Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

She grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, "Alohomora!" The lock clicked and the door swung open -- they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening. "Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me." "Say 'please.' " "Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?" "Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice. "All right -- please." "NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage. "He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispered. "I think we'll be okay -- get off, Neville!" For Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of Harry's bathrobe for the last minute. "What?" Harry turned around -- and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare -- this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far. They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden. They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. Harry groped for the doorknob -- between Filch and death, he'd take Filch. They fell backward -- Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared -- all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor. "Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces. "Never mind that -- pig snout, pig snout," panted Harry, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs. It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again. "What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does." Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again. "You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see


she was sure the voice was her mother’s. Sounds echo around the corridors of the palace faintly, like the fluttering of bat wings in a cave. The servant boy is staring at her, waiting for a reaction. He doesn’t know she has long learned to school her face to dullness. Only the gods know how she is crying inside. She lets the hair loose on her back, twists her neck, as though easing back pain. She touches the pin of her dress and lets one strap fall. The servant blushes, his cheeks red as apples. He wants to look, but at the same time, he doesn’t. “Come,” Helen orders. She keeps her voice sweet and quiet. The servant can only obey. He walks closer, staring at Helen’s long neck, her breasts barely visible. “Closer.” She beckons. “I won’t bite.” She sinks her husband’s knife into the servant’s knee. He shouts but she silences him, her hand clasped on his mouth. “What is happening outside?” she whispers. “What is Menelaus doing?” The servant shakes his head, and Helen shows him the blade. “Speak now.” “They were looking for the king of Maeonia and the baby.” Helen lets him go and he drops to the floor, holding his leg. She hides the knife in her dress and climbs out the window onto the adjacent terrace. She fixes her shoulder strap as she runs, corridor after corridor. At last, she arrives at the megaron. She sees the whole thing in pieces. Her mother holding the dead baby. Tantalus’s bloodied hands. Timandra, her face baked with mud, trying to hold her sister. Clytemnestra is mad, tearing her tunic apart. She is trying to grab a blade to slash her own throat. Helen jumps forward and joins Timandra. Clytemnestra cries and bites like a panther, but together, they manage to take her down, their beating hearts the only comfort to their sister. 13 The Atreidai’s Wives HER FEET ARE soaked in Tantalus’s blood. She can smell it, the pain that is filling the palace, permeating its walls. Clytemnestra knows that the smell will never go away; it has entered too deep. Somewhere buried under the odor of blood, the scent of her husband is fading. She is losing him as she holds him tight, and the blood streaming from his chest stains her tunic. She cries. All she can see is the scarlet cut on Tantalus’s body. A sweet voice is talking to her, far away. It must be Helen’s. She can barely hear it as his dead body is carried away from her, like a puppet, broken and useless. She faints, overwhelmed with pain, as Helen’s voice, like a lullaby, guides her to a place of nightmares. * * * For a long time, there is darkness. Her sister never leaves her, not even when Clytemnestra pushes her away. Helen keeps talking to her about the wind that can’t bend the strongest trees, about the heroes who are never forgotten, about bird songs carrying the word of the dead. She keeps talking to Clytemnestra to remind


position to lecture me on my love life,’ I flung back, then immediately regretted it. ‘I didn’t mean—’ Her chair screeched on the floor as she got up. Her eyes were burning with hurt and maybe even hatred. I hated myself. What a stupid comment. I ran down the stairs behind her, quietly asking her to wait without wanting to attract attention. Walking through the bookshop, she happened to step into an anteroom by mistake and it was just us two, alone. ‘Please, Martha, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking, it was a stupid throwaway comment.’ She was looking towards the ceiling, trying to stop the tears from falling. ‘It doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t have said those things, I was being unkind.’ ‘You were right,’ I said, stepping closer. ‘I did run away from Isabelle. Not consciously, perhaps, but I found a way to not be there. I don’t know,’ I said, raking my hand through my hair. ‘I thought it was what I wanted and then I just freaked out.’ The shelves of books around us muffled the outside world. Wisps of blond hair fell about her face and her red cheeks glowed with the turmoil of emotion. She bit her lip and leaned back against a bookshelf, considering her words. ‘Love is scary.’ ‘Someone should write that book.’ She smiled and looked directly into my eyes as though trying to decide something. ‘Are you in love?’ Such a simple question, but coming from her, in this context, I didn’t know what the answer was. Did I know what love was supposed to feel like? Had I ever been in love? There was the initial attraction, then a kind of comfortableness followed by a sense of … what? Unease. Like I knew all along that I had chosen the most sensible path and now resented every step I took upon it. As though I’d signed up for the wrong course in university and with each passing day was feeling more and more trapped. Looking over my shoulder for the life I should have had and never really being present in my own life. She gave up waiting for an answer. ‘I’m starting to think maybe love isn’t supposed to be scary. Maybe I didn’t love Shane at all. I thought I did, but that’s the trap, isn’t it? Fooling yourself into believing that it’s your fault for not doing it right. But if I’d known it wasn’t really love, I would have left sooner.’ She wasn’t talking to me any more, although her words rang true for me. It sounded like a conversation she’d had many times with herself. ‘I thought that’s what love was – sticking by someone, no matter what. Waiting for the person I’d fallen in love with at the start to come back.’ I wanted to reach out to her, hold her, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. ‘How could he hurt you?’ I whispered, seeing the little girl inside of her that just wanted to be loved. Not beaten black


an open flame,” I say. And suddenly we’re both laughing. I guess we’re both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, petrified of be- ing turned into human torches, we’re not acting sensibly. The opening music begins. It’s easy to hear, blasted around the Capitol. Massive doors slide open revealing the crowd- lined streets. The ride lasts about twenty minutes and ends up at the City Circle, where they will welcome us, play the an- them, and escort us into the Training Center, which will be our home/prison until the Games begin. 68 The tributes from District 1 ride out in a chariot pulled by snow-white horses. They look so beautiful, spray-painted sil- ver, in tasteful tunics glittering with jewels. District 1 makes luxury items for the Capitol. You can hear the roar of the crowd. They are always favorites. District 2 gets into position to follow them. In no time at all, we are approaching the door and I can see that between the overcast sky and evening hour the light is turning gray. The tributes from District 11 are just rolling out when Cinna ap- pears with a lighted torch. “Here we go then,” he says, and be- fore we can react he sets our capes on fire. I gasp, waiting for the heat, but there is only a faint tickling sensation. Cinna climbs up before us and ignites our headdresses. He lets out a sign of relief. “It works.” Then he gently tucks a hand under my chin. “Remember, heads high. Smiles. They’re going to love you!” Cinna jumps off the chariot and has one last idea. He shouts something up at us, but the music drowns him out. He shouts again and gestures. “What’s he saying?” I ask Peeta. For the first time, I look at him and realize that ablaze with the fake flames, he is daz- zling. And I must be, too. “I think he said for us to hold hands,” says Peeta. He grabs my right hand in his left, and we look to Cinna for confirma- tion. He nods and gives a thumbs-up, and that’s the last thing I see before we enter the city. The crowd’s initial alarm at our appearance quickly changes to cheers and shouts of “District Twelve!” Every head 69 is turned our way, pulling the focus from the three chariots ahead of us. At first, I’m frozen, but then I catch sight of us on a large television screen and am floored by how breathtaking we look. In the deepening twilight, the firelight illuminates our faces. We seem to be leaving a trail of fire off the flowing capes. Cinna was right about the minimal makeup, we both look more attractive but utterly recognizable. Remember, heads high. Smiles. They’re going to love you! I hear Cinna’s voice in my head. I lift my chin a bit higher, put on my most winning smile, and wave with my free hand. I’m glad now I have Peeta to clutch for balance, he is so steady, solid as a rock. As


agree on Nancy's beauty, but opinion on Godfrey is divided. An accident (fate or bad luck?) calls Nancy and Godfrey off the dance floor. Nancy's dress has been torn, and she must sit in the next room until Priscilla can help her fix it. Eliot presents the lovers' conversation dramatically, letting you know just enough of what each is feeling to add an undertone of passion to the careful banter. Godfrey tries to tell Nancy he loves her. She rebuffs him coldly, firmly, but with a trace of hurt pride that gives him hope. Even after Priscilla arrives, Godfrey stays near, hanging on to these few moments with Nancy. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 12 Just then, while Godfrey is happily forgetting his marriage, his wife is headed toward the Red House. This isn't a coincidence--she chose this night deliberately so she could shame Godfrey in public. She wants revenge because he insulted her. His own actions brought on this impending doom. Eliot's portrait of this woman is brief but complex. One side of Molly knows that her addiction to opium is to blame for her wretched life. Yet the other side resents Godfrey for living better and blames him for her misery. Eliot reminds you that Molly is limited by her uncultured past. Throughout this commentary, however, Eliot also remarks that most of us react the same way Molly does to our own misery. Molly, like Godfrey, lacks moral strength. In this scene, her weakness is conveyed in many ways. The falling snow literally makes her slow down and get lost. The snow also symbolizes her moral weakness, which makes it hard for her to get anywhere in life. Her addiction to opium is another weakness. She turns to it when she's in pain and needs comfort. She hesitates, knowing it will hurt her baby, yet she gives in to her selfish craving. The drug, however, makes her even weaker, and the snow soon completely numbs her. Molly's love for her child is the one thing that fights against her drug addiction. But is she a good mother? Her child is ragged and hungry, a burden that she clutches automatically. She ultimately chooses the opium over her child's welfare, and under the influence of the drug she stops caring about what happens to the baby. On the other hand, there is a tender bond between them. The little girl sleeps peacefully, and when she tumbles awake she cries "mammy" and struggles to climb back into her mother's arms. The scene shifts to the child's viewpoint. Easily distracted, she sees a bright light and runs after it. She can't see what it is--she seems nearsighted, like Silas Marner. NOTE: PARALLELS A few chapters ago, Dunstan Cass was attracted by a bright light shining from Silas' cottage. In this parallel scene, the baby also is drawn by the firelight into Silas' home. Silas was out on a simple errand before. This time, he's left the door open because he has fallen into one of his mysterious fits. Ironically, he was looking out the door,


of the wrist and again Bond's whole body writhed and contorted. Le Chiffre waited until the tortured heart eased down its laboured pumping and until Bond's eyes dully opened again. 'Perhaps I should explain,' said Le Chiffre. 'I intend to continue attacking the sensitive parts of your body until you answer my question. I am without mercy and there will be no relenting. There is no one to stage a last-minute rescue and there is no possibility of escape for you. This is not a romantic adventure story in which the villain is finally routed and the hero is given a medal and marries the girl. Unfortunately these things don't happen in real life. If you continue to be obstinate, you will be tortured to the edge of madness and then the girl will be brought in and we will set about her in front of you. If that is still not enough, you will both be painfully killed and I shall reluctantly leave your bodies and make my way abroad to a comfortable house which is waiting for me. There I shall take up a useful and profitable career and live to a ripe and peaceful old age in the bosom of the family I shall doubtless create. So you see, my dear boy, that I stand to lose nothing. If you hand the money over, so much the better. If not, I shall shrug my shoulders and be on my way.' He paused, and his wrist lifted slightly on his knee. Bond's flesh cringed as the cane surface just touched him. 'But you, my dear fellow, can only hope that I shall spare you further pain and spare your life. There is no other hope for you but that. Absolutely none.' 'Well?' Bond closed his eyes and waited for the pain. He knew that the beginning of torture is the worst. There is a parabola of agony. A crescendo leading up to a peak and then the nerves are blunted and react progressively less until unconsciousness and death. All he could do was to pray for the peak, pray that his spirit would hold out so long and then accept the long free-wheel down to the final black-out. He had been told by colleagues who had survived torture by the Germans and the Japanese that towards the end there came a wonderful period of warmth and languor leading into a sort of sexual twilight where pain turned to pleasure and where hatred and fear of the torturers turned to a masochistic infatuation. It was the supreme test of will, he had learnt, to avoid showing this form of punch-drunkenness. Directly it was suspected they would either kill you at once and save themselves further useless effort, or let you recover sufficiently your nerves had crept back to the other side of the parabola. Then they would start again. He opened his eyes a fraction. Le Chiffre had been waiting for this and like a rattlesnake the cane instrument leapt from the floor. It struck again and again so that Bond


car. You don’t have yours?” “Upstairs,” I say. “We’ll have to wait until they get sick of waiting and send someone to hurry us up.” Wyn groans and drops onto the top step, setting the bottle down by his ankle. He bows his head and knots his fingers together against the back of his neck. At least I’m not the only one panicking. Of course, I’m freaking out about being here with him, and he’s freaking out because he’s claustrophobic. He has been ever since he was a kid and a broken armoire fell on him in his parents’ workshop while no one else was home. He was trapped for hours. As soon as the door’s open, he’ll be fine. Whereas I’ll still be reeling from the purchase of a stupid coffee-table book. The whole stairwell sways as an awful realization hits me. I latch on to the banister to keep from falling over. “What? What’s wrong?” Wyn leaps up, steadying me by the elbows. His drawn mouth is visible in bits under the black splotches swimming across my vision. “We were taking two cars,” I squeak out. “We were taking two cars, so all four of them could’ve left in the Rover.” His eyes darken, clouds creeping across the green. “They wouldn’t.” “They might,” I say. “We don’t need to assume that’s what happened. They could be back any second.” He stares at the ceiling, doing some kind of mental calculation. I descend the rest of the steps, trying to regain the space between us. But he follows. “This isn’t my fault, Harriet.” “Did I say it was?” I ask. “You stormed off,” he says. “There’s an implication there.” I spin back to him. “Wyn. We’re in a twelve-foot box. That wasn’t storming. There isn’t room for storming. But if your point is to remind me that I shut the door, point received.” “I’m not blaming you. I just—who the hell has a door that locks from the outside?” “It’s a panic room,” I point out. “That’s what the little panel on the wall does. We could unlock it if we knew the code.” His gaze clears. He climbs the stairs in three long strides to examine the panel. “There’s a button to call 911.” How long will it take for them to realize something’s wrong? Will they drive all the way out to pick up the pre-hike popovers without trying to call us? If they do call, will they assume we don’t answer because we’re driving? My stomach resumes its roiling nausea. “You want to call or wait?” Wyn asks. Now I’m doing the math of how expensive it might be to replace this door if the fire department has to ax it down or blow it up or something. “I think . . .” I take a steadying breath, try to find a grip on some version of my mental happy place that has nothing to do with this house or this man. “I think we have to wait, for at least a while.” It’s obviously not the answer


momentously, fundamentally musing, brooding; (v) philosophical, entanglement, graticule, grid, maternal: (adj) parental, paternal, sedate engagement, meshing. parent, motherlike, mother, loving, meed: (n, v) compensation; (v) wage, ANTONYMS: (v) disengage, undo enatic, agnatic, ancestral, enate, hire; (n) prize, remuneration, messenger: (n, v) herald; (n) fraternal. ANTONYMS: (adj) recompense, guerdon, pay, dole, harbinger, runner, emissary, bearer, paternal, filial pittance, reguerdon ambassador, precursor, courier, maternity: (n) motherhood, melancholy: (adj, v) dreary; (adj, n) carrier, apostle, errand motherliness, parenthood, gloom, melancholic; (adj) depressed, metallic: (adj) metal, harsh, metalline, relationship, pregnancy, gestation, dejected, dismal, gloomy, doleful; metallics, hard, basic, actual, maternities, parentage, origin, (n, v) low spirits; (n) gloominess, absolute, certain, chalybeate, clearly maternal quality, fatherliness depression. ANTONYMS: (n) expressed. ANTONYM: (adj) soft matron: (n) lady, head nurse, dame, happiness, cheerfulness, metaphors: (n) images, descriptions housewife, dowager, woman, wife, hopefulness, optimism; (adj) happy, meteor: (n) shooting star, aerolite, Donna Belle, matriarch, married bright, cheery, satisfied fireball, falling star, bolide, woman; (v) matronhood. melt: (v) dissolve, deliquesce, vanish, meteorite, meteoroid, effluvium, ANTONYM: (n) patron coalesce, relent, meld, fade, defrost; emanation, evaporation, exhalation matronly: (adj) grave, womanly, (adj, v) run, liquefy; (n, v) thaw. meteoric: (adj) meteorological, brief, ladylike, wifely, sedate, matronlike, ANTONYMS: (v) freeze, solidify, flashing, momentary, swift, maidenly, anile, female cool, set transient, sudden; (v) blazing, in a maturer: (adj) overripe, ripe, ripened memoir: (n) discourse, blaze, ablaze, phosphorescent. maze: (n) tangle, snarl, web, jungle, autobiography, journal, record, ANTONYM: (adj) slow muddle, confusion, complication; story, disquisition, account, methinks: (adv) meseems (v) eel; (adj) delicacy, knot, memory, sermon, pandect, narrative metropolis: (n) city, capital, town, awkwardness memorials: (n) memoir municipality, buffalo, meshed, meagre: (adj) exiguous, paltry, mercenary: (adj, n) hireling; (adj, v) borough, burgh, independence, hull, necessitous, miserable, marginal, sordid; (adj) mercantile, bale meagerly, gaunt, emaciated, materialistic, covetous, commercial, midst: (adj, n) middle; (adv) mid, inadequate, deficient, beggarly. greedy, venal, avaricious, selfish; (v) between; (prep) among, amid; (n) ANTONYM: (adj) ample illiberal. ANTONYMS: (adj) core, center, thick, interior, heart, mechanically: (adv) mechanistically, altruistic, philanthropic waist instinctively, routinely, merchandise: (v) market, deal; (n) mien: (n, v) deportment, carriage, involuntarily, industrially, freight, cargo, product, commodity, bearing, demeanor; (n) look, 304 The Scarlet Letter countenance, appearance, guise, smallness, attention to detail, misfortunes: (n) misfortune manner, aspect, air petiteness, tininess, weeness misgivings: (n) anxiety, doubt, mightily: (adv) powerfully, miraculous: (adj) marvelous, misgiving, apprehension, fear, vigorously, strongly, greatly, astonishing, marvellous, wonderful, suspicion, doubts, concern, potently, fiercely, sturdily, violently, astounding, remarkable, magical, consternation, disbelief, foreboding. robustly, puissantly, vastly. incredible, wonder, stupendous, ANTONYM: (n) equanimity ANTONYMS: (adv) weakly, slightly phenomenal. ANTONYMS: (adj) mishap: (n) adversity, misfortune, mildewed: (v) moldy, rusty, seedy, normal, mundane, unremarkable casualty, mischance, misery, spotted, decayed; (adj, v) fusty; (adj) mirth: (adj, n) merriment, jollity; (n) calamity, misadventure, disaster, ill, trite amusement, happiness, delight, joy, bad luck, catastrophe millionfold: (adv) a million times hilarity, cheerfulness, festivity, misplaced: (v) misjoined, mimic: (adj, v) mock; (v) imitate, gladness, exhilaration. mismatched; (adj) mislaid, inept, mime, copy, impersonate, parody, ANTONYMS: (n) gloom, sadness, inappropriate, disordered, gone emulate; (n, v) counterfeit; (n) misery astray, lost temporarily, misguided, imitator, mimicker, ape mirthful: (adj) gay, jolly, merry, missing, not


I came up with. You’ll be perfectly safe,” he says. But I’m not convinced I won’t be perfectly barbecued by the time we reach the city’s center. My face is relatively clear of makeup, just a bit of highlight- ing here and there. My hair has been brushed out and then braided down my back in my usual style. “I want the audience to recognize you when you’re in the arena,” says Cinna drea- mily. “Katniss, the girl who was on fire.” It crosses my mind that Cinna’s calm and normal demeanor masks a complete madman. Despite this morning’s revelation about Peeta’s character, I’m actually relieved when he shows up, dressed in an identic- al costume. He should know about fire, being a baker’s son and all. His stylist, Portia, and her team accompany him in, and everyone is absolutely giddy with excitement over what a splash we’ll make. Except Cinna. He just seems a bit weary as he accepts congratulations. We’re whisked down to the bottom level of the Remake Center, which is essentially a gigantic stable. The opening ce- 67 remonies are about to start. Pairs of tributes are being loaded into chariots pulled by teams of four horses. Ours are coal black. The animals are so well trained, no one even needs to guide their reins. Cinna and Portia direct us into the chariot and carefully arrange our body positions, the drape of our capes, before moving off to consult with each other. “What do you think?” I whisper to Peeta. “About the fire?” “I’ll rip off your cape if you’ll rip off mine,” he says through gritted teeth. “Deal,” I say. Maybe, if we can get them off soon enough, we’ll avoid the worst burns. It’s bad though. They’ll throw us into the arena no matter what condition we’re in. “I know we promised Haymitch we’d do exactly what they said, but I don’t think he considered this angle.” “Where is Haymitch, anyway? Isn’t he supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?” says Peeta. “With all that alcohol in him, it’s probably not advisable to have him around an open flame,” I say. And suddenly we’re both laughing. I guess we’re both so nervous about the Games and more pressingly, petrified of be- ing turned into human torches, we’re not acting sensibly. The opening music begins. It’s easy to hear, blasted around the Capitol. Massive doors slide open revealing the crowd- lined streets. The ride lasts about twenty minutes and ends up at the City Circle, where they will welcome us, play the an- them, and escort us into the Training Center, which will be our home/prison until the Games begin. 68 The tributes from District 1 ride out in a chariot pulled by snow-white horses. They look so beautiful, spray-painted sil- ver, in tasteful tunics glittering with jewels. District 1 makes luxury items for the Capitol. You can hear the roar of the crowd. They are always favorites. District 2 gets into position to follow them. In no time at all, we are approaching the


his high white helm, and in his hand cruel steel. Against that: Syrio, in a leather vest, with a wooden sword in his hand. "Syrio, run," she screamed. "The first sword of Braavos does not run," he sang as Ser Meryn slashed at him. Syrio danced away from his cut, his stick a blur. In a heartbeat, he had bounced blows off the knight's temple, elbow, and throat, the wood ringing against the metal of helm, gauntlet, and gorget. Arya stood frozen. Ser Meryn advanced; Syrio backed away. He checked the next blow, spun away from the second, deflected the third. The fourth sliced his stick in two, splintering the wood and shearing through the lead core. Sobbing, Arya spun and ran. She plunged through the kitchens and buttery, blind with panic, weaving between cooks and potboys. A baker's helper stepped in front of her, holding a wooden tray. Arya bowled her over, scattering fragrant loaves of fresh-baked bread on the floor. She heard shouting behind her as she spun around a portly butcher who stood gaping at her with a cleaver in his hands. His arms were red to the elbow. All that Syrio Forel had taught her went racing through her head. Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. Fear cuts deeper than swords. The man who fears losing has already lost. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords. The grip of her wooden sword was slick with sweat, and Arya was breathing hard when she reached the turret stair. For an instant she froze. Up or down? Up would take her to the covered bridge that spanned the small court to the Tower of the Hand, but that would be the way they'd expect her to go, for certain. Never do what they expect, Syrio once said. Arya went down, around and around, leaping over the narrow stone steps two and three at a time. She emerged in a cavernous vaulted cellar, surrounded by casks of ale stacked twenty feet tall. The only light came through narrow slanting windows high in the wall. The cellar was a dead end. There was no way out but the way she A GAME OF THRONES 471 had come in. She dare not go back up those steps, but she couldn't stay here, either. She had to find her father and tell him what had happened. Her father would protect her. Arya thrust her wooden sword through her belt and began to climb, leaping from cask to cask until she could reach the window. Grasping the stone with both hands, she pulled herself up. The wall was three feet thick, the window a tunnel slanting up and out. Arya wriggled toward daylight. When her head reached ground level, she peered across the bailey to the Tower of the Hand. The stout wooden door hung splintered and broken, as


never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one there! The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. That was last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything since then to throw any light upon what became of him." "It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said Holmes. "Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all the morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to be true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since gives a meaning to it." "Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?" "Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he would not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw happened." "But you have no notion as to what it could have been?" "None." "One more question. How did your mother take the matter?" "She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter again." "And your father? Did you tell him?" "Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him, there might be some reason, but Hosmer was very independent about money and never would look at a shilling of mine. And yet, what could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me half-mad to think of it, and I can't sleep a wink at night." She pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob heavily into it. "I shall glance into the case for you," said Holmes, rising, "and I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." "Then you don't think I'll see him again?" "I fear not." "Then what has happened to him?" "You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an accurate description of him and any letters of his which you can spare." "I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she. "Here is the slip and here are four letters from him." "Thank you. And your address?" "No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell." "Mr. Angel's address


glance. Something weird was going on. Daphne yanked her arm away. Despite the weirdness, I waved at Officer Mitchell and Officer Weed, who were walking down the sidewalk toward us. They were both customers. As teenagers, I couldn’t count the number of times we had doubled over with laughter over the idea that a police officer’s name could be Weed. “Daphne?” Mom said gently. “Are you okay?” She pointed. “Bryce—” She stopped when she saw the police officers heading straight toward us. I thought they were coming to say hi until I heard a woman’s voice from behind me. “Did you seriously think I was going to sign that NDA, Bryce? Take that paltry bribe from your mom? Buy into that little ‘I’m no good to anyone if I’m in jail’ song and dance?” I turned to see Wendy Carlson, a girl I had gone to high school with. She and I had played on the basketball team together, and I had thought she was the most annoying person on the planet. But, in a twist of fate, she was now one of Daphne’s best clients. She owned the flooring and lighting gallery in town, and she and Bryce worked together all the time. I could barely respond before one of the officers handcuffed Bryce. I looked from Bryce to Wendy to Mom to Daphne and managed to eke out, “What the hell is going on?” Wendy patted my shoulder. “Oh, honey. You really didn’t know?” “Know what?” I turned to Bryce and Daphne. “What is going on here?” “They are arresting him for writing eighty thousand dollars in bad checks to me,” Wendy filled in. “Because I’m the only one brave enough to actually have him charged.” Wendy stepped close to Bryce. “I spent fifteen years saving up to buy that shop. I’m not losing everything I have because I’m scared of your mother.” “But she was going to pay you back!” Bryce yelled. “Over three years? I don’t think so. I need that money now.” Of all the possible things I had imagined for the day my wedding invitations went out, seeing my fiancé stuffed into the back of a police car was definitely not one of them. “Lanier, don’t believe anything they say! This isn’t what it looks like!” he yelled as they shut the door. Tears ran down my cheeks. “Daphne! You’re his lawyer. Do something!” She looked stricken. “Actually, I’m not. It’s a conflict of interest because Wendy is one of the people pressing charges against him.” I was furious. “So, you did this to him?” I spat at Daphne. Wendy took my arm. “No. She wouldn’t take any of our cases.” “Cases for what?” That was when I realized we were all standing on the street, putting on a show for anyone who walked by. Mom took my arm to lead me back into the bookstore, and Wendy and Daphne followed. “Paula, maybe you should go call Bryce’s mom,” Daphne said. “She’ll know what she needs to do.” I sat down in one of the chairs


"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination tall, fair, with blue eyes and a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan, a real, blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered; and blind and lame into the bargain."     "I never thought of it before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir."     "Well you can leave me, ma'am; but before you go" (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), "you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two." He paused.     "What questions, Mr. Rochester?"     Then followed this cross-examination.     "St. John made you school-mistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin?"     "Yes."     "You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?"     "Daily."     "He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for you are a talented creature."     "He approved of them yes."     "He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary."     "I don't know about that."     "You had a little cottage near the school, you say; did he ever come there to see you?"     "Now and then."     "Of an evening?"     "Once or twice."     A pause.     "How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?"     "Five months."     "Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?"     "Yes; the back parlor was both his study and ours; he sat near the window, and we by the table."     "Did he study much?"     "A good deal."     "What?"     "Hindostanee."     "And what did you do meantime?"     "I learned German, at first."     "Did he teach you?"     "He did not understand German."     "Did he teach you nothing?"     "A little Hindostanee."     "Rivers taught you Hindostanee?"     "Yes, sir."     "And his sisters also?"     "No."     "Only you?"     "Only me."     "Did you ask to learn?"     "No."     "He wished to teach you?"     "Yes."     A second pause.     "Why did he


his father's arm. "Oh, by Jove," he exclaimed. They had come out into the great tree-planted space before the Invalides. The dome of Mansart floated ethereally above the budding trees and the long grey front of the building: drawing up into itself all the rays of afternoon light, it hung there like the visible symbol of the race's glory. Archer knew that Madame Olenska lived in a square near one of the avenues radiating from the Invalides; and he had pictured the quarter as quiet and almost obscure, forgetting the central splendour that lit it up. Now, by some queer process of association, that golden light became for him the pervading illumination in which she lived. For nearly thirty years, her life--of which he knew so strangely little--had been spent in this rich atmosphere that he already felt to be too dense and yet too stimulating for his lungs. He thought of the theatres she must have been to, the pictures she must have looked at, the sober and splendid old houses she must have frequented, the people she must have talked with, the incessant stir of ideas, curiosities, images and associations thrown out by an intensely social race in a setting of immemorial manners; and suddenly he remembered the young Frenchman who had once said to him: "Ah, good conversation--there is nothing like it, is there?" Archer had not seen M. Riviere, or heard of him, for nearly thirty years; and that fact gave the measure of his ignorance of Madame Olenska's existence. More than half a lifetime divided them, and she had spent the long interval among people he did not know, in a society he but faintly guessed at, in conditions he would never wholly understand. During that time he had been living with his youthful memory of her; but she had doubtless had other and more tangible companionship. Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something apart; but if she had, it must have been like a relic in a small dim chapel, where there was not time to pray every day. . . . They had crossed the Place des Invalides, and were walking down one of the thoroughfares flanking the building. It was a quiet quarter, after all, in spite of its splendour and its history; and the fact gave one an idea of the riches Paris had to draw on, since such scenes as this were left to the few and the indifferent. The day was fading into a soft sun-shot haze, pricked here and there by a yellow electric light, and passers were rare in the little square into which they had turned. Dallas stopped again, and looked up. "It must be here," he said, slipping his arm through his father's with a movement from which Archer's shyness did not shrink; and they stood together looking up at the house. It was a modern building, without distinctive character, but many-windowed, and pleasantly balconied up its wide cream-coloured front. On one of the upper balconies, which hung well above the rounded tops


you--she is not able--she is gone into her own room-- I want her to lie down upon the bed. `My dear,' said I, `I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:' but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite ashamed-- but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not know any body was coming. `It is only Mrs. Cole,' said I, `depend upon it. Nobody else would come so early.' `Well,' said she, `it must be borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.' But then Patty came in, and said it was you. `Oh!' said I, `it is Miss Woodhouse: I am sure you will like to see her.'-- `I can see nobody,' said she; and up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. `If you must go, my dear,' said I, `you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the bed.'" Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for Miss Fairfax's advantage and comfort as possible. "It must be a severe trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel Campbell's return." "So very kind! " replied Miss Bates. "But you are always kind." There was no bearing such an "always;" and to break through her dreadful gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of-- "Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?" "To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps, Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's; but Mrs. Smallridge is intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove." "Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--" "Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, `No;' for when Jane first heard of it, (it was the


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus. Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But having taken three days to meditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determination remained the same in short, that he still preferred to abide with me. What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, passive mortal,—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall. What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paperweight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers to cling to you. Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely you will not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such a thing to be done?—a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser. Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: “I find these chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer require your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek another place.” He made no reply, and nothing more was said. On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers, and having but little furniture, every thing was removed in a few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen,


fertile country behind and beneath us. We looked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands. The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and fus which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip. "Baskerville Hall," said he. Its master had risen and was staring with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. A few minutes later we had reached the lodge- gates, a maze of fantastic tracery in wrought iron, with weather- bitten pillars on either side, blotched with lichens, and summounted by the boars' heads of the Baskervilles. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of rafters, but facing it was a new building, half constructed, the first fruit of Sir Charles's South African gold. Through the gateway we passed into the avenue, where the wheels were again hushed amid the leaves, and the old trees shot their branches in a sombre tunnel.over our heads. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end. "Was it here?" he asked in a low voice. "No, no, the yew alley is on the other side." The young heir glanced round with a gloomy face. "It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this," said he. "It's enough to scare any man. I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won't know it again, with a thousand candle- power Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door." The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenellated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke. "Welcome, Sir Henry! Welcome to Baskerville Hall!" A tall man had stepped from the shadow of the porch to open the door of the wagonette. The figure of a woman was silhouet- ted against the yellow light of


bringing new supplies aboard, the tiller woman visits Miss Zhao and me in my cabin. The way she looks around at the modest accommodations suggests that she’s never been allowed to enter a passenger’s room, let alone sleep anywhere so nice. I have her lie down and treat her with moxibustion on eight points to warm her channels, dry her dampness, and stimulate her qi and Blood. When I announce that the treatment is complete, she sits up. “I feel better?” That she asks this as a question—as if she doesn’t believe the relief she’s feeling—confirms for me that the treatment is already working. “How can that be?” “When there is pain, the body has no freedom of movement. Without pain, the body is free. My grandmother taught me that.” The tiller woman stares at her hands uncertainly as she opens and shuts them. “Will it last?” I lift my chin. Of course. At the door, the tiller woman bows formally as if she grew up in a fine household. “A woman who helps others helps herself.” To which Miss Zhao adds, “Our dear doctor has yet to take this lesson fully into her heart.” * * * Five weeks after leaving Wuxi, we’re rowed into Beijing as night falls. On the wharf, men and animals haul heavy loads. Guards in military dress carry torches, while others stand at attention with their spears and swords on display. They are far outnumbered by beggars, who crowd every cranny. The air stinks of manure and garbage. And it’s brutally cold. Miss Zhao steps onto the dock, trying to conceal her distaste. I do not need the skills of a spiritualist to read her mind: This is not Shanghai. An hour later, we’re presented to Lin Ta, the eunuch in charge of the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony. “You will answer to me when you are here or within the palace walls,” he says. “Do you understand?” Miss Zhao and I nod. Poppy is somewhere, already unpacking our trunks. “Those of us who run the lodge not only select doctors, midwives, and wet nurses to serve in the Forbidden City but also dispatch punishment,” he continues. I keep my eyes lowered out of respect and because I’m afraid I would stare too hard at the eunuch. My few dared glimpses show me he matches the descriptions I’ve heard whispered about his kind. Without his three precious things, his voice is high. Although Lin Ta is tall and thin, his flesh hangs loose on his face and his opulent robes can’t hide the layer of fat that droops from his waist as though he were a woman who has reached sitting-quietly days. “Do not steal,” he intones. “Do not lie. Do not gossip. Do not think too highly of yourself.” Miss Zhao and I don’t say a word. “Most important,” he goes on, “do nothing that might inflame or arouse undesirable emotions in the ladies of the imperial household—” “We would not do that.” I’m not accustomed to being spoken to in such a dismissive manner,


my mother’s ashes before then.” “Then you should do so, now. But take your boy with you,” Keegan said. Iris asked Roman and Attie to accompany her to the golden field. A slight breeze stirred, blowing from the east. Iris closed her eyes. Not so long ago, she had arrived at this place, full of grief and guilt and fear. And while those things still dwelled in her, they were not as sharp as they had been. I hope you see me, Mum. I hope you’re proud of me. She opened the lid and overturned the jar. She watched as her mother’s ashes were carried by the wind, into the golden dance of the grass. “Do either of you know how to drive a lorry?” Keegan asked half an hour later. Iris and Attie exchanged a dubious look. They had just finished carrying a table from Peter’s house out into the street. “No,” Iris said, wiping sweat from her brow. “All right, well, come on then. I’m going to teach you both.” Iris glanced over her shoulder at the B and B, where Marisol was still cooking in the kitchen. Roman had been assigned to help her, and Iris was grateful, knowing Marisol had him peeling potatoes at the kitchen table. He probably was stewing about it, but he needed to rest his leg. Iris followed Attie and Keegan around the barricades to the eastern edge of the town, where lorry after lorry was parked. Keegan chose a truck that was situated at the front of the lot, with a clear path to the eastern road. “Who wants to go first?” Keegan asked, opening the driver’s door. “I will,” Attie said, before Iris could even draw a breath. She climbed up into the driver’s seat while Iris and Keegan crammed into the other side of the cab. A few soldiers stationed on this side of town had to open a makeshift gate, but then there was nothing but wide-open road before them. “Turn on the ignition,” Keegan said. Iris watched as Attie cranked the engine. The lorry roared to life. “Now, do you know how a clutch operates?” “Yes.” Attie sounded a bit hesitant, but her hands were on the steering wheel and her eyes were taking quick inventory of the dash and the levers. “Good. Put your foot on that pedal. Push it in.” Iris watched as Attie heeded Keegan’s instructions. Soon they were bouncing along the road, Avalon Bluff nothing more than a cloud of dust behind them. First, second, third gear. Attie was able to shift seamlessly between them, and when they were traveling so fast that Iris’s teeth were rattling, Attie let out a triumphant whoop. “Very good. Now gear back down to neutral and park it,” Keegan said. Attie did so, and then it was Iris’s turn. Her palms were damp as she took the steering wheel. Her foot could barely reach the gas pedal, let alone the clutch she had to push to the floorboard. It was … disastrous. She nearly ran the lorry off the


all of us like he was waiting for a gotcha. “Seriously?” Parth said. “There’s a baby in your body? Right now?” Cleo laughed. “Yes, it’s in my body.” “This is . . . oh my god,” Wyn cried. “You’re having a baby!” “Someone get the fainting couch,” Kimmy said. “Wynnie’s going down.” He walked around the kitchen to hug each of them in turn, then looked at me, his eyes sparkling and clear, no fog. Like his first instinct when he felt joy was to check whether it had hit me too, to share it. It made my heart soar and throb and burn with hope. Now we’re all drinking champagne and sparkling cider in the sun and pressuring our friends to name their baby Kardashian Kimberly Cleopatra Carmichael-James while a paid professional snaps photographs of us. The wedding officiant arrives at four. By five, Parth and Sabrina stand at the edge of the dock, light glinting off their hair, eyes sparkling with tears, and promise to love each other always. Cleo and I wrap our arms around each other, our sunflower bouquets caught between us, and try not to sob. By five thirty, we’re flinging ourselves off the end of the dock, shrieking with laughter, failing badly at DON’T FUCKING SCREAM, then pulling ourselves out of the icy water and running up to the warm comfort of the pool. We order pizza—no one wants to leave the house, and Knott’s Harbor isn’t big on delivery—and eat it with Veuve Clicquot. We don’t talk about tomorrow, when we’ll say goodbye. To one another, to this house, to an era of life we wish could have lasted forever. Right now we’re here. When the sun starts falling down the sky, we bundle up and climb back down to the rocks to watch night settle. We build a fire, roast marshmallows. Sabrina burns hers to a charred crisp, and Parth patiently toasts his to golden brown. When Wyn catches me shivering, he takes off his worn-out Mattingly sweatshirt—he’s always run warm—and yanks it over my head, smiling as he ties a bow beneath my chin. It smells like smoke and seawater and him. I never want to take it off. We light the sparklers Parth found in the garage, and we write our names in the dark, impermanent but all the brighter and more blazing for it. This is how I used to think of love. As something so delicate it couldn’t be caught without being snuffed out. Now I know better. I know the flame may gutter and flare with the wind, but it will always be there. We talk about the night sky. We talk about the ghost of our old dorm building. The bright purple flowers that always erupted alongside the long road to Mattingly, and the broken eave over our New York apartment that let icicles grow into three-foot daggers. We talk about the things we remember, the things we’ll miss. “We’ll come back,” Kimmy says. “Baby needs to know about the magic of Maine.” “I don’t know,” Sabrina says.


to leave today, or they’d run out of time. The final stages of boarding began, filling the base of the tank and then the hammocks themselves. The process of choosing who to save was scrupulously fair and equally ruthless. No men or women over the age of forty-five had been allowed, no children under the age of fourteen, no one who was sick or infirm – they wouldn’t survive, either the journey or their new existence in the extreme cold. When they reached their destination, they needed a population strong enough to start work immediately. Many mothers and fathers who refused to leave behind their young children were excluded from boarding. Many older men argued they were important people worthy of being an exception to the rule. Bedri held firm. There were no exceptions. He could not be bought. Imbued with a quasi-religious sense of destiny, he walked like a prophet among the many thousands of people now sitting on the red steel deck, crammed together, knees tight under their chins, legs pressed into each other’s backs, a truly remarkable sight, a canvas of people so dense that not a speck of the bright red deck could be seen. In order for him to walk, each person needed to tilt to the side, offering a stepping-stone of deck, and he advanced on tiptoe, resting his hand on their shoulders, talking to each family as he passed through, welcoming them to his ship and promising them that they’d reach safety. There was no shade on the deck except beneath the pipes with the luckiest passengers nestled under them, the less fortunate perched atop them, trying not to slip off. Fortunately the deck was twenty metres above sea level and even in storms, Bedri believed the overwhelming majority would survive the journey. As he was ready to depart, a voice cried out: ‘Bedri! There’s a passenger here for you.’ ‘We’re full. There’s no more space.’ ‘It’s your father.’ Bedri’s father was wearing his military uniform with green lapels and unearned honours, no doubt in the calculation that his uniform would be of some advantage during this crisis, enabling him to masquerade as a man of authority. He surveyed the deck crowded with refugees as though he’d had a hand in this humanitarian achievement. ‘I’m proud of you.’ ‘Why aren’t you on one of the government’s evacuation planes?’ For a moment his father seemed vulnerable, rejected by the very people he’d spent his whole life trying to placate. How crushing that must have been for him – to be left behind, to be excluded from the inner circle he’d sought to ingratiate himself with. There would have been very few flights. Nouakchott-Oumtounsy International Airport, north of the capital city, was served by a handful of airlines such as Air Algérie, Air France, Royal Air Maroc. The national carrier Mauritania Air had a fleet of only six small Boeing and Embraer aircraft, each able to carry around one hundred and sixty people. ‘You didn’t make the cut?’ ‘If it’s any consolation they saved the ancient Quranic


they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side; --all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; --all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering .. <p 223 > the first unknown phantom in the other world; --neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale. The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the row-locks. Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship nor boat to be seen. Give way, men, whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet of his sail; there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. There's white water again! --close to! Spring! Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: Stand up! and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged serpents. That's his hump. There, there, give it to him! whispered Starbuck. A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from astern, while


to read. On the eighteenth night of their journey, the wine was a rare sweet amber from the Summer Isles that he had brought all the way north from Casterly Rock, and the book a rumination on the history and properties of dragons. With Lord Eddard Stark's permission, Tyrion had borrowed a few rare volumes from the Winterfell library and packed them for the ride north. He found a comfortable spot just beyond the noise of the camp, beside a swift-running stream with waters clear and cold as ice. A grotesquely ancient oak provided shelter from the biting wind. Tyrion curled up in his fur with his back against the trunk, took a sip of the 108 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN wine, and began to read about the properties of dragonbone. Dragonbone is black because of its high iron content, the book told him. It is strong as steel, yet lighter and far more flexible, and of course utterly impervious to fire. Dragonbone bows are greatly prized by the Dothraki, and small wonder. An archer so armed can outrange any wooden bow. Tyrion had a morbid fascination with dragons. When he had first come to King's Landing for his sister's wedding to Robert Baratheon, he had made it a point to seek out the dragon skulls that had hung on the walls of Targaryen's throne room. King Robert had replaced them with banners and tapestries, but Tyrion had persisted until he found the skulls in the dank cellar where they had been stored. He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful. Yet they were. As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of his torch. They liked the fire, he sensed. He'd thrust the torch into the mouth of one of the larger skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind him. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flame of the torch was nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires. When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast's empty eye sockets had watched him go. There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiffs skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long. From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of old. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar's gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again.


the church, now, with a swarm of clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave, elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole class were of a pattern -- restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses perfectly, but had to be prompted all along. However, they worried through, and each got his reward -- in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Dore Bible? And yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way -- it was the patient work of two years -- and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day --------------------------------------------------------- -50- forth -- a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) had always made this boy come out and "spread himself." Only the older pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar's heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple of weeks. It is possible that Tom's mental stomach had never really hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the eclat that came with it. In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert -- though why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of music is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a slim creature of thirty-five,


end, and with a ferocious snarl he bounded straight up into the blinding day, the snow flying about him in a flashing cloud. Ere he landed on his feet, he saw the white camp spread out before him and knew where he was and remembered all that had passed from the time he went for a stroll with Manuel to the hole he had dug for himself the night before. A shout from Francois hailed his appearance. "Wot I say?" the dog-driver cried to Perrault. "Dat Buck for sure learn queek as anyt'ing." Perrault nodded gravely. As courier for the Canadian Government, bearing important despatches, he was anxious to secure the best dogs, and he was particularly gladdened by the possession of Buck. Three more huskies were added to the team inside an hour, making a total of nine, and before another quarter of an hour had passed they were in harness and swinging up the trail toward the Dyea Canon. Buck was glad to be gone, and though the work was hard he found he did not particularly despise it. He was surprised at the eagerness which animated the whole team and which was communicated to him; but still more surprising was the change wrought in Dave and Sol-leks. They were new dogs, utterly transformed by the harness. All passiveness and unconcern had dropped from them. They were alert and active, anxious that the work should go well, and fiercely irritable with whatever, by delay or confusion, retarded that work. The toil of the traces seemed the supreme expression of their being, and all that they lived for and the only thing in which they took delight. Dave was wheeler or sled dog, pulling in front of him was Buck, then came Sol-leks; the rest of the team was strung out ahead, single file, to the leader, which position was filled by Spitz. Buck had been purposely placed between Dave and Sol-leks so that he might receive instruction. Apt scholar that he was, they were equally apt teachers, never allowing him to linger long in error, and enforcing their teaching with their sharp teeth. Dave was fair and very wise. He never nipped Buck without cause, and he never failed to nip him when he stood in need of it. As Francois's whip backed him up, Buck found it to be cheaper to mend his ways than to retaliate. Once, during a brief halt, when he got tangled in the traces and delayed the start, both Dave and Sol- leks flew at him and administered a sound trouncing. The resulting tangle was even worse, but Buck took good care to keep the traces clear thereafter; and ere the day was done, so well had he mastered his work, his mates about ceased nagging him. Francois's whip snapped less frequently, and Perrault even honored Buck by lifting up his feet and carefully examining them. It was a hard day's run, up the Canon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep, and


a confidante. __ CHAPTER X (52) ELIZABETH had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it than, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial. ``Gracechurch-street, Sept. 6. MY DEAR NIECE, I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a little writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application; I did not expect it from _you_. Don't think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised as I am -- and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as _your's_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both; Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had_ _another_ motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than we had; and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings.


a bound the black leaped entirely over the rushing beast and turning with incredible swiftness planted a second arrow in Horta's back. Then Kulonga sprang into a near-by tree. Horta wheeled to charge his enemy once more; a dozen steps he took, then he staggered and fell upon his side. For a moment his muscles stiffened and relaxed convulsively, then he lay still. Kulonga came down from his tree. With a knife that hung at his side he cut several large pieces from the boar's body, and in the center of the trail he built a fire, cooking and eating as much as he wanted. The rest he left where it had fallen. Tarzan was an interested spectator. His desire to kill burned fiercely in his wild breast, but his desire to learn was even greater. He would follow this savage creature for a while and know from whence he came. He could kill him at his leisure later, when the bow and deadly arrows were laid aside. When Kulonga had finished his repast and disappeared beyond a near turning of the path, Tarzan dropped quietly to the ground. With his knife he severed many strips of meat from Horta's carcass, but he did not cook them. He had seen fire, but only when Ara, the lightning, had destroyed some great tree. That any creature of the jungle could produce the red-and-yellow fangs which devoured wood and left nothing but fine dust surprised Tarzan greatly, and why the black warrior had ruined his delicious repast by plunging it into the blighting heat was quite beyond him. Possibly Ara was a friend with whom the Archer was sharing his food. But, be that as it may, Tarzan would not ruin good meat in any such foolish manner, so he gobbled down a great quantity of the raw flesh, burying the balance of the carcass beside the trail where he could find it upon his return. And then Lord Greystoke wiped his greasy fingers upon his naked thighs and took up the trail of Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the king; while in far-off London another Lord Greystoke, the younger brother of the real Lord Greystoke's father, sent back his chops to the club's CHEF because they were underdone, and when he had finished his repast he dipped his finger-ends into a silver bowl of scented water and dried them upon a piece of snowy damask. Chapter 9 50 All day Tarzan followed Kulonga, hovering above him in the trees like some malign spirit. Twice more he saw him hurl his arrows of destruction--once at Dango, the hyena, and again at Manu, the monkey. In each instance the animal died almost instantly, for Kulonga's poison was very fresh and very deadly. Tarzan thought much on this wondrous method of slaying as he swung slowly along at a safe distance behind his quarry. He knew that alone the tiny prick of the arrow could not so quickly dispatch these wild things of the jungle, who were often torn and scratched and gored in a frightful


if I move in with him after the introduction.” “I think it’s a good idea.” “Wow, Yèyé, just wow.” “What?” The safe’s lock clicked open, and Yèyé brought out a midsized jewellery box. “You’re the same woman who threatened to test my virginity with an egg.” “Ehen? I did that?” Yèyé shrugged. “Well, you are no longer a child. Once we do the introduction, that means your parents have approved of the union. You are free. It’s kúkú not as if he’s not ready to marry you tomorrow if you want. You are free o, move in. I think it’s better, sef.” “I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” Wúràọlá said, hoping her mother would ask why she had reservations about living with Kúnlé. But Yèyé sat on the bed, set the jewellery box between them and continued as if she had not been interrupted. “And I’m sure his mother won’t mind either. As long as it is after the introduction. Look at how everything has worked out so well for you, Wúràọlá. Isn’t it just wonderful? I won’t lie, me, I thought Kúnlé would propose at your induction. When he did not, I was afraid he was waiting for something else, maybe a younger girl, someone in her early twenties, you know how these men are. But look now, some other men would have walked out when Mọ́tárá started saying rubbish. See how calm he was throughout. Everything just fits together so well, you know. His background, family, temperament. It’s like a miracle, àbí?” The miracle was in how Yèyé, who metered moments of joy with a soberness Wúràọlá always attributed to losing both parents in such quick succession, seemed so carefree in her happiness. She seemed happier than she had been when Mọ́tárá was born or Láyí was getting married. “Àbí?” Yèyé frowned. “Or you think he’s very upset about Mọ́tárá’s lies?” This was her window to say Mọ́tárá was not lying. And how would her mother feel then? Yèyé and her sisters liked to brag about how they picked themselves up after their parents died without wasting time on grief. But Wúràọlá knew Yèyé carried the weight of bereavement within her. It was visible in how she sometimes rubbed her injured leg absentmindedly, staring into a past no one around her could see. It was there in how she’d burst into tears the day a teenage Láyí asked for new stories, complaining that he was tired of hearing the old stories Yèyé recycled for them about her own mother. It was there in how she often handled happiness with nervousness, as though good things could only last for a spell. Wúràọlá adjusted her scarf. How could she wrench this rare season of unfettered joy away from her mother? “Wúràọlá?” “No. No, he’s not upset.” All she wanted was a way to help Kúnlé so he would stop hitting her. She could figure that out on her own; there was no reason to turn her mother’s miracle into something less wonderful than she thought it was. Besides, though last


the turmoils of the heat and the cold that had come to pass through him. But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and Men, envying the gifts with which Ilvatar promised to endow them; and he wished himself to have subject and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be a master over other wills. But the other Ainur looked upon this habitation set within the vast spaces of the World, which the Elves call Arda, the Earth; and their hearts rejoiced in light, and their eyes beholding many colours were filled with gladness; but because of the roaring of the sea they felt a great unquiet. And they observed the winds and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made, of iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. Now to water had that Ainu whom the Elves can Ulmo turned his thought, and of all most deeply was he instructed by Ilvatar in music. But of the airs and winds Manw most had pondered, who is the noblest of the Ainur. Of the fabric of Earth had Aul thought, to whom Ilvatar had given skin and knowledge scarce less than to Melkor; but the delight and pride of Aul is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work. And Ilvatar spoke to Ulmo, and said: 'Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province? He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of my clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the Earth! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manw, thy friend, whom thou lovest.' Then Ulmo answered: 'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manw, that he and I may make melodies for ever to my delight!' And Manw and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilvatar. But even as Ulmo spoke, and while


When they arrived at Calais and Philip saw the crowd of gesticulating porters his heart leaped. "This is the real thing," he said to himself. He was all eyes as the train sped through the country; he adored the sand dunes, their colour seemed to him more lovely than anything he had ever seen; and he was enchanted with the canals and the long lines of poplars. When they got out of the Gare du Nord, and trundled along the cobbled streets in a ramshackle, noisy cab, it seemed to him that he was breathing a new air so intoxicating that he could hardly restrain himself from shouting aloud. They were met at the door of the hotel by the manager, a stout, pleasant man, who spoke tolerable English; Mr. Goodworthy was an old friend and he greeted them effusively; they dined in his private room with his wife, and to Philip it seemed that he had never eaten anything so delicious as the _beefsteak aux pommes_, nor drunk such nectar as the _vin ordinaire_, which were set before them. To Mr. Goodworthy, a respectable householder with excellent principles, the capital of France was a paradise of the joyously obscene. He asked the manager next morning what there was to be seen that was `thick.' He thoroughly enjoyed these visits of his to Paris; he said they kept you from growing rusty. In the evenings, after their work was over and they had dined, he took Philip to the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergeres. His little eyes twinkled and his face wore a sly, sensual smile as he sought out the pornographic. He went into all the haunts which were specially arranged for the foreigner, and afterwards said that a nation could come to no good which permitted that sort of thing. He nudged Philip when at some revue a woman appeared with practically nothing on, and pointed out to him the most strapping of the courtesans who walked about the hall. It was a vulgar Paris that he showed Philip, but Philip saw it with eyes blinded with illusion. In the early morning he would rush out of the hotel and go to the Champs Elysees, and stand at the Place de la Concorde. It was June, and Paris was silvery with the delicacy of the air. Philip felt his heart go out to the people. Here he thought at last was romance. They spent the inside of a week there, leaving on Sunday, and when Philip late at night reached his dingy rooms in Barnes his mind was made up; he would surrender his articles, and go to Paris to study art; but so that no one should think him unreasonable he determined to stay at the office till his year was up. He was to have his holiday during the last fortnight in August, and when he went away he would tell Herbert Carter that he had no intention of returning. But though Philip could force himself to go to the office every day he could not even


WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!' `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because I'm not myself, you see.' `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar. `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.' `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar. `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?' `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar. `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; `all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.' `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. `Who are YOU?' Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.' `Why?' said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. `I've something important to say!' This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar. `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. `No,' said the Caterpillar. Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?' `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!' `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar. `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar. Alice folded her hands, and began:-- `You are old, Father William,' the young man said, `And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?' `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, `I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.' `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door-- Pray, what is the reason


aware of the same obscure effort in her, the same reaching out toward something beyond the usual range of her vision. "She hates Ellen," he thought, "and she's trying to overcome the feeling, and to get me to help her to overcome it." The thought moved him, and for a moment he was on the point of breaking the silence between them, and throwing himself on her mercy. "You understand, don't you," she went on, "why the family have sometimes been annoyed? We all did what we could for her at first; but she never seemed to understand. And now this idea of going to see Mrs. Beaufort, of going there in Granny's carriage! I'm afraid she's quite alienated the van der Luydens . . ." "Ah," said Archer with an impatient laugh. The open door had closed between them again. "It's time to dress; we're dining out, aren't we?" he asked, moving from the fire. She rose also, but lingered near the hearth. As he walked past her she moved forward impulsively, as though to detain him: their eyes met, and he saw that hers were of the same swimming blue as when he had left her to drive to Jersey City. She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her cheek to his. "You haven't kissed me today," she said in a whisper; and he felt her tremble in his arms. XXXII. At the court of the Tuileries," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson with his reminiscent smile, "such things were pretty openly tolerated." The scene was the van der Luydens' black walnut dining-room in Madison Avenue, and the time the evening after Newland Archer's visit to the Museum of Art. Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden had come to town for a few days from Skuytercliff, whither they had precipitately fled at the announcement of Beaufort's failure. It had been represented to them that the disarray into which society had been thrown by this deplorable affair made their presence in town more necessary than ever. It was one of the occasions when, as Mrs. Archer put it, they "owed it to society" to show themselves at the Opera, and even to open their own doors. "It will never do, my dear Louisa, to let people like Mrs. Lemuel Struthers think they can step into Regina's shoes. It is just at such times that new people push in and get a footing. It was owing to the epidemic of chicken-pox in New York the winter Mrs. Struthers first appeared that the married men slipped away to her house while their wives were in the nursery. You and dear Henry, Louisa, must stand in the breach as you always have." Mr. and Mrs. van der Luyden could not remain deaf to such a call, and reluctantly but heroically they had come to town, unmuffled the house, and sent out invitations for two dinners and an evening reception. On this particular evening they had invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs. Archer and Newland and his wife to go with them to the Opera, where Faust


Can’t believe I’m missing class to stare at these lawyers’ backs The call from Amy March came a little after five. I was lying on the bed in a sandpapery hotel robe, my hair wet, unable to nap because the elevator was too loud through my wall. She said, “I know you might have heard some things today. I don’t want you to worry. Listen, though, nothing’s for sure yet, but we might—we’re reevaluating if we want you on the stand.” The smoke detector on the ceiling blinked red—a tiny, constant test-warning. She said, “It seems their whole tack is to centralize you in all this, to cast doubts on your honesty and intentions.” “So shouldn’t the judge see me so he knows that’s not true?” She hesitated. “We do want that testimony about her planner, but putting you up could backfire.” She sounded so apologetic, as if the issue were my ego rather than the case. “We genuinely have enough with the blood. That’s the core of our argument. You’re one person who should’ve been interviewed, but we have others. They’re building up to hitting you hard on cross, and if we don’t put you up, it signals we have plenty without you.” I said, “That makes sense.” It did, but I could hear the devastation in my own voice and certainly Amy could, too. I said, “We won’t have a chance to name Denny Bloch, then.” “I know, I know,” she said. “But at this point, I think it dilutes the case.” She sounded so careful, so conciliatory. Not for the first time, I worried Amy thought I was hung up on my own agenda. I said, “Can I come watch the proceedings, then?” I already knew the answer: I’d be a distraction there, too. What she said, though, was “You’re still on our list; nothing’s definite. If you can stay in town that’s great, and you’re still sequestered.” “Right.” “We’ll probably rest late Monday or early Tuesday, and then you can go.” I calculated that I could use the next few days as a writing retreat. I was deep into my research on Marion Wong and the Mandarin Film company. I could lose myself in that all day. But writing time was a sorry consolation prize. All I wanted was to be on the stand. Your name had been sitting in my throat for four years, waiting to get out. I’d been waiting four years to see Omar, to look him in the eyes. I didn’t want or expect anything from him; I just wanted to see his face. I lay on the bed a long time, listening to the elevator let people off on other floors. 12 I sat on my cracked balcony chair in my coat that evening, staring out at the long, snowy lawn and the river it sloped to. A gazebo partway down, one that might have been used for weddings in summer, sat desolate—a place to break up with someone. The sun was setting, lending everything a golden glaze and a flimsy illusion of


his frequent custom, and sit awhile in one of their leathern-cushioned arm-chairs, listening to the gossip of the day, and dropping some deeply designed chance-word, which will be certain to become the gossip of to-morrow. And have not the bank directors a meeting at which it was the Judge's purpose to be present, and his office to preside? Indeed they have; and the hour is noted on a card, which is, or ought to be, in Judge Pyncheon's right vest-pocket. Let him go thither, and loll at ease upon his moneybags! He has lounged long enough in the old chair! This was to have been such a busy day. In the first place, the interview with Clifford. Half an hour, by the Judge's reckoning, was to suffice for that; it would probably be less, but--taking into consideration that Hepzibah was first to be dealt with, and that these women are apt to make many words where a few would do much better--it might be safest to allow half an hour. Half an hour? Why, Judge, it is already two hours, by your own undeviatingly accurate chronometer. Glance your eye down at it and see! Ah! he will not give himself the trouble either to bend his head, or elevate his hand, so as to bring the faithful time-keeper within his range of vision! Time, all at once, appears to have become a matter of no moment with the Judge! And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda? Clifford's affair arranged, he was to meet a State Street broker, who has undertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the best of paper, for a few loose thousands which the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested. The wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his railroad trip in vain. Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there was to be an auction of real estate, including a portion of the old Pyncheon property, originally belonging to Maule's garden ground. It has been alienated from the Pyncheons these four-score years; but the Judge had kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on reannexing it to the small demesne still left around the Seven Gables; and now, during this odd fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and transferred our ancient patrimony to some alien possessor. Possibly, indeed, the sale may have been postponed till fairer weather. If so, will the Judge make it convenient to be present, and favor the auctioneer with his bid, On the proximate occasion? The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving. The one heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning, on the road to town, and must be at once discarded. Judge Pyncheon's neck is too precious to be risked on such a contingency as a stumbling steed. Should all the above business be seasonably got through with, he might attend the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which, however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten; so that this engagement


in all weathers same as th' rabbits does. Mother says I've sniffed up too much fresh air for twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with cold. I'm as tough as a white-thorn knobstick." He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him and helping him with her fork or the trowel. "There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite exultantly. "Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged. "I'm sure I can help, too. I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me. Oh! do come, Dickon!" "I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered stoutly. "It's the best fun I ever had in my life-- shut in here an' wakenin' up a garden." "If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive I'll--I don't know what I'll do," she ended helplessly. What could you do for a boy like that? "I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon, with his happy grin. "Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a young fox an' tha'll learn how to talk to th' robin same as I do. Eh! we'll have a lot o' fun." He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and bushes with a thoughtful expression. "I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped an' spick an' span, would you?" he said. "It's nicer like this with things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other." "Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it was tidy." Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look. "It's a secret garden sure enough," he said, "but seems like some one besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' ago." "But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary. "No one could get in." "That's true," he answered. "It's a queer place. Seems to me as if there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an' there, later than ten year' ago." "But how could it have been done?" said Mary. He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head. "Aye! how could it!" he murmured. "With th' door locked an' th' key buried." Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Of course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung at her when he wanted to tease her. "Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired. "Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, "an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas." "Let's plant some," said Mary. "There's lilies o' th, valley