mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my science by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete. Chapter 5 It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. The different accidents of life


man too well to wonder at this trait; and the possibility, that these projected improvements might be deferred, gave him a hope, that they might never take place. Before they separated for the night, M. Quesnel desired to speak with St. Aubert alone, and they retired to another room, where they remained a considerable time. The subject of this conversation was not known; but, whatever it might be, St. Aubert, when he returned to the supper-room, seemed much disturbed, and a shade of sorrow sometimes fell upon his features that alarmed Madame St. Aubert. When they were alone she was tempted to enquire the occasion of it, but the delicacy of mind, which had ever appeared in his conduct, restrained her: she considered that, if St. Aubert wished her to be acquainted with the subject of his concern, he would not wait on her enquiries. On the following day, before M. Quesnel departed, he had a second conference with St. Aubert. The guests, after dining at the chateau, set out in the cool of the day for Epourville, whither they gave him and Madame St. Aubert a pressing invitation, prompted rather by the vanity of displaying their splendour, than by a wish to make their friends happy. Emily returned, with delight, to the liberty which their presence had restrained, to her books, her walks, and the rational conversation of M. and Madame St. Aubert, who seemed to rejoice, no less, that they were delivered from the shackles, which arrogance and frivolity had imposed. Madame St. Aubert excused herself from sharing their usual evening walk, complaining that she was not quite well, and St. Aubert and Emily went out together. They chose a walk towards the mountains, intending to visit some old pensioners of St. Aubert, which, from his very moderate income, he contrived to support, though it is probable M. Quesnel, with his very large one, could not have afforded this. After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of others, and softening the discontents of all, by the look of sympathy, and the smile of benevolence, St. Aubert returned home through the woods, where At fall of eve the fairy-people throng, In various games and revelry to pass The summer night, as village stories tell.* *Thomson 'The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,' said St. Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. 'I remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet's dream: I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring of the woods.' 'O my dear father,' said Emily, while a sudden tear started to


that, they were struggling to breathe. “Want to help me?” August swallowed audibly, then took a long inhale and exhale through his nose. “It’s not a question of wanting to. I always fucking want you. Every minute, every hour of the day.” The words weren’t even finished coming out of his mouth when she kissed him, their mutual groans coming from deep within. “But I told you the night we got married. Before we go there, I want to know you’re not going to wake up with regrets. Don’t you dare roll over in my bed tomorrow and act like this was a one-night stand. It’s not.” “What is it?” she whispered against his mouth, almost terrified of the answer. Funny, he didn’t look scared at all. Only determined. “We’re going to find out.” The determination flickered a touch and some vulnerability shone through. “Tell me how you feel about me, Natalie.” Her heartbeat spread to her entire body, pulsing in every limb, every hair follicle. “Oh my God, who just puts somebody on the spot like this?” “I’m done wondering.” He backed her into the bedroom one slow step at a time. Mouth to mouth. His fingertips traced gently down the sides of her face, her throat. Then they took hold of the neckline of her T-shirt and tore it straight down the middle, making her cry out. “I’m done obsessing about you every waking second and having no idea if you’re obsessing about me, too.” She stared down at her ripped shirt in shock, eyes shooting back up to meet his increasingly intense ones. “Do you want me to obsess about you?” “Yes.” With gritted teeth, he unsnapped the front of her bra and tugged it down her arms, throwing it clear to the other side of the room, along with the remains of her shirt. “Maybe you’ve been with men in the past who don’t want to label shit or be tied down. Well, that’s not me. Not when it comes to you. I want you to count the minutes until we’re breathing the same air again, the way I do.” There was quicksand shifting beneath her feet, preparing to suck her down. “W-we only married for money—” His mouth stamped down on hers at an angle and she went from protesting the existence of her own feelings to kissing him eagerly, whimpering into the possessive stroke of his tongue. “Go sell that lie somewhere else, princess,” he rasped, pulling her yoga pants and panties down to her knees, dragging his nose upward over her stomach and between her breasts on the way back to looking her straight in the eye. “Now am I just giving you head again? Or are you going to admit how you feel about me so we can fuck like animals?” Her sex gave a very dramatic, very enthusiastic clench in favor of the latter. But speaking of animals, her heart was still hammering like a jackrabbit. Just admit how she felt? Who did that? Obviously people who had never been on the receiving


Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt

of the doorframe, solid and straight. He’d evened out whatever apprehension had made them crooked before. A harsh sound; his throat clearing. “You look…” She looked good, and she knew it. The gown fit perfectly, as if it’d been made for her, and the lack of ornamentation or jewelry suited it just fine. Lore resisted the urge to twirl. She’d done it a couple times before he opened the door, but as satisfying as the swirl of skirts had been, it felt somewhat morbid, what with an impending doom ritual. Instead, she ignored Gabe, nodded at her reflection in the spotted mirror, and approached the door. “Let’s get this over with.” But he didn’t move. Gabe blocked the door, looking down at her with an expression that seemed to hover somewhere between determination and pain. She met his gaze, tried to keep her own expression from saying anything at all. “I’m going to keep you safe,” he murmured. “You can trust that.” “I can’t trust anything,” she said lightly, and there was no waver in it; she wouldn’t give him wavering. Lore nodded to the door. “We’re going to be late.” He stood there a moment longer, looking for words and not finding them. Finally, Gabe turned and offered her his elbow, the same way he’d done when they were newly arrived and dressed like foxgloves, headed to Bastian’s masquerade with no idea what to expect. They walked into the hall. They were silent. In a twist of dark irony, the eclipse ball was taking place in the same atrium that Bastian and Lore had crossed through on their way to the catacombs. A long table stood at one end of the glass room, nearly covered by the leaves of poisonous flowers, though the plants stood far enough away so as not to be a danger to the wine fountain burbling in the table’s center. Silver chairs were placed next to the gleaming windows, clustered for ease of gossip. A string band was stationed in the corner, playing a lively song for the spinning dancers in the center of the floor. There were far more guests than Lore had expected, enough to make the large atrium feel crowded. She recognized Cecelia in the corner, though she didn’t appear to have any poison tea at this particular party. Next to her, Dani, along with another blond woman who had to be her sister. Amelia, Lore remembered. The blond woman’s eyes tracked to Lore as soon as she entered the room, then darted away, but Dani didn’t avert her gaze even when Lore met it. It hurt more than it should, to know that she’d been working for Anton from the beginning, that all her overtures of companionship had an ulterior motive. Unfair of Lore to judge for that, all things considered, but the hurt remained as she tore her eyes from the other woman. Briefly, she wondered if Alie was in on it, too, if all the tentative friendships she’d made here were predicated on eventual betrayal, an even shakier foundation than she’d


and be thanked. He was warm in his reprobation of Mr. Elton's conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness; and Mrs. Elton's looks also received the due share of censure. "They aimed at wounding more than Harriet," said he. "Emma, why is it that they are your enemies?" He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added, "She ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma, that you did want him to marry Harriet." "I did," replied Emma, "and they cannot forgive me." He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he only said, "I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections." "Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell me I am wrong?" "Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong, I am sure the other tells you of it." "I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a series of strange blunders!" "And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless girl-- infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected." Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again. "Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all doing?-- Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy! Every body is asleep!" "I am ready," said Emma, "whenever I am wanted." "Whom are you going to dance with?" asked Mr. Knightley. She hesitated a moment, and then replied, "With you, if you will ask me." "Will you?" said he, offering his hand. "Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper." "Brother and sister! no, indeed." CHAPTER III This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward to


tempted by such a pretty face, he would have let go the plough for her sake as I do!" Tess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her fluency failed her, and without heeding he added: "Well, this paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any other, after all. But to speak seriously. Tess." D'Urberville rose and came nearer, reclining sideways amid the sheaves, and resting upon his elbow. "Since I last saw you, I have been thinking of what you said that HE said. I have come to the conclusion that there does seem rather a want of common-sense in these threadbare old propositions; how I could have been so fired by poor Parson Clare's enthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, transcending even him, I cannot make out! As for what you said last time, on the strength of your wonderful husband's intelligence--whose name you have never told me--about having what they call an ethical system without any dogma, I don't see my way to that at all." "Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at least, if you can't have--what do you call it--dogma." "O no! I'm a different sort of fellow from that! If there's nobody to say, 'Do this, and it will be a good thing for you after you are dead; do that, and if will be a bad thing for you,' I can't warm up. Hang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions if there's nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear, I wouldn't either!" She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct. But owing to Angel Clare's reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on. "Well, never mind," he resumed. "Here I am, my love, as in the old times!" "Not as then--never as then--'tis different!" she entreated. "And there was never warmth with me! O why didn't you keep your faith, if the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!" "Because you've knocked it out of me; so the evil be upon your sweet head! Your husband little thought how his teaching would recoil upon him! Ha-ha--I'm awfully glad you have made an apostate of me all the same! Tess, I am more taken with you than ever, and I pity you too. For all your closeness, I see you are in a bad way--neglected by one who ought to cherish you." She could not get her morsels of food down her throat; her lips were dry, and she was ready to choke. The voices and laughs of the workfolk eating and drinking under the rick came to her as if they were a quarter of a mile off. "It is cruelty to me!" she said. "How--how can you treat me to


smooth circular movement of their fingers. “You choose,” she whispered again. “A love story, then,” the oneiroi-born said and then— Clang! Io’s eyes snapped open. Above her stood not the Morpheus, but Rosa, hands on her hips, lips twisted into a smirk. The poor Morpheus was facedown on the carpet, already snoring softly under Rosa’s powers. Her friend said, “Am I interrupting, Io dear?” “No.” Io bolted upright. “You got comfortable, I see,” said Rosa, motioning to her nightgown. “Meanwhile, I was scaling walls and climbing balconies with that guy, who has the conversation skills of a stone wall.” From the balcony door, Edei gave a wave, head turned away. He was purposefully not looking at her, his cheeks a deep shade of red. Io glanced down at herself—her robe had slid open, revealing the tiny nightgown in all its glory. She was making him . . . blush? The thought was thrilling, but she tied the robe nonetheless and slipped on her cargo pants for good measure. Rosa was studying the Morpheus at her feet. “Their name is Marino,” she said, toying with the unconscious oneiroi-born’s arm. “I went out with them a couple of times. Terrific kisser. Should go easy on the perfume, though.” “Did everything go as planned?” Io asked. “Yes, boss,” said Edei. He was already on the balcony, and soon Io and Rosa joined him, climbing over the rail and jumping the short distance to the balcony on the left. Both rooms faced the back of the building, where the only attention they could draw was that of rats. When Io had told Edei of her plans—employing Rosa’s help to jump into Bianca’s dreams—he hadn’t even blinked. Instead, he had told her exactly which dream palace Bianca preferred, which room and which oneiroi-born, and how best to sneak into Mister Hypnos. Bianca used the oneiroi-born to sleep every night, even sending for their tonics when she was with Ava, which explained why her lips were tinted blue on every occasion Io had seen her in the early morning. Wind lashing at her naked feet, Io climbed over into room eight. It was nearly identical to hers, except for the wheeled-in tray of wine and fruit. Bianca was sprawled on the bed, while her oneiroi-born and two bodyguards were out cold on a couch. “So,” Edei said. “How do we do this?” “Lie down,” Rosa ordered. Not without some clumsiness, Io and Edei managed to squeeze next to Bianca, Edei in the middle, Io on his other side. He shifted so they could both share the pillow but otherwise didn’t look much at her. “I take it you’ve never done this before?” Rosa asked. Edei shook his head no, staring straight up at the small chandelier. “My parents wanted me to, because I had terrible night terrors as a child, but we could never afford it.” Rosa gave him a soft smile. “You know how the moira-born can see the threads that tie people together, right? Well, we oneiroi-born can do something similar. We can see these lines


for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time about everything. As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen, and drew it back. No; there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul? he wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it. Poor Sibyl! what a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked death on the stage, and at last Death himself had touched her, and brought her with him. How had she played that dreadful scene? Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything, by the sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what she had made him go through, that horrible night at the theatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure to show Love had been a great reality. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her child-like look and winsome fanciful ways and shy tremulous grace. He wiped them away hastily, and looked again at the picture. He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him,-- life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins,--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all. A feeling of pain came over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to become a hideous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of the hair? The pity of it! the pity of it! For a moment he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to


of a very old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible on Emma's side. It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened, and whose engagements now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused, and by a verbal message. "Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;" and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge's at the time proposed. Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged-- appetite quite gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself, though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous disorder:-- confined always to one room;--he could have wished it otherwise-- and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were, in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern; grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any hour that Jane would name-- mentioning that she had Mr. Perry's decided opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only in this short note: "Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite


a human germ cell with artificially altered genetic information for fertilization. Section 6 Cloning (1) Anyone who causes artificially a human embryo to develop with the same genetic information as another embryo, fetus, human being or deceased person will be punished with imprisonment up to five years or a fine. (2) Likewise anyone will be punished who transfers into a woman an embryo designated in paragraph 1. Section 7 Formation of chimaeras and hybrids (1) Anyone who attempts to unite embryos with different genetic material to a cell conglomerate using at least one human embryo, (2) to join a human embryo with a cell that contains genetic information different from the embryo cells and induces them further to develop, or (3) by fertilization of a human egg cell with the sperm of an animal or by fertilization of an animal’s egg cell with the sperm of a man to generate an embryo capable of development, will be punished with imprisonment up to five years or a fine. (4) Likewise anyone will be punished who attempts 1. to transfer an embryo arising out of a procedure defined in paragraph 1 to a woman or an animal, 2. to transfer a human embryo into an animal. After he finished reading it, she declared: ‘Every action prohibited by these laws we will now attempt. Do you understand the implications of what I’m telling you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘We are about to tamper with humanity’s genetic code, so that we have a chance of surviving in the cold. The project already has a name – it is called the “Cold People Project”.’ * * * To Song Fu, the human genome was complex data, neither sacred nor mystical, but an instruction manual to building human life, and it was curious to her that Western-educated scientists, coming from a culture which lauded freedom and liberty, felt the need to be so slavish when it came to these instructions. The genetic code consisted of twenty-three separate pairs of chromosomes, each chromosome containing several thousand genes, which in turn divided into exons, composed of codons, with the smallest unit of information being bases, a programming code that instructed human cells the way to grow, not merely shaping physical form but character and identity. With the development of supercomputers, the cost of sequencing a human genome had dropped from the two billion dollars spent on the Human Genome Project in 1990 to a mere five hundred dollars in the months before the alien occupation. The time it took to sequence the human genome had also dropped from thirteen years to a single day. With these advances came the understanding that scientists had not only discovered the code to human life – this was the language of all life on Earth – it was a universal language, the same for microscopic bacteria at the bottom of the deepest oceans as it was for dinosaurs, creatures that had been extinct for thousands of years. ‘After we learnt how to read this code, we learnt how to rewrite it.’ The discovery of bacteria capable of


was said, and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there --my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure--I was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were "old familiar faces," but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent. I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased. The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chance--or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's door--led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared. "Have you," he said, "really spent your time in studying such nonsense?" I replied in the affirmative. "Every minute," continued M. Krempe with warmth, "every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My


up that way--and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of season; and, of course, he makes many enemies, not only among the absolutely vicious, but among the easy-going, who hate being bothered. He says he glories in what happened, and that good may be done indirectly; but I wish he would not wear himself out now he is getting old, and would leave such pigs to their wallowing." Tess's look had grown hard and worn, and her ripe mouth tragical; but she no longer showed any tremulousness. Clare's revived thoughts of his father prevented his noticing her particularly; and so they went on down the white row of liquid rectangles till they had finished and drained them off, when the other maids returned, and took their pails, and Deb came to scald out the leads for the new milk. As Tess withdrew to go afield to the cows he said to her softly-- "And my question, Tessy?" "O no--no!" replied she with grave hopelessness, as one who had heard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to Alec d'Urberville. "It CAN'T be!" She went out towards the mead, joining the other milkmaids with a bound, as if trying to make the open air drive away her sad constraint. All the girls drew onward to the spot where the cows were grazing in the farther mead, the bevy advancing with the bold grace of wild animals--the reckless unchastened motion of women accustomed to unlimited space--in which they abandoned themselves to the air as a swimmer to the wave. It seemed natural enough to him now that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate from unconstrained Nature, and not from the abodes of Art. XXVIII Her refusal, though unexpected, did not permanently daunt Clare. His experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of coyness. That she had already permitted him to make love to her he read as an additional assurance, not fully trowing that in the fields and pastures to "sigh gratis" is by no means deemed waste; love-making being here more often accepted inconsiderately and for its own sweet sake than in the carking anxious homes of the ambitious, where a girl's craving for an establishment paralyzes her healthy thought of a passion as an end. "Tess, why did you say 'no' in such a positive way?" he asked her in the course of a few days. She started. "Don't ask me. I told you why--partly.


anything to pay off a grudge. You know how those people are." "What on earth could Ewell do to me, sister?" "Something furtive," Aunt Alexandra said. "You may count on that." "Nobody has much chance to be furtive in Maycomb," Atticus answered. After that, we were not afraid. Summer was melting away, and we made the most of it. Atticus assured us that nothing would happen to Tom Robinson until the higher court reviewed his case, and that Tom had a good chance of going free, or at least of having a new trial. He was at Enfield Prison Farm, seventy miles away in Chester County. I asked Atticus if Tom's wife and children were allowed to visit him, but Atticus said no. "If he loses his appeal," I asked one evening, "what'll happen to him?" "He'll go to the chair," said Atticus, "unless the Governor commutes his sentence. Not time to worry yet, Scout. We've got a good chance." Jem was sprawled on the sofa reading Popular Mechanics. He looked up. "It ain't right. He didn't kill anybody even if he was guilty. He didn't take anybody's life." "You know rape's a capital offense in Alabama," said Atticus. "Yessir, but the jury didn't have to give him death- if they wanted to they could've gave him twenty years." "Given," said Atticus. "Tom Robinson's a colored man, Jem. No jury in this part of the world's going to say, 'We think you're guilty, but not very,' on a charge like that. It was either a straight acquittal or nothing." Jem was shaking his head. "I know it's not right, but I can't figure out what's wrong- maybe rape shouldn't be a capital offense...." Atticus dropped his newspaper beside his chair. He said he didn't have any quarrel with the rape statute, none what ever, but he did have deep misgivings when the state asked for and the jury gave a death penalty on purely circumstantial evidence. He glanced at me, saw I was listening, and made it easier. "-I mean, before a man is sentenced to death for murder, say, there should be one or two eye-witnesses. Some one should be able to say, 'Yes, I was there and saw him pull the trigger.'" "But lots of folks have been hung- hanged- on circumstantial evidence," said Jem. "I know, and lots of 'em probably deserved it, too- but in the absence of eye-witnesses there's always a doubt, some times only the shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt,' but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of a doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent." "Then it all goes back to the jury, then. We oughta do away with juries." Jem was adamant. Atticus tried hard not to smile but couldn't help it. "You're rather hard on us, son. I think maybe there might be a better way. Change the law. Change it so that only judges have the power of fixing the penalty in capital cases." "Then go up to Montgomery and change


agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy of the stars. In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge? Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored (the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude, insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression, expressive of mute immutable mature animality. The visible signs of antesatisfaction? An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a tentative revelation: a silent contemplation. Then? He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. The visible signs of postsatisfaction? A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection. What followed this silent action? Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, catechetical interrogation. With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation? Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs Bandmann Palmer of LEAH at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel, 35, 36 and 37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency entituled SWEETS OF SIN, anonymous author a gentleman of fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and gymnastic flexibility. Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications? Absolutely. Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration? Stephen Dedalus, professor and author. What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration? By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8 September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated on the lo September of the same year and


and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. I called in fright, "Lucy! Lucy!" and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing, not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight around her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free to help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety pin. But I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet, and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond, but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realize all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me. When I told her to come at once with me home, she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we


to shut down Manuscript after what happened to Mercy, or gone after Scroll and Key after what happened to Tara. But they didn’t. It was too important to keep the alumni appeased, to keep the magic alive no matter who got caught in its workings. “Oh God,” said Dawes. “That was why they erased the journey. To hide the deal they’d made.” “The Gauntlet wasn’t a game,” said Darlington. “It wasn’t an experiment. It was an offering.” “A very fine one,” said Anselm. “They walked away with wealth and power, stores of ancient knowledge and good fortune, and they left the Gauntlet in place, marked with their blood, a beacon.” “The Tower,” Dawes whispered. “A beacon for what?” asked Turner, his face grim. “For a Wheelwalker,” Darlington said quietly. “I didn’t really understand what you were, Galaxy Stern. Not until you passed through the circle of protection at Black Elm. Not until you stole what was rightfully ours. We had no idea the wait would be so long for one of your kind.” Now Alex laughed, a joyless sound. “Daisy got in your way.” Daisy Whitlock was a Wheelwalker, and she’d stayed alive, disguised as Professor Marguerite Belbalm, by eating the souls of young women. Her preferred prey was her own kind: Wheelwalkers like herself, inexplicably drawn to New Haven. Drawn to the Gauntlet. “It didn’t matter that you’d built your beacon,” Alex said. “Because every time a Wheelwalker showed up, Daisy ate her.” “But not you, Galaxy Stern. You survived and you came to us, as you were always meant to. It is your presence in hell that will keep the door open, and you will remain here. One killer is owed to us. Hell’s price must be paid.” “No,” said Darlington. “It’s my sentence to serve.” “It has to be Darlington,” said Turner. “I didn’t come here to make a deal with the devil, but if Alex stays, he said the door to hell remains open. That means demons coming and going, feeding on the living instead of the dead. We aren’t letting that happen.” Anselm was still smiling. “Stay,” he said to Alex. “Stay and your demon consort returns to the mortal realm untainted. Stay and your friends go free. Your mother will be protected by the very armies of hell.” He turned to the others. “Do you understand what I can do? What a demon’s favor means? All you want will be yours. All you’ve lost will be restored.” Alex swallowed a wave of nausea as her vision shifted. She was sitting at the head of the table at a dinner party, candlelight gleaming off the dishes, the music of a cello playing softly beneath murmured conversation. The man at the end of the table lifted his glass. His eyes shone. “To the professor.” It took her a second to understand it was Darlington seated there. “To tenure,” said the woman to her right, and everyone laughed. Alex. Older now, maybe wiser. She was smiling. Pam turned and saw her face in the mirror. She was herself but


against the side of my face. The bones of my splintered wrist imploded beneath the unbearable strain of my cuffs. I was eaten alive from the inside out as my magic beat against me, seeking an outlet that did not exist. Tears ran down my temples, pooling between the Arin’s fingers. What was he doing to my magic? A ring of blue survived in eyes gone pitch-black. His lips parted, features awash in wonder. “How are you hiding this?” he said, voice low and accusatory. “I can feel—how can you—” The door opened, almost hesitantly, and I glimpsed Jeru blanching before Arin snarled an order, and another surge of agony scattered my thoughts. He was flaying me alive with nothing more than a searing touch. What brand of cruelty was this? What manner of murder? A soft touch against my forehead forced my eyes open again. Niphran smiled down at me. “Can I come home?” I wept. “Please?” Her skin was fragments of the sun, her shifting eyes stolen from the surface of the sea. “Fight.” I twisted weakly. Arin’s hand dug deeper, curling into my hair. His eyes were blank, swallowed whole by darkness. “I cannot!” Did the Nizahl Heir have magic? How else could he be doing this? “He is reacting to your magic, and it is stealing him from his right mind,” Niphran said. The sun inside her shone brighter, blinding me. “He will kill you if you do not resist.” I sank into the raging froth of my magic. It battered against me, growing more enraged with each ineffectual attempt at gaining freedom. His touch drew at my magic without an avenue of release, leaving it shrieking just beneath my skin. “Do not resist who you are,” Niphran murmured. The sun engulfed her, a white inferno bursting forth and flooding the room in an unbearable brilliance. “Essiya.” They have taken enough. Nizahl will not destroy what is left of my family. The ground shook beneath me. The cabinet rained debris as the maps on the wall fluttered wildly. I screamed with a thousand voices as something crumbled inside me. A whisper of relief eased the pressure on my cuffs, and Arin flew into the wall on the opposite side of the room. He caught himself before hitting the ground. The earth rocked, tilting the cabinet forward. It was not Niyar’s or Palia’s face I conjured as the cabinet groaned, but Rory’s scowl. Sefa’s musical laughter. Marek rubbing soot from his roasted peanuts and offering a handful to Fairel. Alarm flashed across Arin’s expression, now devoid of its delirium. The cabinet yawned forward. I had enough time to close my eyes before something collided with the side of my body, hurling me into nothingness. I swam circles in the velvet darkness of the lake. The creatures dancing down here were much more intriguing than anything waiting for me on the surface. Wake up, said a disgruntled fish with six lavender tails. It used Rory’s voice. I frowned and swam toward a large bolti with Dawoud’s stern nose. You cannot


now and summer. “Shit, nothing works in this city.” “That is not my fault, Mr. Sounder.” “Sorry. I know that. Thank you, Officer Kristoffsen.” Felton comes back on the line. “Did you just apologise to my rookie?” “Yeah.” “Don’t do that, Sounder. I don’t want you setting the bar so high the rest of us can’t reach it.” * * * — I call Mini Denton because I feel guilty. She doesn’t answer. I leave a message telling her if she wants my help she can have it, and here’s my daily rate. I call Athena because I want to. She doesn’t answer either. I sit until my feet stop hurting and the itch gets warm under my rib cage. Then I get my coat and go down to Gull Town, the worn-out, lower-rent business district inland and a little west of the point. It’s the place some start-ups are born, but mostly it’s where companies go to die. In a brownstone that really is brown, organic and mossy from the alpine dust, a guy called Orhan runs a business doing credit and background checks for schools that don’t want to hire someone with the wrong sort of convictions. On off days, he runs searches for people like me. Orhan’s a grinder, not an artist, but I can’t lean on Floyd Ostby all the time; he’d push back. I give Orhan two names: Mac Denton, and Roy Mullen. “What do you want, Cal? What are you looking for?” “Denton, you’re gonna find all kinds of shit on him. Bullying, light assault and some harassment. Make a list but don’t foreground it. I want to know if he’s been lucky recently. Maybe a distant relative died and he inherits twenty thousand. Like that.” “This relative attach any kind of conditions to so generous a bequest?” “Maybe to beat me down in public.” “Always nice people we deal with, Cal.” “I hear ya. The other one, Roy Mullen, he was a cop. Tread light, but I’m pretty sure he took money to drive over my witness and shoot her in the chest. She died. He got me pretty good, too.” Orhan raises bushy eyebrows. “How’d that work out for him?” “Not well. Figure you’ve got a few hours before they shut his accounts.” “You seem like you’re having a time, Cal. I’ll do you a solid and check your man Denton for outgoings in the same amount, in case he maybe sends someone to let you know he is unhappy.” “Thanks, Orhan.” He shrugs. “Got to protect my revenue streams. It’s not a favourable economy.” * * * — From Orhan’s I head north again, then take a waterbus along the shore and duck inland to Victor’s. She’s not there, which is fine, because I want to talk to Sam. “How’s your chef?” “I am not discussing that with you.” “Come on, Sam, it’s just small talk before I ask you what you really don’t want to talk about with me.” “She’s fine, Cal. She has doubts about me as a long-term partner.” “I


just enough beer to make the first move. I lean in and kiss him. It is slow and soft at first but quickly gathers force. My hands rove over his strong chest, his muscular arms, the stubble on his jaw. As it was with our first kiss, my desire for him is powerful. It’s sexual but also physical. It’s a need to touch him, to be close to him, to be connected. I’ve been drowning in loneliness and Jesse is oxygen. And then he pulls away. “Lee. Stop.” For a moment, I am left panting and confused, and then the humiliation descends. He doesn’t want me. I should have known. He is out of my league now. Because I am worthless. The lowest of the low. “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I’ll go.” He grabs my hand as I try to get up and pulls me back to the couch. “Don’t,” he says. “I just want to make sure that you’re okay with this. Things are moving so fast between us.” I stifle a snort. I could tell Jesse that I am a sex-positive woman, comfortable with my body, my desires, my sexual agency. I could tell him that this is, technically, our third date, so far from moving “so fast” in my opinion——in most opinions. I could tell him about my years as a restauranteur when casual hookups were all I had the time and energy for, when sexual gratification came quick and dirty with bartenders and waiters and occasionally customers. But I don’t. “I’m okay with this,” I say, pushing him back on the sofa and straddling his lap. “I’ve never been more okay with anything in my life.” 17 OF COURSE, I’D HEARD ABOUT the physical and emotional benefits of human touch. I knew that it released oxytocin, the hormone that creates feelings of trust, warmth, and well-being. I’d read that physical connection lowers stress, heightens compassion, increases immunity. Still, I am surprised at how the night with Jesse transforms me. I know it sounds syrupy, cliché, but it’s true. The way he kissed me, touched me, held me… It made me feel seen again. Valued. It has given me back my confidence. I am more than my circumstances. I am more than my mistakes. I am freshly showered, the scent of Jesse’s vanilla shampoo lingering in my hair. My clothes are clean, washed in Jesse’s basement laundry room. At work, the tale of his mother’s abusive relationship runs through my mind as I refill coffees and pour beers, shuttle plates of food to and from the kitchen. Like Jesse’s mom, Hazel is afraid, ashamed, hiding the truth. I am likely her sole confidante. So, she put on a show of perfection for those glossy women, pretended I was a virtual stranger, a charity case. It still smarts but I am willing to give Hazel a chance to apologize. After the way I treated Teresa, I would be a hypocrite if I wasn’t. After my shift, I drive back to the beach and park my car in


shrugged as if the matter was settled. “Well, coulda, woulda, shoulda, I guess. I can’t rewind. I can’t go back. And I’m getting married, for heaven’s sake.” I lifted my soda. “Well then, cheers to that.” I looked out to where the moon shone silver and bold on the water, the stars electric. As if reading my mind, Mary Stuart said, “I’d forgotten there were even stars like this.” She was always the one stepping in and changing an awkward subject. “So had I,” Lanier agreed. “I’ve spent so many years here I forgot places existed where the stars didn’t shine like this,” I said. “I still remember my first night here at camp,” Mary Stuart said as I stoked the flames with a poker. “With all of you,” she added, taking a sip of her wine. “Just three scared little six-year-old girls,” Lanier said. “Well, not Daphne,” Mary Stuart revised. “In fairness, June was the best mother I ever had,” Daphne said. “So being with her for those months was the closest thing I ever had to being raised—well that, and living with Paula and John, of course.” Hearing her say that touched something so deep inside me that I felt like I might disappear into the atmosphere like this wood we were burning. Because I had failed Daphne in the ultimate way. In her time of greatest need, after her mother died, I couldn’t muster the energy to fight for custody and care for her full-time. I had felt guilty about it every day since. “You were so strong, Daphne,” Mary Stuart continued, not noticing my discomfort. “And I was such a mess. I still can’t believe you let me, a total stranger, crawl in bed with you that first night.” “I took you outside!” Daphne said, piecing that night together. Mary Stuart nodded. “You pointed up at the sky and you said, ‘If you miss your mom and dad while you’re at camp, you can remember that they’re looking at the same moon you are.’ ” I laughed. “I never knew that. That’s what I told you, Daph. Remember?” She smiled into her hot cocoa. “Remember? Of course I remember.” She fiddled with a string on her jacket. “At home, at least to my mom’s husband at the time, I was a burden, an unwanted child. At camp, I had friends, I had grown-ups to look up to, and counselors who adored me. I learned how to sail and fish. I learned how far I could hit a golf ball and how fast I could run. I was free during those summers. I was alive. I had a place in the world.” “Girls, I can’t tell you how vividly I remember those summers, watching the three of you grow up.” I smiled at Daphne. “You were so tough and brave. You came into your own here.” The same thing happened to me when I took over Holly Springs, the only place I ever belonged. And for decades, I had provided that place for the thousands of little girls who


breathed in his scent and listened to his small sounds and tasted his mouth, and she thought she might become undone. She felt wild and calm at the same time, her heart raging, her stomach in tatters. And then he shifted, back and—impossibly—away. Her lips, desperate for more, grazed the stubble on his jaw. “Io, stop,” he said. He cupped her shoulders and gently pushed her back. “It’s not right, like this. It’s not real.” She didn’t immediately understand. She studied his face, the flushed lips, the hard brow, the wide eyes. He looked alert, intent. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, her words devoid of emotion. “I misunderstood.” She pushed away from the rail. Edei followed her, trying to get a look at her face. “Wait, Io. Let me explain.” Her mind was spinning with embarrassment and longing, but she gathered herself up. “It’s okay. I get it. Let’s forget this happened, all right?” “No, let’s talk about this.” Talk about what? He didn’t want her. Her fate-thread, her destiny, her one day, didn’t want her. Gods. Her embarrassment turned sour, a black bile of shame rising from the back of her throat. Her own fate-thread didn’t want her. For years, she had evaded him and now she knew him and loved him and kissed him—and he didn’t want her. She should have been content with their partnership, their friendship, because clearly that was all the thread was, but she had grown greedy. And now things would be awkward again and she would lose the one person aside from Ava and Rosa who actually cared for her and it was all her fault and this guilt would drown her, drown her one day— Io stopped. She slipped her fingers beneath her spectacles and pressed on her eyelids. Where the hell had these thoughts come from? She had nothing to feel guilty for. The fate-thread wasn’t her doing. Avoiding him was the wisest thing she could have done to protect herself. And falling for him: there should have been no guilt about that, only joy. A great sense of familiarity enveloped her. She was doing it again. She was ripping herself at the seams and stuffing her body with shame. But it was never hers, was it? I earned my home-thread. I prove my love of this city every day. What have you done to deserve this? We Ora sisters don’t kiss other people’s boyfriends. The right thing to do is cut the thread. Set him free. It was Thais’s shame, the Ora legacy, and Io had to denounce it. She let her hands fall to her sides. Edei had come around to stand before her in the corridor, rubbing his thumb. “Why?” she asked him. “It seemed—I thought you felt the same way.” His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “How do you know it’s real, Io? That it’s not a by-product of the fate-thread?” Io felt her breath lodge like shrapnel halfway in her chest. “You know about the fate-thread?” But of course he did. It all made sense now: The way


down all the ruggedness and prejudices of his heart. St. Aubert unhappy, seemed to be the sole idea that occupied his mind. It was in manners, more than in words, that he appeared to sympathize with his friends: he spoke little on the subject of their grief; but the minute attention he gave them, and the modulated voice, and softened look that accompanied it, came from his heart, and spoke to theirs. At this melancholy period St. Aubert was likewise visited by Madame Cheron, his only surviving sister, who had been some years a widow, and now resided on her own estate near Tholouse. The intercourse between them had not been very frequent. In her condolements, words were not wanting; she understood not the magic of the look that speaks at once to the soul, or the voice that sinks like balm to the heart: but she assured St. Aubert that she sincerely sympathized with him, praised the virtues of his late wife, and then offered what she considered to be consolation. Emily wept unceasingly while she spoke; St. Aubert was tranquil, listened to what she said in silence, and then turned the discourse upon another subject. At parting she pressed him and her niece to make her an early visit. 'Change of place will amuse you,' said she, 'and it is wrong to give way to grief.' St. Aubert acknowledged the truth of these words of course; but, at the same time, felt more reluctant than ever to quit the spot which his past happiness had consecrated. The presence of his wife had sanctified every surrounding scene, and, each day, as it gradually softened the acuteness of his suffering, assisted the tender enchantment that bound him to home. But there were calls which must be complied with, and of this kind was the visit he paid to his brother-in-law M. Quesnel. An affair of an interesting nature made it necessary that he should delay this visit no longer, and, wishing to rouse Emily from her dejection, he took her with him to Epourville. As the carriage entered upon the forest that adjoined his paternal domain, his eyes once more caught, between the chesnut avenue, the turreted corners of the chateau. He sighed to think of what had passed since he was last there, and that it was now the property of a man who neither revered nor valued it. At length he entered the avenue, whose lofty trees had so often delighted him when a boy, and whose melancholy shade was now so congenial with the tone of his spirits. Every feature of the edifice, distinguished by an air of heavy grandeur, appeared successively between the branches of the trees--the broad turret, the arched gate-way that led into the courts, the drawbridge, and the dry fosse which surrounded the whole. The sound of carriage wheels brought a troop of servants to the great gate, where St. Aubert alighted, and from which he led Emily into the gothic hall, now no longer hung with the arms and ancient banners of the family.


profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self- congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. Thesaurus accomplishing: (n) doing; (adj) interference; (adj) moil. ANTONYM: genuine, sheer, absolute, perfect, effectual. (v) disregard. unsophisticated, true, authentic, real, erring: (adj) devious, sinful, fallible, sacredness: (n) sanctity, inviolability, neat. ANTONYMS: (adj) diluted, wrong, amiss, at fault, guilty, godliness, saintliness, innocence, hidden, imitation, provisional. perverse, reprehensible; (n) piety, devotion, blessedness, virtuous: (adj) upright, pure, transgression. sanctitude, righteousness, goodness. righteous, good, moral, just, grizzled: (adj) grey, gray, old, brunet, sagacity: (n, v) discernment, judgment, honorable, honest, respectable, grisled, grayish, brunette. penetration; (n) judiciousness, sense, decent, pious. ANTONYMS: (adj) ill-fitted: (adj) ill-suited, inapt. prudence, gumption, acumen, bad, sinful, corrupt, impure, meddle: (v) intervene, interfere, perspicacity; (adj, n) discretion, unethical, decadent, degenerate, intrude, monkey, interpose, fiddle, wisdom. ANTONYM: (n) foolishness. irreverent. pry, dabble, interlope; (n) unadulterated: (adj) clean, simple, wrinkles: (n) crow's feet. 60 The Scarlet Letter "Hester Prynne," said the clergyman, "I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the Word you have been privileged to sit"--here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him--"I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me--with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years--that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul?"% There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed: "Good


of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, respectively called the first and second irons. But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties. Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged .. <p 289 > terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse. Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted. .. <p 289 > .. < chapter lxiv 16 STUBB'S SUPPER > Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

deep unbuttoned collar, Ennis without his scarlet belt with the snaky clasp, and Connolly without his Norfolk coat with the flapless side-pockets! It was a pain to see them, and a sword-like pain to see the signs of adolescence that made repellent their pitiable nakedness. Perhaps they had taken refuge in number and noise from the secret dread in their souls. But he, apart from them and in silence, remembered in what dread he stood of the mystery of his own body. --Stephanos Dedalos! Bous Stephanoumenos! Bous Stephaneforos! Their banter was not new to him and now it flattered his mild proud sovereignty. Now, as never before, his strange name seemed to him a prophecy. So timeless seemed the grey warm air, so fluid and impersonal his own mood, that all ages were as one to him. A moment before the ghost of the ancient kingdom of the Danes had looked forth through the vesture of the hazewrapped City. Now, at the name of the fabulous artificer, he seemed to hear the noise of dim waves and to see a winged form flying above the waves and slowly climbing the air. What did it mean? Was it a quaint device opening a page of some medieval book of prophecies and symbols, a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve and had been following through the mists of childhood and boyhood, a symbol of the artist forging anew in his workshop out of the sluggish matter of the earth a new soaring impalpable imperishable being? His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he was soaring sunward. His heart trembled in an ecstasy of fear and his soul was in flight. His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with the element of the spirit. An ecstasy of flight made radiant his eyes and wild his breath and tremulous and wild and radiant his windswept limbs. --One! Two!... Look out! --Oh, Cripes, I'm drownded! --One! Two! Three and away! --The next! The next! --One!... UK! --Stephaneforos! His throat ached with a desire to cry aloud, the cry of a hawk or eagle on high, to cry piercingly of his deliverance to the winds. This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar. An instant of wild flight had delivered him and the cry of triumph which his lips withheld cleft his brain. --Stephaneforos! What were they now but cerements shaken from the body of death--the fear he had walked in night and day, the incertitude that had ringed him round, the shame that had abased him within and without-- cerements, the linens of the grave? His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

every sound, heard his pattering feet rush suddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a chair was flung over and the wash-hand stand tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried upstairs and rapped eagerly. Chapter 19 Certain First Principles "What's the matter?" asked Kemp, when the Invisible Man admitted him. "Nothing," was the answer. "But, confound it! The smash?" "Fit of temper," said the Invisible Man. "Forgot this arm; and it's sore." "You're rather liable to that sort of thing." "I am." Kemp walked across the room and picked up the fragments of broken glass. "All the facts are out about you," said Kemp, standing up with the glass in his hand; "all that happened in Iping, and down the hill. The world has become aware of its invisible citizen. But no one knows you are here." The Invisible Man swore. "The secret's out. I gather it was a secret. I don't know what your plans are, but of course I'm anxious to help you." The Invisible Man sat down on the bed. "There's breakfast upstairs," said Kemp, speaking as easily as possible, and he was delighted to find his strange guest rose willingly. Kemp led the way up the narrow staircase to the belvedere. "Before we can do anything else," said Kemp, "I must understand a little more about this invisibility of yours." He had sat down, after one nervous glance out of the window, with the air of a man who has talking to do. His doubts of the sanity of the entire business flashed and vanished again as he looked across to where Griffin sat at the breakfast-table,--a headless, handless dressing- gown, wiping unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette. "It's simple enough--and credible enough," said Griffin, putting the serviette aside and leaning the invisible head on an invisible hand. "No doubt, to you, but--" Kemp laughed. "Well, yes; to me it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now, great God!--But we will do great things yet! I came on the stuff first at Chesilstowe." "Chesilstowe?" "I went there after I left London. You know I dropped medicine and took up physics? No?--well, I did. Light--fascinated me." "Ah!" "Optical density! The whole subject is a network of riddles --a network with solutions glimmering elusively through. And being but two-and-twenty and full of enthusiasm, I said, 'I will devote my life to this. This is worth while.' You know what fools we are at two-and-twenty?" "Fools then or fools now," said Kemp. "As though Knowing could be any satisfaction to a man! "But I went to work--like a nigger. And I had hardly worked and thought about the matter six months before light came through one of the meshes suddenly--blindingly! I found a general principle of pigments and refraction,--a formula, a geometrical expression involving four dimensions. Fools, common men, even common mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression may mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books--the books that Tramp has hidden--there are marvels, miracles! But this was not a method, it was an idea that might lead


turned into the duke's lawn to reach the national library before the shower came. --What do you mean, Lynch asked surlily, by prating about beauty and the imagination in this miserable Godforsaken island? No wonder the artist retired within or behind his handiwork after having perpetrated this country. The rain fell faster. When they passed through the passage beside Kildare house they found many students sheltering under the arcade of the library. Cranly, leaning against a pillar, was picking his teeth with a sharpened match, listening to some companions. Some girls stood near the entrance door. Lynch whispered to Stephen: --Your beloved is here. Stephen took his place silently on the step below the group of students, heedless of the rain which fell fast, turning his eyes towards her from time to time. She too stood silently among her companions. She has no priest to flirt with, he thought with conscious bitterness, remembering how he had seen her last. Lynch was right. His mind emptied of theory and courage, lapsed back into a listless peace. He heard the students talking among themselves. They spoke of two friends who had passed the final medical examination, of the chances of getting places on ocean liners, of poor and rich practices. --That's all a bubble. An Irish country practice is better. --Hynes was two years in Liverpool and he says the same. A frightful hole he said it was. Nothing but midwifery cases. --Do you mean to say it is better to have a job here in the country than in a rich city like that? I know a fellow... --Hynes has no brains. He got through by stewing, pure stewing. --Don't mind him. There's plenty of money to be made in a big commercial city. --Depends on the practice. --EGO CREDO UT VITA PAUPERUM EST SIMPLICITER ATROX, SIMPLICITER SANGUINARIUS ATROX, IN LIVERPOOLIO. Their voices reached his ears as if from a distance in interrupted pulsation. She was preparing to go away with her companions. The quick light shower had drawn off, tarrying in clusters of diamonds among the shrubs of the quadrangle where an exhalation was breathed forth by the blackened earth. Their trim boots prattled as they stood on the steps of the colonnade, talking quietly and gaily, glancing at the clouds, holding their umbrellas at cunning angles against the few last raindrops, closing them again, holding their skirts demurely. And if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours, her life simple and strange as a bird's life, gay in the morning, restless all day, tired at sundown? Her heart simple and wilful as a bird's heart? * * * * * Towards dawn he awoke. O what sweet music! His soul was all dewy wet. Over his limbs in sleep pale cool waves of light had passed. He lay still, as if his soul lay amid cool waters, conscious of faint sweet music. His mind was waking slowly to a tremulous morning knowledge, a morning inspiration. A spirit filled him, pure as the purest water,


his breast, 'the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace. Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more. It is never too late to repent. They told me so--I feel it now--but we must have time--a little, little time!' The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief--Rose Maylie's own--and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker. It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down. CHAPTER XLVIII THE FLIGHT OF SIKES Of all bad deeds that, under cover of the darkness, had been committed with wide London's bounds since night hung over it, that was the worst. Of all the horrors that rose with an ill scent upon the morning air, that was the foulest and most cruel. The sun--the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man--burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all that brilliant light! He had not moved; he had been afraid to stir. There had been a moan and motion of the hand; and, with terror added to rage, he had struck and struck again. Once he threw a rug over it; but it was worse to fancy the eyes, and imagine them moving towards him, than to see them glaring upward, as if watching the reflection of the pool of gore that quivered and danced in the sunlight on the ceiling. He had plucked it off again. And there was the body--mere flesh and blood, nor more--but such flesh, and so much blood! He struck a light, kindled a fire, and thrust the club into it. There was hair upon the end, which blazed and shrunk into a light cinder, and, caught by


a problem for you if Elaine gets another dose, isn’t it? You’re not due for decades. She’ll overmatch you.” In her bed, not that he’s ever going there. I’d put money down he’s wrong about her. “Hardly your business, Sounder.” “Man, you were happy with the Marx Brothers thing, when you thought I had the inside track. Maybe I’m just looking out for you.” Doublewide chuckles. I ignore him. “Afforestation chat. All night, was it?” “Yes. All evening, anyway.” “What time did you get home?” “I’m not sure. Late.” “Elaine can verify all this?” “I don’t see why she should.” I don’t see how she could. Lady talks to actual bears. Court would probably not be hugely impressed, whoever she used to be married to. But Maurice doesn’t see the problem. Can’t see it. So: “Because it forms part of a criminal investigation I’m undertaking officially on behalf of the police, Maurice.” Priscilla the driver-cook comes back. I wonder if she’s brought sundaes, but she hasn’t. Doublewide raises his eyebrows at her. “Maurice Tonfamecasca is right this second en route to Syros,” she says. “I spoke to his PA.” “Well, now,” I look back at Maurice. “Well, now. First you better tell me about Peter and Lillian, and then anything else I want to know that Stefan might be keeping from me, and then you and Mr. Nugent will have to work out how to reassure him that you won’t blab. Otherwise it seems to me you’ll never come back from Greece, on account of being eaten by pigs right here. Stefan will look for you for a while, but not for ever.” I shrug, and let the truth of that sink in. “Stefan takes pride in not really giving a shit, doesn’t he? In outliving everything, even his own emotional attachments. Assuming he ever liked you in the first place. Do you think he likes you, Maurice? Because he gave me to understand he did not. Like I think it’s possible he likes you even less than he likes me, and he really does not like me.” Maurice won’t look at me. Yeah, he knows what Stefan thinks, all right. Old bastard probably tells him on a regular basis. “And Elaine will never know why you abandoned her.” * * * — In Maurice’s version of the story, Lillian met Peter Antonin when they were very young. He was smart, she was smarter, but people didn’t always get that, because people are assholes and he was louder and brasher than she was. They teamed up, and shared credit, which basically meant he took some of hers. But they were a team, all the same, until Stefan came along, and then it was over. Lillian was free of Peter’s ego and Peter’s career, and Peter took his money and went off into deserved obscurity. Lillian and Stefan had a gay old time and then it ended. Like Stefan’s version, it’s perfectly in character, perfectly anodyne. Probably, the same PR team made them up. “So what was her name, Maurice?” “Whose name?” “Before


everything,” said Mrs. King. “It isn’t influence.” Mrs. Bone knew that. She understood patronage. A corkscrew chain of favors. Tastes, pleasures, likes, fancies. Powders, perfumes, poppies. And in the night, behind rich drapes, with oil lamps: girls. Dancing girls, chorus girls, waifs and strays. You had to know where to find them, how to train them, how to get rid of them. Mrs. Bone didn’t just avoid that business. She took in plenty of those girls, over the years. All those Janes. She suddenly addressed Mrs. King. “No one ever came for you, did they?” Winnie straightened, her eyes fierce. “Never. I shared a room with her the whole time. I wouldn’t have let them. I looked after you.” There was something heated, something desperate, in the way she said it. Mrs. King said, voice grave. “And you, Winnie? You were all right?” Winnie’s eyes flickered back and forth. “Yes,” she said, quickly. “Yes, I was fine.” “What about our fine lady duchess?” said Mrs. Bone, quietly. “Hephzibah?” said Mrs. King. Her eyes widened at that, shocked. It was rare to ever see that look upon her face. Winnie opened her mouth, shut it again. Shook her head. Mrs. Bone crossed her arms. “That’s clear enough to me.” Mrs. King said soberly, “And me.” They looked at one another. “Something needs to be done about this,” said Mrs. Bone. “Something needs to be done?” Winnie’s voice went up a notch. “You think I haven’t tried? I went to Shepherd. I went to the master.” “What happened?” “I said I’d discovered something perfectly dreadful.” “What did he say?” Mrs. Bone asked, fearing the answer. Winnie laughed, a bitter sound. “He told me not to be so disagreeable. The next day, I was given my papers. I was out of Park Lane barely an hour after that. No character, no wages.” It wasn’t easy to read Mrs. King’s expression through the gloom. But Mrs. Bone had heard enough. Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Well?” she said. “I want answers. I want solutions to this.” “We have our solution,” said Mrs. King. She averted her gaze from Winnie, reached out and tugged an ivy leaf from the wall. Ripped it up, piece by piece. “We get to work.” * * * Later, when the women had gone, Mrs. King examined her own feelings. Her heartbeat had accelerated. She studied it, measuring time. Until now, her plan had felt kaleidoscopic, shiny but fractured, made of a million tiny pieces. But now it had stilled, had become a frozen, glittering thing. It had precise dimensions, like a diamond. It had its own force, a pull. The sensation made her feel weightless, without bonds or limits. Her mouth tasted like metal. Her blood was shouting orders at her, Fix it, fix it, put it right. 22 The day of the ball The twenty-sixth of June. Dawn came, hot and heady. Park Lane dragged itself awake, forming its usual cluttered assemblage of curves and chimneys and striped awnings, and began to shimmer in the heat. Dust was


a likeness where none exists; besides, in eight years she must be very much changed."     I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be; and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.     "I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and I find I can not move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die. What we think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"     I assured her we were alone.     "Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other " she stopped. "After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself; "and then I may get better; and to humble myself so to her is painful."     She made an effort to alter her position, but failed. Her face changed; seemed to experience some inward sensation the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.     "Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me; I had better tell her. Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there."     I obeyed her directions.     "Read the letter," she said.     It was short, and thus conceived:       Madam:     Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly, and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavors to secure a competency; and, as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.     I am, madam, etc., etc.,   John Eyre, Madeira.       It was dated three years back.     "Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.     "Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchild-like look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had


May that I'm taking this step--and also because, if we don't all stand together, there'll be no such thing as Society left." VII. Mrs. Henry van der Luyden listened in silence to her cousin Mrs. Archer's narrative. It was all very well to tell yourself in advance that Mrs. van der Luyden was always silent, and that, though non-committal by nature and training, she was very kind to the people she really liked. Even personal experience of these facts was not always a protection from the chill that descended on one in the high-ceilinged white-walled Madison Avenue drawing-room, with the pale brocaded armchairs so obviously uncovered for the occasion, and the gauze still veiling the ormolu mantel ornaments and the beautiful old carved frame of Gainsborough's "Lady Angelica du Lac." Mrs. van der Luyden's portrait by Huntington (in black velvet and Venetian point) faced that of her lovely ancestress. It was generally considered "as fine as a Cabanel," and, though twenty years had elapsed since its execution, was still "a perfect likeness." Indeed the Mrs. van der Luyden who sat beneath it listening to Mrs. Archer might have been the twin-sister of the fair and still youngish woman drooping against a gilt armchair before a green rep curtain. Mrs. van der Luyden still wore black velvet and Venetian point when she went into society--or rather (since she never dined out) when she threw open her own doors to receive it. Her fair hair, which had faded without turning grey, was still parted in flat overlapping points on her forehead, and the straight nose that divided her pale blue eyes was only a little more pinched about the nostrils than when the portrait had been painted. She always, indeed, struck Newland Archer as having been rather gruesomely preserved in the airless atmosphere of a perfectly irreproachable existence, as bodies caught in glaciers keep for years a rosy life-in-death. Like all his family, he esteemed and admired Mrs. van der Luyden; but he found her gentle bending sweetness less approachable than the grimness of some of his mother's old aunts, fierce spinsters who said "No" on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked. Mrs. van der Luyden's attitude said neither yes nor no, but always appeared to incline to clemency till her thin lips, wavering into the shadow of a smile, made the almost invariable reply: "I shall first have to talk this over with my husband." She and Mr. van der Luyden were so exactly alike that Archer often wondered how, after forty years of the closest conjugality, two such merged identities ever separated themselves enough for anything as controversial as a talking-over. But as neither had ever reached a decision without prefacing it by this mysterious conclave, Mrs. Archer and her son, having set forth their case, waited resignedly for the familiar phrase. Mrs. van der Luyden, however, who had seldom surprised any one, now surprised them by reaching her long hand toward the bell-rope. "I think," she said, "I should like Henry to hear what you have


Bliss-Mini never worked. I tried it. It’s not real. Didn’t you tell me that, babe?” Orson crossed his arms. “I never said anything like that.” I bit my lip and stared wide-eyed at my feet, wanting to spare Orson the humiliation of having to make eye contact with me. This was his idea of a confidante? A partner? Someone who would expose him so unthinkingly, right in the middle of Wholeness? I raised my gaze to find Emily looking from me to Orson, obviously confused. “I’m sorry. I just mean, like, with my ex-husband, there were a lot of leaps of faith. Leaps of faith I really shouldn’t have taken for him. But I believe in taking leaps of faith for you. I understand your vision.” “Ez, will you excuse us?” I nodded and waded away from them, toward an explosion of hydrangea bushes. I could still hear them talking, and I didn’t want to be out of earshot, so I dipped behind one of the bushes, crouching muddy in the mulch. “What’s your problem?” I heard Orson say. “You have to embarrass me in front of Ez?” “Embarrass you?” Emily’s voice was a hiss. “Embarrass you in front of him? What does it matter?” “It matters. It’s principles. He and I worked very, very hard to make the new Bliss-Mini a reality.” “I thought Dexter did that.” “Ez and I hired Dexter to do that. And for you to just, like, imply that it’s fake? It’s outrageous.” “It is, though! You basically said it!” “I never said that.” Orson’s voice was frigid, controlled. “I said it was in development. I said we needed more time.” “The model’s on the market, though. What more time can you take?” “How many times have I Synthesized you?” he asked. “How many times have I tried to get you to see that this is about making peace with the bad and ushering in the good?” “Honestly, when you talk like this? It makes no sense. You’re not really saying anything. You’re just spouting corporate nonsense.” I could hear the agitated squish of their feet in the mud. “It basically sounds like you don’t trust me,” she said. “It sounds like you trust him more than me.” “And what if I do?” My heart almost beat out of my chest. “I’m your literal girlfriend.” “And he’s my best friend. And business partner. I’ve known him longer.” “You sleep with me. You’ve told me all your secrets.” He sighed noisily. “What do you want me to say? This is just how things are.” “Fuck you,” she said, and then there was an Orson-sized thud, a shallow splash. “Fuck you, Orson!” I watched as Emily ran past me crying and then craned my neck to see Orson sitting on the ground, covered in mud, looking both perplexed and furious. I watched him stand and run after her, calling her name in the tone an adult would use to appease an unruly child. I leaned against the side of the farmhouse, laughing and crying until the undersides of flowers


otherwise would have been idle, lonely, or spent in less profitable society. On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a most flattering state of expectancy. There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the excitement of the moment. Presently a bell sounded, the curtains flew apart, and the OPERATIC TRAGEDY began. "A gloomy wood," according to the one playbill, was represented by a few shrubs in pots, green baize on the floor, and a cave in the distance. This cave was made with a clothes horse for a roof, bureaus for walls, and in it was a small furnace in full blast, with a black pot on it and an old witch bending over it. The stage was dark and the glow of the furnace had a fine effect, especially as real steam issued from the kettle when the witch took off the cover. A moment was allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain, stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots. After pacing to and fro in much agitation, he struck his forehead, and burst out in a wild strain, singing of his hatred to Roderigo, his love for Zara, and his pleasing resolution to kill the one and win the other. The gruff tones of Hugo's voice, with an occasional shout when his feelings overcame him, were very impressive, and the audience applauded the moment he paused for breath. bowing with the air of one accustomed to public praise, he stole to the cavern and ordered Hagar to come forth with a commanding, "What ho, minion! I need thee!" Out came Meg, with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the love philter. Hither, hither, from thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, answer now my song! A soft strain of music sounded, and then at the back of the cave appeared a little figure in cloudy white, with glittering wings, golden hair, and a garland of roses on its head. Waving a wand, it sang . . . Hither I come, From my airy home, Afar in the silver moon. Take the magic spell, And use it well, Or its power will vanish soon! And dropping a small, gilded bottle at the witch's feet, the spirit vanished. Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a lovely one,