victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever.' He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on: 'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (146 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt have undergone since you have been in our hands--all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible--and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.' Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't!' he said weakly. 'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?' 'You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a dream. It is impossible.' 'Why?' 'It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.' 'Why not?' 'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.' 'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal.' As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement O'Brien would twist the dial again. And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing to support him


toddler’s scalp would have been enough to send me to sleep. But a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years had just sent me the link, and so I clicked. Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot. I was both stage manager and tech director. One fixed camera, too close to the orchestra, too far from the unmiked adolescent singers, 1995 VHS quality, some member of the AV club behind the lens. And my God, we knew we weren’t great, but we weren’t even as good as we thought we were. Whoever uploaded it two decades later, whoever added the notes below with the exact time markers for when Thalia Keith shows up, had also posted the list of cast and crew. Beth Docherty as a petite Guinevere, Sakina John glowing as Morgan le Fay with a crown of gold spikes atop her cornrows, Mike Stiles beautiful and embarrassed as King Arthur. My name is misspelled, but it’s there, too. The curtain call is the last shot where you clearly see Thalia, her dark curls distinguishing her from the washed-out mass. Then most everyone stays onstage to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mrs. Ross, our director, to pull her up from the front row where she sat every night jotting notes. She’s so young, something I hadn’t registered then. A few kids exit, return in confusion. Orchestra members hop onstage to sing, Mrs. Ross’s husband springs from the audience with flowers, the crew comes on in black shirts and black jeans. I don’t appear; I assume I stayed up in the box. It would have been like me to sit it out. Including the regrouping and singing, the birthday business lasts fifty-two seconds, during which you never see Thalia clearly. In the comments, someone had zoomed in on a bit of green dress at one side of the frame, posted side-by-side photos of that smear of color and the dress Thalia wore—first covered in gauze as Nimue, the enchantress, the Lady of the Lake, and then ungauzed, with a simple headdress, as Lady Anne. But there were several green dresses. My friend Carlotta’s was one. There’s a chance that, by then, Thalia was gone. Most of the discussion below the video focused on timing. The show was set to begin at 7:00, but we likely started our mercifully abridged version five minutes late. Maybe more. The tape omitted intermission, and there was speculation on how long the intermission of a high school musical would last. Depending on what you believe about these two variables, the show ended sometime between 8:45 and 9:15. I should have known. Once, there would have been a binder with my meticulous notes. But no one ever asked for it. The window the medical examiner allowed for Thalia’s time of death was 8:00 p.m. to midnight, with the beginning of the slot curtailed by the musical—the reason the show’s exact end time had become the subject of infinite fascination online. I came here from YouTube, one commenter had written in 2015, linking to a separate video. Watch this. It PROVES they bungled


his jaw hurt. Montoya had hit the nail on the head with that. “Father John” was an alias, of course, for a serial killer that had stalked the streets of New Orleans years before, a murderer who had been dubbed the Rosary Killer as the psycho had used the sharpened beads of a rosary to strangle his victims. Bentz had thought that he’d killed the bastard years before, deep in the swamp. But he’d been wrong. And now the terror the fake priest had inflicted upon the city so long ago had returned. Already there was one dead prostitute in his wake, his latest victim being Teri Marie Gaines aka Tiffany Elite, the unlucky working girl who had been caught in Father John’s web and ended up strangled. The same marks, unique marks, had bruised her throat, a pattern of little cuts that mimicked the bead pattern of a rosary that had appeared on the victims years before. Also, a hundred-dollar bill, with Ben Franklin’s eyes blackened out, had been left at the victim’s apartment. Father John’s signature. A mocking display meant to taunt Bentz and had ended up haunting him. Now, the “Rosary Killer” was back, a ghost of a murderer who had eluded Bentz in the past, who had disappeared and now resurfaced, Rick Bentz’s own personal white whale. Or, unlikely as it seemed, was the killer who had staged Tiffany’s body so perfectly a copycat, a killer who had studied his mentor’s methods and style to a T? Bentz couldn’t help but wonder if that killer had decided Bentz’s daughter would be his next victim. Even though she hadn’t died, Kristi had been permanently wounded. Not only physically but emotionally as well. “Dear Jesus.” He shoved his hand through his hair in frustration. Every time he’d seen Kristi, his heart twisted. Oh, she’d always put on a brave face, but he’d been able to look through her facade. He’d recognized the bone-tired weariness no amount of makeup had been able to conceal. He’d noticed the wan pallor of her skin, the dark smudges beneath her eyes, the lack of animation in her expression. She’d always been lively—a “firecracker” or “pistol” while growing up—and reckless and headstrong as a younger woman. Now she seemed a shell of the woman she’d once been. He suspected that despite her arguments to the contrary, she was experiencing survivor’s guilt, an emotion that had been his own burden for years whenever he thought of his first wife, Jennifer, Kristi’s mother. His eyes narrowed as he remembered Jennifer. So beautiful. So vain. So filled with deceit. Her lies . . . He stopped himself, wouldn’t allow his mind to wander down that dark and twisted path. He forcibly turned his thoughts to the present and to the simple fact that someone had nearly taken Kristi’s life and had, instead, made her a widow. His fists clenched. That sick son of a bitch would pay. Bentz would make sure of it. His stomach twisted again and he felt a rising swell of fury. Along with a


I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her?" "What's the matter with me, anyhow?" The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out, "Quincey Morris!" and rushed towards him with outstretched hands. "What brought you her?" I cried as our hands met. "I guess Art is the cause." He handed me a telegram.--`Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.--Holmwood.' "I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do." Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said, "A brave man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You're a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all he's worth, but God sends us men when we want them." Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a sub-cutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note paper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper saying only, "It dropped from Lucy's breast when we carried her to the bath." When I had read it, I stook looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him, "In God's name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad, or what sort of horrible danger is it?" I was so bewildered that I did not know what to


hour, to play to me. David playing to Saul could never have shown a finer sense of the occasion. It was literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love to read about never push an advantage too far. I know what you mean now: you mean that--to be let alone yourself and not followed up--you'll cease to worry and spy upon me, won't keep me so close to you, will let me go and come. Well, I `come,' you see--but I don't go! There'll be plenty of time for that. I do really delight in your society, and I only want to show you that I contended for a principle." It may be imagined whether I resisted this appeal or failed to accompany him again, hand in hand, to the schoolroom. He sat down at the old piano and played as he had never played; and if there are those who think he had better have been kicking a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the end of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased to measure, I started up with a strange sense of having literally slept at my post. It was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn't really, in the least, slept: I had only done something much worse-- I had forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put the question to Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then could only say: "Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?"--breaking moreover into a happy laugh which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had found her the evening before, but she met my quick challenge with blank, scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had carried off both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out of my sight without some special provision. Of course now indeed she might be with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for her without an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries we had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart from observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with what high interest my friend returned me all those I had from the first given her. "She'll be above," she presently said--"in one of


lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured.% Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing alone in the world--alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected--alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable--she cast away the fragment a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged--not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode--the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She Thesaurus clasping: (adj) tendril. overthrown: (adj) overcome, duration, perpetuity; (adj, n) coldness: (n) chilliness, coolness, conquered, battered, overpowered, continuance. ANTONYMS: (n) indifference, distance, apathy, iciness, dejected, cast down, dissolute, interruption, flimsiness, instability. reserve, frost, frigidity, unconcern; doomed, flooded, discomfit, mat. scorned: (adj) detested, hated, abject, (adj, n) cold. ANTONYMS: (n) owing: (adj) due, unpaid, unsettled, neglected, contemptuous, despicable, friendliness, sympathy, sensitivity, outstanding, overdue, owed, payable, insolent, undesirable, unloved, hotness, heat, responsiveness, undischarged, indebted, fulfilling unpopular, mean. concern, brightness, kindness. obligation, lawful. ANTONYM: (adj) semblance: (adj, n) color; (n) emancipated: (adj) free, freed, settled. resemblance, appearance, look, uncontrolled, released, unbound, permanence: (n) constancy, stability, aspect, air, image, similarity, open, uninhibited, freer, endurance, strength, immortality, pretense, guise, pretext. ANTONYM: disentangled, disengaged, boundless. firmness, perdurability, lastingness, (n) difference. 156 The Scarlet Letter assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door.% It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with Hester. Yet, had little


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, no one does -- but somethin' about you stumped him, all right." Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football? "Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard." To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled. "Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?" Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it...every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry...chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach...dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back...and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him? Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him. "See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard -- you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts." But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish -- spell books and wands and -- " "If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter' s son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled -- " "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL To TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon. But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER," he thundered, " -- INSULT -- ALBUS -- DUMBLEDORE -- IN -- FRONT -- OF -- ME!" He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley -- there was a flash of


couple of bruised ribs and a knock on the head. Dad . . . well, Dad broke his wrist and ankle. But the car hit the passenger side and Ray.” Oh no, no . . . Panic swamps my limbic system again. No, no, no. My body shudders and chills as I imagine what’s happening to Ray in the OR. “He’s in surgery. We were taken to the community hospital in Astoria, but they airlifted Ray here. We don’t know what they’re doing. We’re waiting for news.” I start to shake. “Hey, Ana, you cold?” I nod. I’m in my white sleeveless shirt and black summer jacket, and neither provides warmth. Gingerly, José pulls off his leather jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. “Shall I get you some tea, ma’am?” Sawyer is by my side. I nod gratefully, and he disappears from the room. “Why were you fishing in Astoria?” I ask. José shrugs. “The fishing’s supposed to be good there. We were having a boys’ get-together. Some bonding time with my old man before academia heats 343/551 up for my final year.” José’s dark eyes are large and luminous with fear and regret. “You could have been hurt, too. And Mr. Rodriguez . . . worse.” I gulp at the thought. My body temperature drops further, and I shiver once more. José takes my hand. “Hell, Ana, you’re freezing.” Mr. Rodriguez inches forward and takes my other hand in his good one. “Ana, I am so sorry.” “Mr. Rodriguez, please. It was an accident . . .” My voice fades to a whisper. “Call me José,” he corrects me. I give him a weak smile, because that’s all I can manage. I shiver once more. “The police took the asshole into custody. Seven in the morning and the guy was out of his skull,” José hisses in disgust. Sawyer reenters, bearing a paper cup of hot water and a separate teabag. He knows how I take my tea! I’m surprised, and glad for the distraction. Mr. Rodriguez and José release my hands as I gratefully take the cup from Sawyer. “Do either of you want anything?” Sawyer asks Mr. Rodriguez and José. They both shake their heads, and Sawyer resumes his seat in the corner. I dunk my teabag in the water and, rising shakily, dispose of the used bag in a small trashcan. “What’s taking them so long?” I mutter to no one in particular as I take a sip. Daddy . . . Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay. “We’ll know soon enough, Ana,” José says gently. I nod and take another sip. I take my seat again beside him. We wait . . . and wait. Mr. Rodriguez with his eyes closed, praying I think, and José holding my hand and squeezing it every now and then. I slowly sip my tea. It’s not Twinings, but some cheap nasty brand, and it tastes disgusting. I remember the last time I waited for news. The last time I thought all was lost when Charlie


for my friends. They came out here to talk to you about the camp, about its history. We really want to understand, and they figured you’d be the best person to ask.” Her beady eyes narrow and her mouth turns down. “Its history?” Her unkempt brows push up. “What do you know about it? Can’t be too much or you wouldn’t be here.” I try to judge how quickly I can get to the door, but Ms. Keane is positioned almost directly between it and us. “Well, that’s what my friends came here to find out,” I say as I fight to keep my voice steady. “I heard what you said, Ms. Keane. You said we should be ashamed of ourselves, that if we knew what you know, it might mean something. What did you mean by that?” Ms. Keane rocks back and looks up at the ceiling but keeps her fingers curled around the barrel of the shotgun. “That camp is an abomination. Distasteful if you ask me.” She raises her face to the ceiling again. “How?” I ask. “We don’t know what you mean.” I glance at Javier, who looks down into his lap. Bezi slides her hand onto my leg and squeezes it. Hard. Her eyes are wide, and I realize she’s trying to get me to look at something in her line of sight. I follow her gaze to a window at the front of the house. Kyle’s shadowy silhouette is hovering behind the glass. He’s wildly gesturing to the side of the house, but I can’t make out what he’s trying to tell me. Ms. Keane raises her head and I immediately lower my gaze to the floor. “Did you know that this place is special?” she asks. Her voice has a hollow, faraway tone, like she’s completely disconnected from the fact that she’s holding us hostage. “It’s old. Used to be a glacier lying over the whole place. That’s why you have all these lakes. After the ice melted, the ground opened up like a bunch of starving mouths.” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “Don’t think they were out here when the land was all ice and snow, but the land was here. Sleeping under the ice.” I glance at Bezi, who has a look of utter confusion plastered across her face. “Who is ‘they’?” I ask. Ms. Keane stares at me for a moment without speaking. I feel my stomach drop. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake by asking questions, but she slips back into her rambling. “They didn’t used to have a name at all, I don’t think.” She pushes a loose strand of her greasy hair behind her ear. “Now they’re owls.” Javier makes a small grunt, and Ms. Keane shifts the gun from one hand to the other and back again. “Ever wonder how people come to power?” she asks in a way that tells me she doesn’t expect me to answer. “Seems so random sometimes, doesn’t it? How does a man like that become president? How does a


went on this walk thinking I was about to get fired, and any other outcome has me feeling like I’ve just cheated death. Whatever it is, I run right toward it. “Hypothetically . . . you’d want to start slowly.” My voice takes on a huskiness that feels wholly out of place in a public setting, and when I get quieter, Finn leans in closer. “The more aroused she gets, the more likely she is to orgasm. It’s crucial to spend time building up that tension, figuring out what she likes. Ask her. She might prefer your hands, or your mouth. She might have a specific way she likes being touched. Or, even better—have her show you.” At that, his mouth slides open, accompanied by the smallest hitch in his breath. I almost don’t catch it, but that slight hint this conversation is as exciting for him as it is for me sends a shock straight to my core. “You’ve done that?” he says. “Shown someone?” “Yes,” I say, as calmly as I can. “Masturbation doesn’t always have to be a solo act. What about you?” He shakes his head, that pesky lock of hair falling back across his forehead. “I’m usually fairly easy.” “I got that.” This earns me a soft jab of his elbow against my shoulder. “You have to listen. Communication is probably the most important part of it, more important than the physical.” Although I wouldn’t hate his physical elbow touching my physical shoulder again. “You can’t expect that what works for one person will work for everyone.” “I’m not asking about everyone.” His gaze clings to mine. “I’m asking about you.” Jesus. I have to break eye contact or else I’ll incinerate. “I like when someone’s clearly paying attention to my body,” I say, dragging my fingertips out along the railing, and then back. His eyes follow them. “My breaths. My slightest movements. The places where I might be tighter, and the places where I open up.” A nod. Another step closer, a few inches separating his chest from mine. “And I love when it’s obvious that he’s enjoying what he’s doing to me. When getting me closer also gets him closer—there’s something so incredibly sexy about that.” My pulse is roaring in my ears, louder than the rush of the river. “I don’t mind if it takes a while, and I want to know that the other person doesn’t mind, either. Because the longer it takes, the more desperate I get for it, the more my body begs for it . . . the better it feels when I finally go over the edge.” Now I’m picturing it: the two of us in a different hotel room this time, his hand between my thighs while I narrate exactly what I want him to do to me. I’d draw it out, make it last as long as possible so he could wring every drop of pleasure from my body. I watch the rise and fall of his chest, unsure how we got here. My own inhales are


of Sirion and came down to the shores of the Great Sea between Drengist and the Bay of Balar. But when they beheld it great fear came upon them, and many withdrew into the woods and highlands of Beleriand. Then Orom departed, and returned to Valinor to seek the counsel of Manw, and left them. And the host of the Teleri passed over the Misty Mountains, and crossed the wide lands of Eriador, being urged on by Elw Singollo, for he was eager to return to Valinor and the Light that he had beheld; and he wished not to be sundered from the Noldor, for he had great friendship with Finw their lord. Thus after many years the Teleri also came at last over Ered Luin into the eastern regions of Beleriand. There they halted, and dwelt a while beyond the River Gelion. Chapter 4 Of Thingol and Melian Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar. She dwelt in the gardens of Lrien, and among all his people there were none more beautiful than Melian, nor more wise, nor more skilled in songs of enchantment. It is told that the Valar would leave their works, and the birds of Valinor their mirth, that the bells of Valmar were silent and the fountains ceased to flow, when at the mingling of the lights Melian sang in Lrien. Nightingales went always with her, and she taught them their song; and she loved the deep shadows of the great trees. She was akin before the World was made to Yavanna herself; and in that time when the Quendi awoke beside the waters of Cuivinen she departed from Valinor and came to the Hither Lands, and there she filled the silence of Middle-earth before the dawn with her voice and the voices of her birds. Now when their journey was near its end, as has been told, the people of the Teleri rested long in East Beleriand, beyond the River Gelion; and at that time many of the Noldor still lay to the westward, in those forests that were afterwards named Neldoreth and Region. Elw, lord of the Teleri, went often through the great woods to seek out Finw his friend in the dwellings of the Noldor; and it chanced on a time that he came alone to the starlit wood of Nan Elmoth, and there suddenly he heard the song of nightingales. Then an enchantment fell on him, and he stood still; and afar off beyond the voices of the lmelindi he heard the voice of Melian, and it filled all his heart with wonder and desire. He forgot then utterly all his people and all the purposes of his mind, and following the birds under the shadow of the trees he passed deep into Nan Elmoth and was lost. But he came at last to a glade open to the stars, and there Melian stood; and out of the darkness he looked at her, and the light of Aman was in her face. She spoke no word; but being filled with


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

and again with his walking-stick. She was the last person to see him alive. He passed out of her sight to his death, the struggle being hidden from her only by a clump of beech trees and a slight depression in the ground. Now this, to the present writer's mind at least, lifts the murder out of the realm of the absolutely wanton. We may imagine that Griffin had taken the rod as a weapon indeed, but without any deliberate intention of using it in murder. Wicksteed may then have come by and noticed this rod inexplicably moving through the air. Without any thought of the Invisible Man--for Port Burdock is ten miles away--he may have pursued it. It is quite conceivable that he may not even have heard of the Invisible Man. One can then imagine the Invisible Man making off--quietly in order to avoid discovering his presence in the neighbourhood, and Wicksteed, excited and curious, pursuing this unaccountably locomotive object--finally striking at it. No doubt the Invisible Man could easily have distanced his middle-aged pursuer under ordinary circumstances, but the position in which Wicksteed's body was found suggests that he had the ill luck to drive his quarry into a corner between a drift of stinging nettles and the gravel pit. To those who appreciate the extraordinary irascibility of the Invisible Man, the rest of the encounter will be easy to imagine. But this is pure hypothesis. The only undeniable facts--for stories of children are often unreliable--are the discovery of Wicksteed's body, done to death, and of the blood-stained iron rod flung among the nettles. The abandonment of the rod by Griffin, suggests that in the emotional excitement of the affair, the purpose for which he took it--if he had a purpose--was abandoned. He was certainly an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have released some long pent fountain of remorse to flood for a time whatever scheme of action he had contrived. After the murder of Mr. Wicksteed, he would seem to have struck across the country towards the downland. There is a story of a voice heard about sunset by a couple of men in a field near Fern Bottom. It was wailing and laughing, sobbing and groaning, and ever and again it shouted. It must have been queer hearing. It drove up across the middle of a clover field and died away towards the hills. That afternoon the Invisible Man must have learnt something of the rapid use Kemp had made of his confidences. He must have found houses locked and secured; he may have loitered about railway stations and prowled about inns, and no doubt he read the proclamations and realised something of the nature of the campaign against him. And as the evening advanced, the fields became dotted here and there with groups of three or four men, and noisy with the yelping of dogs. These men-hunters had particular instructions as to the way they should support one another in


shock, remembering the full implications of Dunstan's death. Nancy, however, is fairly calm, thinking of Dunstan only as the family black sheep. When she learns that Dunstan was a thief, she feels a proper sense of family shame, which she imagines Godfrey feels, too. But something more is bothering him. This incident has convinced him that all secrets come to light eventually, and he's decided to clear his conscience at last. Notice his steady gaze as he looks at her, and his firm language. He talks explicitly about God, rather than the vague fortune he trusted to years ago. Yet he conceives of God as "God Almighty"--a stern, powerful judge, much different from Dolly's benevolent, mysterious image of God. What's your opinion of Godfrey now? For a moment their eyes meet directly. Godfrey tells his secret, in plain, direct language. Nancy's reaction is hard to gauge--she turns pale but sits quietly. Godfrey seems scared of her, and he goes on talking, trying to justify what he did. The suspense builds as Nancy remains silent. But when she speaks, her reaction is surprising. She doesn't condemn Godfrey for his former marriage or for hiding the secret. Instead she focuses on the present. Now that she knows that Eppie is Godfrey's child, she wants to adopt her. She only regrets that Godfrey kept this secret so long, depriving them of the child for many years. She knows attachments build over time, and lost time can't be recovered. Godfrey is amazed that he didn't predict Nancy's reaction better. Have you ever had a moment like this--when someone you thought you knew inside and out revealed new depths? If so, you know how unsettling it is. Godfrey probes Nancy's feelings, testing whether she really disapproves of him or not. But Nancy, like Dolly, believes that the pattern of events is mysterious and that people can't judge the ultimate outcome of their actions. She doesn't completely forgive Godfrey, but she accepts what's done as done. They agree upon their duty now--to go to Marner's cottage and offer to adopt Eppie. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 19 Eliot prevented you from thinking too much about Silas in the previous chapter. But she moves her scene now to Silas' cottage, where Silas sits contentedly with Eppie. His face is transformed by excitement, because his stolen money has been recovered. Now he has both his treasures. But he explains to Eppie that she has become more precious to him than his gold ever was. He would rather not have the gold back, if it meant losing Eppie. He speaks as though some conscious power took the money away, sent Eppie to him, and then returned the money for him and Eppie to use. Ironically, just as he's saying how forsaken he'd feel if he ever lost her, a knock comes at the door. Eppie opens it to see Mr. and Mrs. Cass, as she politely calls them. She doesn't yet know what you know--that they've come to take her from Silas. In this scene, Eliot lets you know each character's feelings


their object can be. If their intentions are evil they might do you a mischief, and we should be powerless to prevent it. You did not know, Dr. Moftimer, that you were followed this morning from my house?" Dr. Mortimer started violently. "Followed! By whom?" "That, unfortunately, is what I cannot tell you. Have you among your neighbours or acquaintances on Daftmoor any man with a black, full beard?" "No -- or, let me see -- why, yes. Barrymore, Sir Charles's butler, is a man with a full, black beard." "Ha! Where is Baffymore?" "He is in charge of the Hall." "We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any possibility he might be in London." "How can you do that?" "Give me a telegraph form. 'Is all ready for Sir Henry?' That will do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the nearest telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: 'Telegram to Mr. Barrymore to be delivered into his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel.' That should let us know before evening whether Barrymore is at his post in Devonshire or not." "That's so," said Baskerville. "By the way, Dr. Mortimer, who is this Barrymore, anyhow?" "He is the son of the old caretaker, who is dead. They have looked after the Hall for four generations now. So far as I know, he and his wife are as respectable a couple as any in the county." "At the same time," said Baskerville, "it's clear enough that so long as there are none of the family at the Hall these people have a mighty fine home and nothing to do." "That is true." "Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles's will?" asked Holmes. "He and his wife had five hundred pounds each." "Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?" "Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provi- sions of his wlll." "That is very interesting." "I hope," said Dr. Mortimer, "that you do not look with suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me." "Indeed! And anyone else?" "There were many insignificant sums to individuals, and a large number of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry." "And how much was the residue?" "Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds." Holmes raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I had no idea that so gigantic a sum was involved," said he. "Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not know how very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. The total value of the estate was close on to a million." "Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer. Suppos- ing that anything happened to our young friend here -- you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis! -- who would inherit the estate?" "Since Rodger


his dirty little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of half a dozen smashed bottles, and a pungent tang of chlorine tainted the air. So much we know from what was heard at the time and from what was subsequently seen in the room. About noon he suddenly opened his parlour door and stood glaring fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. "Mrs. Hall," he said. Somebody went sheepishly and called for Mrs. Hall. Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval, a little short of breath, but all the fiercer for that. Hall was still out. She had deliberated over the scene, and she came holding a little tray with an unsettled bill upon it. "Is it your bill you're wanting, sir?" she said. "Why wasn't my breakfast laid? Why haven't you prepared my meals and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?" "Why isn't my bill paid?" said Mrs. Hall. "That's what I want to know." "I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance--" "I told you two days ago I wasn't going to await no remittances. You can't grumble if your breakfast waits a bit, if my bill's been waiting these five days, can you?" The stranger swore briefly but vividly. "Nar, nar!" from the bar. "And I'd thank you kindly, sir, if you'd keep your swearing to yourself, sir," said Mrs. Hall. The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the better of him. His next words showed as much. "Look here, my good woman--" he began. "Don't good woman me," said Mrs. Hall. "I've told you my remittance hasn't come--" "Remittance indeed!" said Mrs. Hall. "Still, I daresay in my pocket--" "You told me two days ago that you hadn't anything but a sovereign's worth of silver upon you--" "Well, I've found some more--" "'Ul-lo!" from the bar. "I wonder where you found it!" said Mrs. Hall. That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot. "What do you mean?" he said. "That I wonder where you found it," said Mrs. Hall. "And before I take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don't understand, and what nobody don't understand, and what everybody is very anxious to understand. I want know what you been doing t' my chair upstairs, and I want know how 'tis your room was empty, and how you got in again. Them as stops in this house comes in by the doors--that's the rule of the house, and that you didn't do, and what I want know is how you did come in. And I want know--" Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands clenched, stamped his foot, and said, "Stop!" with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her instantly. "You don't understand," he said, "who I


for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and they would make a world of fun of him for having to work -- the very thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and examined it -- bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange of work, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and gave up the idea of trying --------------------------------------------------------- -29- to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, magnificent inspiration. He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently -- the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump -- proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to star-board and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance -- for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them: "Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he drew up slowly toward the sidewalk. "Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened down his sides. "Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! Chow!" His right hand, meantime, describing stately circles -- for it was representing a forty-foot wheel. "Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling- --------------------------------------------------------- -30- ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!" The left hand began to describe circles. "Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! Lively now! Come -- out with your spring-line -- what're you about there! Take a turn round that stump with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now -- let her go! Done with the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! Sh't! s'h't! sh't!" (trying the gauge-cocks). Tom went on whitewashing -- paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared a moment and then said: "Hi- yi ! You're up a stump, ain't you!" No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said: "Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?" Tom wheeled suddenly and said: "Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing." "Say -- I'm going in a-swimming, I


class="s1">

Sad?

No.

Surprised?

No. Prepared in every way. Doing my job. What we’d trained for.

I asked myself if I was callous, perhaps desensitized. I asked myself if

my non-reaction was connected to a long-standing ambivalence towards

death.

I didn’t think so.

It was really just simple maths. These were bad people doing bad things

to our guys. Doing bad things to the world. If this guy I’d just removed from

the battlefield hadn’t already killed British soldiers, he soon would. Taking

him meant saving British lives, sparing British families. Taking him meant

fewer young men and women wrapped like mummies and shipped home on

hospital beds, like the lads on my plane four years earlier, or the wounded

men and women I’d visited at Selly Oak and other hospitals, or the brave

team with whom I’d marched to the North Pole.

And so my main thought that day, my only thought, was that I wished

Control had got back to us sooner, had given us permission to fire more

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quickly, so we’d got the other seven.

And yet, and yet. Much later, speaking about it with a mate, he asked:

Did it factor into your feeling that these killers were on motorbikes? The

chosen vehicle of paps all over the world? Could I honestly say that, while

chasing a pack of motorbikes, not one particle of me was thinking about the

pack of motorbikes that chased one Mercedes into a Paris tunnel?

Or the packs of motorbikes that had chased me a thousand times?

I couldn’t say.

34.

() NE OF OUR DRONES had been watching the Taliban school its fighters.

Despite popular assumptions, the Taliban had good equipment.

Nothing like ours, but good, effective—when used correctly. So they often

needed to bring their soldiers up to speed. There were frequent tutorials in

the desert, instructors demonstrating the newest


placed a hand on his shoulder. “Did you get the money?” Bùsọ́lá asked. “Have you lost all your manners? Offer me a cup of water, no. Welcome me home like your brother just did, no. Instead, you are there asking me about school fees like someone with no home training.” Bùsọ́lá took the deep breath that often preceded one of her complaints, but someone knocked on the door, saving Ẹniọlá from hearing her whine. “Who is it?” Ẹniọlá said. “The owner of the door.” The booming voice was unmistakable—it was the landlord. Prone for most of the day until then, Ẹniọlá’s father sat up and glanced around the room as though hoping a wall might split open so he could step into it. “You’re the one he wants to talk to, Bàbá Ẹniọlá,” Ẹniọlá’s mother said. Ẹniọlá’s father stood up. “Please,” he said to Ẹniọlá’s mother, rubbing his palms together in supplication before sliding under the bed in one swift movement. “Do I need to break down this door?” the landlord shouted. “It’s open sir, but let me come and—” Ẹniọlá’s mother rushed towards the door, then fell to her knees as the landlord barged into the room. “Good afternoon sir.” “Don’t bribe me with empty greetings, Ìyá Ẹniọlá,” he yelled, hitting the floor with his carved walking stick. “I’m here to see your husband. Where is he?” “He has gone out,” Ẹniọlá’s mother said. “Erm, he has gone on a travel…on a journey. He had to travel some hours ago. Erm, his brother’s uncle called him and said there was an emergency he needs to attend to in—” The landlord scanned the room. “I heard a man’s voice when I was standing outside the door.” “Yes, yes, it was my son.” She pointed towards Ẹniọlá. “His voice is becoming a man’s voice and he now sounds like his father. Óyá, Ẹniọlá, speak up, greet Bàbá Landlord.” “Good afternoon sir,” Ẹniọlá said. The landlord moved through the room, past the wooden cabinet that held clothes, pots and schoolbooks, past the closed window and the raggedy curtain that was drawn across it. When Bàbá landlord stopped at the foot of the bed, Ẹniọlá held his breath as the man stood still with his head cocked to the side, listening for something. “Ìyá Ẹniọlá, tell your husband, wherever he may be, that I want my money next week. If you don’t pay me my money by the end of next week, you are leaving my house.” Ẹniọlá’s mother nodded. “Okay sir, yes sir, yes sir. I will tell him.” The landlord turned around and walked towards the door. “I’ve only been pitying you people because of your children, but I can’t pity you anymore. Remember when I told you people not to pay electricity bills for two months?” “Yes sir, I remember sir, thank you sir.” Ẹniọlá’s mother bent towards the floor, almost touching her head to the ground. “We are grateful.” “You can’t say I’ve not been kind. This time, whether your husband is here or not, I will chase you out.” The


women and sexism and feminism, most younger writers at the show accept as a given that gender is a social construct. And to my surprise, the more I read on this subject, the more I agree. In 2012, when I got a sketch on air about elementary school girls playing four square at recess, it felt subversive and notable. I guess it’s a sign of progress that now it’s just accepted as fact at TNO that the world is wildly sexist (thanks, 2016 election?) and that “female” topics are as worthy as “male” ones. On a good day, this makes me think my work is done, and on a bad day, it makes me think I’m about to be put out to pasture. Before I go, what is your favorite color? Do you have any pets? from: Noah Brewster <NoahRBrewster@gmail.com> to: Sally Milz <Smilz@TNOshow.com> date: Jul 24, 2020, 10:40 PM subject: Actually This is all fascinating…but raises a lot more questions than it answers. For starters: -I assume you only have the letters Freja wrote you and not the ones you wrote her? Which is such a bummer because I bet the letters that 4th grade Sally wrote were pretty spectacular. Maybe even national treasure level. -What does “having a moment” with Martin mean? Is that a euphemism that everyone except me knows? It seems like the Martin anecdote is missing a few key details. - I appreciate the reassurance about being the best pen pal ever but admit I am still feeling a little insecure that you are so much more experienced than I am. (I guess that’s not a question.) -Yeah, such things are sometimes murky. (I guess that’s not a question, either.) -Your marriage and divorce…is there a pdf somewhere I can download to get a comprehensive overview of when/where/why? -Same question as above but about the TNO mindfucker. About online dating…a few years ago I tried an app that is supposed to be “discreet”…not like for people doing shady things but for respecting users’ privacy. I went on a couple dates through this, none memorable. I’m not convinced online dating is for me. Even with the supposed emphasis on privacy, when I was texting with women, I needed to keep in mind that any of them could talk to or even be a reporter for a shitty gossip website. I’m sure that being so wary didn’t increase my likelihood of making a connection. For the record, I don’t worry at all that you will sell me out. About how I fly…it’s usually in a space shuttle that takes off with rocket boosters. My time is so precious that this allows me to get where I’m going as efficiently as possible without having to interact with the riffraff. Yes, of course I sometimes fly commercial! Admittedly, it’s first class and if the airport has a private terminal, that’s where I wait. On tour, sometimes we charter a plane and sometimes it’s a bus, and even with the fancier buses, there are very unglamorous parts…traffic, band members getting sick, band


of a desperate and fierce character." "I know he is," I returned. "Let me tell you what evidence I have seen of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative; of that encounter with the other convict. "See, then," said Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?" "I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly, as his putting himself in the way of being taken." "Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there would be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him." I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would far far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would ever have come to this! But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done? "The first and the main thing to be done," said Herbert, "is to get him out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced to go." "But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?" "My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street, there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and making him reckless, here, than elsewhere. If a pretext to get him away could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his life, now." "There, again!" said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. "I know nothing of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood!" Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and fro together, studying the carpet. "Handel," said Herbert, stopping, "you


class="s1">

Her hair, Harry.

Aunt Sarah explained that, while in Paris, she’d clipped two locks from

Mummy’s head.

So there it was. Proof. Shes really gone.

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But then immediately came the reassuring doubt, the lifesaving

uncertainty: No, this could be anybody’s hair. Mummy, her beautiful blond

hair intact, was out there somewhere.

I'd know if she werent. My body would know. My heart would know. And

neither knows any such thing.

Both were just as full of love for her as ever.

6.

\ \ } ILLY AND I WALKED up and down the crowds outside Kensington

Palace, smiling, shaking hands. As if we were running for office.

Hundreds and hundreds of hands were thrust continually into our faces, the

fingers often wet.

From what? I wondered.

Tears, I realized.

I disliked how those hands felt. More, I hated how they made me feel.

Guilty. Why were all these people crying when I wasn’t—and hadn’t?

I wanted to cry, and I’d tried to, because Mummy’s life had been so sad

that she’d felt the need to disappear, to invent this massive charade. But I

couldn’t squeeze out one drop. Maybe I'd learned too well, absorbed too

deeply, the ethos of the family, that crying wasn’t an option—ever.

I remember the mounds of flowers all around us. I remember feeling

unspeakable sorrow and yet being unfailingly polite. I remember old ladies

saying: Oh, my, how polite, the poor boy! | remember muttering thanks, over

and over, thank you for coming, thank you for saying that, thank you for

camping out here for several days. I remember consoling several folks who

were prostrate, overcome, as if they knew Mummy, but also thinking: You

didn’t, though. You act as if you did...but you didn t know her.

That is...you don t know her. Present tense.

After offering ourselves up to the


of his life, was doing; and nobody wondered or reproved. Even the boy's Aunt Janey, who still looked so exactly as she used to in her elderly youth, had taken her mother's emeralds and seed-pearls out of their pink cotton-wool, and carried them with her own twitching hands to the future bride; and Fanny Beaufort, instead of looking disappointed at not receiving a "set" from a Paris jeweller, had exclaimed at their old-fashioned beauty, and declared that when she wore them she should feel like an Isabey miniature. Fanny Beaufort, who had appeared in New York at eighteen, after the death of her parents, had won its heart much as Madame Olenska had won it thirty years earlier; only instead of being distrustful and afraid of her, society took her joyfully for granted. She was pretty, amusing and accomplished: what more did any one want? Nobody was narrow-minded enough to rake up against her the half-forgotten facts of her father's past and her own origin. Only the older people remembered so obscure an incident in the business life of New York as Beaufort's failure, or the fact that after his wife's death he had been quietly married to the notorious Fanny Ring, and had left the country with his new wife, and a little girl who inherited her beauty. He was subsequently heard of in Constantinople, then in Russia; and a dozen years later American travellers were handsomely entertained by him in Buenos Ayres, where he represented a large insurance agency. He and his wife died there in the odour of prosperity; and one day their orphaned daughter had appeared in New York in charge of May Archer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Jack Welland, whose husband had been appointed the girl's guardian. The fact threw her into almost cousinly relationship with Newland Archer's children, and nobody was surprised when Dallas's engagement was announced. Nothing could more dearly give the measure of the distance that the world had travelled. People nowadays were too busy--busy with reforms and "movements," with fads and fetishes and frivolities--to bother much about their neighbours. And of what account was anybody's past, in the huge kaleidoscope where all the social atoms spun around on the same plane? Newland Archer, looking out of his hotel window at the stately gaiety of the Paris streets, felt his heart beating with the confusion and eagerness of youth. It was long since it had thus plunged and reared under his widening waistcoat, leaving him, the next minute, with an empty breast and hot temples. He wondered if it was thus that his son's conducted itself in the presence of Miss Fanny Beaufort--and decided that it was not. "It functions as actively, no doubt, but the rhythm is different," he reflected, recalling the cool composure with which the young man had announced his engagement, and taken for granted that his family would approve. "The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I


girl even be capable of killing three people like that? These were physical crimes. Slitting her father’s throat. Stabbing her mother. Tying a noose around her sister’s neck and hoisting her to her death. I wouldn’t be able to do it, which makes it hard for me to believe someone half my age could. Maybe Jessie’s theory is right and it was Winston Hope or someone else. If so, Lenora has paid a terrible price. No, she never went to jail. But she’s been imprisoned for decades. In her own home. In her childhood bedroom. In a body that refuses to function. Then again, if what everyone has said is true, then it means I’m embracing a murderer. One whose care and well-being I’m responsible for. I’m not sure which scenario is worse. I’m also not sure I can continue to work here without knowing the truth. Maybe that’s what made Mary leave without warning. She could no longer take the not-knowing. “Lenora,” I whisper. “Did you really do it?” She releases my hand, and I hold my breath, preparing for the answer about to be tapped against the bedspread. To my surprise, Lenora doesn’t tap. Instead, I get a nod toward the typewriter on the other side of the room. “You want to type?” Lenora taps twice against my hand. “Right now?” Two more taps. More urgent this time. Because it seems easier to bring the typewriter to Lenora instead of the other way around, I carry it across the room in an awkward waddle and plop it down on the edge of the mattress. Then I climb back into bed and prop up Lenora against me so she can easily access the keyboard. All that effort leaves me perspiring. This better be worth it. “Go ahead,” I say as I place her left hand on the keys. Lenora knits her brows, thinking. Then she types four words before nodding, signaling for me to hit the return bar. i wont hurt you My pulse quickens as I read the sentence. “I appreciate that,” I say, not sure how else to reply. How did Lenora know I wanted to hear this? Are my emotions as easily read as hers? Lenora resumes typing. i suppose youve heard the song about me “The rhyme?” I say, surprised she knows of its existence. It must be horrible having her life—and her family’s deaths—reduced to a childish chant. “I have. It’s . . . cruel.” i find it amusing Another surprise. “You do?” all that effort for little old me “Is it true?” you can find out Curiosity tugs at me. As does fear and a healthy dose of uncertainty. “How?” i want to tell you everything “Everything? What does that mean?” things ive never told anyone else “About the murders?” I say, surprised I can hear myself over the sound of my heartbeat pounding like a drum in my ears. yes about that night I look at Lenora. The dim light of the room somehow makes her green eyes brighter. They glint fiercely now. Emeralds


known. He had gone straight on working. As soon as he saw what the photograph was, and what it meant, he had covered it up with another sheet of paper. Luckily, when he unrolled it, it had been upside-down from the point of view of the telescreen. He took his scribbling pad on his knee and pushed back his chair so as to get as far away from the telescreen as possible. To keep your face expressionless was not difficult, and even your breathing could be controlled, with an effort: but you could not control the beating of your heart, and the telescreen was quite delicate enough to pick it up. He let file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (44 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt what he judged to be ten minutes go by, tormented all the while by the fear that some accident--a sudden draught blowing across his desk, for instance--would betray him. Then, without uncovering it again, he dropped the photograph into the memory hole, along with some other waste papers. Within another minute, perhaps, it would have crumbled into ashes. That was ten--eleven years ago. Today, probably, he would have kept that photograph. It was curious that the fact of having held it in his fingers seemed to him to make a difference even now, when the photograph itself, as well as the event it recorded, was only memory. Was the Party's hold upon the past less strong, he wondered, because a piece of evidence which existed no longer HAD ONCE existed? But today, supposing that it could be somehow resurrected from its ashes, the photograph might not even be evidence. Already, at the time when he made his discovery, Oceania was no longer at war with Eurasia, and it must have been to the agents of Eastasia that the three dead men had betrayed their country. Since then there had been other changes--two, three, he could not remember how many. Very likely the confessions had been rewritten and rewritten until the original facts and dates no longer had the smallest significance. The past not only changed, but changed continuously. What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken. The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious. He took up his pen again and wrote: I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY. He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, to believe that the past is inalterable. He might be ALONE in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be wrong. He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into


of her heart, come what might. The deference which both she and Traddles showed towards the Beauty, pleased me very much. I don't know that I thought it very reasonable; but I thought it very delightful, and essentially a part of their character. If Traddles ever for an instant missed the tea-spoons that were still to be won, I have no doubt it was when he handed the Beauty her tea. If his sweet-tempered wife could have got up any self-assertion against anyone, I am satisfied it could only have been because she was the Beauty's sister. A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment. If she had been born a Queen Bee, and they labouring Bees, they could not have been more satisfied of that. But their self-forgetfulness charmed me. Their pride in these girls, and their submission of themselves to all their whims, was the pleasantest little testimony to their own worth I could have desired to see. If Traddles were addressed as 'a darling', once in the course of that evening; and besought to bring something here, or carry something there, or take something up, or put something down, or find something, or fetch something, he was so addressed, by one or other of his sisters-in-law, at least twelve times in an hour. Neither could they do anything without Sophy. Somebody's hair fell down, and nobody but Sophy could put it up. Somebody forgot how a particular tune went, and nobody but Sophy could hum that tune right. Somebody wanted to recall the name of a place in Devonshire, and only Sophy knew it. Something was wanted to be written home, and Sophy alone could be trusted to write before breakfast in the morning. Somebody broke down in a piece of knitting, and no one but Sophy was able to put the defaulter in the right direction. They were entire mistresses of the place, and Sophy and Traddles waited on them. How many children Sophy could have taken care of in her time, I can't imagine; but she seemed to be famous for knowing every sort of song that ever was addressed to a child in the English tongue; and she sang dozens to order with the clearest little voice in the world, one after another (every sister issuing directions for a different tune, and the Beauty generally striking in last), so that I was quite fascinated. The best of all was, that, in the midst of their exactions, all the sisters had a great tenderness and respect both for Sophy and Traddles. I am sure, when I took my leave, and Traddles was coming out to walk with me to the coffee-house, I thought I had never seen an obstinate head of hair, or any other head of hair, rolling about in such a shower of kisses. Altogether, it was a scene I could not help dwelling on with pleasure, for a long time after


evidently never saw or heard their assailant. They were found in the same room as Miss Lynd. Le Chiffre is dead, shot with a similar weapon between the eyes. Did you witness his death?' 'Yes,' said Bond. 'Your own injuries are serious, but your life is not in danger though you have lost a lot of blood. If all goes well, you will recover completely and none of the functions of your body will be impaired.' The doctor smiled grimly. 'But I fear that you will continue to be in pain for several days and it will be my endeavour to give you as much comfort as possible. Now that you have regained consciousness your arms will be freed, but you must not move your body and when you sleep the nurse has orders to secure your arms again. Above all, it is important that you rest and regain your strength. At the moment you are suffering from a grave condition of mental and physical shock.' The doctor paused. 'For how long were you maltreated?' 'About an hour,' said Bond. 'Then it is remarkable that you are alive and I congratulate you. Few men could have supported what you have been through. Perhaps that is some consolation. As Monsieur Mathis can tell you, I have had in my time to treat a number of patients who have suffered similar and not one has come through it as you have done.' The doctor looked at Bond for a moment and then turned brusquely to Mathis. 'You may have ten minutes and then you will be forcibly elected. If you put the patient's temperature up, you will answer for it.' He gave them both a broad smile and left the room. Mathis came over and took the doctor's chair. 'That's a good man,' said Bond. 'I like him.' 'He's attached to the Bureau,' said Mathis. 'He is a very good man and I will tell you about him one of these days. He thinks you are a prodigy - and so do I. 'However, that can wait. As you can imagine, there is much to clear up and I am being pestered by Paris and, of course, London, and even by Washington via our good friend Leiter. Incidentally,' he broke off, 'I have a personal message from M. He spoke to me himself on the telephone. He simply said to tell you that he is much impressed. I asked if that was all and he said: "Well, tell him that the Treasury is greatly relieved." Then he rang off.' Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M, let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London. 'A tall thin man with one arm came over from London the same day we found you,' continued Mathis, knowing from his own experience that these shop details would interest Bond more than anything else and


about the man in the Oval Office. I was right, at least about the tidal wave. As I hunkered down in a North Carolina parking garage, Trump’s words from the rally—“Bad things are going to happen to him!”—replayed in my mind. I caught my breath. No one is following you. You’ve taken all the precautions. I had locked down my life before going public. While I will refrain from detailing the security measures or trip wires put in place (others are relying on the confidentiality of similar techniques to protect their families), I will note that I was obsessive. The process took months, and not all of it worked, as I soon found out. My accounts, devices, and phone numbers were all new, and my video backdrops became the peeling wallpaper of hotels, lest I give away my location while traveling the country to campaign against my former boss. When I drove back into Asheville, the smoke-wood fog had burned off. It was light. An optimistic blue sky allayed my anxiety, until I got back to the hotel. More vitriol had poured into my cell phone while I was gone, flooding the device. Emails, text messages, Twitter posts. They buzzed menacingly on the desk, each of them a digital grim reaper: “Hope u die a slow painful death and suffer during the entire process, then burn in hell.” “Your blood will be in the streets traitor.” “Snitches get stitches.” My data was littered across the web—my home address, new cell phone number, new email addresses, personal details about family members, and surprisingly accurate guesses about where I was holed up. Time to go. I packed my belongings, reloaded the car, and drove several hours east to Charlotte. In the crucial swing state, I planned to get out and triumphantly persuade voters to “put country over party!” by opposing Trump. Now I was little more than a prisoner reassigned to a new cell, shuttling between rented rooms booked under fake names. Nighttime brought the first in a series of reckonings. I placed a pillow over the loaded pistol that was my sidekick on the road trip and settled in, eyes on the door. My new accommodations were cheaper than the last, marked by the permeating smell of mold and mildew and by a rust-stained sink and tub. Mattress wires poked through a threadbare comforter, and an increasingly familiar emotion—doubt—did the same. You think you’re clever? This was a mistake. You did this wrong. All of this. Without the mask of anonymity, I felt exposed and, for the first time ever, hunted. * * * In September 2018, The New York Times published my anonymous opinion piece from inside the Donald J. Trump administration. I revealed publicly what Trump’s cabinet members were saying privately: that he was unstable and unfit for office. While serving in top roles at the Department of Homeland Security, I had witnessed shocking acts of corruption that led me to write the essay, “I AM PART OF THE RESISTANCE INSIDE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION,” and then to quit the administration and


Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean up for mother an' give her a day's rest." Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade. "You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you good and give you some stomach for your meat." Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry. "Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" "Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' got to do?" Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be better to go and see what the gardens were like. "Who will go with me?" she inquired. Martha stared. "You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to learn to play like other children does when they haven't got sisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how he made friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that knows him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand. However little there is to eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to coax his pets." It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out, though she was not aware of it. There would be, birds outside though there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the birds in India and it might amuse her to look at them. Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots and she showed her her way downstairs. "If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," she said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. "There's lots o' flowers in summer-time, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a second before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years." "Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door added to the hundred in the strange house. "Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th' door an' dug a hole and buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run." After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in the shrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no one had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like and whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks with clipped borders.


because of the Liquilids!” Resnick snapped. “More by now, and billions in the next two months if the Liquilids get the navigational data from Adams.” Aubrey raised a hand, as tentative as a third grader in class, and asked, “Can’t we just help them jump out of here?” “No. The same technology that allows the Liquilids to mess with quantum space enables them to track wormholes. They’ll follow.” “So everyone on Adams dies,” Pristy said bitterly. “And if they don’t, billions of others die.” “I didn’t say that,” Resnick said. “You just said Adams couldn’t leave!” Pristy shouted. “You’re still thinking too linearly, Captain,” Resnick said, his tone cold and hard. “Remember how time works. Changes to the timeline risk ruining everything.” “Butterfly effect,” Derrota said suddenly. Pristy glared at him, and he explained: “Chaos mathematics theory showed how a change at one point in a system can cause major changes later.” “Exactly,” Resnick said. “In this case, the change already happened, and we have disruptions and paradoxes throughout the time continuum. We have to reverse it, and in no universe does doing so include the survival of USS Adams. It must not leave the system and must not be captured. But we have one chance to save Adams’ crew, your crew that Quintos rescued, and Quintos himself, and in doing so, get our timeline back.” “How?” Pristy demanded. “How do we do that?” Resnick smiled. “We just need to be in the right place before the right time.” “That makes no sense,” Aubrey grumbled. “Maybe not to you, newbie,” Doogan said, not smiling at all. “Quiet, Doogan,” Captain Church said. “Orders, General?” “Stay here,” said Resnick. “I need them thinking you are just as trapped as they are, and to help them until they don’t need help anymore.” “Will we see you again?” Lieutenant Chan asked. “If things go as expected, we will come back after the next mission,” Resnick said. “Pristy, Derrota, Aubrey, with me.” Pristy followed Resnick into the passageway, the others trailing behind them. She stepped up beside the general and asked, “Do you really believe this will work?” “Check your historical timeline stability score,” Resnick said. Pristy looked at her ChronoLink. “53.4 percent.” “So we’re doing something right,” Resnick said. “Now we just have to keep doing it right, and fast. Because in an hour and a half, Stratham Hold is going to be overrun. And then we’ll all have much bigger problems to deal with.” Chapter 26 Liquilid Empire Star System USS Adams Sonya Winters Running, walking, then running some more—did she know she was being impetuous? Of course she did. At the ripe old age of sixteen, almost seventeen, she figured if one couldn’t be impulsive, impassioned, hell, unbridled—whatever adjective you wanted to throw at it—as a teenager, then when? Only now, as she hurried down a rarely used Adams maintenance passageway, did she start to have second thoughts concerning her most recent actions. Her arm, more accurately, her shoulder, blazed with pain with each jarring step. Having hacked the nurse station’s work schedule, she’d


now. S’pose we talks.” He grunted, or rather, I might say, he barked. “Why, yes,” says I, “with all my heart, Mr. Hands. Say Contents “If that doctor was aboard,” he said, “I’d be right enough on.” And I went back to my meal with a good appetite. in a couple of turns, but I don’t have no manner of luck, you “This man,” he began, nodding feebly at the corpse “— Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 204 205 O’Brien were his name, a rank Irelander—this man and me stab he had received in the thigh, and after he had eaten a got the canvas on her, meaning for to sail her back. Well, little and had a swallow or two more of the brandy, he began HE’S dead now, he is—as dead as bilge; and who’s to sail this to pick up visibly, sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer, ship, I don’t see. Without I gives you a hint, you ain’t that and looked in every way another man. man, as far’s I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me food and The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before it drink and a old scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do, like a bird, the coast of the island flashing by and the view and I’ll tell you how to sail her, and that’s about square all changing every minute. Soon we were past the high lands round, I take it.” and bowling beside low, sandy country, sparsely dotted with “I’ll tell you one thing,” says I: “I’m not going back to dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again and had Captain Kidd’s anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the and beach her quietly there.” north. “To be sure you did,” he cried. “Why, I ain’t sich an infer- I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased nal lubber after all. I can see, can’t I? I’ve tried my fling, I with the bright, sunshiny weather and these different pros- have, and I’ve lost, and it’s you has the wind of me. North pects of the coast. I had now plenty of water and good things Inlet? Why, I haven’t no ch’ice, not I! I’d help you sail her to eat, and my conscience, which had smitten me hard for my up to Execution Dock, by thunder! So I would.” desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I had made. I Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this. We should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for the struck our bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the HISPANIOLA sailing easily before the wind along the coast deck and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. of Treasure Island, with good hopes of turning the northern It was a smile that had in


you’re too indecisive to just pick a wedding date and a venue.” White-hot hurt blazes out from my chest. “We’re not together because we don’t want to be, Sabrina! Because we can’t make each other happy, no matter how badly we want to.” “Really?” she says. “Because Parth saw what Wyn wrote, and it sure sounds like, once again, you sat there and let your life happen to you instead of fighting for what you want.” “You don’t get to decide what’s best for everyone,” Cleo says. “It doesn’t matter how good you think your intentions were. You manipulated us. You knew how stressed out I was about this week, and you knew why Wyn wasn’t coming, and you forced us all into it anyway.” “I did what I had to,” Sabrina says. “Just like I always do, because no one makes even the tiniest bit of effort anymore. If I waited on all of you, this friendship would already be over, and you know it. I send the first text. I make the phone calls. I leave the voicemails. I schedule the trips, and when you cancel on them, I pitch other dates, and when you can’t give me an immediate yes or no, guess what? I’m the one to check back in a couple days later.” “We have other things going on in our lives,” Cleo says. “We can’t always drop everything to relive the glory days with you.” Instantly, I can tell from Sabrina’s expression that Cleo’s hit a nerve, a deep one. All my virulent anger breaks, a fog clearing enough to reveal a steep drop- off ahead. The anger’s still there, but the fear is heavier, rooting through me, yelling, Stop, stop, stop this, before it gets any worse. Stop this before someone leaves. Before you lose them. “Let’s all cool off for a second,” I choke out. Cleo’s eyes lock on to me. “I’m not angry,” she says evenly. She means it. There’s no fire behind her gaze, only exhaustion, only disappointment. “I’m just not pretending anymore.” The sidewalk seems to crack underneath me, the world splitting. If I don’t do something, the gap will yawn wider and wider until I can’t reach them. Until I’m all alone. “Not pretending what?” Sabrina asks. “That these are the glory days,” Cleo says. “That we’re as close as we used to be, when the truth is, it’s different. We’re different.” “Cleo,” I say, quiet, pleading. “Our lives are total opposites,” she goes on, “and our schedules are totally different, and we don’t like spending our free time the same way anymore, and Wyn’s out in Montana, and Harriet’s all but cut us out of her life, and you and Parth still want everything to be one big party, but it’s not! There’s real shit going on in our lives, and we never talk about any of it.” “I haven’t cut you out of my life,” I say. “We kept something from you that was so painful I haven’t been able to make myself tell anyone about it. I


I’d never known anyone who went to Harvard.” “Have you always been interested in psychiatry?” “Not at all. I figured I’d major in history and go to law school or something like that. But then my mother got sick.” “Oh, no, I’m sorry to hear it.” “Not sick physically.” Marion waited for him to explain. “When I was a sophomore, I got a call from my father saying that my mom had been found screaming in the grocery store that she was being followed, that someone was after her. She’d had a psychotic break. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and never made it home. She died there, killed herself.” “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Peter.” A touch of anger had crept into his voice and his neck turned red. “I was stunned that that was the way the mind worked, that a switch could go off and change your personality and behavior so suddenly. My father was crushed, and no one in our town looked at us the same way again. We were the crazy family, not to be trusted. Keep in mind that if she’d died of cancer or a heart attack, they would’ve been at our doorstep in a minute with casseroles and words of comfort. Not for a mental illness, unfortunately.” Marion thought of the outpouring at Judy’s funeral. He had a point. “It must’ve been awful.” “She was a good mom. Not openly affectionate, not one to offer up a hug or even a pat on the head, but she made sure I was fed and warm.” He paused. “As a kid, I had a horse named Rusty, who was pretty much my best friend growing up. When Rusty came down with colic one freezing winter night, my mother walked him around and around for hours until the emergency had passed. She knew I’d have been devastated if something had happened to him.” He paused and looked up at Marion. “Sorry. I haven’t talked about it in a while.” “Remember, no more apologies. And I understand. As I mentioned when we talked in the Roxy apartment, you were correct in your analysis of me. I did lose my mother, when I was seven. We have that in common.” “I was rude to bring that up without any warning.” “I appreciate that you walked it back so fast. But I’ve been wondering ever since, how did you know?” “The way you looked to Bunny for guidance. You tended to echo what she was doing, which made me think you hadn’t had a female role model growing up.” He paused. “How did it happen?” “She went up to Boston to take care of a sick friend. She was always doing things like that, baking muffins for the family down the block who’d just had a baby or sitting with someone’s grandparent who was ailing. My sister and I didn’t think twice about it, just carried on with our lives. Then one morning our dad sat us down and said that she’d been killed the night before. A driver


said that you dwelt upon the fact -' 'True! Upon the fact that Sophy and I had been engaged for a long period, and that Sophy, with the permission of her parents, was more than content to take me - in short,' said Traddles, with his old frank smile, 'on our present Britannia-metal footing. Very well. I then proposed to the Reverend Horace - who is a most excellent clergyman, Copperfield, and ought to be a Bishop; or at least ought to have enough to live upon, without pinching himself - that if I could turn the corner, say of two hundred and fifty pounds, in one year; and could see my way pretty clearly to that, or something better, next year; and could plainly furnish a little place like this, besides; then, and in that case, Sophy and I should be united. I took the liberty of representing that we had been patient for a good many years; and that the circumstance of Sophy's being extraordinarily useful at home, ought not to operate with her affectionate parents, against her establishment in life - don't you see?' 'Certainly it ought not,' said I. 'I am glad you think so, Copperfield,' rejoined Traddles, 'because, without any imputation on the Reverend Horace, I do think parents, and brothers, and so forth, are sometimes rather selfish in such cases. Well! I also pointed out, that my most earnest desire was, to be useful to the family; and that if I got on in the world, and anything should happen to him - I refer to the Reverend Horace -' 'I understand,' said I. '- Or to Mrs. Crewler - it would be the utmost gratification of my wishes, to be a parent to the girls. He replied in a most admirable manner, exceedingly flattering to my feelings, and undertook to obtain the consent of Mrs. Crewler to this arrangement. They had a dreadful time of it with her. It mounted from her legs into her chest, and then into her head -' 'What mounted?' I asked. 'Her grief,' replied Traddles, with a serious look. 'Her feelings generally. As I mentioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever occurs to harass her, usually settles in her legs; but on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and then to the head, and, in short, pervaded the whole system in a most alarming manner. However, they brought her through it by unremitting and affectionate attention; and we were married yesterday six weeks. You have no idea what a Monster I felt, Copperfield, when I saw the whole family crying and fainting away in every direction! Mrs. Crewler couldn't see me before we left - couldn't forgive me, then, for depriving her of her child - but she is a good creature, and has done so since. I had a delightful letter from her, only this morning.' 'And in short, my dear friend,' said I, 'you feel as blest as you deserve to feel!' 'Oh! That's


heard his screams -- my God, those screams! -- and yet have been unable to save him! Where is this brute of a hound which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks at this instant. And Stapleton, where is he? He shall answer for this deed." "He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been murdered -- the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!" We stood with bitter hearts on either side of the mangled body, overwhelmed by this sudden and irrevocable disaster which had brought all our long and weary labours to so piteous an end. Then as the moon rose we climbed to the top of the rocks over which our poor friend had fallen, and from the summit we gazed out over the shadowy moor, half silver and half gloom. Far away, miles off, in the direction of Grimpen, a single steady yellow light was shining. It could only come from the lonely abode of the Stapletons. With a bitter curse I shook my fist at it as I gazed. "Why should we not seize him at once?" "Our case is not complete. The fellow is wary and cunning to the last degree. It is not what we know, but what we can prove. If we make one false move the villain may escape us yet." "What can we do?" "There will be plenty for us to do to-morrow. To-night we can only perform the last offices to our poor friend." Together we made our way down the precipitous slope and approached the body, black and clear against the silvered stones. The agony of those contorted limbs struck me with a spasm of pain and blurred my eyes with tears. "We must send for help, Holmes! We cannot carry him all the way to the Hall. Good heavens, are you mad?" He had uttered a cry and bent over the body. Now he was dancing and laughing and wringing my hand. Could this be my stern, self-contained friend? These were hidden fires, indeed! "A beard! A beard! The man has a beard!" "A beard?" "It is not the baronet -- it is -- why, it is my neighbour, the convict!" With feverish haste we had turned the body over, and that dripping beard was pointing up to the cold, clear moon. There could be no doubt about the beetling forehead, the sunken animal eyes. It was indeed the same face which had glared upon me in the light of the candle from over the rock -- the face of


she is mostly thine!" "No, no! Not mostly!" answered the mother, with a tender smile. "A little longer, and thou needest not to be afraid to trace whose child she is. But how strangely beautiful she looks with those wild flowers in her hair! It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in dear old England, had decked her out to meet us." It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before experienced, that they sat and watched Pearl's slow advance. In her was visible the tie that united them. She had been offered to the world, these seven past years, as the living Thesaurus brow: (n) peak, brink, brows, height, unusually, funnily, peculiarly, soft, loving, sore; (v) propose, summit, forehead, eyebrow, edge, weirdly, marvelously, uncommonly, present. ANTONYMS: (adj) crown, brim, border. ANTONYM: (n) extraordinarily, singularly, bizarrely. hardhearted, rubbery, hard, rough, trough. ANTONYMS: (adv) typically, uncaring, healthy, mature, unfeeling, diamonds: (n) hearts, ice, spades, ordinarily, harmoniously. cold, experienced; (v) withdraw. sparkler, clubs. strikingly: (adj, adv) notably, signally, tripping: (adj) easy, flowing, gathered: (adj) deepened, congregated, unusually, singularly; (adv) lightsome, readable, swinging, accumulated, amassed, assembled, prominently, stunningly, imposingly, swingy, nimble, lilting, light, fluent; concentrated, equanimous, impressively, markedly, (v) failing. congregate, collective. outstandingly, obviously. wood: (n) timber, tree, grove, lumber, pearls: (n) beads, jewelry, jewellery. tender: (n, v) offer, proffer, bid; (adj, v) jungle, coppice, walnut, linden, larch, strangely: (adv) curiously, queerly, affectionate; (adj) painful, sensitive, guaiac; (adj, n) woods. 200 The Scarlet Letter hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide--all written in this symbol--all plainly manifest--had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of flame! And Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined when they beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together; thoughts like these--and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not acknowledge or define--threw an awe about the child as she came onward.% "Let her see nothing strange--no passion or eagerness--in thy way of accosting her," whispered Hester. "Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf sometimes. Especially she is generally intolerant of emotion, when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the child hath strong affections! She loves me, and will love thee!" "Thou canst not think," said the minister, glancing aside at Hester Prynne, "how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it! But, in truth, as I already told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me. They will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile, but stand apart, and eye me strangely. Even little babes, when I take them in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl, twice in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! The first time--thou knowest it well! The last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house