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In the Days of the Comet Book First Chapter First Section 1 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Book one, Chapter one, Section one of In the Days
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  Speaker 1: of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recorded by Lewis Lakeland, Florida,
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  Speaker 1: September two thousand and eleven. Book The First the Comet,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter the First Dust in the Shadows, Section one. I
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  Speaker 1: have set myself to write the story of the great Change,
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  Speaker 1: so far as it has affected my own life and
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  Speaker 1: the lives of one or two people closely connected with me,
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  Speaker 1: primarily to please myself. Long ago, in my crude, unhappy youth,
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  Speaker 1: I conceived the desire of writing a book to script
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  Speaker 1: well secretly, and dream of authorship was one of my
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  Speaker 1: chief alleviations, and I read with a sympathetic envy every
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  Speaker 1: scrap I could get about the world of literature and
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  Speaker 1: the lives of literary people. It is something, even amidst
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  Speaker 1: this present happiness, to find leisure and opportunity to take
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  Speaker 1: up and partially realize these old and hopeless dreams. But
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  Speaker 1: that alone in a world where so much of vivid
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  Speaker 1: and increasing interest presents itself to be done even by
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  Speaker 1: an old man, would not I think suffice to set
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  Speaker 1: me at this desk I find some such recapitulation of
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  Speaker 1: my past as this will involve, is becoming necessary to
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  Speaker 1: my own secure mental continuity. The passage of years brings
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  Speaker 1: a man at last to retrospection. At seventy two, one's
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  Speaker 1: youth is far more important than it was at forty,
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  Speaker 1: and I am out of touch with my youth. The
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  Speaker 1: old life seemed so cut off from the new, so alien,
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  Speaker 1: and so unreasonable, that at times I find it bordering
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  Speaker 1: upon the incredible. The data I have gone to buildings
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  Speaker 1: and places. I stopped dead the other afternoon in my
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  Speaker 1: walk across the moor, where once the dismal outskirts of
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  Speaker 1: Swathinglea's straggled towards Leete and asked, was it here, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: that I crouched among the weeds and refuge in broken crockery,
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  Speaker 1: and loaded my revolver ready for murder? Did ever such
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  Speaker 1: a thing happen in my life? Was such a mood
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  Speaker 1: and thought and intention ever possible to me? Rather, has
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  Speaker 1: not some queer nightmare spirit out of dream land slipped
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  Speaker 1: a pseudo memory into the record of my vanished life?
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  Speaker 1: There must be many a life whose will have the
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  Speaker 1: same perplexities. And I think too that those who are
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  Speaker 1: now growing up to take our places in the great
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  Speaker 1: enterprise of mankind will need many such narratives as mine
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  Speaker 1: for even the most partial conception of the old world
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  Speaker 1: of shadows that came before our day. It chances, too
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  Speaker 1: that my life is fairly typical of the change. I
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  Speaker 1: was caught midway in a gust of passion, and a
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  Speaker 1: curious accident put me for a time in the very
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  Speaker 1: nucleus of the new order. My memory takes me back
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  Speaker 1: across the interval of fifty years to a little, ill
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  Speaker 1: lit room with a sash window open to a starry sky,
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  Speaker 1: and instantly there returns to me the characteristic smell of
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  Speaker 1: that room, the penetrating odor of an ill trimmed lamp
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  Speaker 1: burning cheap paraffin. Lighting by electricity had then been perfected
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  Speaker 1: for fifteen years, but still the larger portion of the
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  Speaker 1: world used these lamps. All this first scene will go
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  Speaker 1: in my mind, at least to that olfactory accompaniment that
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  Speaker 1: was the evening smell of the room. By day, it
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  Speaker 1: had a more subtle aroma, a closeness, a particular sort
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  Speaker 1: of faint pungency that I associate I know not why
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  Speaker 1: with dust. Let me describe this room to you in detail.
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  Speaker 1: It was perhaps eight feet by seven in area, and
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  Speaker 1: rather higher than either of these dimensions. The ceiling was
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  Speaker 1: of plaster, cracked and bulging in places, gray with the
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  Speaker 1: soot of the lamp, and in one place discolored by
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  Speaker 1: a system of yellow and olive green stains caused by
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  Speaker 1: the percolation of damp from above. The walls were covered
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  Speaker 1: with dun colored paper upon which had been printed in
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  Speaker 1: oblique reiteration a crimson shape, something of the nature of
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  Speaker 1: a curly ostrich feather or an acanthus flower, that had,
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  Speaker 1: in its less faded moments, a sort of dingy gayety.
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  Speaker 1: There were several big plaster rimmed wounds in this caused
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  Speaker 1: by parload's ineffective attempts to get nails into the wall,
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  Speaker 1: whereby there might hang pictures. One nail had hit between
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  Speaker 1: two bricks and got home, and from this depended sustained
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  Speaker 1: a little insecurely by frayed and knotted blind cord. Parloads
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  Speaker 1: hanging bookshelves, planks painted over with a treacly blue enamel,
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  Speaker 1: and further decorated by a fringe of pinked American cloth,
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  Speaker 1: insecurely fixed by tacks. Below this was a little table
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  Speaker 1: that behaved with a mulish vindictiveness to any knee that
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  Speaker 1: was thrust beneath it. Suddenly it was covered with cloth
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  Speaker 1: whose patterns of red and black had been rendered less
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  Speaker 1: monotonous by the accident of parload's versatile ink bottle, and
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  Speaker 1: on it the motif of the whole stood and stank
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  Speaker 1: the lamp. This lamp, you must understand, was of some whitish,
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  Speaker 1: translucent substance that was neither china nor glass. It had
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  Speaker 1: a shade of the same substance, a shade that did
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  Speaker 1: not protect the eyes of a reader in any measure,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed admirably adapted to bring into pitiless prominence
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  Speaker 1: the fact that, after the lamp's trimming, dust and paraffin
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  Speaker 1: had been smeared over its exterior with a reckless generosity.
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  Speaker 1: The uneven floorboards of this apartment were covered with scratched
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  Speaker 1: enamel of chocolate hue, on which a small island of
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  Speaker 1: frayed carpet dimly blossomed in the dust and shadows. There
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  Speaker 1: was a very small grate made of cast iron in
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  Speaker 1: one piece, and painted buff and a still smaller misfit
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  Speaker 1: of a cast iron fender that confessed the gray stones
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  Speaker 1: of the hearth. No fire was laid. Only a few
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  Speaker 1: scraps of torn paper in the bowl of a broken
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  Speaker 1: corn cob pipe were visible behind the bars, and in
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  Speaker 1: the corner and rather thrust away, was an angular japanned
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  Speaker 1: coal box with a damaged hinge. It was the custom
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  Speaker 1: in those days to warm every room separately from a
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  Speaker 1: separate fireplace more prolific of dirt than heat, and the
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  Speaker 1: rickety sash window, the small chimney and the loose fitting
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  Speaker 1: door were expected to organize the ventilation to the room
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  Speaker 1: among themselves without any further direction. Parload's truckle bed hid
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  Speaker 1: its gray sheets beneath an old patchwork counterpane on one
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  Speaker 1: side of the room, and ailed his boxes and such
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  Speaker 1: like oddaments. And invading the two corners of the window
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  Speaker 1: were an old whatnot and the washhand stand, on which
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  Speaker 1: were distributed the simple appliances of his toilet. The wash
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  Speaker 1: hand stand had been made of deal by someone with
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  Speaker 1: an excess of turnery appliances in a hurry, who had
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  Speaker 1: tried to distract attention from the rough economies of his
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  Speaker 1: workmanship by an arresting ornamentation of blobs and bulbs upon
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  Speaker 1: the joints and legs. Apparently the piece had then been
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  Speaker 1: placed in the hands of some person of infinite leisure,
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  Speaker 1: equipped with a pot of orcharish paint, varnish, and a
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  Speaker 1: set of flexible combs. This person had first painted the article,
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  Speaker 1: then I fancy smeared it with varnish, and then sat
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  Speaker 1: down to work with the combs to streak and comb
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  Speaker 1: the varnish into a weird imitation of the grain of
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  Speaker 1: some nightmare timber. The wash handstand so made had evidently
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  Speaker 1: had a prolonged career of violent use, had been chipped, kicked, splintered, punched, stained, scorched, hammered, desiccated, damped,
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  Speaker 1: and defiled, had met, indeed, with almost every possible adventure
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  Speaker 1: except a conflagration or a scrubbing, until at last it
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  Speaker 1: had come to this high refuge of Parload's attic. To
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  Speaker 1: sustain the simple requirements of Parload's personal cleanliness, there were
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  Speaker 1: in chief a basin and a jug of water, and
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  Speaker 1: a slop pail of tin, and further a piece of
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  Speaker 1: yellow soap in a tray, a toothbrush, a rat tailed
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  Speaker 1: shaving brush, one huckaback towel, and one or two other
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  Speaker 1: minor articles. In those days, only very for his people
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  Speaker 1: had more than such an equipage. And it is to
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  Speaker 1: be remarked that every drop of water Parload used had
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  Speaker 1: to be carried by an unfortunate servant girl. The slavey
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  Speaker 1: Parload called her up from the basement to the top
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  Speaker 1: of the house and subsequently down again. Already we begin
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  Speaker 1: to forget how modern an invention is personal cleanliness. It
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  Speaker 1: is a fact that Parload had never stripped for a
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  Speaker 1: swim in his life, never had a simultaneous bath all
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  Speaker 1: over his body since his childhood. Not one in fifty
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  Speaker 1: of us did in the days of which I am
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  Speaker 1: telling you. A chest, also singularly grained and streaked of
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  Speaker 1: two large and two small drawers, held Parload's reserve of
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  Speaker 1: garments and pegs on the door, carried his two hats,
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  Speaker 1: and completed this inventory of a bed sitting room as
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  Speaker 1: I knew it before the change, but I had forgotten
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  Speaker 1: there was also a chair with a squab that apologized
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  Speaker 1: inadequately for the defects of its cane seat. I forgot
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  Speaker 1: that for the moment because I was sitting on the
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  Speaker 1: chair on the occasion that best begins this story. I
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  Speaker 1: have described Parload's room with such particularity because it will
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  Speaker 1: help you to understand the key in which my earlier
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  Speaker 1: chapters are written. But you must not imagine that this
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  Speaker 1: singular equipment or the smell of the lamp engaged my
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  Speaker 1: attention at that time to the slightest degree. I took
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  Speaker 1: all this grimy unpleasantness as if it were the most
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  Speaker 1: natural and proper setting for existence imaginable. It was the
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  Speaker 1: world as I knew it. My mind was entirely occupied
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  Speaker 1: then by graver and intenser matters, and it is only now,
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  Speaker 1: in the distant retrospect that I see these details of
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  Speaker 1: environment as being remarkable, as significant as indeed obviously the
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  Speaker 1: outward visible manifestations of the old world disorder in our hearts.
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  Speaker 1: End of Book one, Chapter one, Section one,