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40 - Centaur by Algernon Blackwood · Centaur

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  Speaker 1: Chapter forty of The Centaur by Alginnon Blackwood. This liberyvox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Read by yoganand The Centaur,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter forty. At the end of the week, the little
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  Speaker 1: steamer dropped to anchor in the harbor, and the irishman
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  Speaker 1: booked his passage home. He was standing on the wharf
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  Speaker 1: to watch the unloading when a hand tapped him on
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  Speaker 1: the shoulder, and he heard a well known voice. His
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  Speaker 1: heart leaped with pleasure. There were no preliminaries between these two.
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  Speaker 1: I am glad to see you safe. You did not
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  Speaker 1: find your friend there. O'Malley looked at the bronzed face
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  Speaker 1: beside him, noted the ragged, tobacco stained beard, and saw
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  Speaker 1: the look of genuine welcome in the twinkling brown eyes.
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  Speaker 1: He watched him lift his cap and mopped that familiar
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  Speaker 1: dome of bald head. I'm safe, was all he answered,
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  Speaker 1: because I've found him. For a moment, Doctor Stall looked puzzled.
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  Speaker 1: He dropped the hand he held so tightly and led
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  Speaker 1: him down the wharf. We'll get out of this devilish sun,
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  Speaker 1: he said, leading the way among the tangle of merchandise
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  Speaker 1: and bales. It's enough to boil of brains. They passed
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  Speaker 1: through the crowd of swarthy, dripping Turks, Georgians, Persians, and Armenians,
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  Speaker 1: who labored half naked in the heat, and moved toward
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  Speaker 1: the town. A Russian gun boat lay in the bay,
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  Speaker 1: side by side with freight and passenger vessels. An oil
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  Speaker 1: tank steamer took on cargo. The scene was drenched in sunshine.
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  Speaker 1: The Black sea gleamed like a molten metal. Beyond the
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  Speaker 1: wooden spurs of Caucasus climbed through haze into cloudless blue.
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  Speaker 1: It's beautiful, remarked the German, pointing to the distant coast light.
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  Speaker 1: But hardly with the beauty of those Grecian aisles we
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  Speaker 1: passed together, eh, He watched him closely. You're coming back
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  Speaker 1: to our steamer, he asked, in the same breath. It's beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: O'Mally answered, ignoring the question, because it lives. But there
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  Speaker 1: is dust upon its outer loveliness, dust that has gathered
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  Speaker 1: through long ages of neglect, dust that I would sweep away.
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  Speaker 1: I've learnt how to do it, he taught me. Stall
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  Speaker 1: did not even look at him, though the words were
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  Speaker 1: wild enough. He walked it aside in silence. Perhaps he
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  Speaker 1: partly understood, for this first link with the outer world
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  Speaker 1: of appearances was difficult for him to pick up the
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  Speaker 1: person of Stall, thick coated with the civilization whence he came,
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  Speaker 1: had brought it and out of the ocean of glorious
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  Speaker 1: vision in his soul. O'Malley took at random the first
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  Speaker 1: phrases he could find. I booked a passage on your steamer,
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  Speaker 1: he added, presently remembering the question. It did not seem
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  Speaker 1: strange to him that his companion ignored both closey offered.
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  Speaker 1: He knew the man too well for that. It was
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  Speaker 1: only that he waited for more before he spoke. They
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  Speaker 1: went to the little table outside the hotel payment where
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  Speaker 1: several weeks ago they had drunk kekety and wined together
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  Speaker 1: and talked of deeper things. The German called for a
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  Speaker 1: bottle mineral water, eyes and cigarettes, and while they sipped
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  Speaker 1: the cooling golden liquid, hats off and coats on the
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  Speaker 1: backs of their chairs, Stall gave him the news of
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  Speaker 1: the world of men and events that had transpired. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: o'm ally listened vaguely as he smoked. It seemed remote, unreal,
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  Speaker 1: almost fantastic. This long string of ugly, frantic happenings, all
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  Speaker 1: symptoms of some disordered state that was like illness. The
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  Speaker 1: scream of politics, the roar and rattle of flying machines,
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  Speaker 1: financial crashes, furious labor upheavals, rumors of war, the death
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  Speaker 1: of kings and magnates, awful accidents, in strange turmoil and
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  Speaker 1: enormous cities, details of some sad prison life. It almost
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  Speaker 1: seemed pain and distress and strife the note that bound
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  Speaker 1: them altogether. Men were mastered by these things. Instead of
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  Speaker 1: mastering them, these unimportant things they thought would make them free,
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  Speaker 1: only imprisoned them. They lunched there at the little table
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  Speaker 1: at the shade, and in turn the Irishman gave an
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  Speaker 1: outline of his travels. Stall had asked for it, and
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  Speaker 1: listened attentively. The pictures interested him. You've done your letters
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  Speaker 1: for the papers, he questioned him, and now perhaps you'll
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  Speaker 1: write a book as well. Something may force its way
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  Speaker 1: out come blundering, thundering out in fragments. Yes, you mean
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  Speaker 1: you'd rather not. I mean it's all too big and overwhelming,
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  Speaker 1: he showed me. Such blinding splendors. I might tell it.
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  Speaker 1: But as to writing, he shrugged his shoulders, and this
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  Speaker 1: time doctor Stall ignored no longer. He took him up,
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  Speaker 1: but not with any expected words or questions. He merely said,
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  Speaker 1: my friend, there's something that I have to tell you,
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  Speaker 1: or rather I should say, to show you. He looked
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  Speaker 1: most keenly at him, and in the old family away.
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  Speaker 1: He placed a hand upon his shoulder. His voice grew soft.
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  Speaker 1: It may upset you, it may unsettle, prove a shock perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: but if you're prepared, we'll go. What kind of shock,
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  Speaker 1: o'milly asked, startled a moment by the gravity of manner.
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  Speaker 1: The shock of death, was the answer, gently spoken. The
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  Speaker 1: Irish man only knew a swift r of joy and
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  Speaker 1: wonder as he heard. But there's no such thing, he cried,
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  Speaker 1: almost with laughter. He taught me that above all else,
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  Speaker 1: there is no death. There's going away, though, came the rejoinder,
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  Speaker 1: spoken low. There is earth to earth, and dust to dust.
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  Speaker 1: That's of the body, that's of the body. Yes, the
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  Speaker 1: older man repeated darkly, there's onally going home, escape and freedom.
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  Speaker 1: I tell you there is only that. It's nothing but
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  Speaker 1: joy and splendor when you really understand. The doctor Stall
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  Speaker 1: made no immediate answer, nor any comment. He paid the
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  Speaker 1: bill and led him down the street. They took the
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  Speaker 1: shady side, passing beyond the skirts of the town. They
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  Speaker 1: walked in silence the barracks where the soldiers sang the
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  Speaker 1: railway line to Tiflis and Baku. The domes and minarets
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  Speaker 1: of the church were left behind. It turned, and presently
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  Speaker 1: they reached the hot, straight, dusty road that fringed the sea.
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  Speaker 1: They heard the crashing of the little waves, and saw
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  Speaker 1: the foram creamily white against the dark gray pebbles of
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  Speaker 1: the beach. And when they reached a small enclosure where
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  Speaker 1: thin trees were planted among sparse grass, all brown and
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  Speaker 1: withered by the sun, they paused, and Stall pointed to
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  Speaker 1: a mound marked at either end by rough stone boulder.
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  Speaker 1: A date was on it, but no name. O'malani calculated
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  Speaker 1: the difference between the Russian calendar and the one he
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  Speaker 1: was accustomed to. Stall checked him the fifteenth of June,
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  Speaker 1: the German said, the fifteenth of June, yes, said O'Malley,
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  Speaker 1: very slowly, but with wonder and excitement in his heart.
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  Speaker 1: That was the day that Rostom tried to run away.
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  Speaker 1: The day I saw him come to me from the
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  Speaker 1: trees the day we started off together to the garden.
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  Speaker 1: He turned to his companion questioningly. For a moment, the
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  Speaker 1: rush of memory was quite bewildering. He never left Batoum
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  Speaker 1: at all, you see, stall continued, without looking up. He
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  Speaker 1: went straight to the hospital the day we came into port.
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  Speaker 1: I was summoned to him in the night that last night,
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  Speaker 1: while you slept so dear deeply. His old strange fever
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  Speaker 1: was upon him then, and I took him ashore before
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  Speaker 1: the other passengers were a stir. I brought him to
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  Speaker 1: the hospital myself, and he never left his bed. He
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  Speaker 1: pointed down to the little nameless grave at their feet,
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  Speaker 1: where a wandering wind from the sea just tored the grasses.
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  Speaker 1: That was the date on which he died. He went
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  Speaker 1: away in the early morning, he added, in a low
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  Speaker 1: voice that held both sadness and sympathy. He went home,
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  Speaker 1: said the irishman, attired of joy rising tumultuously through his
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  Speaker 1: heart as he remembered. The secret of that complete and
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  Speaker 1: absolute leadership was out. He understood it all. It had
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  Speaker 1: been a spiritual adventure to the last. Then followed a
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  Speaker 1: pause in silence. They stood there for some minutes. There
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  Speaker 1: grew no flowers on that grave. But o'manley stood down
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  Speaker 1: and picked a strand of the withered grass. He put
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  Speaker 1: it carefully between the pages of his note book, and then,
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  Speaker 1: lying flat against the ground where the sunshine fell in
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  Speaker 1: a patch of white and burning glory, he pressed his
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  Speaker 1: lips to the crumbling soil. He kissed the earth of Levius,
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  Speaker 1: of Stall's presence, or at least ignoring it, he worshiped.
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  Speaker 1: And while he did so, he heard that little sound
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  Speaker 1: he loved so well, which more than any words of music,
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  Speaker 1: brought peace and joy, because it told his passion, all
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  Speaker 1: complete with his years. Close to the earth, he heard it,
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  Speaker 1: yet at the same time heard it everywhere, for it
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  Speaker 1: came from the falling of the waves upon the show,
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  Speaker 1: through the murmur of the rustling branches overhead, and even
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  Speaker 1: across the whispering of the withered grass about him. Deep
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  Speaker 1: down in the center of the mothering earth, he heard
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  Speaker 1: it too, in faintly rising pulse. It was the exquisite
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  Speaker 1: little piping in a reed, the ancient fluting of the
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  Speaker 1: everlasting pan. And when he rose he found that Stall
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  Speaker 1: had turned away and was gazing at the sea, as
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  Speaker 1: though he had not noticed, doctor, he cried, yet so softly.
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  Speaker 1: It was a whisper rather than a call. I heard it,
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  Speaker 1: then again, it's Oh, tell me that you hear it too.
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  Speaker 1: Stall turned and looked at him in silence. There was
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  Speaker 1: a moisture in his eyes, and on his face, a
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  Speaker 1: look of softness that a woman might have worn. I've
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  Speaker 1: brought it back, you see, I've brought it back. For
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  Speaker 1: that's the message. That's the sound and music I must
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  Speaker 1: give to all the world. No words, no book can
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  Speaker 1: tell it. His hand was off, his eyes were shining,
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  Speaker 1: his voice broke with the passion of joy. He yearned
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  Speaker 1: to share, yet knew so little how to impart. If
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  Speaker 1: I can pipe upon the flutes of pan, the millions
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  Speaker 1: all will listen. We'll understand and follow. Tell me, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: tell me that you heard it too, My friend, my
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  Speaker 1: dear young friend, the German murmured, in a voice of
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  Speaker 1: real tenderness. You heard it, truly, but you heard it
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  Speaker 1: in your heart. Few hear the pipes of pan as
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  Speaker 1: you do. Few care to listen to day. The world
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  Speaker 1: is full of other sounds that drown it. And even
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  Speaker 1: of those who hear. He shrugged his shoulders as he
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  Speaker 1: led them away toward the sea. How few will care
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  Speaker 1: to follow, how fewer still will dare. And while they
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  Speaker 1: lay upon the beach, and watch the line of foam
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  Speaker 1: against their feet, and saw the seagull scurving idly in
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  Speaker 1: the blue and shining air, he added underneath his breath,
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  Speaker 1: o' man, he hardly caught the murmur of his words,
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  Speaker 1: so low he murmured them, the simple life is lost forever.
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  Speaker 1: It lies asleep in the golden age. And while he
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  Speaker 1: those who sleep and dream, can ever find it. If
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  Speaker 1: you would keep your joy, dream on, my friend, dream on,
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  Speaker 1: but dream alone. The end of chapter forty