:15
Speaker 1: the last year. The first time was on the night
38:18
Speaker 1: of the snatched division on the tenant's Redemption Bill, on
38:22
Speaker 1: which the government was saved by a majority of three.
38:25
Speaker 1: You remember, no one on our side, perhaps very few
38:29
Speaker 1: on the opposite side, expected the end that night. Then
38:33
Speaker 1: the debate collapsed like eggshells. I and Hotchgess were dining
38:38
Speaker 1: with his cousin at Brentford. We were both unpaired, and
38:42
Speaker 1: we were called up by telephone and set off at
38:44
Speaker 1: once in his cousin's motor. We got in barely in time,
38:49
Speaker 1: and on the way we passed my wall and door
38:53
Speaker 1: livid in the moonlight, blotched with hot yellow as the
38:57
Speaker 1: glare of our lamps lit it. But unmistake, my God
39:01
Speaker 1: cried I what said, hotchkiss? Nothing I answered, and the
39:07
Speaker 1: moment passed. I've made a great sacrifice, I told the
39:10
Speaker 1: whip as I got in. They all have, he said,
39:13
Speaker 1: and hurried by. I do not see how I could
39:17
Speaker 1: have done otherwise. Then, and the next occasion was as
39:21
Speaker 1: I rushed to my father's bedside to bid that stern
39:25
Speaker 1: old man farewell. Then too, the claims of life were imperative.
39:30
Speaker 1: But the third time was different. It happened a week ago.
39:34
Speaker 1: It fills me with hot remorse to recall it. I
39:38
Speaker 1: was with Gurker and Ralph's. It's no secret now you
39:42
Speaker 1: know that I've had my talk with Gurkha. We had
39:45
Speaker 1: been dining at Frobisher's and the talk had become intimate
39:49
Speaker 1: between us. The question of my place in the reconstructed
39:53
Speaker 1: ministry lay always just over the boundary of the discussion. Yes, yes,
39:59
Speaker 1: that's all settled. It needn't be talked about yet. But
40:03
Speaker 1: there's no reason to keep a secret from you. Yes, thanks, thanks,
40:08
Speaker 1: But let me tell you my story then, on that night,
40:13
Speaker 1: things were very much in the air. My position was
40:16
Speaker 1: a very delicate one. I was keenly anxious to get
40:19
Speaker 1: some definite word from gurkh but was hampered by Ralph's presence.
40:24
Speaker 1: I was using the best power of my brain to
40:27
Speaker 1: keep that light and careless talk not too obviously directed
40:32
Speaker 1: to the point that concerned me. I had to Ralph's behavior,
40:37
Speaker 1: since has more than justified my caution. Ralph's, I knew,
40:41
Speaker 1: would leave us beyond the Kensington High Street, and then
40:45
Speaker 1: I could surprise Gurka by a sudden frankness. One has
40:49
Speaker 1: sometimes to resort to these little devices. And then it
40:54
Speaker 1: was that, in the margin of my field of vision,
40:57
Speaker 1: I became aware once more of the white, all the
41:00
Speaker 1: green door before us. Down the road. We passed it talking,
41:05
Speaker 1: I passed it. I can still see the shadow of
41:09
Speaker 1: Gurkha's marked profile, his opera hat tilted forward over his
41:14
Speaker 1: prominent nose, the many folds of his neck wrap going
41:18
Speaker 1: before my shadow and Ralph's. As we sauntered past. I
41:23
Speaker 1: passed within twenty inches of the door. If I say
41:27
Speaker 1: good night to them and go in, I asked myself,
41:31
Speaker 1: what will happen? And I was all a tingle for
41:34
Speaker 1: that word with Gurkha. I could not answer that question.
41:38
Speaker 1: In the tangle of my other problems. They will think
41:41
Speaker 1: me mad, I thought, and suppose I vanished now amazing
41:45
Speaker 1: disappearance of a prominent politician that weighed with me a
41:50
Speaker 1: thousand inconceivably petty worldlinesses weighed with me in that crisis.
41:57
Speaker 1: Then he turned on me with a sorrowful smile and
42:01
Speaker 1: speaking slowly. Here I am, he said, Here I am,
42:06
Speaker 1: he repeated, And my chance has gone from me three
42:10
Speaker 1: times in one year. The door has been offered me,
42:13
Speaker 1: the door that goes into peace, into delight, into a
42:19
Speaker 1: beauty beyond dreaming, a kindness no man on earth can know.
42:25
Speaker 1: And I have rejected it, Redmond, and it has gone.
42:29
Speaker 1: How do you know? I know? I know. I am
42:34
Speaker 1: left now to work it out, to stick to the
42:38
Speaker 1: tasks that held me so strongly when my moments came.
42:42
Speaker 1: You say, I have success, this vulgar, tawdry, irksome, envied thing.
42:51
Speaker 1: I have it. He had a walnut in his big hand.
42:55
Speaker 1: If that was my success, he said, and crushed it
42:59
Speaker 1: and held it out for me to see. Let me
43:01
Speaker 1: tell you something, Redmond, This loss is destroying me for
43:06
Speaker 1: two months, for ten weeks dearly now I have done
43:09
Speaker 1: no work at all except the most necessary and urgent duties.
43:14
Speaker 1: My soul is full of inappeasable regrets. At nights, when
43:20
Speaker 1: it is less likely I shall be recognized, I go out,
43:24
Speaker 1: I wonder, yes, I wonder what people would think of that,
43:29
Speaker 1: if they knew a cabinet minister, the responsible head of
43:35
Speaker 1: that most vital of all departments, wandering alone, grieving, sometimes
43:42
Speaker 1: near audibly, lamenting for a door, for a garden. But
43:49
Speaker 1: four I can see now his rather pallid face and
43:53
Speaker 1: the unfamiliar somber fire that had come into his eyes.
43:58
Speaker 1: I see him very vividly. To night I sit recalling
44:02
Speaker 1: his words, his tones, and last evenings. Westminster Gazette still
44:08
Speaker 1: lies on my sofa, containing the notice of his death.
44:12
Speaker 1: At lunch to day, the club was busy with his death.
44:16
Speaker 1: We talked of nothing else. They found his body very
44:19
Speaker 1: early yesterday morning in a deep excavation near East Kensington Station.
44:25
Speaker 1: It is one of two shafts that have been made
44:27
Speaker 1: in connection with an extension of the railway southward. It
44:30
Speaker 1: is protected from the intrusion of the public by a
44:33
Speaker 1: hoarding upon the high road in which a small doorway
44:37
Speaker 1: has been cut for the convenience of some of the
44:39
Speaker 1: workmen who live in that direction. The doorway was left
44:43
Speaker 1: unfastened through a misunderstanding between two gangers, and through it
44:47
Speaker 1: he made his way. My mind is darkened with questions
44:52
Speaker 1: and riddles. It would seem he walked all the way
44:55
Speaker 1: from the house that night. He has frequently walked home
44:59
Speaker 1: during the past session, and so it is I figure
45:03
Speaker 1: his dark form coming along the late and empty streets,
45:07
Speaker 1: wrapped up intent. And then did the pale electric lights
45:13
Speaker 1: near the station cheat the rough planking into a semblance
45:16
Speaker 1: of white. Did that fatal unfastened door awaken some memory?
45:23
Speaker 1: Was thereafter all, ever, any green door in the wall?
45:27
Speaker 1: At all? I do not know. I have told his
45:31
Speaker 1: story as he told it to me. There are times
45:34
Speaker 1: when I believe that Wallace was no more than the
45:37
Speaker 1: victim of the coincidence between a rare but not unprecedented
45:42
Speaker 1: type of hallucination and a careless trap. But that, indeed
45:47
Speaker 1: is not my profoundest belief. You may think me superstitious,
45:52
Speaker 1: if you will, and foolish, but indeed I am more
45:57
Speaker 1: than half convinced that he had, in truth an abnormal
46:01
Speaker 1: gift and a sense something I know not what, that
46:06
Speaker 1: in the guise of wall and door offered him an outlet,
46:11
Speaker 1: a secret and peculiar passage of escape into another and
46:16
Speaker 1: altogether more beautiful world. At any rate, you will say
46:20
Speaker 1: it betrayed him in the end. But did it betray him?
46:24
Speaker 1: There you touch the inmost mystery of these dreamers, these
46:28
Speaker 1: men of vision and the imagination. We see our world
46:33
Speaker 1: fare and common, the hoarding and the pit by our
46:38
Speaker 1: daylight standard. He walked out of security into darkness, danger,
46:44
Speaker 1: and death. But did he see it like that? End
46:50
Speaker 1: of Section thirty one.