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The Man with the Black Feather Historical Preface: The Sandalwood Box · The Gaston Leroux Library

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  Speaker 1: Historical preface of the Man with the Black Feather. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by a Fine Voice, The Man
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  Speaker 1: with the Black Feather by Gaston LaRue, translated by Edgar Jepson.
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  Speaker 1: Historical preface The Sandalwood Box. One evening last year, I
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  Speaker 1: perceived in the waiting room of my newspaper Le Matin,
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  Speaker 1: a man dressed in black, his face heavy with the
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  Speaker 1: darkest despair, whose dry, dead eyes seemed to receive the
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  Speaker 1: images of things like unmoving mirrors. He was seated, and
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  Speaker 1: there rested on his knees a sandalwood box inlaid with
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  Speaker 1: polished steel. An office boy told me that he had
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  Speaker 1: sat there, motionless, silent, awaiting my coming for three mortal hours.
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  Speaker 1: I invited this figure of despair into my office and
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  Speaker 1: offered him a chair. He did not take it. He
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  Speaker 1: walked straight to my desk and sat down on it
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  Speaker 1: the sandalwood box. Then he said to me, in an expressionless,
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  Speaker 1: far away voice, Monsieur, this box is yours, my friend, Monsieur.
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  Speaker 1: Theophrastus long Way charged me to bring it to you.
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  Speaker 1: He bowed and was going to the door when I
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  Speaker 1: stopped him. For goodness sake, don't run away like that,
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  Speaker 1: I said, sharply, I can't receive this box without knowing
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  Speaker 1: what it contains. I don't know what it contains myself.
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  Speaker 1: He said, in the same dull, expressionless tone. This box
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  Speaker 1: is locked. The key is lost. You will have to
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  Speaker 1: break it open to find out. At any rate. I
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  Speaker 1: should like to know the name of the bearer, I said, firmly.
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  Speaker 1: My friend, Monsieur theo Frastus long Way called me Adolphe.
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  Speaker 1: He said, in the mournfullest tone. If Monsieur Theofrasces long
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  Speaker 1: Way had brought me this box himself, he would certainly
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  Speaker 1: have told me what it contains. I said, stiffly. I
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  Speaker 1: regret that, Monsieur theo Frastra's long Way, so do I said,
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  Speaker 1: my visitor, Monsieur theo Frastus long Way, is dead, and
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  Speaker 1: I am his executor. With that, he opened the door,
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  Speaker 1: went through it, and shut it behind him. I stared
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  Speaker 1: at the sandalwood box. I stared at the door. Then
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  Speaker 1: I ran after the man he had vanished. I had
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  Speaker 1: the sandalwood box opened, and in it I found a
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  Speaker 1: bundle of manuscripts in a newspaper office. One is used
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  Speaker 1: to receiving bundles of manuscripts, and I began to look
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  Speaker 1: through them with consider rule weariness. Very soon it changed
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  Speaker 1: to the liveliest interest. As I went deeper and deeper
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  Speaker 1: into these posthumous documents, I found the story related in
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  Speaker 1: them more and more extraordinary, more and more incredible. For
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  Speaker 1: a long while I disbelieved it. However, since the proofs
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  Speaker 1: of it exist, I ended, after a searching inquiry into them,
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  Speaker 1: by believing it to be true. Monsieur Theophrastus Longway's reason
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  Speaker 1: for bequeathing this strange legacy to me was itself strange.
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  Speaker 1: He did not know me, but he had read articles
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  Speaker 1: by me in The matin his favorite organ, and among
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  Speaker 1: the many contributors to that journal, he had chosen me
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  Speaker 1: not for my superior knowledge, an allegation which would have
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  Speaker 1: made me blush, but because he had come to the
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  Speaker 1: conclusion that I possessed a more solid intellect than the other.
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  Speaker 1: Gaston Leroue