Tuesday's Serial: “Lavengro” by George Borrow (in English) - XXXI

Chapter 62

the hostelry—life uncertain—open countenance—the grand point—thank you, master—a hard mother—poor dear!—the odds—the better country—english fashion—landlord-looking person

 

And in the old city I remained two days, passing my time as I best could—inspecting the curiosities of the place, eating and drinking when I so felt disposed, which I frequently did, the digestive organs having assumed a tone to which for many months they had been strangers—enjoying at night balmy sleep in a large bed in a dusky room, at the end of a corridor, in a certain hostelry in which I had taken up my quarters—receiving from the people of the hostelry such civility and condescension as people who travel on foot with bundle and stick, but who nevertheless are perceived to be not altogether destitute of coin, are in the habit of receiving. On the third day, on a fine sunny afternoon, I departed from the city of the spire.

As I was passing through one of the suburbs, I saw, all on a sudden, a respectable-looking female fall down in a fit; several persons hastened to her assistance. 'She is dead,' said one. 'No, she is not,' said another. 'I am afraid she is,' said the third. 'Life is very uncertain,' said the fourth. 'It is Mrs. ——,' said the fifth; 'let us carry her to her own house.' Not being able to render any assistance, I left the poor female in the hands of her townsfolk, and proceeded on my way. I had chosen a road in the direction of the north-west, it led over downs where corn was growing, but where neither tree nor hedge was to be seen; two or three hours' walking brought me to a beautiful valley, abounding with trees of various kinds, with a delightful village at its farthest extremity; passing through it, I ascended a lofty acclivity, on the top of which I sat down on a bank, and, taking off my hat, permitted a breeze, which swept coolly and refreshingly over the downs, to dry my hair, dripping from the effects of exercise and the heat of the day.

And as I sat there, gazing now at the blue heavens, now at the downs before me, a man came along the road in the direction in which I had hitherto been proceeding: just opposite to me he stopped, and, looking at me, cried,—'Am I right for London, master?'

He was dressed like a sailor, and appeared to be between twenty-five and thirty years of age—he had an open manly countenance, and there was a bold and fearless expression in his eye.

'Yes,' said I, in reply to his question; 'this is one of the ways to London. Do you come from far?'

'From ——,' said the man, naming a well-known seaport.

'Is this the direct road to London from that place?' I demanded.

'No,' said the man; 'but I had to visit two or three other places on certain commissions I was intrusted with; amongst others to ——, where I had to take a small sum of money. I am rather tired, master; and, if you please, I will sit down beside you.'

'You have as much right to sit down here as I have,' said I; 'the road is free for every one; as for sitting down beside me, you have the look of an honest man, and I have no objection to your company.'

'Why, as for being honest, master,' said the man, laughing and sitting down by me, 'I haven't much to say—many is the wild thing I have done when I was younger; however, what is done, is done. To learn, one must live, master; and I have lived long enough to learn the grand point of wisdom.'

'What is that?' said I.

'That honesty is the best policy, master.'

'You appear to be a sailor,' said I, looking at his dress.

'I was not bred a sailor,' said the man, 'though, when my foot is on the salt water, I can play the part—and play it well too. I am now from a long voyage.'

'From America?' said I.

'Farther than that,' said the man.

'Have you any objection to tell me?' said I.

'From New South Wales,' said the man, looking me full in the face.

'Dear me,' said I.

'Why do you say "Dear me"?' said the man.

'It is a very long way off,' said I.

'Was that your reason for saying so?' said the man.

'Not exactly,' said I.

'No,' said the man, with something of a bitter smile; 'it was something else that made you say so; you were thinking of the convicts.'

'Well,' said I, 'what then—you are no convict.'

'How do you know?'

'You do not look like one.'

'Thank you, master,' said the man cheerfully; 'and, to a certain extent, you are right—bygones are bygones—I am no longer what I was, nor ever will be again; the truth, however, is the truth—a convict I have been—a convict at Sydney Cove.'

'And you have served out the period for which you were sentenced, and are now returned?'

'As to serving out my sentence,' replied the man, 'I can't say that I did; I was sentenced for fourteen years, and I was in Sydney Cove little more than half that time. The truth is that I did the Government a service. There was a conspiracy amongst some of the convicts to murder and destroy—I overheard and informed the Government; mind one thing, however, I was not concerned in it; those who got it up were no comrades of mine, but a bloody gang of villains. Well, the Government, in consideration of the service I had done them, remitted the remainder of my sentence; and some kind gentlemen interested themselves about me, gave me good books and good advice, and, being satisfied with my conduct, procured me employ in an exploring expedition, by which I earned money. In fact, the being sent to Sydney was the best thing that ever happened to me in all my life.'

'And you have now returned to your native country. Longing to see home brought you from New South Wales.'

'There you are mistaken,' said the man. 'Wish to see England again would never have brought me so far; for, to tell you the truth, master, England was a hard mother to me, as she has proved to many. No, a wish to see another kind of mother—a poor old woman, whose son I am—has brought me back.'

'You have a mother, then?' said I. 'Does she reside in London?'

'She used to live in London,' said the man; 'but I am afraid she is long since dead.'

'How did she support herself?' said I.

'Support herself! with difficulty enough; she used to keep a small stall on London Bridge, where she sold fruit; I am afraid she is dead, and that she died perhaps in misery. She was a poor sinful creature; but I loved her, and she loved me. I came all the way back merely for the chance of seeing her.'

'Did you ever write to her,' said I, 'or cause others to write to her?'

'I wrote to her myself,' said the man, 'about two years ago; but I never received an answer. I learned to write very tolerably over there, by the assistance of the good people I spoke of. As for reading, I could do that very well before I went—my poor mother taught me to read, out of a book that she was very fond of; a strange book it was, I remember. Poor dear!—what I would give only to know that she is alive.'

'Life is very uncertain,' said I.

'That is true,' said the man, with a sigh.

'We are here one moment, and gone the next,' I continued. 'As I passed through the streets of a neighbouring town, I saw a respectable woman drop down, and people said she was dead. Who knows but that she too had a son coming to see her from a distance, at that very time?'

'Who knows, indeed?' said the man. 'Ah, I am afraid my mother is dead. Well, God's will be done.'

'However,' said I, 'I should not wonder at your finding your mother alive.'

'You wouldn't?' said the man, looking at me wistfully.

'I should not wonder at all,' said I; 'indeed, something within me seems to tell me you will; I should not much mind betting five shillings to fivepence that you will see your mother within a week. Now, friend, five shillings to fivepence—'

'Is very considerable odds,' said the man, rubbing his hands; 'sure you must have good reason to hope, when you are willing to give such odds.'

'After all,' said I, 'it not unfrequently happens that those who lay the long odds lose. Let us hope, however. What do you mean to do in the event of finding your mother alive?'

'I scarcely know,' said the man; 'I have frequently thought that if I found my mother alive I would attempt to persuade her to accompany me to the country which I have left—it is a better country for a man—that is, a free man—to live in than this; however, let me first find my mother—if I could only find my mother—'

'Farewell,' said I, rising. 'Go your way, and God go with you—I will go mine.' 'I have but one thing to ask you,' said the man. 'What is that?' I inquired. 'That you would drink with me before we part—you have done me so much good.' 'How should we drink?' said I; 'we are on the top of a hill where there is nothing to drink.' 'But there is a village below,' said the man; 'do let us drink before we part.' 'I have been through that village already,' said I, 'and I do not like turning back.' 'Ah,' said the man, sorrowfully, 'you will not drink with me because I told you I was—' 'You are quite mistaken,' said I, 'I would as soon drink with a convict as with a judge. I am by no means certain that, under the same circumstances, the judge would be one whit better than the convict. Come along! I will go back to oblige you. I have an odd sixpence in my pocket, which I will change that I may drink with you.' So we went down the hill together to the village through which I had already passed, where, finding a public-house, we drank together in true English fashion, after which we parted, the sailor-looking man going his way and I mine.

 

 

Chapter 63

primitive habits—rosy-faced damsel—a pleasant moment—suit of black—the furtive glance—the mighty round—these degenerate times—the newspaper—the evil chance—i must congratulate you

 

'Young gentleman,' said the huge fat landlord, 'you are come at the right time; dinner will be taken up in a few minutes, and such a dinner,' he continued, rubbing his hands, 'as you will not see every day in these times.'

'I am hot and dusty,' said I, 'and should wish to cool my hands and face.'

'Jenny!' said the huge landlord, with the utmost gravity, 'show the gentleman into number seven, that he may wash his hands and face.'

'By no means,' said I, 'I am a person of primitive habits, and there is nothing like the pump in weather like this.'

'Jenny,' said the landlord, with the same gravity as before, 'go with the young gentleman to the pump in the back kitchen, and take a clean towel along with you.'

Thereupon the rosy-faced clean-looking damsel went to a drawer, and producing a large, thick, but snowy white towel, she nodded to me to follow her; whereupon I followed Jenny through a long passage into the back kitchen.

And at the end of the back kitchen there stood a pump; and going to it I placed my hands beneath the spout, and said, 'Pump, Jenny'; and Jenny incontinently, without laying down the towel, pumped with one hand, and I washed and cooled my heated hands.

And, when my hands were washed and cooled, I took off my neckcloth, and, unbuttoning my shirt collar, I placed my head beneath the spout of the pump, and I said unto Jenny, 'Now, Jenny, lay down the towel, and pump for your life.'

Thereupon Jenny, placing the towel on a linen-horse, took the handle of the pump with both hands and pumped over my head as handmaid had never pumped before; so that the water poured in torrents from my head, my face, and my hair down upon the brick floor.

And, after the lapse of somewhat more than a minute, I called out with a half-strangled voice, 'Hold, Jenny!' and Jenny desisted. I stood for a few moments to recover my breath, then taking the towel which Jenny proffered, I dried composedly my hands and head, my face and hair; then, returning the towel to Jenny, I gave a deep sigh and said, 'Surely this is one of the pleasant moments of life.'

Then, having set my dress to rights, and combed my hair with a pocket comb, I followed Jenny, who conducted me back through the long passage, and showed me into a neat sanded parlour on the ground-floor.

I sat down by a window which looked out upon the dusty street; presently in came the handmaid, and commenced laying the table-cloth. 'Shall I spread the table for one, sir,' said she, 'or do you expect anybody to dine with you?'

'I can't say that I expect anybody,' said I, laughing inwardly to myself; 'however, if you please you can lay for two, so that if any acquaintance of mine should chance to step in, he may find a knife and fork ready for him.'

So I sat by the window, sometimes looking out upon the dusty street, and now glancing at certain old-fashioned prints which adorned the wall over against me. I fell into a kind of doze, from which I was almost instantly awakened by the opening of the door. Dinner, thought I; and I sat upright in my chair. No; a man of the middle age, and rather above the middle height, dressed in a plain suit of black, made his appearance, and sat down in a chair at some distance from me, but near to the table, and appeared to be lost in thought.

'The weather is very warm, sir,' said I.

'Very,' said the stranger, laconically, looking at me for the first time.

'Would you like to see the newspaper?' said I, taking up one which lay upon the window seat.

'I never read newspapers,' said the stranger, 'nor, indeed, ——' Whatever it might be that he had intended to say he left unfinished. Suddenly he walked to the mantelpiece at the farther end of the room, before which he placed himself with his back towards me. There he remained motionless for some time; at length, raising his hand, he touched the corner of the mantelpiece with his finger, advanced towards the chair which he had left, and again seated himself.

'Have you come far?' said he, suddenly looking towards me, and speaking in a frank and open manner, which denoted a wish to enter into conversation. 'You do not seem to be of this place.'

'I come from some distance,' said I; 'indeed, I am walking for exercise, which I find as necessary to the mind as the body. I believe that by exercise people would escape much mental misery.'

Scarcely had I uttered these words when the stranger laid his hand, with seeming carelessness, upon the table, near one of the glasses; after a moment or two he touched the glass with his finger as if inadvertently, then, glancing furtively at me, he withdrew his hand and looked towards the window.

'Are you from these parts?' said I at last, with apparent carelessness.

'From this vicinity,' replied the stranger. 'You think, then, that it is as easy to walk off the bad humours of the mind as of the body?'

'I, at least, am walking in that hope,' said I.

'I wish you may be successful,' said the stranger; and here he touched one of the forks which lay on the table near him.

Here the door, which was slightly ajar, was suddenly pushed open with some fracas, and in came the stout landlord, supporting with some difficulty an immense dish, in which was a mighty round mass of smoking meat garnished all round with vegetables; so high was the mass that it probably obstructed his view, for it was not until he had placed it upon the table that he appeared to observe the stranger; he almost started, and quite out of breath exclaimed, 'God bless me, your honour; is your honour the acquaintance that the young gentleman was expecting?'

'Is the young gentleman expecting an acquaintance?' said the stranger.

There is nothing like putting a good face upon these matters, thought I to myself; and, getting up, I bowed to the unknown. 'Sir,' said I, 'when I told Jenny that she might lay the table-cloth for two, so that in the event of any acquaintance dropping in he might find a knife and fork ready for him, I was merely jocular, being an entire stranger in these parts, and expecting no one. Fortune, however, it would seem, has been unexpectedly kind to me; I flatter myself, sir, that since you have been in this room I have had the honour of making your acquaintance; and in the strength of that hope I humbly entreat you to honour me with your company to dinner, provided you have not already dined.'

The stranger laughed outright.

'Sir,' I continued, 'the round of beef is a noble one, and seems exceedingly well boiled, and the landlord was just right when he said I should have such a dinner as is not seen every day. A round of beef, at any rate such a round of beef as this, is seldom seen smoking upon the table in these degenerate times. Allow me, sir,' said I, observing that the stranger was about to speak, 'allow me another remark. I think I saw you just now touch the fork; I venture to hail it as an omen that you will presently seize it, and apply it to its proper purpose, and its companion the knife also.'

The stranger changed colour, and gazed upon me in silence.

'Do, sir,' here put in the landlord; 'do, sir, accept the young gentleman's invitation. Your honour has of late been looking poorly, and the young gentleman is a funny young gentleman, and a clever young gentleman; and I think it will do your honour good to have a dinner's chat with the young gentleman.'

'It is not my dinner hour,' said the stranger; 'I dine considerably later; taking anything now would only discompose me; I shall, however, be most happy to sit down with the young gentleman; reach me that paper, and, when the young gentleman has satisfied his appetite, we may perhaps have a little chat together.'

The landlord handed the stranger the newspaper, and, bowing, retired with his maid Jenny. I helped myself to a portion of the smoking round, and commenced eating with no little appetite. The stranger appeared to be soon engrossed with the newspaper. We continued thus a considerable time—the one reading and the other dining. Chancing suddenly to cast my eyes upon the stranger, I saw his brow contract; he gave a slight stamp with his foot, and flung the newspaper to the ground, then stooping down he picked it up, first moving his forefinger along the floor, seemingly slightly scratching it with his nail.

'Do you hope, sir,' said I, 'by that ceremony with the finger to preserve yourself from the evil chance?'

The stranger started; then, after looking at me for some time in silence, he said, 'Is it possible that you—?'

'Ay, ay,' said I, helping myself to some more of the round; 'I have touched myself in my younger days, both for the evil chance and the good. Can't say, though, that I ever trusted much in the ceremony.'

The stranger made no reply, but appeared to be in deep thought; nothing farther passed between us until I had concluded the dinner, when I said to him, 'I shall now be most happy, sir, to have the pleasure of your conversation over a pint of wine.'

The stranger rose; 'No, my young friend,' said he, smiling, 'that would scarce be fair. It is my turn now—pray do me the favour to go home with me, and accept what hospitality my poor roof can offer; to tell you the truth, I wish to have some particular discourse with you which would hardly be possible in this place. As for wine, I can give you some much better than you can get here: the landlord is an excellent fellow, but he is an innkeeper after all. I am going out for a moment, and will send him in, so that you may settle your account; I trust you will not refuse me, I only live about two miles from here.'

I looked in the face of the stranger—it was a fine intelligent face, with a cast of melancholy in it. 'Sir,' said I, 'I would go with you though you lived four miles instead of two.'

'Who is that gentleman?' said I to the landlord, after I had settled his bill; 'I am going home with him.'

'I wish I were going too,' said the fat landlord, laying his hand upon his stomach. 'Young gentleman, I shall be a loser by his honour's taking you away; but, after all, the truth is the truth—there are few gentlemen in these parts like his honour, either for learning or welcoming his friends. Young gentleman, I congratulate you.'

Monday's Illustrated Word and a Celebration: "Man or Myth" by unknown writer (in English)

Today this blog completes 11 years of existence.

* * *

 

 art by Mike Sekowsky - Captain Flash #4 - Sterling, July 1955.

 

 

 

 

Saturday's Good Reading: "El ciglio col color non fere el volto" by Michelangelo Buonarroti (in Italian)

  El ciglio col color non fere el volto
col suo contrar, che l’occhio non ha pena
da l’uno all’altro stremo ov’egli è volto.
     L’occhio, che sotto intorno adagio mena,
picciola parte di gran palla scuopre,
che men rilieva suo vista serena,
     e manco sale e scende quand’ el copre;
onde più corte son le suo palpebre,
che manco grinze fan quando l’aopre.
     El bianco bianco, el ner più che funebre,
s’esser può, el giallo po’ più leonino,
che scala fa dall’una all’altra vebre.
     Pur tocchi sotto e sopra el suo confino,
e ’l giallo e ’l nero e ’l bianco non circundi.

Friday's Sung Word: "Uva de Caminhão" by Assis Valente (in Potuguese)

This is a pastiche song where every verse of the two stanzas refers to the great hits of the previous carnival (1939: A Pensão de Dona Estela; Quebra, Quebra Gabiroba; Mamãe, Eu Quero, among others).

In adiction, in the refrain there are references to several slangs used in Rio de Janeiro at the time, sugesting the singer is addressing to a woman with no limits in her actions and now is going to voluntarily interrupt her pregnancy.

 

Já me disseram que você andou pintando o sete
Andou chupando muita uva
E até de caminhão
Agora anda dizendo que está de apendicite
Vai entrar no canivete, vai fazer operação
Oi que tem a Florisbela nas cadeiras dela
Andou dizendo que ganhou a flauta de bambu
Abandonou a batucada lá da Praça Onze
E foi dançar o pirolito lá no Grajaú

Caiu o pano da cuíca em boas condições
Apareceu Branca de Neve com os sete anões
E na pensão da dona Estela foram farrear
Quebra, quebra gabiroba quero ver quebrar
      
Você no baile dos quarenta deu o que falar
Cantando o seu Caramuru, bota o pajé pra brincar
Tira, não tira o pajé, deixa o pajé farrear
Eu não te dou a chupeta, não adianta chorar

 

You can listen "Uva de Caminhão" sung by Carmen Miranda here.

Thursday Serial: “The Human Chord” by Algernon Blackwood (in English) - VIII

 

Chapter 10

I

The first thing Spinrobin knew when he ran upstairs to lock away the money in his desk was that his whole being, without his directing it, asked a question of momentous import. He did not himself ask it deliberately. He surprised his sub-consciousness asking it:

 

"WHAT IS THIS NAME THAT PHILIP SKALE FOREVER SEEKS?"

 

It was no longer mere curiosity that asked it, but that sense of responsibility which in all men of principle and character lies at the root of action and of life. And Spinrobin, for all his little weaknesses, was a man of character and principle. There came a point when he could no longer follow blindly where others led, even though the leader were so grand an individual as Philip Skale. This point is reached at varying degrees of the moral thermometer, and but for the love that Miriam had wakened in his heart, it might have taken much longer to send the mercury of his will so high in so short a time. He now felt responsibility for two, and in the depths of his queer, confused, little mind stirred the thought that possibly after all the great adventure he sought was only the supreme adventure of a very wonderful Love.

He records these two questions at this point, and it is only just to himself, therefore, to set them down here. To neither was the answer yet forthcoming.

For some days the routine of this singular household followed its normal course, the only change being that while the secretary practiced his Hebrew names and studied the relations between sound, color, form and the rest, he kept himself a little better in hand, for Love is a mighty humanizer and holds down the nose upon the grindstone of the wholesome and practical values of existence. He turned, so to speak, and tried to face the matter squarely; to see the adventure as a whole; to get all round it and judge. It seems, however, that he was too much in the thick of it to get that bird's-eye view which reduces details to the right proportion. Skale's personality was too close, and flooded him too violently. Spinrobin remained confused and bewildered; but also unbelievably happy.

"Coming out all right," he wrote shakily in that gilt-edged diary. "Beginning to understand why I'm in the world. Am just as important as anybody else--really. Impossible explain more." His entries were very like telegrams, in which a man attempts to express in a lucid shorthand all manner of things that the actual words hardly compass. And life itself is not unlike some mighty telegram that seeks vainly to express, between the extremes of silence and excess, all that the soul would say....

"Skale is going too far," perhaps best expresses the daily burden of his accumulating apprehension. "He is leading up to something that makes me shrink--something not quite legitimate. Playing with an Olympian fire that may consume us both." And there his telegram stopped; for how in the world could he put into mere language the pain and distress involved in the thought that it might at the same time consume Miriam? It all touched appalling depths of awe in his soul. It made his heart shake. The girl had become a part of his very self.

Vivid reactions he suffered, alternating with equally vivid enthusiasms. He realized how visionary the clergyman's poetical talk was, but the next minute the practical results staggered him again, as it were, back into a state of conviction. For the poetry obscured his judgment and fired his imagination so that he could not follow calmly. The feeling that it was not only illogical but insane troubled him; yet the physical effects stared him in the face, and to argue with physical results is waste of time. One must act.

Yet how "act?" The only way that offered he accepted: he fell back upon the habits of his boyhood, read his Bible, and at night dropped humbly upon his knees and prayed.

"Keep me straight and pure and simple, and bless ... Miriam. Grant that I may love and strengthen her ... and that my love may bring her peace ... and joy ...and guide me through all this terror, I beseech Thee, into Truth...."

For, in the beauty of his selfless love, he dared not even admit that it was love; feeling only the highest, he could not quite correlate his sweet and elevated passion with the common standards of what the World called love. The humility of a great love is ever amazing.

And then followed in his prayers the more cowardly cry for ordinary protection from the possible results of Skale's audacity. The Love of God he could understand, but the Wrath of God was a conception he was still unemancipated enough to dread; and a dark, portentous terror that Skale might incur it, and that he might be dragged at its heels into some hideous catastrophe, chased him through the days and nights. It all seemed so unlawful, impious, blasphemous....

"... And preserve us from vain presumptions of the heart and brain, I pray Thee, lest we be consumed.... Please, O God, forgive the insolence of our wills ... and the ignorant daring of our spirit.... Permit not the innocent to suffer for the guilty ... and especially bless ... Miriam...."

Yet through it all ran that exquisite memory of the calling of his true name in the spaces of his soul. The beauty of far-off unattainable things hovered like a star above his head, so that he went about the house with an insatiable yearning in his heart, a perpetual smile of wonder upon his face, and in his eyes a gleam that was sometimes terror, sometimes delight.

It was almost as if some great voice called to him from the mountaintops, and the little chap was forever answering in his heart, "I'm coming! I'm coming!" and then losing his way purposely, or hiding behind bushes on the way for fear of meeting the great invisible Caller face to face.

 

 

II

And, meanwhile, the house became for him a kind of Sound-Temple as it were, protected from desecration by the hills and desolate spaces that surrounded it. From dawn to darkness its halls and corridors echoed with the singing violin, Skale's booming voice, Miriam's gentle tones, and his own plaintive yet excited note, while outside the old grey walls the air was ever alive with the sighing of the winds and the ceaseless murmur of falling water. Even at night the place was not silent. He understood at last what the clergyman had told him--that perfect silence does not exist. The universe, down to its smallest detail, sings through every second of time.

The sounds of nature especially haunted him. He never heard the wind now without thinking of lost whispers from the voice of God that had strayed down upon the world to sweeten and bewilder the hearts of men--whispers a-search for listeners simple enough to understand. And when their walks took them as far as the sea, the dirge of the waves troubled his soul with a kind of distressing exaltation that afflicted the very deeps of his being. It was with a new comprehension he understood his employer's dictum that the keynote of external nature was middle F--this employer who himself possessed that psychic sense of absolute pitch--and that the roar of a city, wind in forest trees, the cry of trains, the rushing of rivers and falling water, Niagara itself, all produced this single utterance; and he loved to sing it on the moors, Miriam laughing by his side, and to realize that the world, literally, sang with them.

Behind all sounds he divined for the first time a majesty that appalled; his imagination, glorified by Skale, instantly fell to constructing the forms they bodied forth. Out of doors the flutes of Pan cried to him to dance: indoors the echoes of yet greater music whispered in the penetralia of his spirit that he should cry. In this extraordinary new world of Philip Skale's revelation he fairly spun.

It was one thing when the protective presence of the clergyman was about him, or when he was sustained by the excitement of enthusiasm, but when he was alone, at his normal level, timid, yet adventurous, the too vivid sense of these new things made him tremble. The terrifying beauty of Skale's ideas; the realization in cold blood that all forms in the world about him were silently a-singing, and might any moment vanish and release their huge bodies into primal sounds; that the stones in the road, the peaked hills, the very earth herself might alter in shape before his eyes: on the other hand, that the viewless forces of life and death might leap into visibility and form with the calling of their names; that himself, and Skale, and Mrs. Mawle, and that pale fairy girl-figure were all enmeshed in the same scheme with plants, insects, animals and planets; and that God's voice was everywhere too sublimely close--all this, when he was alone, oppressed him with a sense of things that were too intimate and too mighty for daily life.

In these moments--so frequent now as to be almost continuous--he preferred the safety of his ordinary and normal existence, dull though it might be; the limited personality he had been so anxious to escape from seemed wondrous sweet and comforting. The Terror of the approaching Experiment with this mighty name appalled him.

The forces, thus battling within his soul, became more and more contradictory and confused. The outcome for himself seemed to be the result of the least little pressure this way or that--possibly at the very last moment, too. Which way the waiting Climax might draw him was a question impossible to decide.

 

 

III

And then, suddenly, the whole portentous business moved a sharp stage nearer that hidden climax, when one afternoon Mr. Skale came up unexpectedly behind him and laid a great hand upon his shoulder in a way that made him positively jump.

"Spinrobin," he said, in those masterful, resonant tones that shamed his timidity and cowardice, "are you ready?"

"For anything and everything," was the immediate reply, given almost automatically as he felt the clergyman's forces flood into his soul and lift him.

"The time is at hand, then," continued the other, leading his companion by the arm to a deep leather sofa, "for you to know certain things that for your own safety and ours, I was obliged to keep hidden till now--first among which is the fact that this house is not, as you supposed, empty."

Prepared as he was for some surprising announcement, Spinrobin nevertheless started. It was so abrupt.

"Not empty!" he repeated, eager to hear more, yet quaking. He had never forgotten the nightly sounds and steps in his own passage.

"The rooms beyond your own," said Skale, with a solemnity that amounted to reverence, "are occupied--"

"By--" gasped the secretary.

"Captured Sounds--gigantic," was the reply, uttered almost below the breath.

The two men looked steadily at one another for the space of several seconds, Spinrobin charged to the brim with anxious questions pressing somehow upon the fringe of life and death, Skale obviously calculating how much he might reveal or how little.

"Mr. Spinrobin," he said presently, holding him firmly with his eyes, "you are aware by this time that what I seek is the correct pronunciation of certain names--of a certain name, let us say, and that so complex is the nature of this name that no single voice can utter it. I need a chord, a human chord of four voices."

Spinrobin bowed.

"After years of research and experiment," resumed the clergyman, "I have found the first three notes, and now, in your own person, has come my supreme happiness in the discovery of the fourth. What I now wish you to know, though I cannot expect you to understand it all at first, is that the name I seek is broken up into four great divisions of sound, and that to each of these separate divisions the four notes of our chord form introductory channels. When the time comes to utter it, each one of us will call the syllable or sound that awakens the mighty response in one of these immense and terrific divisions, so that the whole name will vibrate as a single chord sung perfectly in tune."

Mr. Skale paused and drew deep breaths. This approach to his great experiment, even in speech, seemed to exhaust him so that he was obliged to call upon reserves of force that lay beneath. His whole manner betrayed the gravity, the reverence, the mingled respect and excitement of--death.

And the simple truth is that at the moment Spinrobin could not find in himself sufficient courage to ask what this fearful and prodigious name might be. Even to put ordinary questions about the four rooms was a little beyond him, for his heart beat like a hammer against his ribs, and he heard its ominous drum sounding through both his temples.

"And in each of the rooms in your corridor, ready to leap forth when called, lie the sounds or voices I have captured and imprisoned, these separate chambers being sheeted and prepared--huge wax receptacles, in fact, akin to the cylinders of the phonograph. Together with the form or pattern belonging to them, and the color, there they lie at present in silence and invisibility, just as the universe lay in silence and invisibility before the word of God called it into objective being. But--know them and they are mine."

"All these weeks--so close to me," whispered Spinrobin, too low for Skale to notice.

Then the clergyman leaned over towards him. "These captured sounds are as yet by no means complete," he said through his beard, as though afraid to admit it; "for all I have of them really is their initial letters, of their forms the merest faint outlines, and of their colors but a first suggestion. And we must be careful, we must be absolutely wise. To utter them correctly will mean to transfer to us the qualities of Gods, whereas to utter falsely may mean to release upon the surface of the world forces that--" He shrugged his great shoulders and an ashen pallor spread downwards over the face to the very lips. The sentence remained unfinished; and its very incompleteness left Spinrobin with the most grievous agony of apprehension he had yet experienced.

"So that, if you are ready, our next step shall be to show you the room in which your own particular sound lies," added Mr. Skale after a long pause; "the sound in the chord it will be your privilege to utter when the time comes. For each of us will utter his or her particular letter, the four together making up the first syllable in the name I seek."

Mr. Skale looked steadily down into the wide blue eyes of his companion, and for some minutes neither of them spoke.

"The letter I am to utter," repeated the secretary at length; "the letter in some great name?"

Mr. Skale smiled upon him with the mighty triumph of the Promethean idea in his eyes.

"The room," he muttered deeply and softly, "in which it lies waiting for you to claim it at the appointed time ... the room where you shall learn its color, become attuned to its great vibratory activity, see its form, and know its power in your own person."

Again they looked long into one another's eyes.

"I'm game," murmured Spinrobin almost inaudibly; "I'm game, Mr. Skale." But, as he said it, something in his round head turned dizzy, while his thoughts flew to Miriam and to the clergyman's significant phrase of a few minutes ago--"we must be careful, we must be absolutely wise."

 

 

IV

And the preparation the clergyman insisted upon--detailed, thorough and scrupulous--certainly did not lessen in Spinrobin's eyes the gravity of the approaching ordeal. They spent two days and nights in the very precise and punctilious study, and utterance, of the Hebrew names of the "angels"--that is, forces--whose qualities were essential to their safety.

Also, at the same time, they fasted.

But when the time came for the formal visit to those closed rooms, of which the locked doors were like veils in a temple, Spinrobin declares it made him think of some solemn procession down ancient passageways of crypt or pyramid to the hidden places where inscrutable secrets lay. It was certainly thrilling and impressive. Skale went first, moving slowly with big strides, grave as death, and so profoundly convinced of the momentous nature of their errand that an air of dignity, and of dark adventure almost majestic, hung about his figure. The long corridor, that dreary December morning, stretched into a world of shadows, and about half-way down it he halted in front of a door next but one to Spinrobin's room and turned towards his companion.

Spinrobin, in a mood to see anything, yet striving to hide behind one of those "bushes," as it were, kept his distance a little, but Mr. Skale took him by the arm and drew him forward to his side. Slowly he stooped, till the great bearded lips were level with his ear, and whispered solemnly:

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see--and hear God."

Then he turned the key and led the way inside.

But apparently there were double doors, for they found themselves at first in a cupboard-like space that formed a tiny vestibule to the room itself; and here there was light enough to see that the clergyman was taking from nails on the wall two long garments like surplices, colored, so far as Spinrobin could make out, a deep red and a deep violet.

"For our protection," whispered Skale, enveloping himself in the red one, while he handed the other to his companion and helped him into it. "Wear it closely about your body until we come out." And while the secretary struggled among the folds of this cassock-like garment, that was several feet too long for his diminutive stature, the clergyman added, still with a gravity and earnestness that impressed the imagination beyond all reach of the ludicrous:

"For sound and color are intimately associated, and there are combinations of the two that can throw the spiritual body into a condition of safe receptivity, without which we should be deaf and blind even in the great Presences themselves."

Trivial details, presenting themselves in really dramatic moments, may impress the mind with extraordinary aptness. At this very moment Spinrobin's eyes noticed in the corner of wall and door a tiny spider's web, with the spider itself hanging in the center of its little net--shaking. And he has never forgotten it. It expressed pictorially exactly what he felt himself. He, too, felt that he was shaking in midair--as in the center of a web whose strands hung suspended from the very stars.

And the words, spoken in that slow deep whisper, filled the little space in which the two men stood, and somehow completed for Spinrobin the sense of stupendous things adequately approached.

Then Mr. Skale closed the outer door, shutting out the last feeble glimmer of day, at the same moment turning the handle of the portal beyond. And as they entered the darkness, Spinrobin, holding up his violet robe with one hand to prevent tripping, with the other caught hold of the tail of the flowing garment in front of him. For a second or two he stopped breathing altogether.

 

 

V

On the very threshold a soft murmur of beauty met them; and, as plainly as though the darkness had lifted into a blaze of light, the secretary at once realized that he stood in the presence of something greater than all he had hitherto known in this world. He had managed to find the clergyman's big hand, and he held it tightly through a twisted corner of his voluminous robe. The inner door next closed behind them. Skale, he was aware, had again stooped in the darkness to the level of his ear.

"I'll give you the sound--the note," he heard him whisper. "Utter it inwardly--in your thoughts only. Its vibrations correspond to the color, and will protect us."

"Protect us?" gasped Spinrobin with dry lips.

"From being shattered and destroyed--owing to the intense activity of the vibrations conveyed to our ultimate physical atoms," was the whispered reply, as the clergyman proceeded to give him under his breath a one-syllable sound that was unlike any word he knew, and that for the life of him he has never been able to reproduce since.

Mr. Skale straightened himself up again and Spinrobin pictured him standing there twice his natural size, a huge and impressive figure as he had once before seen him, clothed now with the double dignity of his strange knowledge. Then, advancing slowly to the center of the room, they stood still, each uttering silently in his thoughts the syllable that attuned their inner beings to safety.

Almost immediately, as the seconds passed, the secretary became aware that the room was beginning to shake with a powerful but regular movement. All about him had become alive. Vitality, like the vitality of youth upon mountain tops, pulsed and whirled about them, pouring into them the currents of a rushing glorious life, undiluted, straight from the source. In his little person he felt both the keenness of sharp steel and the vast momentum of a whole ocean. Thus he describes it. And the more clearly he uttered in his thoughts the sound given to him by his leader, the greater seemed the influx of strength and glory into his heart.

The darkness, meanwhile, began to lift. It moved upwards in spirals that, as they rose, hummed and sang. A soft blaze of violet like the color of the robe he wore became faintly visible in the air. The chamber, he perceived, was about the same size as his own bedroom, and empty of all furniture, while walls, floor, and ceiling were draped in the same shade of violet that covered his shoulders; and the sound he uttered, and thought, called forth the color and made it swim into visibility. The walls and ceiling sheeted with wax opened, so to speak, their giant lips.

Mr. Skale made a movement and drew him closer. He raised one arm into the air, and Spinrobin, following the motion, saw what at first he imagined to be vast round faces glimmering overhead, outlined darkly against the violet atmosphere. Mr. Skale, with what seemed a horrible audacity, was reaching up to touch them, and as he did so there issued a low, soft, metallic sound, humming and melodious, that dropped sweetly about his ears. Then the secretary saw that they were discs of metal--immense gongs swinging in midair, suspended in some way from the ceiling, and each one as Skale touched it emitted its beautiful note till all combined together at length into a single chord.

And this chord, though Spinrobin talks whole pages in describing it, apparently brought in its train the swell and thunder of something beyond,--the far sweetness of exquisite harmonics, thousands upon thousands, inwoven with the strands of deeper notes that boomed with colossal vibrations about them. And, in some fashion that musical people will understand, its gentler notes caught up the sound that Spinrobin was uttering in his mind, and took possession of it. They merged. An extraordinary volume, suggesting a huge aggregation of sound behind it--in the same way that a murmur of wind may suggest the roar of tempests--rose and fell through the room, lifted them up, bore them away, sang majestically over their heads, under their feet, and through their very minds. The vibrations of their own physical atoms fell into pace with these other spiritual activities by a kind of sympathetic resonance.

The combination of power and simplicity was what impressed him most, it seems, for it resembled--resembled only--the great spiritual simplicity in Beethoven that rouses and at the same time satisfies the profoundest yearnings of the soul. It swept him into utter bliss, into something for once complete. And Spinrobin, at the center of his glorified yet quaking little heart, understood vaguely that the sound he uttered, and the sound he heard, were directly connected with the presence of some august and awful Name....

 

 

VI

Suddenly Mr. Skale, he was aware, became rigid beside him. Spinrobin pressed closer, seeking the protective warmth of his body, and realizing from the gesture that something new was about to happen. And something did happen, though not precisely in the sense that things happen in the streets and in the markets of men. In the sphere of his mind, perhaps, it happened, but was none the less real for that.

For the Presence he had been aware of in the room from the moment of entrance became then suddenly almost concrete. It came closer--sheeted in wonder inscrutable. The form and body of the sounds that filled the air pressed forward into partial visibility. Spinrobin's powers of interior sight, he dimly realized, increased at the same time. Vast as a mountain, as a whole range of mountains; beautiful as a star, as a whole heaven of stars; yet simple as a flower of the field; and singing this little song of pure glory and joy that he felt was the inmost message of the chord--this Presence in the room sought to push forward into objective reality. And behind it, he knew, lay the stupendous urgency and drive of some power that held the entire universe in its pulses as easily as the ocean holds a shoal of minnows....

But the limits of realization for him were almost reached. Spinrobin wanted to close his eyes, yet could not. He was driven along with the wave of sound thus awakened and forced to see what was to be seen. This time there was no bush behind which he could screen himself. And there, dimly sketched out of the rhythmical vibrations of the seething violet obscurity, rose that looming Outline of wonder and majesty that clothed itself about them with a garment as of visible sound. The Unknown, suggesting incredible dimensions, stood at his elbow, tremendously draped in these dim, voluminous folds of music and color--very fearful, very seductive, yet so supremely simple at the same time that a little child could have understood without fear.

But only partially there, only partially revealed. The ineffable glory was never quite told. Spinrobin, amid all the torrent of words in which he sought later to describe the experience, could only falter out a single comprehensible sentence: "I felt like stammering in intoxication over the first letter of a name I loved--loved to the point of ecstasy--to the point even of giving up my life for it."

And meanwhile, breathless and shaking, he clung to Skale, still murmuring in his heart the magic syllable, but swept into some region of glory where pain and joy both ceased, where terror and delight merged into some perfectly simple form of love, and where he became in an instant of time an entirely new and emancipated Spinrobin, driving at full speed towards the ultimate sound and secret of the universe--God.

He never remembered exactly how he got out of the room, but it always seemed as though he dropped with a crash from some enormous height. The sounds ceased; the gongs died into silence; the violet faded; the quivering wax lay still.... Mr. Skale was moving beside him, and the next minute they were in the narrow vestibule between the doors, hanging up ordinary colored surplices upon ordinary iron nails.

Spinrobin stumbled. Skale caught him. They were in the corridor again--cold, cheerless, full of December murk and shadows--and the secretary was leaning against the clergyman's shoulder breathless and trembling as though he had run a mile.

Wednesday's Good Reading: spiritual testament from the Saint King Louis IX of France (translated into Portuguese)

Filho dileto, começo por querer ensinar-te a amar o Senhor, teu Deus, com todo o teu coração, com todas as tuas forças; pois sem isto não há salvação.

Filho, deves evitar tudo quanto sabes desagradar a Deus, quer dizer, todo pecado mortal, de tal forma que prefiras ser atormentado por toda sorte de martírios a cometer um pecado mortal.

Ademais, se o Senhor permitir que te advenha alguma tribulação, deves suportá-la com serenidade e ação de graças. Considera suceder tal coisa em teu proveito e que talvez a tenhas merecido. Além disto, se o Senhor te conceder a prosperidade, tens de agradecer-lhe humildemente, tomando cuidado para que nesta circunstância não te tornes pior, por vanglória ou outro modo qualquer, porque não deves ir contra Deus ou ofendê-lo valendo-te dos seus dons.

Ouve com boa disposição e piedade o ofício da Igreja e enquanto estiveres no templo, cuides de não vagueares os olhos ao redor, de não falar sem necessidade; mas roga ao Senhor devotamente, quer pelos lábios, quer pela meditação do coração.

Guarda o coração compassivo para com os pobres, infelizes e aflitos, e quando puderes, auxilia-os e consola-os. Por todos os benefícios que te foram dados por Deus, rende-lhe graças para te tornares digno de receber maiores. Em relação a teus súditos, sê justo até o extremo da justiça, sem te desviares nem para a direita nem para a esquerda; põe-te sempre de preferência da parte do pobre mais do que do rico, até estares bem certo da verdade. Procura com empenho que todos os teus súditos sejam protegidos pela justiça e pela paz, principalmente as pessoas eclesiásticas e religiosas.

Sê dedicado e obediente à nossa mãe, a Igreja Romana, e ao Sumo Pontífice como pai espiritual. Esforça-te por remover de teu país todo pecado, sobretudo o de blasfêmia e a heresia.

Ó filho muito amado, dou-te enfim toda a benção que um pai pode dar ao filho; e toda a Trindade e todos os santos te guardem do mal. Que o Senhor te conceda a graça de fazer sua vontade de forma a ser servido e honrado por ti. E assim, depois desta vida, iremos juntos vê-lo, amá-lo e louvá-lo sem fim. Amém.