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The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling · The Best Ghost Stories

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Speaker 1: Section nine of the Best Ghost Stories. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Read by Winnifred Assman The Best Ghost Stories The Phantom
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Speaker 1: Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling. May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
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Speaker 1: nor powers of darkness me molested evening hymn. One of
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Speaker 1: the few advantages that India has over England is a
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Speaker 1: certain great no ability. After five years service, a man
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Speaker 1: is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three
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Speaker 1: hundred civilians in his province, all the messes of ten
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Speaker 1: or twelve regiments and batteries, and some fifteen hundred other
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Speaker 1: people of the non official carets. In ten years his
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Speaker 1: knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty
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Speaker 1: he knows or knows something about almost every Englishman in
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Speaker 1: the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying
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Speaker 1: hotel bills. Globetrotters who expect entertainment as a right have
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Speaker 1: even within my memory, blunted this open heartedness, But none
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Speaker 1: the less to day, if you belong to the inner
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Speaker 1: circle and are neither a bear nor a black sheep.
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Speaker 1: All houses are open to you, and our small world
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Speaker 1: is very kind and helpful. Rickett of Camartha stayed with
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Speaker 1: Polder of cumaeon some fifteen years ago. He meant to
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Speaker 1: stay two nights only, but was knocked down by rheumatic
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Speaker 1: fever and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work,
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Speaker 1: and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though
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Speaker 1: he had been placed under eternal obligation by ricket It,
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Speaker 1: and yearly sends the little Rickets a box of presents
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Speaker 1: and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who
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Speaker 1: do not take the trouble to conceal from you their
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Speaker 1: opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women
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Speaker 1: who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will
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Speaker 1: work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you
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Speaker 1: fall sick or into serious trouble. Heatherly, the doctor kept,
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Speaker 1: in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his
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Speaker 1: private account, an arrangement of loose boxes for incurables. His
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Speaker 1: friends called it, but it was really a sort of
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Speaker 1: fitting up shed for craft that had been damaged by
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Speaker 1: stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry,
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Speaker 1: and since the tail of bricks is a fixed quantity
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Speaker 1: and the only liberty allowed is permission to work over
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Speaker 1: time and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and
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Speaker 1: become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence. Heatherly
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Speaker 1: is the nicest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
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Speaker 1: prescription to all his patients is lie low, go slow,
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Speaker 1: and keep cool. He says that more men are killed
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Speaker 1: by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He
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Speaker 1: maintains that overwork slew Pansee, who died under his hands
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Speaker 1: about three years ago. He has, of course the right
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Speaker 1: to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that
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Speaker 1: there was a crack in Pansy's head and a little
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Speaker 1: bit of the dark world came through and pressed him
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Speaker 1: to death. Panse went off the handle, says Heatherly, after
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Speaker 1: the stimulus of long leave at home. He may or
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Speaker 1: he may not have behaved like a blackguard to missus
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Speaker 1: Keith Wessington. My notion is that the work of the
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Speaker 1: Katabundi's settlement ran him off his legs, and that he
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Speaker 1: took to brooding and making much of an ordinary p
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Speaker 1: and O flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering,
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Speaker 1: and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took
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Speaker 1: a feverish chill, and all that nonsense about ghosts developed itself.
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Speaker 1: Over work started his illness, kept it alight and killed him.
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Speaker 1: Poor devil. Write him off to the system. One man
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Speaker 1: to do the work of two and a half men.
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Speaker 1: I do not believe this. I used to sit up
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Speaker 1: with Panze sometimes when Heatherly was called out to visit patients,
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Speaker 1: and I happened to be within claim. The man would
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Speaker 1: make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even
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Speaker 1: voice the procession of men, women, children and devils that
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Speaker 1: was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He
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Speaker 1: had a sick man's command of language. When he recovered,
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Speaker 1: I suggested that he should write out the whole affair,
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Speaker 1: from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him
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Speaker 1: to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a
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Speaker 1: new bad word, they are never happy till they have
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Speaker 1: chalked it up on a door, And this also is literature.
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Speaker 1: He was in a high fever while he was writing,
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Speaker 1: and the Blood and Thunder magazine style he adopted did
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Speaker 1: not calm him. Two months afterward, he was reported fit
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Speaker 1: for duty, but in spite of the fact that he
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Speaker 1: was urgently needed to help an undermanned commission stagger through
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Speaker 1: a deficit, he preferred to die, vowing at the last
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Speaker 1: that he was hag written. I secured his manuscript before
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Speaker 1: he died, and this is his version of the affair,
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Speaker 1: dated eighteen eighty five. My doctor tells me that I
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Speaker 1: need rest and change of air. It is not improbable
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Speaker 1: that I shall get both ere long rest that neither
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Speaker 1: the red coated orderly nor the mid day gun can break,
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Speaker 1: and change of air far beyond that which any homeward
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Speaker 1: bound steamer can give me. In the meantime, I am
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Speaker 1: resolved to stay where I am, and, in flat defiance
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Speaker 1: of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into
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Speaker 1: my confidence. You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature
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Speaker 1: of my malady, and shall too judge for yourselves whether
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Speaker 1: any man born of woman on this weary earth was
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Speaker 1: ever so tormented as I speaking now as a condemned
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Speaker 1: criminal might speak. Ere the drop bolts are drawn. My story,
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Speaker 1: wild and hideously improbable, as it may appear, demands at
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Speaker 1: least attention that it will ever receive credence. I utterly disbelieve.
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Speaker 1: Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or
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Speaker 1: drunk the man who had dared tell me the like.
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Speaker 1: Two months ago, I was the happiest man in India
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Speaker 1: to day, from Peshawar to the sea. There is no
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Speaker 1: one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only
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Speaker 1: two who know this. His explanation is that my brain, digestion,
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Speaker 1: and eyesight are all slightly affected, giving rise to my
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Speaker 1: frequent and persistent delusions. Delusions. Indeed, I call him a fool,
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Speaker 1: but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile,
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Speaker 1: the same bland, professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers,
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Speaker 1: till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful,
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Speaker 1: evil tempered invalid. But you shall judge for yourselves. Three
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Speaker 1: years ago, it was my fortune, my great misfortune, to
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Speaker 1: sail from Gravesend to Bombay on return from long leave,
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Speaker 1: with one Agnes Keith Wessington, wife of an officer on
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Speaker 1: the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern
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Speaker 1: you to know what manner of woman she was. Be
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Speaker 1: content with the knowledge that ere the voyage had ended.
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Speaker 1: Both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love
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Speaker 1: with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the
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Speaker 1: admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of
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Speaker 1: this sort, there is always one who gives and another
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Speaker 1: who accepts. From the first day of our ill omened attachment,
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Speaker 1: I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a
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Speaker 1: more dominant, and, if I may use the expression, a
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Speaker 1: purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then,
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Speaker 1: I do not know. Afterwards, it was bitterly plain to
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Speaker 1: both of us. Arrived at Bombay in the spring of
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Speaker 1: the year, we went our respective ways to meet no
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Speaker 1: more for the next three or four months, when my
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Speaker 1: leave and her love took us both to Simla. There
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Speaker 1: we spent the season together, and there my fire of
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Speaker 1: straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end. With the
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Speaker 1: closing year. I attempt no excuse, I make no apology.
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Speaker 1: Missus Wessington had given up much for my sake, and
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Speaker 1: was prepared to give up all from my own lips.
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Speaker 1: In August eighteen eighty two, she learnt that I was
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Speaker 1: sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary
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Speaker 1: of the sound of her voice. Ninety nine women out
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Speaker 1: of a hundred would have wearied of me as I
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Speaker 1: wearied of them. Seventy five of that number would have
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Speaker 1: promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men.
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Speaker 1: Missus Wessington was the hundredth on her. Neither my openly
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Speaker 1: expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished
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Speaker 1: our interviews had the least effect. Jack Darling was her
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Speaker 1: one eternal cuckoo cry. I'm sure it's all a mistake,
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Speaker 1: a hideous mistake, and we'll be good friends again some day.
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Speaker 1: Please forgive me, Jack Dear. I was the offender, and
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Speaker 1: I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into passive endurance,
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Speaker 1: and eventually into blind hate, the same instinct I suppose
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Speaker 1: which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider
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Speaker 1: he has but half killed. And with this hate in
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Speaker 1: my bosom, the season of eighteen eighty two came to
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Speaker 1: an end. Next year, we met again at Simla, she
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Speaker 1: with her monotonous face and timid attempts at reconciliation, and
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Speaker 1: I with loathing of her in every fiber of my frame.
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Speaker 1: Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone, and
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Speaker 1: on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still
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Speaker 1: the unreasoning wail that it was all a mistake, and
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Speaker 1: still the hope of eventually making friends. I might have seen,
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Speaker 1: had I cared to look, that that hope only was
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Speaker 1: keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month
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Speaker 1: by month. You will agree with me at least that
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Speaker 1: such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It
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Speaker 1: was uncalled for, childish, unwomanly. I maintained that she was
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Speaker 1: much to blame. And again, sometimes in the black, fever
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Speaker 1: stricken night watches, I have begun to think that I
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Speaker 1: might have been a little kinder to her, But that
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Speaker 1: really is a delusion. I could not have continued pretending
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Speaker 1: to love her when I didn't, could I. It would
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Speaker 1: have been unfair to us both. Last year we met
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Speaker 1: again on the same terms as before, the same weary
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Speaker 1: appeals and the same curt answers from my lips. At
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Speaker 1: least I would make her see how wholly wrong and
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Speaker 1: hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old relationship. As
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Speaker 1: the season wore on, we fell apart. That is to
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Speaker 1: say she found it difficult to meet me, for I
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Speaker 1: had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When
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Speaker 1: I think it over quietly in my sick room, the
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Speaker 1: season of eighteen eighty four seems a confused nightmare, wherein
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Speaker 1: light and shade were fantastically intermingled my courtship of little
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Speaker 1: Kitty Mannering, my hopes, doubts and fears, our long rides together,
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Speaker 1: my trembling avowal of attachment, her reply, and now and
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Speaker 1: again a vision of a white face flitting by in
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Speaker 1: the rickshaw with the black and white liveries. I once
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Speaker 1: watched for so earnestly the wave of Missus Wessington's gloved hand,
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Speaker 1: and when she she met me alone, which was but
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Speaker 1: seldom the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering, honestly,
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Speaker 1: heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew
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Speaker 1: my hatred for Agnes. In August, Kitty and I were engaged.
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Speaker 1: The next day, I met those accursed magpie Jampanese at
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Speaker 1: the back of Jackal, and, moved by some passing sentiment
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Speaker 1: of pity, stopped to tell Missus Wessington everything she knew
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Speaker 1: it already, so I hear you're engaged, Jack, Dear, Then,
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Speaker 1: without a moment's pause, I'm sure it's all a mistake,
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Speaker 1: a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack,
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Speaker 1: as we ever were. My answer might have made even
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Speaker 1: a man WinCE. It cut the dying woman before me
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Speaker 1: like the blow of a whip. Please forgive me, Jack,
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Speaker 1: I didn't mean to make you angry, but it's true.
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Speaker 1: It's true, and Missus Wessington broke down completely. I turned
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Speaker 1: away and left her to finish her journey in peace,
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Speaker 1: feeling but only for a moment or two, that I
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Speaker 1: had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back and
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Speaker 1: saw that she had turned her rickshaw with the idea
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Speaker 1: I suppose of overtaking me. The scene and its surroundings
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Speaker 1: were photographed on my memory. The rain swept sky we
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Speaker 1: were at the end of the wet weather, The sodden
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Speaker 1: dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder riven
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Speaker 1: cliffs formed a gloomy background, against which the black and
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Speaker 1: white liveries of the Japanese, the yellow paneled rickshaw, and
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Speaker 1: Missus Wessington's down bowed golden head stood out clearly. She
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Speaker 1: was holding her handkerchief in her left hand and was
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Speaker 1: leaning back, exhausted against the rickshaw cushions. I turned my
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Speaker 1: horse up a by path near the Sanjowli Reservoir and
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Speaker 1: literally ran away. Once I fancied, I heard a faint
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Speaker 1: call of Jack. This may have been imagination. I never
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Speaker 1: stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across
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Speaker 1: Kitty on horseback, and in the delight of a long
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Speaker 1: ride with her, forgot all about the interview. A week later,
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Speaker 1: Missus Wessington died and the inexpressible burden of her existence
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Speaker 1: was removed from my life. I went plainsward, perfectly happy.
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Speaker 1: Before three months were over, I had forgotten all about her,
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Speaker 1: except that at times the discovery of some of her
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Speaker 1: old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By
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Speaker 1: January I had disinterred what was left of our correspondence
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Speaker 1: from among my scattered belongings and had burnt it. At
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Speaker 1: the beginning of April of this year, eighteen eighty five,
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Speaker 1: I was at Simla, semi deserted Cymbla once more, and
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Speaker 1: was deep in lovers talks and walks with Kitty it
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Speaker 1: was decided that we should be married at the end
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Speaker 1: of June. You will understand therefore that loving Kitty as
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Speaker 1: I did, I am not saying too much when I
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Speaker 1: pronounced myself to have been at the time the happiest
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Speaker 1: man in India. Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I
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Speaker 1: noticed their flight. Then, aroused to the sense of what
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Speaker 1: was proper among mortal's circumstances we were, I pointed out
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Speaker 1: to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward and
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Speaker 1: visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl, and
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Speaker 1: that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured
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Speaker 1: for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word,
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Speaker 1: we had completely forgotten so trivial a matter to Hamilton's.
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Speaker 1: We accordingly went on the fifteenth of April eighteen eighty five.
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Speaker 1: Remember that, whatever my doctor may say to the contrary,
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Speaker 1: I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well balanced
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Speaker 1: mind and an absolutely tranquil spirit. Kitty and I entered
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Speaker 1: Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless of the order of affairs,
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Speaker 1: I measured kitty finger for the ring in the presence
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Speaker 1: of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with
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Speaker 1: two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that
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Speaker 1: leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peleeti's shop. While my
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Speaker 1: whaler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale,
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Speaker 1: and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side. While
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Speaker 1: all simla, that is to say, as much of it
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Speaker 1: as had then come from the plains, was grouped round
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Speaker 1: the reading room and Peleidi's veranda, I was aware that
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Speaker 1: some one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me
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Speaker 1: by my Christian name. It struck me that I had
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Speaker 1: heard the voice before, but when and where I could
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Speaker 1: not at once determine. In the short space it took
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Speaker 1: to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's Shop
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Speaker 1: and the first plank of the Combermere Bridge, I had
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Speaker 1: thought over half a dozen people who might have committed
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Speaker 1: such a solicism, and had eventually decided that it must
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Speaker 1: have been some singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Pelete's shop,
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Speaker 1: my eye was arrested by the sight of four Japanese
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Speaker 1: in black and white livery pulling a yellow panel cheap
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Speaker 1: bizarre rickshaw. In a moment, my mind flew back to
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Speaker 1: the previous season and Missus Wessington with a sense of
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Speaker 1: irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman
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Speaker 1: was dead and done with without her black and white
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Speaker 1: servitors reappearing to spoil the day's happiness? Whoever employed them? Now?
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Speaker 1: I thought I would call upon and ask, as a
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Speaker 1: personal favor, to change her Japanese livery. I would hire
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Speaker 1: the men myself, and if necessary, buy their coats from
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Speaker 1: off their backs. It is impossible to say here what
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Speaker 1: a flood of undesirable memories their presents evoked, Kitty, I cried,
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Speaker 1: there are poor Missus Wessings Japanese turned up again. I
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Speaker 1: wonder who has them now? Kitty had known Missus Wessington
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Speaker 1: slightly last season and had always been interested in the
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Speaker 1: sickly woman. What where, she asked, I can't see them anywhere.
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Speaker 1: Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule,
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Speaker 1: threw himself directly in front of the advancing rickshaw. I
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Speaker 1: had scarcely time to utter a word of warning when,
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Speaker 1: to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men
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Speaker 1: and carriage as if they had been thin air. What's
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Speaker 1: the matter, cried Kitty? What made you call out so foolishly, Jack.
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Speaker 1: If I am engaged, I don't want all creation to
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Speaker 1: know about it. There was lots of space between the
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Speaker 1: mule and the veranda, and if you think I can't
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Speaker 1: ride there. Whereupon wilful Kitty set off her dainty little
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Speaker 1: head in the air at a hand gallop in the
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Speaker 1: direction of the bandstand, fully expecting, as she herself afterwards
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Speaker 1: told me that I should follow her. What was the matter?
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Speaker 1: Nothing indeed, either that I was mad or drunk, or
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Speaker 1: that Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my
19:08
Speaker 1: impatient cob and turned round. The rickshaw had turned too,
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Speaker 1: and now stood immediately facing me near the left railing
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Speaker 1: of the Combermere Bridge. Jack, Jack, Darling. There was no
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Speaker 1: mistake about the words. This time they rang through my
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Speaker 1: brain as if they had been shouted to my ear.
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Speaker 1: It's some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, Jack,
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Speaker 1: and let's be friends again. The rickshaw hood had fallen
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Speaker 1: back and inside, as I hope and daily pray for
19:41
Speaker 1: the death I dread by night sat missus Keith Wessington,
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Speaker 1: handkerchief in hand and golden head bowed on her breast.
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Speaker 1: How long I stared motionless. I do not know. Finally
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Speaker 1: I was aroused by my groom, taking the whaler's bridle
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Speaker 1: and asking whether I was ill. I tumbled off my
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Speaker 1: horse and dashed, half fainting into Palid's for a glass
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Speaker 1: of cherry brandy. There two or three couples were gathered
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Speaker 1: round the coffee tables, discussing the gossip of the day.
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Speaker 1: Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than
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Speaker 1: the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into
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Speaker 1: the midst of the conversation at once, chatted, laughed, and
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Speaker 1: jested with a face when I caught a glimpse of
20:26
Speaker 1: it in a mirror as white and drawn as that
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Speaker 1: of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition, and,
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Speaker 1: evidently setting it down to the results of over many pegs,
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Speaker 1: charitably endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of
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Speaker 1: the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I
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Speaker 1: wanted the company of my kind. As a child rushes
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Speaker 1: into the midst of a dinner party after a fright
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Speaker 1: in the dark. I must have talked for about ten
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Speaker 1: minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me
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Speaker 1: when I heard Kitty's dear voice outside inquiring for me.
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Speaker 1: In another minute, she had entered the shop, prepared to
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Speaker 1: roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties.
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Speaker 1: Something in my face stopped her. Why Jack, she cried,
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Speaker 1: what have you been doing? What has happened? Are you ill?
21:17
Speaker 1: Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the
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Speaker 1: sun had been a little too much for me. It
21:23
Speaker 1: was close upon five o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon,
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Speaker 1: and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw
21:29
Speaker 1: my mistake as soon as the words were out of
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Speaker 1: my mouth, attempted to recover it, blundered hopelessly, and followed
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Speaker 1: Kitty in a regal rage out of doors. Amid the
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Speaker 1: smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse I have
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Speaker 1: forgotten what on the score of my feeling faint, and
21:46
Speaker 1: cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the
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Speaker 1: ride by herself. In my room, I sat down and
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Speaker 1: tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here was I
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Speaker 1: theobald Jack Pansay, a well educated Bengal civilian in the
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Speaker 1: year of Grace eighteen eighty five, presumably sane, certainly healthy,
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Speaker 1: driven in terror from my sweetheart's side, by the apparition
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Speaker 1: of a woman who had been dead and buried eight
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Speaker 1: months ago. These were facts that I could not blink.
22:19
Speaker 1: Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of
22:22
Speaker 1: Missus Wessington. When Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop, nothing
22:26
Speaker 1: was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Pelides.
22:31
Speaker 1: It was broad daylight, the road was full of people,
22:35
Speaker 1: and yet here look you, in defiance of every law
22:38
Speaker 1: of probability, in direct outrage of nature's ordinance, there had
22:43
Speaker 1: appeared to me a face from the grave. Kitty's arab
22:48
Speaker 1: had gone through the rickshaw, so that my first hope
22:52
Speaker 1: that some woman marvelously like Missus Wessington had hired the
22:55
Speaker 1: carriage and the coolies with their old livery was lost.
22:59
Speaker 1: Again and again I went round this treadmill of thought,
23:02
Speaker 1: and again and again gave up, baffled and in despair.
23:06
Speaker 1: The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had
23:10
Speaker 1: originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty,
23:14
Speaker 1: of begging her to marry me at once, and in
23:18
Speaker 1: her arms, defying the ghostly occupant of the rickshaw. After all,
23:22
Speaker 1: I argued, the presence of the rickshaw is in itself
23:26
Speaker 1: enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One
23:30
Speaker 1: may see ghosts of men and women, but surely never
23:33
Speaker 1: of coolies and carriages. The whole thing is absurd, fancy
23:37
Speaker 1: the ghost of a hill man. Next morning, I sent
23:41
Speaker 1: a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my
23:44
Speaker 1: strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My divinity was still
23:49
Speaker 1: very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary, I explained,
23:54
Speaker 1: with a fluency born of night long pondering over a falsehood,
23:58
Speaker 1: that I had been attacked with a sudden palpation of
24:00
Speaker 1: the heart, the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution
24:05
Speaker 1: had its effect, and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon,
24:09
Speaker 1: with the shadow of my first lie dividing us. Nothing
24:13
Speaker 1: would please her save a canter round Jacko. With my
24:16
Speaker 1: nerves still unstrung from the previous night, I feebly protested
24:20
Speaker 1: against the notion, suggesting observatory hill Jutah, the Bwoalogungs Road,
24:27
Speaker 1: anything rather than the jackal round. Kitty was angry and
24:31
Speaker 1: a little hurt, so I yielded, from fear of provoking
24:34
Speaker 1: further misunderstanding, and we set out together towards Chota Simla.
24:39
Speaker 1: We walked a greater part of the way, and according
24:42
Speaker 1: to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below
24:45
Speaker 1: the convent to the stretch of level road by the
24:49
Speaker 1: San Jali Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to fly, and
24:53
Speaker 1: my heart beat quicker and quicker. As we neared the
24:57
Speaker 1: crest of the ascent. My mind had been fully of
25:00
Speaker 1: missus Wessington all the afternoon, and every inch of the
25:03
Speaker 1: Jackal Road bore a witness to our old time walks
25:06
Speaker 1: and talks. The boulders were full of it. The pines
25:10
Speaker 1: sang it aloud overhead, the rain fed torrents giggled and
25:14
Speaker 1: chuckled unseen over the shameful story, and the wind in
25:18
Speaker 1: my ears chanted the iniquity aloud as a fitting climax.
25:23
Speaker 1: In the middle of the level men called the Ladies Mile,
25:27
Speaker 1: the horror was awaiting me. No other rickshaw was in sight,
25:31
Speaker 1: only the four black and white Jampanese, the yellow paneled carriage,
25:36
Speaker 1: and the golden head of the woman within, all apparently
25:39
Speaker 1: just as I had left them eight months and one
25:41
Speaker 1: fortnight ago. For an instant I fancied that Kitty must
25:46
Speaker 1: see what I saw. We were so marvelously sympathetic in
25:49
Speaker 1: all things. Her next words, undeceived me not a soul
25:55
Speaker 1: in sight. Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to
25:57
Speaker 1: the reservoir buildings. Her wiry little Arab was off like
26:02
Speaker 1: a bird, my whaler following close behind, and in this
26:05
Speaker 1: order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought
26:09
Speaker 1: us within fifty yards of the rickshaw. I pulled my
26:12
Speaker 1: whaler and fell back a little. The rickshaw was directly
26:15
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road, and once more the
26:18
Speaker 1: Arab passed through it. My horse following Jack, Jack, dear,
26:23
Speaker 1: please forgive me, rang with a wail in my ears,
26:27
Speaker 1: and after an interval it's all a mistake, a hideous mistake.
26:33
Speaker 1: I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I
26:36
Speaker 1: turned my head at the reservoir works, the black and
26:39
Speaker 1: white liveries were still waiting, patiently, waiting under the gray
26:43
Speaker 1: hill side, and the wind brought me a mocking echo
26:46
Speaker 1: of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me
26:49
Speaker 1: a good deal on my silence. Throughout the remainder of
26:52
Speaker 1: the ride, I had been talking up till then wildly
26:56
Speaker 1: and at random to save my life. I could not
26:59
Speaker 1: speak afterwards naturally, and from san Jowli to the church
27:03
Speaker 1: wisely held my tongue. I was to dine with the
27:06
Speaker 1: Mannerings that night, and had barely time to canter home
27:10
Speaker 1: to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill, I overheard
27:14
Speaker 1: two men talking together in the dusk. It's a curious thing,
27:18
Speaker 1: said one, how completely all trace of it disappeared. You know,
27:22
Speaker 1: my wife was insanely fond of the woman, never could
27:25
Speaker 1: see anything in her myself, and wanted me to pick
27:28
Speaker 1: up her old rickshaw and coolies if they were to
27:30
Speaker 1: be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy,
27:34
Speaker 1: I call it, But I've got to do what the
27:36
Speaker 1: mem Sahib tells me. Would you believe that the man
27:39
Speaker 1: she hired it from tells me that all four of
27:41
Speaker 1: the men they were brothers, died of cholera on the
27:44
Speaker 1: way to hard work, poor devils. And the rickshaw has
27:47
Speaker 1: been broken up by the man himself told me he
27:50
Speaker 1: never used a dead mem Sahib's rickshaw spoilt his luck.
27:56
Speaker 1: Queer notion, wasn't it fancy, poor little missus Wessington spoiling
28:01
Speaker 1: any one's luck except her own. I laughed aloud at
28:04
Speaker 1: this point, and my laugh jarred on me as I
28:07
Speaker 1: uttered it. So there were ghosts of rickshaws after all,
28:11
Speaker 1: and ghostly employments in the other world. How much did
28:15
Speaker 1: Missus Wessington give her men? What were there hours? Where
28:18
Speaker 1: did they go? And for visible answer to my last question,
28:23
Speaker 1: I saw the infernal thing blocking my path in the twilight.
28:27
Speaker 1: The dead traveled fast and by short cuts unknown to
28:30
Speaker 1: ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked
28:35
Speaker 1: my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad.
28:39
Speaker 1: Mad to a certain extent I must have been, for
28:42
Speaker 1: I recollect that I reined in my horse at the
28:44
Speaker 1: head of the rickshaw and politely wished Missus Wessington good evening.
28:49
Speaker 1: Her answer was one I knew only too well. I
28:52
Speaker 1: listened to the end and replied that I had heard
28:55
Speaker 1: it all before, but should be delighted if she had
28:58
Speaker 1: anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I
29:02
Speaker 1: must have entered into me that evening, for I have
29:05
Speaker 1: a dim recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day
29:08
Speaker 1: for five minutes to the thing in front of me.
29:13
Speaker 1: Mad is a hatter, poor devil or drunk Max try
29:17
Speaker 1: and get him to come home. Surely that was not
29:20
Speaker 1: missus Wessington's voice. The two men had overheard me speaking
29:25
Speaker 1: to the empty air and had returned to look after me.
29:28
Speaker 1: They were very kind and considerate, and from their words
29:31
Speaker 1: evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them
29:35
Speaker 1: confusedly and cantered away to my hotel. There changed and
29:40
Speaker 1: arrived at the Mannerings ten minutes late. I pleaded the
29:43
Speaker 1: darkness of the night as an excuse, was rebuked by
29:46
Speaker 1: Kitty for my unloverlike tardiness, and sat down. The conversation
29:52
Speaker 1: had already become general and under cover of it. I
29:55
Speaker 1: was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when
29:58
Speaker 1: I was aware that at the further end of the table,
30:01
Speaker 1: a short, red whiskered man was describing with much broidery
30:05
Speaker 1: his encounter with a mad unknown that evening. A few
30:09
Speaker 1: sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of
30:13
Speaker 1: half an hour ago. In the middle of the story,
30:15
Speaker 1: he looked round for applause, as professional story tellers do,
30:20
Speaker 1: caught my eye and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's
30:23
Speaker 1: awkward silence, and the red whiskered man muttered something to
30:27
Speaker 1: the effect that he had forgotten the rest, thereby sacrificing
30:31
Speaker 1: a reputation as a good story teller which he had
30:34
Speaker 1: built up for six seasons past. I blessed him from
30:38
Speaker 1: the bottom of my heart and went on with my fish.
30:43
Speaker 1: In the fullness of time, that dinner came to an end,
30:46
Speaker 1: and with genuine regret, I tore myself away from Kitty,
30:49
Speaker 1: as certain as I was of my own existence, that
30:52
Speaker 1: it would be waiting for me outside the door. The
30:56
Speaker 1: red whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as
30:58
Speaker 1: Doctor Heatherley of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as
31:02
Speaker 1: far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer
31:06
Speaker 1: with gratitude. My instinct had not deceived me. It lay
31:11
Speaker 1: in readiness in them all, and in what seemed devilish
31:14
Speaker 1: mockery of our ways. With a lighted head lamp, the
31:18
Speaker 1: red whiskered man went to the point at once, in
31:20
Speaker 1: a manner that showed he had been thinking over it
31:23
Speaker 1: all dinner time. I say, Pansy, what the deuce was
31:27
Speaker 1: the matter with you? This evening on the Elysium Road.
31:31
Speaker 1: The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me
31:34
Speaker 1: before I was aware that, said I pointing to it.
31:39
Speaker 1: That may be either d T or eyes for aught.
31:42
Speaker 1: I know now you don't liquor. I saw as much
31:45
Speaker 1: at dinner, so it can't be d T. There's nothing
31:49
Speaker 1: whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling with
31:52
Speaker 1: fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that its eyes,
31:57
Speaker 1: and I ought to understand all about them. Come along
32:00
Speaker 1: home with me. I'm on the Blessington Lower Road. To
32:05
Speaker 1: my intense delight, the rickshaw, instead of waiting for us,
32:08
Speaker 1: kept about twenty yards ahead. And this too, whether we walked, trotted,
32:13
Speaker 1: or cantered. In the course of that long night ride,
32:16
Speaker 1: I had told my companion almost as much as I
32:19
Speaker 1: have told you here. Well, you've spoilt one of the
32:23
Speaker 1: best tales I've ever laid tongue to, said he. But
32:26
Speaker 1: I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through.
32:28
Speaker 1: Now come home and do what I tell you. And
32:30
Speaker 1: when I've cured you, young man, let this be a
32:33
Speaker 1: lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible
32:36
Speaker 1: food till the day of your death. The rickshaw kept
32:40
Speaker 1: steadily in front and my red whiskered friend seemed to
32:44
Speaker 1: derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts,
32:48
Speaker 1: eyes pansy all eyes, brain and stomach, And the greatest
32:52
Speaker 1: of these three is stomach. You've too much conceited brain,
32:56
Speaker 1: too little stomach and thoroughly unhealthy eyes. Catch you stomach
33:00
Speaker 1: straight and the rest follows. And all that's French for
33:03
Speaker 1: a liver pill. I'll take sole medical charge of you
33:06
Speaker 1: from this hour, for you're too interesting a phenomenon to
33:10
Speaker 1: be passed over. By this time, we were deep in
33:13
Speaker 1: the shadow of the Blessington Lower Road, and the rickshaw
33:16
Speaker 1: came to a dead stop under a pine clad overhanging
33:19
Speaker 1: shale cliff. Instinctively I halted, too, giving my reason heatherly
33:25
Speaker 1: wrapped out an oath. Now, if you think I'm going
33:28
Speaker 1: to spend a cold night on the hill side for
33:30
Speaker 1: the sake of a stomach, comebrain, come eye, illusion, Lord,
33:34
Speaker 1: have mercy. What's that? There was a muffled report, a
33:39
Speaker 1: blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack,
33:43
Speaker 1: the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of
33:46
Speaker 1: the cliff side pines undergrowth, and all slid down into
33:51
Speaker 1: the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees
33:55
Speaker 1: swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in
33:58
Speaker 1: the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with
34:02
Speaker 1: a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating
34:06
Speaker 1: with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth
34:10
Speaker 1: and stone had subsided, my companion muttered, Man, if we'd
34:14
Speaker 1: gone forward, we should have been ten feet deep in
34:17
Speaker 1: our graves by now. There are more things in heaven
34:20
Speaker 1: and earth. Come home, Pansey, and thank God, I want
34:24
Speaker 1: to drink badly. We retraced our way over the Church Ridge,
34:29
Speaker 1: and I arrived at doctor Heatherley's house shortly after midnight.
34:33
Speaker 1: His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for
34:37
Speaker 1: a week I never left his sight. Many a time
34:40
Speaker 1: in the course of that week did I bless the
34:42
Speaker 1: good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's
34:46
Speaker 1: best and kindest doctor. Day by day, my spirits grew
34:50
Speaker 1: lighter and more equable. Day by day too, I became
34:54
Speaker 1: more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherly's spectral
34:57
Speaker 1: illusion theory implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to
35:03
Speaker 1: Kitty telling her that a slight sprain caused by a
35:06
Speaker 1: fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days,
35:09
Speaker 1: and that I should be recovered before she had time
35:11
Speaker 1: to regret my absence. Heatherly's treatment was simple to a degree.
35:17
Speaker 1: It consisted of liver pills, cold water baths, and strong
35:20
Speaker 1: exercise taken in the dusk or at early dawn. For,
35:24
Speaker 1: as he sagely observed, a man with a sprained ankle
35:28
Speaker 1: doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young
35:31
Speaker 1: woman might be wondering if she saw you at the
35:35
Speaker 1: end of the week. After much examination of pupil and
35:37
Speaker 1: pulse and strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherly
35:42
Speaker 1: dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me.
35:46
Speaker 1: Here is his parting benediction. Man, I certify to your
35:50
Speaker 1: mental cure, and that's as much as to say I've
35:53
Speaker 1: cured most of your bodily ailments. Now get your traps
35:56
Speaker 1: out of this as soon as you can, and be
35:58
Speaker 1: off to make love to miss Kit. I was endeavoring
36:02
Speaker 1: to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me short.
36:06
Speaker 1: Don't think I did this because I like you. I
36:08
Speaker 1: gather that you've behaved like a blagguard all through, but
36:11
Speaker 1: all the same you're a phenomena, and as queer a
36:14
Speaker 1: phenomenon as you are a blagguard. Now go out and
36:17
Speaker 1: see if you can find the eyes, brain and stomach
36:19
Speaker 1: business again. I'll give you a lack for each time
36:22
Speaker 1: you see it. Half an hour later I was in
36:25
Speaker 1: the Mannering's drawing room with Kitty, drunk with the intoxication
36:29
Speaker 1: of present happiness and the foreknowledge that I should never
36:32
Speaker 1: more be troubled with its hideous presence. Strong in the
36:36
Speaker 1: sense of my newfound security, I proposed a ride at once,
36:40
Speaker 1: and by preference a canter round Jacko. Never have I
36:45
Speaker 1: felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal
36:49
Speaker 1: spirits as I did on the afternoon of the thirtieth
36:52
Speaker 1: of April. Kitty was delighted at the change in my
36:55
Speaker 1: appearance and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank
36:59
Speaker 1: and outspoken manner. We left the Mannering's house together, laughing
37:03
Speaker 1: and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road. As
37:07
Speaker 1: of old, I was in haste to reach the Sanjowli Reservoir,
37:12
Speaker 1: and there make my assurance doubly sure. The horses did
37:16
Speaker 1: their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient mind.
37:20
Speaker 1: Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. Why Jack, she cried,
37:25
Speaker 1: at last, you are behaving like a child. What are
37:28
Speaker 1: you doing? We were just below the convent, and from
37:31
Speaker 1: sheer wantonness, I was making my whaler plunge in curve
37:34
Speaker 1: it across the road as I tickled it with the
37:37
Speaker 1: loop of my riding whip. Doing I answered, nothing, dear,
37:41
Speaker 1: that's just it. If you'd been doing nothing for a
37:44
Speaker 1: week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I,
37:48
Speaker 1: singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, joying to feel
37:52
Speaker 1: yourself alive. Lord over nature, Lord of the visible earth,
37:57
Speaker 1: Lord of the senses. Five. My quotation was hardly out
38:01
Speaker 1: of my lips before we had rounded the corner above
38:04
Speaker 1: the convent, and a few yards further on could see
38:07
Speaker 1: a cross to San Jowley. In the center of the
38:10
Speaker 1: level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow
38:14
Speaker 1: paneled rickshaw, and missus Keith Wessington. I pulled up, looked,
38:19
Speaker 1: rubbed my eyes, and I believe must have said something.
38:24
Speaker 1: The next thing, I knew was that I was lying
38:26
Speaker 1: face downward on the road, with Kitty kneeling above me
38:29
Speaker 1: in tears. Has it gone, child, I gasped. Kitty only
38:35
Speaker 1: wept more bitterly. Has what gone? Jack? Dear? What does
38:39
Speaker 1: it all mean? There must be a mistake somewhere, Jack,
38:43
Speaker 1: A hideous mistake. Her last words brought me to my feet,
38:48
Speaker 1: mad raving for the time being. Yes, there is a
38:52
Speaker 1: mistake somewhere, I repeated, A hideous mistake. Come and look
38:56
Speaker 1: at it. I have an indistinct idea that I dragged
39:00
Speaker 1: Kitty by the wrist along the road up to where
39:02
Speaker 1: it stood, and implored her, for pity's sake, to speak
39:05
Speaker 1: to it, to tell it that we were betrothed, that
39:09
Speaker 1: neither death nor hell could break the tie between us
39:12
Speaker 1: and Kitty only knows how much more to the same effect.
39:16
Speaker 1: Now and again, I appealed passionately to the terror in
39:19
Speaker 1: the rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said,
39:22
Speaker 1: and to release me from a torture that was killing
39:24
Speaker 1: me as I talked. I suppose I must have told
39:28
Speaker 1: Kitty of my old relations with Missus Wessington, for I
39:31
Speaker 1: saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes.
39:37
Speaker 1: Thank you, mister Pansy, she said, that's quite enough. Bring
39:41
Speaker 1: my horse. The grooms, impassive as orientals always are, had
39:47
Speaker 1: come up with the recaptured horses, and as Kitty sprang
39:50
Speaker 1: into her saddle, I caught hold of the bridle, entreating
39:53
Speaker 1: her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was
39:57
Speaker 1: the cut of her riding whip across my face from
39:59
Speaker 1: mouth to ay, and a word or two of farewell
40:02
Speaker 1: that even now I cannot write down. So I judged,
40:06
Speaker 1: and judged rightly that Kitty knew all, and I staggered
40:10
Speaker 1: back to the side of the rickshaw. My face was
40:13
Speaker 1: cut and bleeding, and the blow of the riding whip
40:17
Speaker 1: had raised a livid blue wheel on it. I had
40:21
Speaker 1: no self respect. Just then Heatherly, who must have been
40:24
Speaker 1: following Kitty and me at a distance, cantered up. Doctor,
40:29
Speaker 1: I said, pointing to my face, here's miss Mannering's signature
40:33
Speaker 1: to my order of dismissal, and I'll thank you for
40:36
Speaker 1: that lack as soon as convenient. Heatherly's face, even in
40:40
Speaker 1: my abject misery, moved me to laugh. I'll stake my
40:45
Speaker 1: professional reputation, he began, don't be a fool, I whispered,
40:50
Speaker 1: I've lost my life's happiness and you'd better take me home.
40:54
Speaker 1: As I spoke, the rickshaw was gone. Then I lost
40:58
Speaker 1: all knowledge of what was passing. The crest of Jackal
41:01
Speaker 1: seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud,
41:04
Speaker 1: and fall in upon me. Seven days later, on the
41:08
Speaker 1: seventh of May. That is to say, I was aware
41:11
Speaker 1: that I was lying in Heatherly's room as weak as
41:13
Speaker 1: a little child. Heatherly was watching me intently from behind
41:17
Speaker 1: the papers on his writing table. His first words were
41:21
Speaker 1: not very encouraging, but I was too far spent to
41:24
Speaker 1: be much moved by them. Here's miss Kitty has sent
41:28
Speaker 1: back your letters. You corresponded a good deal, you young people.
41:32
Speaker 1: Here's a packet that looks like a ring and a
41:34
Speaker 1: cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've
41:37
Speaker 1: taken the liberty of reading and burning. The old Gentleman's
41:41
Speaker 1: not pleased with you, and Kitty, I asked Dully rather
41:46
Speaker 1: more drawn than her father. From what she says, by
41:49
Speaker 1: the same token, you must have been letting out any
41:51
Speaker 1: number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. Says
41:55
Speaker 1: that a man who would have behaved to a woman
41:57
Speaker 1: as you did to missus. Wessington ought to kill himself
42:00
Speaker 1: out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot
42:03
Speaker 1: headed little viago. You're a mash. We'll have it too
42:06
Speaker 1: that you were suffering from d T. When that row
42:09
Speaker 1: on the Jackal Road turned up, says she'll die before
42:12
Speaker 1: she ever speaks to you again. I groaned and turned
42:16
Speaker 1: over on the other side. Now you've got your choice,
42:19
Speaker 1: my friend. This engagement has to be broken off, and
42:22
Speaker 1: the mannerings don't want to be too hard on you.
42:25
Speaker 1: Was it broken through d T or epileptic fits? Sorry,
42:29
Speaker 1: I can't offer you a better exchange unless you'd prefer
42:31
Speaker 1: hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll tell em it's fits.
42:36
Speaker 1: All Simla knows about that scene on the Lady's Mile. Come,
42:39
Speaker 1: I'll give you five minutes to think over it. During
42:43
Speaker 1: those five minutes, I believe that I explored thoroughly the
42:46
Speaker 1: lowest circles of the inferno which it has permitted man
42:50
Speaker 1: to tread on Earth. And at the same time, I
42:53
Speaker 1: myself was watching myself faltering through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery,
42:58
Speaker 1: and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherly in his chair
43:02
Speaker 1: might have wondered, what dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently
43:07
Speaker 1: I heard myself answering in a voice I hardly recognized.
43:11
Speaker 1: They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give em fits,
43:16
Speaker 1: Heatherly and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer.
43:20
Speaker 1: Then my two selves joined, and it was only I,
43:25
Speaker 1: half crazed, devil driven I that tossed in my bed,
43:29
Speaker 1: tracing step by step the history of the past month.
43:33
Speaker 1: But I am in Simla, I kept repeating to myself.
43:36
Speaker 1: I Jack Pansy am in Simla, and there are no
43:40
Speaker 1: ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are.
43:44
Speaker 1: Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did
43:47
Speaker 1: her any harm. It might just as well have been
43:50
Speaker 1: me as Agnes, only I'd never have come back on
43:53
Speaker 1: purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left alone?
43:57
Speaker 1: Left alone and happy? It was high noon when I
44:01
Speaker 1: first awoke, and the sun was low in the sky.
44:03
Speaker 1: Before I slept, slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on
44:07
Speaker 1: his rack, too worn to feel further pain. Next day
44:12
Speaker 1: I could not leave my bed, Heatherly told me in
44:15
Speaker 1: the morning that he had received an answer from mister Mannering,
44:18
Speaker 1: and that thanks to his Heatherly's friendly offices, the story
44:22
Speaker 1: of my affliction had traveled through the length and breadth
44:25
Speaker 1: of Simla, where I was on all sides much pitied.
44:29
Speaker 1: And that's rather more than you deserve, he concluded, pleasantly.
44:33
Speaker 1: Though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty
44:36
Speaker 1: severe mill. Never mind will cure you yet perverse phenomenon.
44:42
Speaker 1: I declined firmly to be cured. You've been much too
44:45
Speaker 1: good to me already, old man, said I. But I
44:48
Speaker 1: don't think I need trouble you further. In my heart,
44:51
Speaker 1: I knew that nothing Heatherlely could do would lighten the
44:54
Speaker 1: burden that had been laid upon me. With that knowledge
44:58
Speaker 1: came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion against the
45:02
Speaker 1: unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no
45:05
Speaker 1: better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved
45:08
Speaker 1: for another world, and I felt that it was bitterly,
45:12
Speaker 1: cruelly unfair that I alone should have been singled out
45:15
Speaker 1: for so hideous a fate. This mood would in time
45:19
Speaker 1: give place to another where it seemed that the rickshaw
45:22
Speaker 1: and I were the only realities in a world of shadows.
45:26
Speaker 1: That Kiddy was a ghost, that mannering Heatherly and all
45:29
Speaker 1: the other men and women I knew were all ghosts,
45:32
Speaker 1: and the great Gray Hills themselves, but vain shadows devised
45:36
Speaker 1: to torture me. From mood to mood. I tossed backwards
45:41
Speaker 1: and forwards for seven weary days, my body growing daily
45:45
Speaker 1: stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking glass told me
45:49
Speaker 1: that I had returned to every day life and was
45:52
Speaker 1: as other men once more. Curiously enough, my face showed
45:56
Speaker 1: no signs of the struggle I had gone through. It
45:59
Speaker 1: was pale, indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace as ever.
46:04
Speaker 1: I had expected some permanent alteration, visible evidence of the
46:08
Speaker 1: disease that was eating me away. I found nothing. On
46:13
Speaker 1: the fifteenth of May, I left Heatherley's house at eleven
46:15
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, and the instinct of the bachelor
46:19
Speaker 1: drove me to the club. There I found that every
46:22
Speaker 1: man knew my story as told by Heatherly, and was,
46:25
Speaker 1: in clumsy fashion abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless, I recognized
46:31
Speaker 1: that for the rest of my natural life I should
46:34
Speaker 1: be among but not of my fellows, and I envied
46:37
Speaker 1: very bitterly, indeed, the laughing coolies on the mall below.
46:41
Speaker 1: I lunched at the club, and at four o'clock wandered
46:44
Speaker 1: aimlessly down the mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty.
46:48
Speaker 1: Close to the bandstand. The Black and White liveries joined me,
46:52
Speaker 1: and I heard missus Wessington's old appeal at my side.
46:56
Speaker 1: I had been expecting this ever since I came out,
46:59
Speaker 1: and was only so at her delay. The phantom rickshaw
47:03
Speaker 1: and I went side by side along the Chota Simla
47:05
Speaker 1: road in silence. Close to the bazaar, Kitty and a
47:09
Speaker 1: man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign
47:13
Speaker 1: she gave I might have been a dog in the road.
47:16
Speaker 1: She did not even pay me the compliment of quickening
47:18
Speaker 1: her pace, though the rainy afternoon had served for an excuse.
47:24
Speaker 1: So Kitty and her companion and I and my ghostly
47:27
Speaker 1: light o Love crept round jackal in couples. The road
47:31
Speaker 1: was streaming with water, the pines dripped like roof pipes
47:35
Speaker 1: on the rocks below, and the air was full of fine,
47:38
Speaker 1: driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying
47:42
Speaker 1: to myself, almost aloud, I'm Jack Pansey, on leave at Simla,
47:47
Speaker 1: at Simla, every day, ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that.
47:52
Speaker 1: I mustn't forget that. Then I would try to recollect
47:56
Speaker 1: some of the gossip I had heard at the club,
47:58
Speaker 1: the prices of so and so horses, anything in fact
48:02
Speaker 1: that related to the workaday Anglo Indian world I knew
48:05
Speaker 1: so well. I even repeated the multiplication table rapidly to
48:10
Speaker 1: myself to make quite sure that I was not taking
48:13
Speaker 1: leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort and
48:16
Speaker 1: must have prevented my hearing Missus Wessington for a time.
48:20
Speaker 1: Once more, I wearily climbed the convent slope and entered
48:24
Speaker 1: the level road. Here, Kitty and the man started off
48:28
Speaker 1: at a canter, and I was left alone with Missus Wessington.
48:32
Speaker 1: Agnes said, I will you put back your hood and
48:35
Speaker 1: tell me what it all means? The hood dropped noiselessly,
48:39
Speaker 1: and I was face to face with my dead and
48:42
Speaker 1: buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I
48:45
Speaker 1: had last seen her alive, carried the same tiny handkerchief
48:49
Speaker 1: in her right hand and the same card case in
48:52
Speaker 1: her left a woman eight months dead with a card case.
48:57
Speaker 1: I had to pin myself down to the multiplication, and
49:00
Speaker 1: to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road,
49:03
Speaker 1: to assure myself that that, at least was real, Agnes,
49:08
Speaker 1: I repeated, for pity's sake, tell me what it all means.
49:13
Speaker 1: Missus Wessington leant forward with that odd quick turn of
49:16
Speaker 1: the head I used to know so well, and spoke.
49:20
Speaker 1: If my story had not already so madly over leaped
49:23
Speaker 1: the bounds of all human belief, I should apologize to
49:27
Speaker 1: you now, as I know that no one, no, not
49:30
Speaker 1: even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort
49:32
Speaker 1: of justification of my conduct, will believe me. I will
49:35
Speaker 1: go on. Missus Wessington spoke, and I walked with her
49:40
Speaker 1: from the san Jowly Road to the turning below the
49:42
Speaker 1: Commander in Chief's house, as I might walk by the
49:45
Speaker 1: side of any living woman's rickshaw. Deep in conversation. The
49:50
Speaker 1: second and most tormenting of my moods of sickness had
49:53
Speaker 1: suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the prince in
49:56
Speaker 1: Tennyson's poem, I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts.
50:01
Speaker 1: There had been a garden party at the Commander in Chiefs,
50:03
Speaker 1: and we too joined the crowd of homeward bound folk.
50:07
Speaker 1: As I saw them, then, it seemed that they were
50:10
Speaker 1: the shadows, impalpable, fantastic shadows that divided for Missus Wessington's
50:15
Speaker 1: rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the course
50:19
Speaker 1: of that weird interview I cannot, indeed I dare not
50:22
Speaker 1: tell Heatherlely's comment would have been a short laugh and
50:26
Speaker 1: a remark that I had been mashing a brain, eye
50:28
Speaker 1: and stomach chimera. It was a ghastly and yet in
50:32
Speaker 1: some indefinable way, a marvelously dear experience. Could it be possible?
50:37
Speaker 1: I wondered that I was in this life to woo
50:40
Speaker 1: a second time the woman I had killed by my
50:43
Speaker 1: own neglect and cruelty. I met Kitty on the homeward road,
50:48
Speaker 1: a shadow among shadows. If I were to describe all
50:53
Speaker 1: the incidents of the next fortnight in their order, my
50:55
Speaker 1: story would never come to an end, and your patience
50:58
Speaker 1: would be exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening.
51:03
Speaker 1: The ghostly rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together.
51:07
Speaker 1: Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries
51:11
Speaker 1: followed me and bore me company to and from my
51:14
Speaker 1: hotel at the theater. I found them amid the crowd
51:18
Speaker 1: of yelling Jampanese outside the Club Veranda, after a long
51:22
Speaker 1: evening of whist at the birthday ball, waiting patiently for
51:25
Speaker 1: my reappearance, and in broad daylight when I went calling,
51:30
Speaker 1: save that it cast no shadow, the rickshaw was in
51:33
Speaker 1: every respect as real to look upon as one of
51:36
Speaker 1: wood and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had
51:40
Speaker 1: to check myself from warning some hard riding friend against
51:43
Speaker 1: cantering over it. More than once I have walked down
51:47
Speaker 1: them all deep in conversation with Missus Wessington, to the
51:50
Speaker 1: unspeakable amazement of the passers by. Before I had been out,
51:55
Speaker 1: and about a week I learned that the fit theory
51:59
Speaker 1: had been discard in favor of insanity. However, I made
52:03
Speaker 1: no change in my mode of life. I called Rode
52:07
Speaker 1: and dined out as freely as ever. I had a
52:09
Speaker 1: passion for the society of my kind, which I had
52:12
Speaker 1: never felt before. I hungered to be among the realities
52:16
Speaker 1: of life, and at the same time I felt vaguely
52:19
Speaker 1: unhappy when I had been separated too long from my
52:22
Speaker 1: ghostly companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my
52:27
Speaker 1: varying moods from the fifteenth of May up to to day.
52:32
Speaker 1: The presence of the rickshaw filled me by turns with horror,
52:35
Speaker 1: blind fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair.
52:40
Speaker 1: I dared not leave Simla, and I knew that my
52:42
Speaker 1: stay there was killing me. I knew moreover that it
52:46
Speaker 1: was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day.
52:50
Speaker 1: My only anxiety was to get the penance over as
52:52
Speaker 1: quietly as might be. Alternately, I hungered for a sight
52:56
Speaker 1: of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtation with my successor,
53:01
Speaker 1: to speak more accurately, my successors, with amused interest. She
53:06
Speaker 1: was as much out of my life as I was
53:09
Speaker 1: out of hers. By day, I wandered with missus Wessington,
53:13
Speaker 1: almost content. By night, I implored Heaven to let me
53:17
Speaker 1: return to the world as I used to know it.
53:19
Speaker 1: Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull,
53:23
Speaker 1: numbing wonder that the scene and the unseen should mingle
53:27
Speaker 1: so strangely on this earth, to hound one poor soul
53:30
Speaker 1: to its grave. August twenty seventh Heatherly has been indefatigable
53:38
Speaker 1: in his attendance on me, and only yesterday told me
53:41
Speaker 1: that I ought to send in an application for sick leave,
53:44
Speaker 1: an application to escape the company of a phantom, a
53:48
Speaker 1: request that the government would graciously permit me to get
53:51
Speaker 1: rid of five ghosts and an airy rickshaw by going
53:54
Speaker 1: to England. Heatherly's proposition moved me to almost hysterical life.
54:00
Speaker 1: After I told him that I should await the end
54:03
Speaker 1: quietly at Simla. And I am sure that the end
54:06
Speaker 1: is not far off. Believe me that I dread its
54:09
Speaker 1: advent more than any word can say. And I torture
54:13
Speaker 1: myself knightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner
54:16
Speaker 1: of my death. Shall I die in my bed decently
54:20
Speaker 1: and as an English gentleman would die, Or in one
54:24
Speaker 1: last walk on the mall, will my soul be wrenched
54:26
Speaker 1: from me to take its place forever and ever by
54:29
Speaker 1: the side of that ghastly phanfasm Shall I return to
54:33
Speaker 1: my old lost allegiance in the next world. Or shall
54:37
Speaker 1: I meet Agnes, loathing her and bound to her side
54:40
Speaker 1: through all eternity? Shall we too hover over the scene
54:44
Speaker 1: of our lives till the end of time. As the
54:47
Speaker 1: day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that
54:50
Speaker 1: all living flesh feels towards escaped spirits from beyond the
54:54
Speaker 1: grave grows more and more powerful. It is an awful
54:58
Speaker 1: thing to go down quick among the dead, with scarcely
55:01
Speaker 1: one half of your life completed. It is a thousand
55:04
Speaker 1: times more awful to wait, as I do, in your
55:07
Speaker 1: midst For I know not what unimaginable terror. Pity me,
55:13
Speaker 1: at least on the score of my delusion. For I
55:15
Speaker 1: know you will never believe what I have written here.
55:19
Speaker 1: Yet as surely as ever a man was done to
55:21
Speaker 1: death by the powers of darkness, I am that man
55:26
Speaker 1: in justice too. Pity her, For as surely as ever
55:29
Speaker 1: woman was killed by man, I killed Missus Wessington. And
55:33
Speaker 1: the last portion of my punishment is even now upon me.
55:40
Speaker 1: End of Section nine