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The 14th Annual Halloween Spooktacular! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the Spectacular. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry, the Ghoul Jerome Roland is here and
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: we're about to get jiggy with it Halloween style.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: That's right. It's one of our favorite episodes of the year. Yeah,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: we like to remind everyone. This is one of two
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: ad free episodes we do every year, that's right. And
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I feel like lately we have been just sort of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: for the uninitiated, giving a quick overview of what we
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: do here on Halloween, and that is we read a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: couple of public domain scary stories short stories from now
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: we're up to nineteen twenty eight and previous.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I think so, maybe nineteen twenty seven one
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of the two.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: These aren't even that I think these Mine was from
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: before that, even though.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not even close to the line right now.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: No, we don't want to get litigious for anyone to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: get litigious with us. So that's right, we're not even
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: dancing close to the line.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: If you have no idea what we're talking about goes
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: into our intellectual property episode. It basically explains our Halloween.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Episode that's right, but we you know, Josh picks one out,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I pick one out. It has become very fun in
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: recent years as Josh has gotten more creative with his
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: voice work.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually really kind of nervous because it's a
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: tough act to follow, and I thought, well, I'll just
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: bring Megl back, and I have been summoning Megal's spirit
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: to take over my body again.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Nothing, I've done so many unspeakable acts as offerings to
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: bring meg back. And basically I'm like Emma Roberts at
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: the end of Black Coat's Daughter, just screaming and frustration
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: because I can't get possessed again. So I'm sorry everyone,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think Megl's going to be here this year.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like Emma Roberts at the end of Black
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Coat's Daughter, screaming like everyone in the theater. I don't
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: even look that much like that other girl.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a rather serious transition.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah that was just me though, But I know what
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you mean. It seems like there's nowhere to go but
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: down after Megle. I mean, that was an a Josh
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: apex for sure.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So I guess that maybe we'll just call this episode
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: a wash I won't even try, and we'll get back
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: to business again next year. How about that?
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds great. And you know, I actually did
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a little road testing of some different British accents, but
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what's going to come out of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: my mouth or yours, and that it's not going to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: be as rehearsed.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I've learned to speak German, right, Really, no, I had
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: to say.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: If I had, I would not have told you or
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: anybody else ahead of time. Just now. I would have
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: just started speaking German.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That would have been amazing, it would have been.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: But this episode's a wash this year, so I'm not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: going to be speaking German either.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Which one do you want to start with? You want
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to do yours or mine? I think they're both terrific.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I've got no persuasion either way, or
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not being persuaded either way. Is there any of
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the two that you feel even remotely more like should
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: go first?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You know, for some reason, instinctually, I just want to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: pick up yours.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I think it's the gripping and spooky and a good
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: place setter, and it's you know, it's HG. Wells, It's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a classic author.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's dig into yours, okay.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: HG.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Wells trying to remember my parts though.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So you are the old man with the shade on
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: his head.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, he's the one that walks in last right.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then the old lady. Oh perfect, okay, And
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: this is HG. Wells, everybody, the guy who predicted our
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: current rocket program with NASA and wrote the time Machine
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: and did all sorts of really neat stuff. He also
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: wrote a scary story. And that's what we're going to
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: read now. It's called The Red Room. So Chuck, how
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: about you narrate first? Uh?
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the reading of The
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Red Room by H. G. Wells.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: No I meant in the story?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Oh oh oh yeah, sure, I didn't know what you meant.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, what narration?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Youre?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: You talking about your reading?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: You're like, all right, don't give it a try. Okay, okay,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: you're ready.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Sure, but but you're you're playing the main guys. You're
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: starting right exactly. Okay.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I can assure you, said I that it will take
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: a very tangible ghost to frighten me.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And I stood up before the fire with my glass
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in my hand.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It is your own choosing.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Said the man with the withered arm.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: I want to take that again.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's your own choosy, said the man with a
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: withered arm, and glanced at me askance.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Eight and twenty years, said I I have lived, and
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: never a ghost have I seen. As yet.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: pale eyes wide open.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Iye, she broke.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: In, and eighty and twenty years, you have lived and
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: a many things to see when one's still but eight
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: and twenty.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: She's she's making fun of this guy for being twenty
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: eight years old. Yeah, she swayed her head slowly from
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: side to side. A many things to see and sorrow for.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I put down my empty glass on the table and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: looked about the room and caught a glimpse of myself
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness in the queer
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: old mirror at the end of the room.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I said, if I see anything tonight, I shall
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: be much the wiser before I come to the business
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: with an open mind. I'm so disappointed with myself this year.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Uh oh, yeah, it's me is your.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Choosing, said the man with a withered arm. Once more,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I heard the faint sound of a stick and a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: shambling step on the flags, and the passage outside the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: door creaked on its hinges. As a second old man entered,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: He supported himself by the help of a crutch. His
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: The man with a withered hand gave the newcomer a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: short glance of positive dislikes. The old woman took no
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes picked
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: steadily in the fire.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: I said it to your own choosing.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Said the man with a withered hand, when the coughing
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: had ceased for a while.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: It's my own choosing, I answered.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: The man with the shade became aware of my presence
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: for the first time, and threw his head back for
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a moment and sideways to seebee. I caught a momentary
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: he began to cough and sputter again.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: Why did you drink?
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Said the man with a withered arm, pushing the beer
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: toward him. The man with the shade poured out a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: glassful with a shaking hand that splashed half as much
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: again on the deal table. Stress shadow of him crouched
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and drank. I must confess I had scarcely expected these
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman, insinility,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: something crouching and atavistic. The human quality seemed to drop
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: from old people insensibly. Day by day, the three of
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: them made me feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: And that night, perhaps I was in the mood for
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable impressions. I resolved to get away from their vague
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: foreshadowings of the evil things upstairs.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: So ageous, very ageist.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: If said I.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I will show me to this haunted room of yours.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I will make myself comfortable there.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The old man, with a cough, jerked his head back
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: so suddenly that it startled me, and shot another glance
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of his red eyes at me from out of the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: darkness under the shade. But no one answered me. I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: waited a minute, glancing from one to the other. The
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: old woman stared like a dead body, glaring into the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: fire with lackluster eyes. Ef I said a little louder.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: If you will show me to this haunted room of yours,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: There's a cannon on the slab outside.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The door, said the man, with a withered hand, looking
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: at my feet as he address me.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: If you go to the red room tonight.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: This night of all nights, said the old woman softly.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: You go alone, very well, I answered shortly, And.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Which way do I go? This guy's sick of the
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: old people by now. He's just satically mad at.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Them, he is. He's being very aggressive.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: You go along the passage for a little bit.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Said he, nodding his head on his shoulder at the door.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Until you come to a spiral stircase. And on the
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: second landing is a door covered with green baize. Go
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: through that, and on the corner at the end of
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the red room is on your left, up the steps.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Have I got that right, I said, and repeated his directions.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: He corrected me in one particular. And are you really going,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: said the man with the shade, looking at me again
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: for the third time with that queer, unnatural tilting.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Of the face.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: This night of all nights, whispered the old woman.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It is what I came for.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I said, and moved toward the door. As I did so,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the old man with the shade rose and staggered round
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the table so as to be closer to the others
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and to the fire at the door. I turned and
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: looked at them, and saw they were all close together,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: with an intent expression on their ancient faces.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Good night, I said, setting the door open.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: It's yourn't choosing, said the man with a withered arm.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: All right, so as we like to do little recap.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: This guy has come to this spooky place, and there
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: are three olds there. And this guy didn't like olds.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: No, he doesn't like them, and they don't seem to
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: like him very much. I think they also are taking
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: him as foolish over the cavalier and getting himself into
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: hot water.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: To put it mildly, Yeah, because he wants to spend
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the night in this room that we don't even know
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: anything about. But I'm already scared.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a scary room that you would not want
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: to go into. They're kind of half talking about of it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, maybe a quarter.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: All right, you ready, I'll buy that. Yeah, let's go
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: switch it up.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I left the door wide open until the candle was
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: well alight, and then I shut them in and walked
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: down the chilly, echoing passage. I must confess that the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge her
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Ladyship had left the castle, and the deep toned, old
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: fashioned furniture of the housekeeper room in which they foregathered,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: had affected me curiously, in spite of my effort to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: keep myself at a matter of fact phase. They seem
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: to belong to another age, in older age, in age
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: when things spiritual were indeed to be feared, when common
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: sense was uncommon, In age when omens and witches were credible,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: and ghosts beyond denying their very existence, thought I as spectral,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: the cut of their clothing, fashions born in dead brains.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I think he's talking about no incore here. Yeah, the
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: ornaments and conveniences in the room about them even are ghostly,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: the thoughts of vanished men which still haunt rather than
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: participate in the world of today. And the passage I
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: was in, long and shadowy, with a film of moisture
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold as
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: a thing that is dead and rigid. But with an
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: effort I sent such thoughts to the right. About the long,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: drafty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: came sweeping up after me, and another fled before me
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: into the darkness overhead. They came to the wide landing
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: that I fancied I heard creeping behind me, and then,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: satisfied of the absolute silence, pushed open the unwilling baze
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: covered door and stood in the silent.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Corridor bays is like a felt.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: That's what I got, too, Like what they used to
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: put on billiard tables.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, might look nice on a door. You never know.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: It's a weird choice, kind of upsetting if you think
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: about it. Should I keep going?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: The effect was scarcely what I expected for. The moonlight
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: coming in by the great window on the grand staircase
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: picked out everything in vivid black shadow or reticulated silvery illumination.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Everything seemed in its proper position. The house might have
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: been deserted on the yesterday instead of twelve months ago.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: polished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: in my candlelight. A waiting stillness was over everything. I
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: stood upon the landing, hidden from me by a corner
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvelous distinctness
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: upon the white paneling and gave me the impression of
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: someone crouching to waylay me. The thing jumped upon my attention.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Suddenly I stood rigid for half a moment perhaps, Then,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: with my hand in the pocket that held the revolver,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I advanced only to discover a Gany Mead and eagle
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: glistening in the moonlight. That incident, for a time restored
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: my nerve by the way, Ganny Mead was the most
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: beautiful mortal in Grease whose Zeus napped and took as
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: a basically a love slave.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and a Ganny Meat and eagle was just like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a little statue of an eagle with this scanny meat character.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: But the shadow was super scary.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: For a second, I believe it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: The door of the Red Room and the steps up
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: candle from side to side in order to see clearly
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the nature of the recess in which I stood before
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: opening the door. Here it was I thought that my
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: predecessor was found, and the memory of the story gave
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: shoulder at the black Ganny meat in the moonlight, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: opened the door of the Red Room rather hastily, With
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: my face half turned to the pallid silence of the corridor.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I entered closed the door behind me at once turned
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: the key I found in the lock within, and stood
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: with the candle help of off surveying the scene of
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: my vigil, the great red room of Lowering Castle, in
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: which the young Duke had died, or rather in which
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: he had begun his dying, For he had opened the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: That had been the end of his vigil, of his
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: gallant attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the place,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: And never I thought, had apoplexy better served the ends
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of superstition. There were other older stories that clung to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: the room, back to the half incredible beginning of it all,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: that came to her husband's chest of frightening her. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: looking round that huge, shadowy room, with its black window bays,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: its recesses and alcoves, its dusty brown red hangings, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: dark gigantic furniture, one could well understand the legends that
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darknesses. My
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: candle was a little tongue of light in the vastness
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: of the chamber. Its rays failed to pierce to the
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: opposite end of the room and left an ocean of
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: dull red mystery and suggestion, sentinel shadows and watching darknesses
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: beyond its island of light and the stillness of desolation
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: brooded over it all.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: All right, So, like a lot of these stories, you
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of a vague setup and then
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: they sort of dole out what's happening. Yeah, as it goes.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: On pretty much what he's doing here, I would.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Say, Yeah, so he got this guy, he's going to
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this castle now where the person before him that went
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: to sort of ghost investigate through him? Sounds like he
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: threw himself down the stairs and took his life right
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: with madness.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: I think he. I get the impression, who's trying to
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: get the heck out of that room and died running
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: falling down the stairs.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Maybe okay, either one.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And then this whole thing was haunted though by a woman.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And do I gather that her husband used to like
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: kiddingly frighten her and that led to a death.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: That's what I took it as.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, not a nice guy.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Don't do that, guys, No, it wasn't jest.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he regretted it pretty deeply afterward if he
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: was even half way decent. Right, are you taking over now?
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yes? It feels like a switcher roo me, I think
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: so too. All right, so this guy's in this room now,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: finally he's all set to go.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Here we go.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I must confess some impalpable quality of that ancient room
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: disturbed me. I tried to fight the feeling down. I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: resolved to make a systematic examination of the place, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: so by leaving nothing to the imagination, dispel the fanciful
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: suggestions of the obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: love that. I get the feeling this guy's like, check
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to make sure it was locked, like eight times. I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: began to walk around the room, peering round each article
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: of furniture, tucking up the balances of the bed and
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: opening its curtains wide. So basically, this guy's doing what
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: any kid would do.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's trying to bring as much light as possible
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: in there and checking everything right.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, he's looking at He's like, I don't want
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: those sheets hanging down below, like what's under the bed.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: It's likely to tuck that in. Let's lock the door
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: eight times. I like this guy. Yeah, okay. In one
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: place there was a distinct echo to my footsteps. The
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: noises I made seemed so little that they enhanced rather
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: than broke the silence of the place. I pulled up
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the blinds and examined the fastenings of these several windows.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Attracted by the fall of a particle of dust, I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: leaned forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney. Then,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: trying to preserve my scientific attitude of mind, I walked
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: round and began tapping the oak paneling for any secret opening.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: But I desisted before reaching the alcove. I saw my
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: face in a mirror white.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, what color do you think he was?
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: I think he might have kale is a sheet kind
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: of thing. He looked like scared, maybe.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I think so.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: There were two big mirrors in the room, each with
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: too were candles and china candlesticks. All these I lit
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: one after the other. The fire was laid an unexpected
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: consideration from the old housekeeper, and I lit it to
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: burning well, I stood round with my back to it
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: chintz covered armchair and a table to form a kind
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of barricade before me. On this lay my revolver ready
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to hand. Oh that's right, he's strapped. That was pretty important.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: My precise examination had done me a little good, but
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I still found the remoter darkness of the place, in
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of the stir and crackling of the fire was no
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: at the end of the room began to display that
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: indefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: living thing that comes so easily in silence and solitude.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: And to reassure myself, I walked with a candle into
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: it and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I stood that can upon the floor of the alcove
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and left it in that position. By this time I
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although to
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: my reason there was no adequate cause for my condition.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I began stringing some rhymes together in Goldsby fashioned concerning
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the original legend.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Of the place.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: For some reason, I also abandoned after a time a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and I tried to keep it upon that topic. Yeah,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: so he's like doing the uh oh, I'm not scared
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: thing right, knocking himself out of.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: It and Ingldsby apparently wrote legends and laws and stuff
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: as poems.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: I guess, okay, that's a name.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah ready, yep, I am too. The somber reds and
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: grays of the room troubled me. Even with its seven candles,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the place was merely dim. The light in the alcove
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: flaring in a draft, and the fire flickering kept the
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: shadows and penumber perpetually shifting and stirring in a noiseless
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: flighty dance. Casting about. For a remedy, I recalled the
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: wax candles I had seen in the corridor, and with
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: a slight effort, carrying a candle and leaving the door open,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I walked out into the moonlight, and presently returned with
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: as many as ten these. I put in the various
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: knick knacks of china with which the room was sparsely
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: adorned and lit, and placed them where the shadows had
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Recesses arranging and re arranging them, until at last my
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: seventeen candles were so placed that not an inch of
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: the room but had the direct light of at least
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: one of them. It occurred to me that when the
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: ghosts came, I could warn him not to trip over them.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Ha ha. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: was something very cheering and reassuring in these little silent,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: streaming flames, and to notice their steady diminution of length
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: offered me an occupation and gave me a reassuring sense
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: of the passage of time.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine what a like Now you go into
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a scary room, you just turn on all those lights exactly.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: This took twenty minutes to do it back then right.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And also he's like, so trying to make time pass
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: that he's staring at candles melting. Yeah, that's reassuring. That's
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: how it kind of up an arms.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: He is. Yeah. Good times.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Even with that, however, the brooining expectation of the vigil
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: weighed heavily upon me. I stood watching the minute hand
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of my watch creep toward midnight. Then something happened in
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: the alcove. I did not see the candle go out.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: as one might start and see the unexpected presence of
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: a stranger. The black shadow had sprung back to its place.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: By Jove said, I allowed, recovering from my surprise that
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: drafts a strong one, and taking the match box from
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: the table, I walked across the room in a leisurely
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: manner to relight the corner.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Again.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I get the impression that was a forced leisurely manner,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: don't you.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like, oh, I'm fine, everybody.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: with the second, something seemed to blink on the wall
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: before me. I turned my head involuntarily and saw that
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: the two candles on the little table by the fireplace
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet ahed,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I said, did I do that myself? In a flash
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: of absent mindedness, I walked back ReLit one, and as
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I did so, I saw the candle in the right
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: scance of one of the mere's wink and go right out,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: and almost immediately its companion followed it. The flames vanished,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: as if the wick had been suddenly nipped between a
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: finger and thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: but black. While I stood gaping, the candle at the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: foot of the bed went out, and the shadows seemed
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: to take an stepped toward me.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: For the record, I think that a little bit with
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the candle going out but no smoke or no glow,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that's like, I think that's legit. The scariest line in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: this thing.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really good little little thing, little
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: nice details detail, That's what I was after. This won't do,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: said I in first one and then another candle on
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the mantle shelf followed. What's up? I cried with a
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: queer high note. Sorry, what's up? I cried with a
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: queer high note, getting into my voice somehow at that
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: the candle on the corner of the wardrobe went out,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: and the one I had reltt and the alcove followed
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: steady on. I said, those candles are wanted, speaking with
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: a half hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away to match, though
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: all the while for the mantle candlesticks, my hands trembled
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: so much that twice I missed the rough paper of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: the matchbox. As the mantle emerged from darkness again, two
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: candles in the remoter and the room where eclipsed, but
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: with the same match. I also ReLit the larger mirror
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: candles and those on the floor near the doorway, so
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that for a moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: But then in a noiseless volley, there vanished four lights
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: at once in different corners of the room, and I
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: struck another match in a quivering haste, and stood hesitating.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Whether to take it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: This is really scary. At this point, I can picture
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: this happening.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, think about it. The whole reason he
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: went and gathered seventeen candles because he didn't want any
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: darkness in there, And now something, it seems as is
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: extinguishing these candles all over the room while he's trying
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: to get them re lit. I would be flipping out
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: at this point.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that one little detail too, H wells good writer.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: When he's trying to strike the match, but he's on
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the smooth part of the box. That's good stuff.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's been there.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Uh switch through?
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think switch roof for sure?
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: out the two candles on the table with a cry
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of terror. I dashed at the alcove.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: You can do the cry of tear, then into the.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Cry of terror.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Oh goodness, then into the corner, and then into the window,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: relighting three as two more vanished by the fireplace, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: then perceiving a better way, I dropped matches on the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: iron bound deed box in the corner and caught up
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the bedroom candlestick. I don't what is he doing there.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I don't quite follow that he has he's basically forgotten
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: the matches. Now he's just gonna like use a candle.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Though, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that'ld move With this, I
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: avoided the delay of okay, I just should have kept
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: breathing with this. I avoided the delay of striking matches.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But for all that, the steady process of extinction went on,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and the shadows I feared and fought against returned and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: crept in upon me. First a step gained on this
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: side of me, then on that. I was now almost
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: frantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: self possession deserted me. I leaped, panting from candle to cantle,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance. Nice I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: bruised myself in the thigh against the table, I sent
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a chair headlong. I stumbled and fell, and whisked the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: cloth from the table in my fall.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: It's got's like at three stitches.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: as I rose abruptly. This was blown out as I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: swung it off the table by the wind of my
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: there was light still in the room, a red light
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that streamed across the ceiling and staved off the shadows
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: from the fire. Of course, I could still thrust my
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: candle between the bars and relight it. I turned to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: toward the grate, and incontinent, incontinently, Yeah, did.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: You poop themself?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Or peeded one of the two?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the reflections rushed together and disappeared. And as I thrust
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the candle between the bars, darkness closed upon me, like
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the shutting of an eye, wrapping around me in a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: stifling embrace, sealed my vision and crushed the last vestiges
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of self possession from my brain. And it was not
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. The candle fell from
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: lifting up my voice, screamed with all of my might, once, twice, thrice.
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: Ah ah ah.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I know, I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: with my my head bowed on my arms over my face,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: made a stumbling run for the door. But I had
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: forgotten the exact position of the door, and I struck
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: myself heavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: turned and was either struck or struck myself against some
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: other bulky furnishing. I have a vague memory of battering
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: myself thus to and fro in the darkness of a
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: heavy blow at last up on my forehead, of a
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: horrible sensation of falling that lasted an age of my
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: last frantic effort to keep my footing.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And then I remember no more.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Boy, that's some good folly work right there, my friend,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: I've been I would say I was practicing, but it
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: is all to soft.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: The cuff, all right.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: So this guy a key detail there is like I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: was either struck myself or was struck and like that's
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: a key detail, bro for sure.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But for all intents and purposes, it does not matter
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: at this point because he's been knocked out. And frankly,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: I think we have a little bit of detail about
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: what happened to that earl, that count who fell headlong
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: out of the door.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, I think I see where this is headed.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Ready, I'm taking it home, Take it home, baby.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: and the man with the withered hand was watching my face.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I looked about me, trying to remember what had happened,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: no longer abstracted, no longer terrible, pouring out some drops
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: of medicine from a little blue file into a glass.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Where am I? I said, I seem to remember you,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: and yet I cannot remember who you are. They told
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: me then, And I heard of the haunted room as
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: one hears a tale. Let's see, I think this is
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: the old man with the withered arm. Yeah, we found
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: you at dawn, said he. And there was blood on
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: your forehead and lips. I wondered that I had ever
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: disliked him. The three of them in the daylight seemed commonplace,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: old folk enough. The man with the green shade had
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: his head been as one who sleeps. It was very
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: slowly I recovered the memory of my experience. You believe now,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: said the old man with the withered hand, that the
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: room is haunted. He spoke no longer as one who
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: greets an intruder, but is one who condoles with the friend. Yes,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: said I, the room is haunted, and you have seen it,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: and we who have been here all alives, have never
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: set eyes upon it, because we have never dared TuS.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Is it truly the old earl who no, said I
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: it is not, I told you show, said the old
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: lady with the glass in her hand.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: It is his poor young countess who is fright.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: It is not, I said. There is neither ghost of
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: earl nor ghost of countess in that room. There is
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse, something impalpable.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Well, not bad, Yeah, the.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: said I. And that is in all its nakedness, fear, fear.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It will not have light nor sound, that will not
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: followed me through the corridor. It fought against me. In
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: the room. I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: My hand went up to my bandages. The candles went out,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: one after another, and I fled. Then the man with
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: the shade lifted his face sideways to see me and spoke,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: that is it, said he.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: I knew that was yet a power of darkness? Is
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: he Sean Connery.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Sean Conry and James Earl Jones had a baby. And
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: this guy's it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: A power of darkness to put such a curse upon
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: a home. It looks they're always You can feel it,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: even in the daytime, even of a bright summer's day,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and the hangings curtains keeping behind you. However you face
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: about in the dusk, it creeps in the corridor and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: follows you so that you dare not turn. It is
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: even as you say, fear itself is in that room,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: black fear, and there it will be so long is
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: this house of sin indoors? Wowsy wows or wowser?
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: You really finished that in grand style. Man, that was great.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Stuff, Thanks dude, Man HG.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Wells. That is no wonder he was a popular writer.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: That's good stuff.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Still is popular. We just brought him back, buddy. Yeah,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: so I guess we should take a message break.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Huh No, No, not for how to We Eat?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: That never gets old for me. I think I say
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: that every year. Yeah, I love it, so, yeah, I
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: guess then we'll move on to the next one. This
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: is your right.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This is called the Misanthrope by J. D. Beresford.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And you'll see what's going on here? Got to do
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: with a lot of these stories are the same. I
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, horror writing back then, these short stories
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: often had to do with people investigating some creepy place
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: where something creepy had happened, or maybe that's all horror.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Movie, and they were usually approaching it from like a
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: rational mind, and they end up like being proven that
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: there's something worse there, and yeah, it's good stuff.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: All right, it works.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: So what am I doing again?
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I'm the visitor to the island and the boatman and
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: you're the.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Herm Okay, that's right, right? Why do we bother working
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: this out?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I always forget all right, here we go.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Everybody, pour up a spoopy drink, blow out the candles,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: relight them, blow them out again, and listen to the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Misanthrope by J. D.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Beresford. Take it away, Josh, did you say spoopy? Very nice?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Since I have returned from the rock and discussed the
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: story in all its bearings, I've begun to wonder if
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: the man made a fool of me. In the deeps
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: of my consciousness, I feel that he did not. Nevertheless,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: I cannot resist the effect of all the laughter that
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: has been evoked by my narrative. Here on the mainland,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: the whole thing seems unlikely, grotesque, foolish. On the rock,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: the man's confession carried absolute conviction. The setting is everything,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: and I am perhaps thankful that my present circumstances are
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: so beautifully conducive to sanity. No one appreciates the mystery
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: of life more than I do. But when the mystery
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: involves such a doubt of one's self, I find it
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: pleasanter to forget. Naturally, I do not want to believe
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: the story. If I did, I should know myself to
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: be some kind of human horror. And the terror of
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: it all lies in the fact that I may never
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: know precisely what kind. Before I went, we had eliminated
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: the facile and banal explanation that the man was mad,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and had fallen back upon two inevitable alternatives, crime and
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: disappointed love. We were human and romantic, and we tried
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: desperately hard not to be too obvious. That is the
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: most inscrutable paragraph I've ever read in my entire life. Yeah, right,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Once before a man had made the same attempt, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: had built or tried to build a house on the
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Golden Rock, but he had been defeated within a fortnight,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: and what was left of his building was taken off
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the island and turned into a tin church. Is there
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: still We all went to trevone and ruminated over and
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: round it, perhaps with some faint hope that one of
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: us might, all unknowing, have the abilities of a psychometrist.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: So I think what he's saying, there's something on this
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: island that he's very interested in. There's a person that
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: he's trying to figure out what their deal is, and
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: they're so into it that he and his group of
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: friends went to visit this tin church that had won's
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: been a house on this island for like two weeks,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: just in an effort to glean some sort of information,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: even psychic information if possible.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's recounting this, So he's recounting something that
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: has already happened to him that he's very sort of
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: embarrassed about.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, And we both read this already, and I can
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: promise you everybody, it gets more comprehensible as things go on.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, we should probably reread this
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: beginning at the answer and be like, oh, okay, I
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: get it.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of makes sense. It's sort of like
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the movie that picks up with the guy that all
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the stuff has already happened, and then he's like, and
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: here's the story.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, no one's like,
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: what are you talking about? This story doesn't fall into
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: the same category. Okay, here I go. Nothing came of
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: that visit. This is the visit to that ten chirt,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: but a slight intensification of those theories that were already
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: becoming a little stale. We compared the early failure of
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: thirty years ago, the attempt that was baffled with the
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: present success. For this new misanthrope had lived on the
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: gullen through the whole winter and still lived. Indeed, the
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: fact of his presence on the awful lump of rock
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: was now accepted by the country people. To them, he
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: was scarcely a shade madder than the other visitors. That
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: renunerative recurrent host that this year broke their journey to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Bedrethon in order to stand on the Trevone Beach and
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: stare foolishly at just the visible hut that struck like
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a cubicle gull on the landward face of that humped,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: desolate island. The best I can tell is there's somebody
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: who lives there now, this hermit you on this island,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: and the country people who live on the mainland just
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: off of the island are like whatever. They don't think
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: too much of him, but they can see his hut
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: from their house on the mainland.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds about right.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: You want to take over. You want me to keep
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: reading a jumble of words that barely makes sense.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: I'll go okay, all right.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: We all did that, stared at nothing in particular, and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: meditated enormously, but in what I felt at the time
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: was a wild spirit of adventure. I went out one
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: night to the point of gun ver Head and saw
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: an actual light within that distant hut, a patch of
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: golden lichen on the mother parasite.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great line, some aspect of humanity I found in
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that light. It was that finally decided me that in
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: some quality of sympathy, perhaps with the hermit, mad criminal
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: or lovelorn who had found sanctuary from the pestilent touch
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: of the encroaching crowd. It was, in fact a wildish night,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and I stayed until the little yellow speck went out,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and all I could see through the murk was an
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: occasional canopy of curving spray when the elbow of the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: trebon light touched a bare corner of that black Gulland
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: so this guy's just watching this island as well, But
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: he feels a little empathy, maybe.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Ye toward this guy sounds like it.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: The making of a decision was no difficult matter. But
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: while I waited for the necessary calm that would permit
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the occasional boat to land provisions on the island two
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: miles out from the mainland, I suffered qualms of doubt
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and nervousness. And I suffered them alone, for I had
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: determined that no hint of my adventure should be given
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: to anyone of our party until the voyage had been made.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: They might think that I had gone fishing, an excuse
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: which had all the air probability given to it by
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: the coming of the boatmen to say that the tide
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and wind would serve that morning. I had warned and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: bribed him to give no clue to my friends of
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the goal of my proposed excursion. So this guy's going
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: to go out there on a boat, But He's like,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: don't tell.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Anyone I'm doing ditching his friends. Ditching his friends.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: My nervousness suffered no decrease. As we approached the rock
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and saw the authentic figure of its single inhabitant awaiting
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: our arrival. I had some consolation in the thought that
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: he would be in some way I'm prepared by the
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: sight of our surprisingly passengered boat. But my mind shuddered
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: at the necessity for using some conventional form of address.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: If I would make at once my introduction and excuse,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the civilized opening was so helplessly incapable of expressing my sympathy,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: presenting instead so unmistakably it seemed to me the single
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: solution of common curiosity. I wondered that he had not,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: as the boatman so clearly assured me, was the case
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: had other prying visitors before me. My self consciousness increased
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: as we came nearer to the single opening among the
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: spiked rocks that served as a miniature harbor at half tide.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I felt that I was being watched by the man
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: who now stood awaiting us at water's edge, and suddenly
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: my spirit broke. I decided that I could not force
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: myself upon him that I would remain in the boat
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: while its cargo was delivered, and then return with a
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: boatman to Trevone. So resolute was I in this plan
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: that when we had pulled into the tiny landing space,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: I kept my gaze steadfastly averted from the man I
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: had come to see, and stay there solemnly out at
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the humped back of trebone, now seen in an entirely
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: new aspect. All right, So this guy's having second thoughts now,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: He's like, I'm already out here, and maybe I should
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: just go back.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I shouldn't force myself on a hermit who
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: I want to find out. What's your deal man?
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Why don't you take over? Because there's a
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: lot of me stuff.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. The sound of the hermit's voice startled me from
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: a perfectly genuine abstraction.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Fairly decent weather today.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: He remarked with, I thought a touch of nervousness he had,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I remembered addressed the same remark to the boatmen, who
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: were now conveying their cargo up to the hut. I
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: looked up and meta's stare. He was, indeed regarding me
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: with a curious effect of concentration, as if he were
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: eager to know every detail of my expression. Jolly, I
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: replied him pretty basically. The last day or two kept
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: her rather short, hasn't it.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I make allowances for that, he said, keep a resume
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: of you know, are you I staying over there?
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: He nodded towards the bay for a well, weak or two,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I told him, as we began to discuss the country
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: around Harlan with the eagerness of two strangers who find
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: a common topic at a dull reception.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Never been on the gullen before, I suppose.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: He ventured at last, when the boatmen had discharged their
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: load and were evidently ready to be off. No, no, no, no,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I haven't, I said, and hesitated. I felt the invitation
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: must come from him. He boggled over it by saying.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Dashed, awkward place to get to and nothing to see.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Of course, I don't know if you're at all keen
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: on fishing.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Well, Rather, I said, with enthusiasm.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: There'sh deep water on the other side of the rock.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: He went on, in the right weather you get splendid
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: bass there.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: He stopped, and then added it will.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Be absolutely top zero for him this after noon.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Well, perhaps I could come back, I began, but the
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: boatman interrupted me at once.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Is this Josh Clark that's visiting this guy? It sounds
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: very much like this something you would do.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: All right, you can come back tomorrow, sure enough, he said,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: tide only serves once every twelve hours.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: If you'd care to stay now.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Uh, thanks, that's awfully good of you. I should like
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: to of all things, I said, I stayed on the clear,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: understanding that the boatmen were to fetch me the next morning.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: At first, there was really very little that seemed in
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: any way strange about the man on the gully.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I could picture what heaven here, and he's like, yeah, yeah,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I'll stay. Then he turns around, he's like, you'll get
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: me tomorrow.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, yeah, this will be great. We'll do
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: some fishing, like you guys are coming right in the morning, right.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: They're like sure, sure, we'll be right back. His name,
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: he told me, was William Copley, but it appeared that
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: he was no relation to the Copleys I knew, And
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: if he had shaved, he would have looked a very
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: ordinary type of englishman roughing it on a holiday. His
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: age I judged to be between thirty and forty. Only
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: two things about him struck me as a little queer
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: during our very successful afternoons fishing. The first was that intense,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: appraising stare of his, as if he tried to fathom
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: the very depths of one's being. The second was an
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: inexplicable devotion to one particular form of ceremony. As our
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: intimacy grew, he dropped the ordinary formal politeness of a host.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: But he insisted always on one observance that I supposed
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: at first to be the merely conventional business of giving precedence.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Nothing would induce him to go in front of me.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: He sent me ahead, even as we explored the little
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: peerlius of his rock. The only level square yard on
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: the whole island was in the floor of the hut.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: But presently I noticed that this peculiarity went still further,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: and that he would not turn his back on me
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: for a single moment. This is weird, This is a
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: this is yeah, it is weird. So but the hermit
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: thirties forties, all he needs to do is shave?
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Is he like he's just a normal person.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: But there's the one thing about him is that he
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: will not let that guy get behind him no matter what. Yeah,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: I get it, okay, So that I think if anything,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: him having that weird quirk would be expected. It was
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: him being just totally normal was the unexpected part.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I agree. I agree with it.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Well it's you, buddy.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Oh okay. That discovery intrigued one. I still excluded the
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: explanation of madness. Copley's manner and conversation were so convincingly sane,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: but I reverted to and elaborated those other two suggestions
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that had been made. I could not avoid the inference
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: that the man must, in some strange way be afraid
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: of me, and I hesitated as to whether he were
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: flying from some form of justice or from revenge, perhaps
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: a vendetta. Either theory seemed to account for his intense
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: appraising stare. I inferred that his longing for companionship had
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: grown so strong that he had determined to risk the
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: possibility of my being an emissary sit by some to
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: me exquisitely romantic person or persons who desired Copley's death.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Man, I know.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I recalled and wallowed in some of the marvelous imaginings
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: of the novelist. I wondered if I could make Copley
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: speak by convincing him of my innocent identity.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: How I thrilled at the prospect.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: So this guy's just like ooh, maybe he thinks I'm
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: an assassin, and maybe I can convince him that I'm not.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: That'll be fun, right, Maybe that'll get me some currency
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: with him if I convince him I'm not here to
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: kill him.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: But the explanation of it all came without any effort
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: on my part. He said, me out of the hut
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: while he prepared our supper, quite a magnificent meal, by
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the way. I saw his reason at once. He could
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: not manage all of that business of cooking and laying
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the table without turning his back on me. One thing, however,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: puzzled me a little. He drew down the blind of
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: the little square window as soon as I had gone outside. Naturally,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I made no demure. I climbed down to the edge
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: of the sea. It was a glorious evening and waited
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: until he called me. He stood at the door of
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the hut until I was within a few feet of him,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and then retreated into the room and sat down with
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: his back to the wall. We discussed our afternoon sport
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: as we had supper. But when we had finished and
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: our pipes were going, he said, suddenly, I don't see
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: why I shouldn't tell you. Like a fool, I agreed eagerly,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: when I might so easily.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Have stopped him.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: It began when I was quite a kid, he said.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: My mother found me crying in the garden, and all
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I could tell her was that Claude, my elder brother,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: looked horrid. I couldn't bear the sight of him for
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: days afterward, either, But I was such a perfectly normal
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: child that they weren't seriously perturbed about this one idiosyncrasy
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: of mine. They thought that Claude had made a face
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: at me and frightened me. My father whacked me for it. Eventually,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I'm playing this guy over than thirty five years old.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: I realized he's just morphed into hannibal lecture.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Okay, fly fly Claris.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Perhaps that whacking stuck in my mind. Anyway, I didn't
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: confide my peculiarity to anyone until I was nearly seventeen.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I was ashamed of it, of course, I still am
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: in a way. He stopped and looked down pushed his
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: plate away from him and folded his arms on the table.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I was pining to ask a question, but I was
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: afraid to interrupt, and after a moment's hesitation, he looked
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: up and held my gaze again, but now without that
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: inquiring look of his. Rather, he seemed to be looking
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: for sympathy.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: I told my aushmaster.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: He said he was a splendid chap and he was
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: very decent about it. Took it all quite seriously and
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: advised me to consult an occultist, which I did. I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: went in the holidays with the pater. I had given
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: him a more reasonable account of my trouble, and he
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: took me to the best man in London. He was
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: tremendously interested. And it proves that there must be something
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: in it that it can't be imagination, because he really
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: found a defect in my eyes, something quite new to him,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: he said. He called it a new form of astigmatism.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: But of course, as he pointed out, no glasses would
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: be of any use to me. But what I began,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: unable to keep down my curiosity any longer, hopefully hesitated
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and dropped his eyes. A stigmatism, you know, he said?
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: Is it defect.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I quote the dictionary. I learned that definition by heart.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I often puzzle over it, still, causing images of lines
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: having a certain direction to be indist while those of
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: lines transverse to the former are distinctly seen. Only mine
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: is peculiar. And the fact that my sight is perfectly
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: normal except when I look back at anyone over my shoulder.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: He looked up almost pathetically.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: All right, So this guy's getting the truth out of him.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: This's got something wrong with his eyes.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, And he found out that there actually is something
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: wrong with it because he got his dad to take
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: him to essentially, I guess a psychic or something in London.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: And the deal is, though, is the guy when he
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: looks over his shoulder at somebody, something's up, right, which
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: is why I didn't want anyone behind him.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, take it away.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: I could see that, he hoped I might understand without
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: further explanation. I had to confess myself utterly mystified. What
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: had this trifling defect of vision to do with his
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: coming to live on the guland I wondered, I frowned
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: my perplexity. But I I don't see, I said. He
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: knocked out his pipe and began to scrape the bowl
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: with his pocket knife.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Well, mine is a kind of moral astigmatism, too, he said.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: At least it gives me a kind of moral insight.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid I must call it insight. There are some
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: who call me Tim.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I proved in some cases that.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: He dropped his voice. He was apparently deeply engrossed in
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: the scraping out of his pipe. He kept his eyes
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: on it as he continued.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Normally, you understand, when I look at people straight in
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: the face, I see them as anybody else sees them.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: But when I look back at them over my shoulder.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I see, oh, I see all their vices and defects.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Their faces remain, in a sense the same. I'm perfectly recognizable,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, but distorted beastly.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: There was my brother Claude.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Good looking chap he was, But when I saw him
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: that way, he had a nose like a parrot, and
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: he looked sort of weakly voracious and vicious.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: He stopped and shuddered slightly, and then added.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: And no one knows now that he is like that too.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: He's just been hammered on the stock exchange, rotten sort
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: of failure. It was so this guy. Uh, he's explaining
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: about his brother.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, so his look like a creep.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Right, And he looked at him over his shoulder and
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: saw his brother looking really weird.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like his true self basically m hm. And then Dennison,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: my house master, you know, such a decent chap. I
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: never looked at him that way until the end of
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: my last term at school. I had got into the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: habit more or less of never looking over my shoulder,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: you see, But I was always getting caught. That was
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: an instance. I was playing for the school against the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: old boys. Dennison called out good luck, old tap just
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: as I was going in, and I forgot and looked
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: back at him.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: Hey, that was a flashback.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Nice work on the fly.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Mm hm.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Go ahead, oh am, I narrating, that's right. Yeah. I
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: waited breathless, and as he did not go on, I
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: prompted him with was he was he like wrong too?
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Copley nodded, weak, poor devil.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: His eyes were all right, but they were fighting his
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: mouth if you know what I mean.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: I have no idea what that means.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: I looked it up. I can't find any explanation of
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: that whatsoever. So no, we don't know what you mean,
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: William Copley.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I think he just means he looked funny or something.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I guess, but I feel like he's talking about a
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: specific way that he looked funny.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Well, he says, if you know what I mean, your
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: guys should say nobody knows what you.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Mean, right, Harold, I'll add that line.
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, they were fighting his mouth.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: If you know what I mean, I feel like nobody
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: knows what you mean.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: Oh man, you're really milking this one.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: There would have been an awful scandal at that school
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: there four years after I left, if they hadn't hushed
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: it up and got Dennison out of the country.
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: Still no idea what was wrong with Dennison?
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's one of those things left unsaid. Then,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: if you want any more instances, there was the occultist,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Big Fine Chap he was, of course. He made me
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: look at him over my shoulder to test me, and
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I told more or less he was simply livid for
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a moment. He was a sensualist, you see, And when
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: I saw him that way, he looked like some filthy
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: old hog. I realized my accent is completely different than
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: the big.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: But it's very pleasing I was going to tell you,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: great job with.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: This, I found it. But he's morphed.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's what happens. He's evolved.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: That's right. The thing that really finished.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Me he went back to the beginning.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, keep nearrating, though, he.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Went on after a long interval.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Was the breaking off of my engagement to Helen. We
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: were frightfully in love with one another, and I told
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: her about my trouble. She was very sympathetic, and I
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: suppose rather sentimentally romantic too. She believed it was some
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: sort of spell that had been put on me. I
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: think anyway. She had a theory that if I once
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: saw anybody truly and ordinarily over my shoulder, I should
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: never have any more trouble, the spell would be broken
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: sort of thing. And of course she wanted to be
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the person. I didn't resist her much. I was infatuated.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I suppose anyway. I thought she was perfection, and that
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: it was simply impossible that I could find any defect
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: in her. So I agreed and looked that way.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: His voice had fallen to an even note of despondency,
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: as though the telling of this final tragedy in his
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: life had brought him to the indifference of despair.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: I looked, he continued.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: And saw a creature with no chin and watery, doting eyes,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: a fateful, slobbery thing. Eh, I can't. I never spoke
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: to her again. That broke me, you.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Know, he said.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Presently after that, I didn't care. I used to look
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: at everyone that way until I had to get away
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: from humanity. I was living in a world of beasts.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Most of them looked like some beast or bird or other.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: The strong were mor vicious and criminal, and the weak
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: were loathsome.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: I couldn't stick it.
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: In the end.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: I had to come here, away from them all.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: The thought occurred to me, Ah, have you ever looked
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: at you know, you're in the glass?
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I asked, Are you certainly drawing with your toe and
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the sand in front of them?
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: Very batchful?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I'm no better than the rest of them, he said.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: That's why I grew this rotten beard. I hadn't got
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: a looking glass here, And you.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: Can't keep it like a stiff neck as it were.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: I asked, you, you know, like going about looking humanity
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: just you know, you know, like straight in the face.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: The temptation is too strong, Copley said, and it gets
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: stronger curiosity. Partly, I suppose, but partly it's the momentary
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: sense of superiority.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: It gives you.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: You see them like that, you know, and forget how
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: you look yourself, and then after a bit it sickens you.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: You haven't, I said, and hesitated. I wanted to know.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I was horribly afraid you haven't. I began again, Er
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: you have? Uh? Or have you let me figure out
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: how to say this? Have have you looked at me
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: that way?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: Not yet?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: He said?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: M M.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: Do you.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Do?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: You suppose?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Probably you look all right, of course, but then show
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: did heaps of the others.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you have no idea none how I should
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: look to you that way?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely none. I've been trying to guess, but I can't.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Oh man, you wouldn't you know? You wouldn't care. Not now,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: he said, sharply, Perhaps just before you go m ah,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: you feel fairly certain. Then he nodded with disgusting conviction.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: I went to bed, wondering whether Helen's theory wasn't a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: true one, and if I might not break the spell
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: for poor old Copley. The boatman came for me soon
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: after eleven. The next morning, I had shaken off some
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: of the feeling of superstitious horror that held me overnight.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: And I had not repeated my request to Copley, nor
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: had he offered to look into the dark places of
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: my soul. He came down after me to the landing
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: place and we shook hands warmly, but he said nothing
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: about my revisiting him. And then, just as we were
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: putting off, he turned backward toward the hut and looked
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: at me over his shoulder, just one quick glance. Uh
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: hold on, hold on, wait, I commanded the boatman, and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: I stood up and called to him. Uh Copley, I shouted.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: He turned and looked at me, and I saw that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: his face was transfigured. He wore an expression of foolish
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: disgust and loathing. I had seen something like it on
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: the face of a child who was just going to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: be sick.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: Oh boy.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: I dropped down into the boat and turned my back
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: on him. I wondered then if that was how he
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: had seen himself in the glass. But since I have
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: only wondered what it was he saw in me, and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: I can never go back to ask him.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: Ah.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Pretty great stuff.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, torturous ending though, for sure. But I means nicely cinematically,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: you know for sure?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, isn't not knowing the most horrible thing of all?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Well? Yeah, especially when you see Kopley turn around and
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: look and then look like a kid that's about to puke.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what would have been? Graters? Have you just been
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: over and started puking after something?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: All over the rock?
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Man, I feel like we should make a second career
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: of punching up old short stories and making them better.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah all right, yeah, I think it's a good market
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: in that.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Let those painters that go around and find like yard
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: sale paintings and then paint stuff in them.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, speaking of let's do it, Chuck, I say that
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: this this Halloween Spectacular has come to an end, don't you.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's been great fun, my friend. This is always
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: one of the more fun episodes that we do, along
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: with our Christmas special. We have a lot of fun
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: doing these, and you did a great, great job this year.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: As did you. Thank you so Happy Halloween everybody from
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Me and Jerry from Ben from Dave from Dave,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: from Livia, from Ed from the whole crew. Here it's
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: stuff you Should Know, stay safe, and be ghoulish.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.