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[Assistant] These Africans weren't men who had been captured in battle. They were ordinary villagers. Men, women, and even small children.


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[Assistant] They were put into chains, packed onto ships, and taken on the long, rough journey to the West Indies and to the coasts of Central and South America.


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[Assistant] The journey which took months became known as the Middle Passage.


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[Assistant] Slaves on the middle passage weren't allowed up on the decks of the ships, so they went for months without any fresh air or sunshine. They weren't given enough to eat or drink. Many died on the long wretched journey.


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[Assistant] And when they did arrive in the new world, they were forced to work without any hope of ever escaping this new and horrible life.


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[Assistant] The slave trade helped the Europeans to build new, wealthy colonies in the New World.


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[Assistant] But it also killed hundreds of thousands of West Africans.


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[Assistant] And it even turned the West African people against each other.


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[Assistant] Some West African tribes realized that they could make a lot of money by selling other Africans as slaves.


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[Assistant] So they began to kidnap members of other West African tribes to sell to the white slave traders.


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[Assistant] The slave trade continued for over 200 years.


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[Assistant] You see, at this time in history, many people in Europe believed that people with dark skin weren't as human as people with light skins.


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[Assistant] They thought of dark-skinned people the way you or I think of a horse or a dog.


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[Assistant] So Europeans often treated the brown-skinned people of South America and the black-skinned people of West Africa as if they were not really human at all.


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[Assistant] Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.


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[Assistant] She's not been a gentle woman. She should have been buried out of Christian burial.


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[Assistant] The last time we visited the Ottoman Empire, in the year 1878, the Sultan Abdul Hamid II sat on the throne.


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[Assistant] The Empire had just lost over half its territory. The officials who were supposed to run the Empire were more interested in living comfortable, luxurious lives than in doing their jobs.


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[Assistant] Once the most powerful empire in the East, the Ottoman Empire was now known as the Sick Man of Europe.


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[Assistant] Although it was sick, the Ottoman Empire still covered all of Asia Minor, stretched over the ancient land of Mesopotamia and down along the Persian Gulf, and controlled the entire eastern coast of the Red Sea.


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[Assistant] It was still an empire, and Abdul Hamid II wanted to make it a great empire once more. But Abdul Hamid had a problem.


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[Assistant] With half of his mind, he agreed with the new modern ideas about the people of a country having the right to rule themselves.


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[Assistant] But with the other half of his mind, he liked the idea of the Sultan as the unquestioned ruler of the Ottoman Empire, a powerful man who could decree what the Empire would do without opposition.


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[Assistant] When we heard about Abdul Hamid before, we heard about his willingness to allow the Turks to have a constitution and an assembly like a western parliament.


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[Assistant] But the Turkish constitution did not last very long. There were two problems with the constitution.


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[Assistant] First, Abdul Hamid insisted that the Constitution include a paragraph called Article 113. This said that the Sultan could deport


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[Assistant] Send out of the empire anyone you thought harmful to this state.


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[Assistant] This meant that Abdul Hamid could send anyone who disagreed with him to another country and forbid him from coming back.


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[Assistant] For centuries the Ottoman Sultan had been honored and obeyed as the ultimate power on earth. Even though many Ottoman Turks wanted a more western government, when the Sultan made a decree, it was very hard for them to ignore it. The Ottoman Constitution.


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[Assistant] Then Abdul Hamid ordered it dissolved. Now he would rule like an old-fashioned sultan, with no constitutional parliament to limit his power.


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[Assistant] At first, Abdul Hamid used his old-fashioned power to make many western-style improvements to the empire. He ordered railroads laid down, and had lines strung so that the Ottomans could use the new western invention, the telegraph. He improved the great university of Istanbul. He changed some of the laws of the empire to make them more modern.


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[Assistant] But Abdul Hamid also ruled with an iron fist. He organized a huge spy network that listened for any talk of rebellion or revolt.


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[Assistant] Anyone who criticized the Sultan could expect a visit from the dreaded secret police.


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[Assistant] He ordered his soldiers to march in and attack rebels against the sultan in several different places within the empire, particularly to the east.


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[Assistant] One of these rebellions broke out in the country of Armenia.


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[Assistant] Armenia lay up north of Asia Minor between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, just south of the Russian border. Several hundred years before, the country of Armenia had been captured and divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire. Then the Russians took away the Persian section of the country.


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[Assistant] That meant that people who called themselves Armenians lived partly under Russian rule and partly under the rule of the Ottoman Sultan.


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[Assistant] They were Christians, not Muslims. The laws of the Ottoman Empire meant that they had to pay more taxes than Muslims. They didn't have the same rights as Muslims. And the Ottoman officials in charge of Armenia often treated Armenians badly, driving them from their homes and seizing their land. The Armenians hated this treatment.


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[Assistant] Russia wanted Abdul Hamid to respond to the rebellion by giving the Armenians better protection and more rights. But Abdul Hamid didn't like Russia telling him what to do.


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[Assistant] He believed that Russia was scheming with Great Britain and other European countries to encourage rebellions against him.


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[Assistant] The countries of Europe, he fumed, had already managed to cut off the feet and hands of the Ottoman Empire. Now, if they encouraged the rebellion in Armenia, they would cut out the countries insides. He wasn't about to let this happen.


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[Assistant] So Abdul Hamid sent his soldiers into Armenia and ordered them to fight against the rebels.


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[Assistant] He also ordered them to put an end to the revolt by killing Armenians not just in Armenia, but wherever they were all through the empire. In his mind, Armenians were traitors. They were more likely to be loyal to Russia than to the Turks.


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[Assistant] Many Armenians were killed by Abdul Hamid's soldiers. Others were forced to march out of the Turkish territory and died of starvation and weariness on the long walk.


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[Assistant] No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed, but at least a hundred thousand men, women, and children died.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid had not learned from the fate of Abdul Aziz. Once again, he made the countries of Europe certain that the Turks were savages, unwilling to enter into the modern age. A few years before, the British ambassador had praised Abdul Hamid for his kindliness of disposition and enlightened views. No one in Great Britain would agree with that now.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid had agreed with some western views, but the Armenian massacre made it very clear that he still held on to the ideas of the past.


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[Assistant] He was determined to keep hold of his territory and to rule it with absolute authority.


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[Assistant] Although he wanted to keep the sick man of Europe from getting any sicker, his harsh methods not only made the empire sicker, but came close to killing it.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid's iron fist and his reliance on fear and spying to keep his power had already made him unpopular with Turks who wanted their country to be more modern, particularly with university students who were learning about the ideas of the West. And when Abdul Hamid ordered the Armenian massacre,


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[Assistant] He became even more unpopular with these forward thinkers. Many Turks called Abdul Hamid, Abdul Hamid the Red because he had shed so much blood.


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[Assistant] In 1889, medical students began to form a plot to get rid of Abdul Hamid.


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[Assistant] They wanted to change the laws of the Ottoman Empire so that, instead of being a country under the power of an Islamic Sultan who ruled by Muslim law, the Empire of the Ottoman Turks would instead become a country called Turkey.


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[Assistant] This country would be ruled by secular laws, laws not based in religious belief.


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[Assistant] The people of Turkey would be loyal to their country, not a sultan. Their slogan was liberty, justice, equality, fraternity.


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[Assistant] Ideas they had learned from the French and American revolutions.


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[Assistant] They recruited other students at Istanbul University and other colleges to join them.


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[Assistant] They call themselves the Committee of Union and Progress.


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[Assistant] But others called them the Young Turks.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid wasn't going to put up with the revolt of the young Turks any more than he had put up with the rebellion in Armenia.


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[Assistant] Soon his secret police were planning to arrest the leaders of the movement. The leaders of the young Turks had to flee from their country.


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[Assistant] But they went to Geneva and Paris, cities where other Ottoman Turks who had been exiled from their country by Article 113 lived.


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[Assistant] They organized the Turks who no longer lived in the Ottoman Empire into a movement that wanted to change the empire and get rid of Abdul Hamid, the Red Sultan.


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[Assistant] We learned that the years after the fall of Rome are called the Middle Ages.


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[Assistant] And that in England these years are also known as Dark Ages. Do you remember why we call this time the Dark Ages?


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[Assistant] They told the Anglo-Saxons about Christianity, but they also taught them how to read and write.


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[Assistant] They wanted these new Christians to be able to read the Bible.


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[Assistant] After all, they spent a large part of every day reading the Bible and books written by religious men.


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[Assistant] But back in the dark ages, books weren't as easy to make as they are today.


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[Assistant] Bookmaking was a long, complicated process, and only the monks were skilled enough to make beautiful books.


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[Assistant] In the dark ages, you couldn't just go to a store and buy paper. So the monks began by making a special paper called parchment out of animal skin.


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[Assistant] They put cow or sheep skins in running water, such as a stream or river for several days.


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[Assistant] Then they soaked it again in a barrel filled with water and lime, a chemical that loosened the hair on the skin for several days more.


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[Assistant] Finally, they would stretch out the skin, scrape the hair off with a knife, and then attach it to a frame so that it could dry. But that wasn't all.


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[Assistant] Once the skin was dried, the monks would take it off the frame, wet it again and rub it with a rough stone.


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[Assistant] One medieval book tells us that the best way to wet the skin was to take a mouthful of beer and then spit the beer all over the skin.


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[Assistant] When the skin had been dried all over again, it was time to make the ink by mixing soot with water in the sap of trees. The monk had to prepare quill pens by pulling feathers out of a goose or swan's wing, soaking the feathers in water and scraping the tips.


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[Assistant] The monks worked all day in special rooms called scriptoriums. They made copies of the Bible and other important books by copying them out one letter at a time.


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[Assistant] Each letter was carefully written in the monk's best handwriting.


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[Assistant] The books copied by the monks weren't just black letters on white pages.


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[Assistant] The monks decorated the pages of their books with beautiful colors.


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[Assistant] They made paints by mixing their colors with egg whites. Often real gold and silver, beaten into sheets so thin they could float on the air, were attached to the page as part of the picture. Sometimes a picture took up an entire page.


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[Assistant] Sometimes it was painted just in the margin or at the top of a page.


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[Assistant] And sometimes just the first letter on a page was painted and leafed with gold.


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[Assistant] Writing out long books by hand was hard, slow work.


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[Assistant] An expert monk might copy out two or three books in a year, working eight hours every day. So there weren't very many books in the Middle Ages


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[Assistant] And books were valuable. After all, they took months of labor.


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[Assistant] Often books were chained onto library shelves so that people could only read them standing up. And you certainly couldn't check them out. Monks weren't supposed to talk in the scriptorium.


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[Assistant] They were supposed to pay close attention to what they were doing. But monks got bored.


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[Assistant] We can still read some of the books written by hand in the Middle Ages, and we can see that sometimes monks wrote messages to each other and even drew silly pictures in the margins of their books. I'm cold, one monk wrote. I wish we had a bigger fire, but Brother John won't let us. Another monk wrote, I wish I were finished. I have to go to the bathroom.


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[Assistant] And a third monk drew a little mouse on the edge of his book and wrote, Curse that mouse! Maybe the mouse had stolen some of his dinner.


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[Assistant] It was a cold, dark morning in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.


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[Assistant] The wind howled over the crowded roofs, whisking snow from the wooden tiles and whirling it along the icy cobbled streets. It was ten degrees below zero, cold enough to freeze the fingers and toes of the British ambassador, an official messenger, representative that one country sends another.


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[Assistant] But the ambassador was waiting in the audience room of the Winter Palace, where a huge fire had been built in the cavernous hearth.


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[Assistant] The Tsar of Russia was hobbling towards him, an attendant on each side.


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[Assistant] The Czar, Nicholas I, settled himself carefully in a chair near the fire.


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[Assistant] He had been sick with a high fever for several days, but he had decided to get up out of bed to greet the ambassador. For a little while the two men talked of small matters.


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[Assistant] But Nicholas I did something more serious in mind. He leaned forward.


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[Assistant] We have a sick man on our hands, he said. For a moment the British Ambassador was puzzled. Was the Tsar speaking of himself? A sick man, the Tsar repeated. A man gravely ill.


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[Assistant] It will be a great misfortune if one of these days he slips through our hands, especially before the necessary arrangements are made. Now the Ambassador understood.


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[Assistant] The Tsar was speaking of the Ottoman Empire, the sprawling country just south of Russia that stretched from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers


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[Assistant] All the way across Asia Minor into the Greek Peninsula.


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[Assistant] The Russians wanted to take part of the Ottoman Empire for themselves.


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[Assistant] And they hoped that Britain would be their ally, not their enemy, as they made the necessary arrangements to conquer the Turks.


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[Assistant] Why did the Tsar call the Ottoman Empire a sick man?


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[Assistant] For many years the Ottoman Turks had been growing weaker and poorer. The sultans who ruled over the Ottoman Turks had spent so much money that they had to borrow money from other countries just to pay the soldiers in the Turkish army.


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[Assistant] And although the sultans still claim to rule over a vast empire,


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[Assistant] At least three parts of that empire had started to ignore the sultan.


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[Assistant] The people who lived in the mountainous land north of Greece, which the Turks called the Balkans, the Turkish word for mountain, were doing exactly what they pleased. So were the people of Anatolia, right in the middle of Asia Minor, and so were the Lebanese on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire was certainly sick.


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[Assistant] And the British ambassador knew exactly what the Tsar was saying. That it was time to take over the Ottomans.


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[Assistant] But he also knew that Russia would grow larger and stronger if it added Ottoman land to its own territory.


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[Assistant] His job was to tell Russia what the British government would think of this idea. And Great Britain didn't want Russia to grow larger. The ambassador smiled at the Tsar.


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[Assistant] A sick man should be taken care of by a physician, he said. He should be helped to recover, not


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[Assistant] Have his limbs amputated by a surgeon?


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[Assistant] After this, Nicholas I knew that Great Britain would not help the Russians fight against the Turks. As a matter of fact, Great Britain was more likely to fight against Russia.


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[Assistant] Do you remember hearing about the Crimean War? In 1853, the Russians had marched south into Ottoman territory, hoping to claim some of it for their own. But the British and the French had forced Russia to give up all of the land it took from the Turks. Neither country wanted Russia to get any bigger, or any more powerful.


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[Assistant] But the Russians had not given up the idea of attacking the Ottoman Empire, the sick man of Europe, again.


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[Assistant] In 1876, Russia got its chance. The Sultan of the Ottomans, a big, cheerful man named Abdulaziz, who enjoyed parties and good eating, was having trouble with Bulgaria.


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[Assistant] Bulgaria lay just south of the Russian border on the western coast of the Black Sea. It had been part of the Ottoman Empire for more than 400 years, but the Bulgarian people had never been content with their Ottoman overlords. They called the Ottoman rule the Turkish yoke.


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[Assistant] Now, young revolutionaries in Bulgaria were busy preaching that Bulgaria should be independent. The young Bulgarians, like the young Italians who fought with Garibaldi, wanted their country to be free from the Turks.


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[Assistant] Instead, they wanted Bulgaria to have a modern constitution like the Constitution of the American states.


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[Assistant] In April 1876, the Bulgarian revolutionaries picked up weapons and rebelled against the Turks. But these revolutionaries weren't as well organized as the revolutionaries of Italy. They were scattered all over Bulgaria in little groups.


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[Assistant] They ordered the Turkish army to march into Bulgaria, kill the revolutionaries, and kill anyone who had helped them.


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[Assistant] The soldiers obeyed their orders. Many Bulgarians who didn't even know the revolutionaries were murdered. Sixty villages were wiped out.


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[Assistant] By the time the army had finished putting down the April uprising, almost 12,000 Bulgarians were dead.


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[Assistant] Over in Germany, Bismarck told the German people that the Turks should no longer be treated as part of Europe.


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[Assistant] In Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi condemned the Sultan for his cruelty.


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[Assistant] The Prime Minister of Britain announced that European countries should rise up together and drive the Turks out of Bulgaria. Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz was in trouble.


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[Assistant] On May 30th, a little more than a month after the bloodshed in Bulgaria, Turkish rebels marched into the palace in the middle of the night.


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[Assistant] Abdulaziz ran out of his room in his huge nightshirt, waving a sword. But when he realized that he was outnumbered, he agreed to give up his throne. Four days later, Abdulaziz was dead.


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[Assistant] His doctor said that he had committed suicide.


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[Assistant] But a British doctor who saw Aziz's body said that he had been murdered.


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[Assistant] The Ottomans needed a new Sultan, so they chose Murad V, the nephew of Aziz. Murad had never been either clever or brave. When he heard about Abdul Aziz's death, he fainted, and then spent two days throwing up. Afterwards, he sat on his new throne for hours, rubbing his chin with his right hand.


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[Assistant] Before long, it became clear that Murad V had lost his wits. So after just 93 days, the Turks sent Murad V away for a long rest.


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[Assistant] Murad's brother, Abdul Hamid II, became the new Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He knew that the empire was bankrupt.


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[Assistant] Filled with rebellion and threatened by the other countries of Europe.


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[Assistant] He did his best to make the sick man of Europe better. He announced that the empire would have a constitution, like the modern western countries. The Ottoman Turks would even have an assembly that would meet together to make laws.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid worked hard for his country. Even the British ambassador praised him, calling him a man with kindliness of disposition and enlightened views.


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[Assistant] Even Abdul Hamid could not keep the Russians away. Russia had long wanted Ottoman land, and now the Russian army had the perfect excuse to invade.


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[Assistant] The Tsar pointed out that when the Turkish army had wiped out Bulgarian villages, Muslim soldiers had killed many Bulgarian Christians, and that the Christians of Russia were obliged to help protect their fellow believers.


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[Assistant] The Russian army began to march south towards the Ottoman borders.


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[Assistant] Thousands of Bulgarians flooded to join them and to fight against their Ottoman oppressors.


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[Assistant] Four months after fighting began, the Russians had taken away much of the Ottoman land and were getting close to Istanbul itself.


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[Assistant] By January of 1878, the Ottoman forces had begun to crumble.


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[Assistant] By March, it was clear that Russia had won the war.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid was forced to sign a treaty that would give Bulgaria its independence. Russia took most of Anatolia, the area we sometimes call Asia Minor, for itself. Under the treaty, the Ottoman Empire lost half of its territory.


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[Assistant] Abdul Hamid still sat on the Ottoman throne, but the sick man of Europe had had most of his limbs amputated, just as the Russians wanted. The Ottoman Empire would never again be a world power.


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[Assistant] It had declared its independence and fought against invading nations all in the same day. In 1967, after Israel had been a country for almost 20 years, another war began. We call it the Six Day War. It lasted for six days.


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[Assistant] Once again, the Arab states of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan attacked Israel. Once more, Israel fought them off.


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[Assistant] With the help of its brand new and very skilled Air Force.


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[Assistant] This time Israel didn't just defend itself.


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[Assistant] At the end of the war, Israel took land away from the defeated countries. These territories, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River, and the Golan Heights, quadrupled Israel's size.


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[Assistant] Suddenly, almost a million Arabs who had been living under Arab governments were instead controlled by Israel. Now they were governed by a Jewish state. Jews and Arabs were not good friends.


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[Assistant] For six years Israel governed the unhappy Arabs in its new territories. In 1973, another war broke out. Once again Egypt and Syria attacked Israel.


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[Assistant] This third war between Israel and her Arab neighbors is called the Yom Kippur War, because Egypt and Syria launched their attack on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most sacred day of the Jewish year.


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[Assistant] The Yom Kippur War lasted longer than the Six Day War, but not a lot longer. This time the fighting went on for three weeks.


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[Assistant] At first it seemed that Egypt and Syria might win this time around. Israel had been caught off guard by the first attack.


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[Assistant] At first, America, which had just scolded Great Britain for getting involved in Egypt, refused to send aid.


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[Assistant] Israel's soldiers took heart and began to fight with new energy. But after three weeks of fighting,


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[Assistant] American diplomats managed to convince all three countries to sign a ceasefire. Israel claimed to be victorious.


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[Assistant] Because all of the territories won in the Six Day War were still under Israeli control. Egypt and Syria declared that they had won.


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[Assistant] Actually, not too much had changed in the Middle East.


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[Assistant] But the Yom Kippur War did have an immediate effect on the United States. It caused the U.S. to run out of gas.


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[Assistant] The United States was filled with cars, buses, trucks, and other machines and vehicles that ran on gasoline. That gasoline came from oil. The U.S. had some oil of its own beneath American ground, much of it in the state of Texas.


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[Assistant] Five of the most powerful oil producing Arab countries had formed an organization called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC for short.


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[Assistant] And as soon as the Yom Kippur War ended, the five countries in OPEC decided to stop selling oil to countries that had helped Israel in the Yom Kippur War. That of course included the United States. From October 1973,


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[Assistant] The United States suddenly realized how much it depended on foreign, and sometimes unfriendly, nations for oil. Once OPEC stopped selling oil to the US, there just wasn't enough gasoline to go around. Gas stations started to run out of gas. They had to put up signs for the cars driving by, sorry, no gas today.


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[Assistant] Some gas station owners wouldn't even sell gas to people they didn't recognize as regular customers. The US government announced that gas would be rationed.


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[Assistant] If the last number of your license plate was an odd number, you could only buy gas on odd numbered days.


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[Assistant] Since car engines use more gas when cars drive fast,


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[Assistant] The government also announced a new national speed limit. From now on, no state could have a speed limit higher than 55 miles per hour. Until this time, some roads, long straight ones out in the desert


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[Assistant] People waited in line for two or three hours to buy gas.


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[Assistant] In just a few weeks, the price of gas went up from 25 cents to over a dollar per gallon. The OPEC embargo ended in March. Rationing ended too. Now, drivers could buy gasoline whenever they wanted.


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[Assistant] Although gas prices never did go back down to the original 25 cents per gallon.


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[Assistant] Right after the embargo, scientists in America started to do research on other kinds of fuel and other kinds of energy, like solar power.


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[Assistant] So that America could never again be brought to a standstill by an oil shortage. But as time went on, Americans grew less worried about another embargo.


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[Assistant] Americans use more oil than any other country. And the relationship between America and the countries of the Middle East is still affected by America's need for Middle Eastern oil.


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[Assistant] Five years after the Yom Kippur war and the embargo, the new president of the United States,


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[Assistant] Anwar al-Sadat had led Egypt into the Yom Kippur War.


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[Assistant] Israel had a new prime minister, Menachem Begin.


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[Assistant] Anwar el-Sadat had begun to hope for peace with Israel. In 1977,


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[Assistant] He became the first Arab leader to ever visit Israel. He even spoke to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. I come to you today on solid ground to shape a new life and to establish peace. Sadat told the members of the Knesset. We all love this land, the land of God. We all, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, all worship God.


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[Assistant] They still hoped that the Jewish state of Israel could be wiped out and that the Arabs of Palestine could get their land back. But Sadat refused to give up his plans for peace.


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[Assistant] Camp David was where FDR and Winston Churchill met to plan their war against Germany. And at Camp David, Menachem Begin, Anwar El-Sadat, and Jimmy Carter sat down to discuss peace in the Middle East. The talks weren't easy.


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[Assistant] For twelve days, Carter persuaded the two men to stay at Camp David, listening to each other's ideas.


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[Assistant] That from now on, Israel and Egypt would try to act in harmony with each other.


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[Assistant] Bagan and Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work at Camp David. But not everyone was thrilled. Many Arab leaders were outraged.


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[Assistant] Because Sadat had signed a treaty with Israel, which meant that he was recognizing Israel's right to claim part of Palestine. Others thought that he should have asked for more land.


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[Assistant] Why hadn't he insisted that Israel return all of the territories it had won in the Six Day War? On October 6th.


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[Assistant] Ran out of the parade towards the place where the president sat.


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[Assistant] A group that wanted Muslim rule in all of the Middle East. They threw grenades and fired at Sadat. He was killed at once. But although Sadat died,


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[Assistant] The assassins did not succeed in their plans. After Sadat's death, his successor, Hosni Mubarak, honored the treaty with Israel.


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[Assistant] History for the Classical Child, Volume 4.


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[Assistant] The four volumes of the story of the world are meant to be read by children, or read aloud by parents to children.


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[Assistant] Although older students can certainly make use of them, the primary audience for volume one is children in grades one through four.


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[Assistant] For volume two, the primary audience is grades two through five. And for volume three, grades three through six. This volume is targeted at students in grades four through eight.


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[Assistant] The first three volumes, which cover history from roughly 5000 BC up until 1865, are designed so that siblings can use them together. So a first grader could certainly make use of volume two if her third grade sister were using it as well.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't study this particular volume, though, with children younger than fourth grade. The events that shaped the twentieth century, by which I mean the events that have laid down the borders of countries and dictated the ways in which those countries relate to each other, have almost all involved violence. As an academic, a writer, a historian,


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[Assistant] And the mother of children ranging in age from four to beginning high school.


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[Assistant] I have always tried to tell history as a story. To bring out the color and narrative thread of events.


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[Assistant] But with this history, I have found myself veering continually toward a more matter-of-fact and less dramatic tone. The events of the 20th century, the bombing of Hiroshima, the purges of Stalin, to name only two, are dramatic enough. Turned into story, they would be overwhelming.


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[Assistant] Despite their violent nature, I don't think these events should be ignored by parents of young children.


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[Assistant] A fourth grader hears the news on the car radio, on the TV, or in the conversation of his elders. He hears the words, such as terrorism, and senses the worry of the adults around him.


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[Assistant] A fourth or fifth grader who has a vague idea of what is going on in the world


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[Assistant] The shape of the world today is not random.


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[Assistant] As soon as those reins are in the hands of the rebels, the rebels become the establishment.


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[Assistant] The victims become the tyrants. The freedom fighters become the dictators.


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[Assistant] The man who shouts for equality in one decade.


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[Assistant] Purges in the next decade those who shot against him. Boiling history down to its simplest outline, so that beginning scholars can grasp it, brings this repetition into stark relief.


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[Assistant] Again and again while researching this book, I was reminded of the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent 11 years in the labor camps of the Soviet Union.


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[Assistant] And who, when he became powerless, finally understood


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[Assistant] In the intoxication of youthful successes, I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel.


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[Assistant] In the surfeit of power, I was a murderer and an oppressor. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.


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[Assistant] Even in the best of hearts there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil. Since then,


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[Assistant] I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world.


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[Assistant] Shatters the structures. But the men who build the next set of structures haven't conquered the evil that lives in their own hearts. The history of the 20th century is.


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[Assistant] Again and again, the story of men who fight against tyrants.


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[Assistant] Win the battle and then are overwhelmed by the unconquered tyranny in their own souls. A note on accuracy.


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[Assistant] Historians vary widely on such matters as the number of war casualties in any given conflict, the sizes of armies, and even specific dates on which treaties were signed or independence declared.


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[Assistant] Since this is a basic text for young students, I have decided


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[Assistant] Fairly arbitrarily, to use Encyclopedia Britannica as the final authority on dates and numbers.


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[Assistant] There is no single accepted method of transliteration for Arabic and Chinese names.


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[Assistant] I have chosen to use the pinyin system for most Chinese names, unless another transliteration is extremely well known. Manchuria, instead of the pinyin Dongbei, for example.


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[Assistant] We pulled up in front of a typical 5th Avenue doorman building. Immaculate sidewalk, well-kept balconies, and what looked like a gorgeous, warmly lit lobby.


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[Assistant] A man in a tuxedo and hat immediately came to the car and opened the door for us, and Emily got out.


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[Assistant] I wondered why we weren't just going to leave the book in the clothes with him, but Emily pulled a leather Louis Vuitton keychain from her Gucci logo tote and handed it to me.


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[Assistant] I'll wait here. You take the stuff up to her apartment. Penthouse A. Just open her door and leave the book on the table in the foyer and hang the clothes on the hooks by the closet. Not in the closet.


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[Assistant] Buy the closet, and then just leave. Whatever you do, don't knock or ring the doorbell, just let yourself in and out, and be quiet.


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[Assistant] The elevator man looked like a battered wife, dejected and sad, as though he couldn't fight any longer and had just made peace with his unhappiness. I'll wait here. He said softly, staring at the floor. You shouldn't be more than a minute.


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[Assistant] It took every ounce of restraint not to ring the bell, but I remembered Emily's warning and slid the key in the lock. It clicked right away.


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[Assistant] And before I could wonder what was on the other side, I was standing in a large, airy foyer and smelling the most amazing scent of lamb chops. And there she was.


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[Assistant] Delicately bringing a fork to her mouth while two identical, black-haired little girls yelled at each other across a table and a tall, rugged-looking man with silver hair read a newspaper.


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[Assistant] A man I presume to be the chef hurried into the room holding a silver bowl and a silver serving platter.


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[Assistant] They hadn't seen me yet but would as soon as I moved toward the hall table. I did so gingerly but felt them all turn to look. Table, table, table. There it was. Deposit book on table.


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[Assistant] And now for the clothes. I looked around frantically for the place I was supposed to hang the dry cleaning, but I couldn't focus.


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[Assistant] The dinner table had grown silent and I could feel them all watching me.


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[Assistant] No one said hello. Finally I saw a small coat closet tucked away behind the door.


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[Assistant] And I managed to get every twisted slippery hanger on the rod.


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[Assistant] I knew I shouldn't keep talking, knew that I was digging my own grave, but I just couldn't help myself.


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[Assistant] Uhm, well, sorry about the confusion. I'll just put these on the hooks like you said and let myself out. Stop narrating. She doesn't give a shit what you're doing. Just do it and get out. Okay then. Have a nice dinner. Nice meeting all of you. Emily! I heard just as my hand reached the doorknob. Emily!


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[Assistant] Let this not happen tomorrow night. We're not interested in the interruption. And the doorknob turned itself in my hand and I was finally in the hallway. The entire thing had taken less than a minute, but I felt like I had just swum the entire length of an Olympic-sized pool without coming up for air.


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[Assistant] That bitch. The first time she'd call me Emily could have been a mistake, but the second was undoubtedly deliberate.


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[Assistant] What better way to belittle and marginalize someone than to insist on calling them the wrong name after you've refused to so much as acknowledge their presence in your own home? I heard a throat clearing and looked up to find the sad little elevator man watching the floor and patiently waiting for me to join him. Sorry, I said as I shuffled aboard.


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[Assistant] The door opened to the lobby where Emily was loudly chattering on her cell phone. She clicked it closed when she saw me. How'd it go? No problem, right?


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[Assistant] I thought about telling her what had transpired, but I knew I'd just be setting myself up for another verbal lashing. No problems at all. They were eating dinner and I just left everything exactly where you said.


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[Assistant] Good. Well that's what you'll do every night. Then just take the car home and you're done. Anyway, have fun at Marshall's party tonight. I'd definitely go, but I have a bikini wax appointment I just can't cancel.


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[Assistant] My head pounded to the tempo of her voice. It seemed that I was sentenced to forever listen to her talk about bikini waxes.


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[Assistant] Yeah, what can you do? Well, I better get going. I told James I'd meet him at nine and it's already ten after. See you tomorrow?


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[Assistant] Yep, will do. Oh, just so you know, now that you're pretty much trained, you'll still get in at seven, but I don't come in until eight. Miranda knows. It's understood that the senior assistant comes in later since she works so much harder. I almost lunged at her throat. Bye!


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[Assistant] She hopped into the backseat of the second car that was waiting in front of the building.


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[Assistant] James had been waiting for me on the stairs outside, even though it couldn't have been more than 20 degrees. He'd gone home to change and looked very, very skinny in black suede pants and a white ribbed tank top, which showed off his expertly applied midwinter bottle tan.


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[Assistant] Richard III tells the story of the English king who took the throne from the princes in the tower.


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[Assistant] Henry V is about the Battle of Agincourt in France. In all, Shakespeare wrote more than 40 plays.


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[Assistant] They have been performed over and over again for the last 450 years.


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[Assistant] Shakespeare's plays have been translated into almost every language.


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[Assistant] Some of the most familiar phrases in English come from Shakespeare's plays.


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[Assistant] Have you ever heard someone say, something is rotten in the state of Denmark? Or...


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[Assistant] To be or not to be, that is the question. Both lines are from Hamlet.


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[Assistant] A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse is from Richard the third.


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[Assistant] Has your mother ever said, you're going to eat me out of house and home?


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[Assistant] Shakespeare first used that expression in Henry IV, Part 2.


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[Assistant] And if you've ever heard jealousy called the green-eyed monster, you've heard a line from Othello.


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[Assistant] One of Shakespeare's most famous plays, Macbeth, tells about a nobleman who wants to be king. Here is the beginning of the story. Macbeth Scotland was at war.


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[Assistant] White haired King Duncan, afraid that a band of rebels would throw him from his throne,


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[Assistant] sent his cousin Macbeth and Macbeth's trusted friend Banquo to fight the rebels. He waited anxiously to hear the outcome of the battle.


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[Assistant] Finally a soldier arrived, covered with blood straight from the battlefront.


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[Assistant] Macbeth faced the enemy with Brandish Steel, the soldier gasped. He fixed their leader's head upon the battlements.


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[Assistant] He and Banquo have fought like cannons overcharged with double cracks.


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[Assistant] Valiant cousin, King Duncan cried out. Great happiness!


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[Assistant] And he decreed that Macbeth would receive a new noble title, Thane of Cawdor.


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[Assistant] Thane is a Scottish word for a warrior who fights for the king.


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[Assistant] Macbeth and Banquoir trudging home across a blasted heath, a bare barren field, through fog and wind.


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[Assistant] Suddenly they saw three weird women crouched around a fire.


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[Assistant] Hail, the weird women cackled. Hail, Macbeth, Thane of Cawdor, King of Scotland to be. And hail, Banquo, you will not be king, but you will be father to kings. And then they disappeared. Where'd they go, Banquo asked?


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[Assistant] Have we gone insane? I'm not the father of kings. And why did they call you Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland? You're neither. But just then, messengers arrived.


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[Assistant] Macbeth, they said, we have brought you word from King Duncan. He has made you Thane of Cawdor. When Macbeth heard this news he was disturbed.


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[Assistant] But how could he become king of Scotland, as well as Thane of Cawdor? His cousin Duncan was king. Then Macbeth realized that he could become king if he turned traitor and had Duncan murdered. But he thrust the thought away from him. Let not light see my black and deep desires, he muttered to himself. But the idea stayed with him. He wrote a letter to his wife, Lady Macbeth, who was still in their castle back home. He told her about the weird women and their words.


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[Assistant] At once, Lady Macbeth seized onto the idea of Duncan's death. If her husband became king, she would become queen. But she thought to herself,


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[Assistant] The king comes here tonight, the messenger announced, sliding from his horse.


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[Assistant] Macbeth is with him. They are returning from the battlefront. Make everything ready.


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[Assistant] At once, Lady Macbeth decided that she and Macbeth would murder King Duncan that very night. She paced the room.


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[Assistant] Spirit of courage and ambition, fill me from the crown to the toe.


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[Assistant] Top full of direst cruelty, she growled to herself. Make thick my blood. Let no regret or conscience shake my purpose.


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[Assistant] As she spoke these horrible words, Macbeth came into the room. Duncan is with me he said. Lady Macbeth put her hand on his arm.


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[Assistant] He must be provided for, she said with great meaning. But although Macbeth knew what his wife meant, he turned away from her.


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[Assistant] The idea of becoming king was more and more wonderful to him, but he was not yet ready to kill his cousin, King Duncan.


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[Assistant] Just then the king himself entered with Banquo and other noblemen.


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[Assistant] At once Lady Macbeth was all smiles. Your majesty, she cried. You load our house with honor. Our servants are yours. Come to the hall where a great feast has been laid for you. And she led the king from the room. Macbeth remained fretting to himself. If I were going to do it, he mumbled, I would need to do it quickly, not wait. But oh, what a dreadful deed it would be. He is here both as my king and as my cousin. I am his host.


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[Assistant] I should shut the door against murderers, not bare the knife myself.


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[Assistant] What? Lady Macbeth snapped back. Are you afraid?


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[Assistant] You'll have to live with your cowardice the rest of your life. Be a man. Screw your courage to the sticking place. When Duncan is asleep, I'll give his guards drugged wine so that they sleep like pigs. And then we'll say that his guards did it.


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[Assistant] But will they believe us? Macbeth asked nervously. Of course they will, Lady Macbeth said. We'll be weeping so hard over Duncan's death that they'll never suspect us. What do you think Macbeth will decide to do when the story continues?


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[Assistant] Miranda called six more times between the hours of six and nine in the evening, midnight to three a.m. her time, to have us connect her to various people who were already in Paris.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until I was climbing exhaustively into my coat that I caught a glimpse of the note that I'd stuck to my monitor. In a frenzy of all the calls from across an ocean, I had forgotten to take the 30 seconds out of my day and call Alex when he'd asked me to.


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[Assistant] I sat down in the now darkened and silent office and picked up the phone that was still a little wet from my sweaty hands.


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[Assistant] Not a big deal. Listen, now's not really a great time for me. Can I call you tomorrow? He sounded distracted.


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[Assistant] Uhm, sure. But is everything okay? Will you just quickly tell me what you wanted to talk about before? I've been really worried that everything's not okay. He was quiet for a moment and then said, Yeah, well, it doesn't seem like you were all that worried.


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[Assistant] I ask you one time to call me at a time that's convenient for me.


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[Assistant] Not to mention that your boss isn't even in the country right now, and you can't manage to do that until six hours after the fact.


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[Assistant] Not really a sign of someone who's genuinely concerned, you know? He stated all of this with no sarcasm, no disapproval, just a simple summary of the facts.


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[Assistant] I was twisting the phone cord around my finger, making the knuckle bulge out and the tip turn white. There was also a brief metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the first realization that I had been gnawing on the inside of my bottom lip.


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[Assistant] Alex, it's not that I forgot to call. I lied, trying to extricate myself from his non-accusatory accusation.


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[Assistant] I simply didn't have a single second free, and since it sounded like something serious, I didn't want to call just to have to hang up again. I mean, she must have called me two dozen times just this afternoon, and each one is an absolute emergency.


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[Assistant] Emily took off at five and left me all alone with that phone, and Miranda just didn't stop. She just kept calling.


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[Assistant] And calling, and calling, and every time I went to call you, it'd be her again on the other line. I, uh, you know? My rapid fire list of excuses sounded pathetic even to me. He knew I had just forgotten, and so did I. Is everything okay?


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, everything's fine. I was just calling before with some good news. But you didn't call me back? He said flatly. I wrapped the phone cord so tight around my fingers that they began to pulsate. I'm sorry.


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[Assistant] Alex, please, please don't punish me by not telling me something good. Do you know how long it's been since anyone has called with good news? Look, it's not that exciting. I just went ahead and made all the arrangements for us to go back for our first homecoming together. You did? Really? We're going?


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[Assistant] I'd brought it up a couple times before in an offhand and casual way.


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[Assistant] But somehow, of course, he picked up on just how badly I wanted to go with him.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's done. We have a rental car, a jeep, actually, and I reserved a room at the Biltmore.


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[Assistant] You're kidding, you got a room there? Yeah, well, you've always talked about wanting to stay there.


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[Assistant] I even made a reservation for brunch on Sunday at all four and over ten people so we can gather up the troops and have everyone in one place at one time. No way. You did all of this already? Sure, I thought you'd be really psyched. That's why I was really looking forward to telling you about it. But apparently you were too busy to call back.


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[Assistant] Alex, I'm thrilled. I can't even tell you how excited I am, and I can't believe you've figured everything out already. I'm really sorry about before, but I can't wait for October. We're gonna have the best time, thanks to you. We talked for another couple minutes. By the time I hung up, he didn't sound mad anymore, but I could barely move. The effort to win him back, to find the right words, not only to convince him that I hadn't overlooked him,


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[Assistant] But also to reassure him that I was appropriately grateful and enthusiastic had drained the last reserves of my energy. I don't remember getting into the car or the ride home.


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[Assistant] Jeffy made his way over to me as soon as he could confirm that both Miranda and Emily had left for lunch and handed me two enormous shopping bags. Here, check this stuff out. This should be a pretty good start.


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[Assistant] There were Joseph pants in camel and charcoal grey, both long and lean and low-waisted, made from an incredibly soft wool.


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[Assistant] A pair of brown suede Gucci pants looked as though they could turn any schlub into a supermodel, while two pairs of perfectly faded Marc Jacobs jeans looked like they were custom cut for my body.


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[Assistant] There were eight or nine options for tops, ranging from a skin tight ribbed turtleneck sweater,


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[Assistant] By Calvin Klein to a teeny completely sheer peasant blouse by Donna Karen.


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[Assistant] A dynamite graphic Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress was folded neatly over a navy velvet Tahari pantsuit. These clothes, this is all for me, I asked, hoping I sounded excited and not offended.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's nothing, just some things that have been lying around the closet forever. Every few months or so I clean out the closet and give this stuff away, and I figured you, uh, might be interested. You're a size four, right? I nodded, still dumbfounded.


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[Assistant] Yeah, most everyone else is of tube or smaller, so you're welcome to all of it.


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[Assistant] I slung a slouchy red suede bag over my shoulder and immediately saw the two intersecting C's carved in the front.


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[Assistant] But that wasn't nearly as beautiful as the deep chocolate leather Celine tote that I threw on my other arm. A long military style trench with the signature oversized Marc Jacobs buttons topped it all off.


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[Assistant] You're joking, I said softly, fondling a pair of Dior sunglasses he'd apparently thrown in as an afterthought. You've gotta be kidding. He looked pleased with my reaction and ducked his head. Just do me a favor and wear it, okay?


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[Assistant] Emily came back from the dining room with her usual lunch, an all-natural fruit smoothie and a small to-go container of iceberg lettuce topped with broccoli and balsamic vinegar.


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[Assistant] I was starving, but I just didn't have the energy to weave through the clackers and get examined by the cashier.


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[Assistant] Skipping a single meal won't kill you, I told myself. In fact,


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[Assistant] According to every single one of your sane and stable coworkers, it'll just make you stronger.


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[Assistant] When I came home to West Egg that night, I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire.


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[Assistant] Two o'clock in the whole corner of the peninsula was blazing with light, which fell unreal on the shrubbery and made thin, elongating glints upon the roadside wires.


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[Assistant] Turning a corner I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar.


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[Assistant] At first I thought it was another party, a wild rout, that had resolved itself into hide and go seek, or sardines in the box, with all the house thrown open to the game. But there wasn't a sound.


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[Assistant] Only wind in the trees, which blew the wires and made the lights go off and on again, as if the house had winked into the darkness.


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[Assistant] As my taxi droned away I saw Gatsby walking toward me across his lawn. Your place looks like the world's fair, I said. Does it? He turned his eyes toward it absently.


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[Assistant] I have been glancing into some of the rooms. Let's go to Coney Island, old sport, in my car. It's too late.


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[Assistant] Well, suppose we take a plunge in the swimming pool. I have made use of it all summer. I've got to go to bed. All right. He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness. I talked with Miss Baker, I said after a moment.


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[Assistant] I'm going to call up Daisy tomorrow and then invite her over here to tea.


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[Assistant] Oh, that's all right, he said carelessly. I don't want to put you in any trouble. What day would suit you?


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[Assistant] What day would suit you? He corrected me quickly. I don't want to put you in any trouble, you see. How about the day after tomorrow? He considered for a moment. Then, with reluctance, I want to get the grass cut, he said.


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[Assistant] We both looked at the grass. There was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended, and the darker well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass.


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[Assistant] There's another little thing he said uncertainly and hesitated. Would you rather put it off for a few days? I asked. Oh, it isn't about that. At least, he fumbled with a series of beginnings. Why, I thought, why look here, old sport, you don't make much money, do you? Not very much. This seemed to reassure him, and he continued more confidently. I thought you didn't, if you'll pardon my


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[Assistant] You see, I carry on a little business on the side, sort of sideline, you understand.


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[Assistant] And I thought that if you don't make very much, you're selling bonds, aren't you, Old Sport? Trying to.


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[Assistant] Well, this would interest you. It wouldn't take up much of your time, and you might pick up a nice bit of money. It happens to be a rather confidential sort of thing.


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[Assistant] I realize now that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life.


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[Assistant] But because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there.


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[Assistant] But I was too absorbed to be responsive so he went unwillingly home. The evening had made me lightheaded and happy.


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[Assistant] I think I walked into a deep sleep as I entered my front door.


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[Assistant] So I don't know whether or not Gatsby went to Coney Island or for how many hours he glanced into rooms while his house blazed gaudily on.


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[Assistant] I called up Daisy from the office next morning and invited her to come to tea. Don't bring Tom, I warned her. What? Don't bring Tom? Who is Tom? she asked innocently. The day agreed upon was pouring rain.


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[Assistant] At eleven o'clock a man in a raincoat dragging a lawnmower tapped at my front door and said that Mr. Gatsby had sent him over to cut my grass.


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[Assistant] This reminded me that I had forgotten to tell my Finn to come back, so I drove into West Egg Village to search for her among soggy, whitewashed alleys, and to buy some cups and lemons and flowers.


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[Assistant] The flowers were unnecessary for at two o'clock a green house arrived from Gatsby's with innumerable receptacles to contain it.


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[Assistant] An hour later the front door opened nervously and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in. He was pale.


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[Assistant] And there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes. Is everything all right? he asked immediately. The grass looks fine, if that's what you mean.


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[Assistant] What grass? he inquired blankly. Oh, the grass in the yard.


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[Assistant] He looked out the window at it, but judging from his expression I don't believe he saw a thing. Looks very good, he remarked vaguely.


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[Assistant] One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four. I think it was the journal. Have you got everything you need in the shape of... of tea?


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[Assistant] Of course, of course, they're fine. And he added holly old sport.


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[Assistant] The rain cooled about half past three to a damp mist, through which occasional thin drops swam like dew.


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[Assistant] Gatsby looked with vacant eyes through a copy of Clay's economics, starting at the finished tread that shook the kitchen floor and peering toward the bleared windows from time to time, as if a series of invisible but alarming happenings were taking place outside.


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[Assistant] Finally he got up and informed me in an uncertain voice that he was going home. Why is that? Nobody's coming to tea, it's too late.


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[Assistant] He looked at his watch as if there was some pressing demand on his time elsewhere. I can't wait all day.


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[Assistant] He sat down miserably as if I had pushed him. And simultaneously there was the sound of a motor turning into my lane. We both jumped up and a little harrowed myself, I went out into the yard.


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[Assistant] Under the dripping bare lilac trees a large open car was coming up the drive. It stopped. Daisy's face, tipped sideways beneath a three-cornered lavender hat, looked out at me with a bright, ecstatic smile.


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[Assistant] Is this absolutely where you live, my dearest one?


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[Assistant] The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.


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[Assistant] I had to follow the sound of it for a moment, up and down, with my ear alone, before any words came through. A damp streak of hair lay like a dash of blue paint across her cheek, and her hand was wet with glistening drops as I took it to help her from the car.


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[Assistant] Are you in love with me? She said low in my ear. Or why did I have to come alone?


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[Assistant] That's the secret of castle rack rent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour.


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[Assistant] Come back in an hour, Ferdy. Then in a grave murmur, his name is Ferdy. Does the gasoline affect his nose? I don't think so, she said innocently. Why? We went in.


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[Assistant] To my overwhelming surprise, the living room was deserted. Well, that's funny, I exclaimed. What's funny?


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[Assistant] She turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door.


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[Assistant] I went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.


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[Assistant] With his hands still in his coat pockets, he stalked by me into the hall, turned sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the living room. It wasn't a bit funny.


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[Assistant] Aware of the loud beating of my own heart, I pulled the door too against the increasing rain. For half a minute, there wasn't a sound.


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[Assistant] Then from the living room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy's voice on a clear artificial note. I certainly am awfully glad to see you again. A pause. It endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall, so I went into the room.


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[Assistant] Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom.


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[Assistant] His head leaned back so far that it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the edge of a stiff chair.


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[Assistant] We've met before, muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me and his lips parted with an abhorred attempt at a laugh.


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[Assistant] Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place.


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[Assistant] Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand. I'm sorry about the clock, he said.


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[Assistant] My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn't muster up a single commonplace out of the thousand in my head. It's an old clock, I told them idiotically.


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[Assistant] I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.


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[Assistant] We haven't met for many years, said Daisy, her voice as matter of fact as it could ever be. Five years next November.


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[Assistant] The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute.


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[Assistant] I had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.


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[Assistant] Amid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes, a certain physical decency established itself. Gatsby got himself into a shadow, and while Daisy and I talked, looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense unhappy eyes.


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[Assistant] However, as calmness wasn't an end in itself, I made an excuse at the first possible moment and got to my feet.


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[Assistant] Where are you going? demanded Gatsby in immediate alarm. I'll be back. I've got to speak to you about something before you go.


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[Assistant] He followed me wildly into the kitchen, closed the door, and whispered, Oh God, in a miserable way.


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[Assistant] What's the matter? This is a terrible mistake, he said, shaking his head from side to side. A terrible, terrible mistake.


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[Assistant] You're just embarrassed, that's all. And luckily I added, Daisy's embarrassed too.


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[Assistant] She's embarrassed? He repeated incredulously. Just as much as you are. Don't talk so loud.


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[Assistant] You're acting like a little boy, I broke out impatiently. Not only that, but you're rude. Daisy's sitting in there all alone.


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[Assistant] He raised his hand to stop my words, looked at me with unforgettable reproach, and opening the door cautiously went back into the other room.


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[Assistant] I walked out the back way, just as Gatsby had when he had made his nervous circuit of the house half an hour before, and ran for a huge black knotted tree whose massed leaves made of fabric against the rain.


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[Assistant] Once more it was pouring, and my irregular lawn, well shaved by Gatsby's gardener, abounded in small muddy swamps and prehistoric marshes. There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby's enormous house, so I stared at it like cunt at his church steeple for half an hour.


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[Assistant] A brewer had built it early in the period craze a decade before and there was a story that he'd agreed to pay five years taxes on all the neighboring cottages if the owners would have their roofs thatched with straw.


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[Assistant] Perhaps their refusal took the heart out of his plant who found a family. He went into an immediate decline.


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[Assistant] His children sold his house with the black wreath still on the door.


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[Assistant] Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.


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[Assistant] After half an hour the sun shone again and the grocer's automobile rounded Gatsby's drive with the raw material for his servant's dinner. I felt sure he wouldn't eat a spoonful.


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[Assistant] A maid began opening the upper windows of his house, appeared momentarily in each.


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[Assistant] And leaning from a large central bay spat meditatively into the garden, it was time I went back. While the rain continued,


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[Assistant] It had seemed like the murmur of their voices rising and swelling a little now and then with gusts of emotion. But in the new silence, I felt that silence had fallen within the house too.


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[Assistant] I went in after making every possible noise in the kitchen, short of pushing over the stove.


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[Assistant] But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding.


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[Assistant] He literally glowed, without a word or a gesture of exultation, a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room.


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[Assistant] Oh, hello old sport, he said, as if he hadn't seen me for years. I thought for a moment he was going to shake hands. It stopped raining. Has it?


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[Assistant] When he realized what I was talking about, that there were twinkle bells of sunshine in the room, he smiled like a weatherman, like an ecstatic patron of recurrent light, and repeated the news to Daisy. What do you think of that? It stopped raining. I'm glad, Jay.


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[Assistant] Her throat full of aching, grieving beauty told only of her unexpected joy.


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[Assistant] I want you and Daisy to come over to my house, he said. I'd like to show her around.


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[Assistant] You sure you want me to come? Absolutely old sport.


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[Assistant] Daisy went upstairs to wash her face. Too late, I thought, with humiliation of my towels, while Gatsby and I waited on the lawn.


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[Assistant] My house looks well, doesn't it? He demanded. See how the whole front of it catches the light. I agreed that it was splendid.


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[Assistant] But I lost most of it in the big panic. The panic of the war.


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[Assistant] That's my affair, before he realized that it wasn't an appropriate reply. Oh, I've been in several things, he corrected himself. I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business, but I'm not in either one now. He looked at me with more attention. Do you mean you've been thinking over what I proposed the other night?


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[Assistant] Before I could answer, Daisy came out of the house, and two rows of brass buttons on her dress gleamed in the sunlight.


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[Assistant] I love it, but I don't see how you live there all alone.


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[Assistant] I keep it always full of interesting people, night and day. People who do interesting things. Celebrated people.


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[Assistant] Instead of taking the shortcut along the sound, we went down to the road and entered by the big poster.


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[Assistant] With enchanting murmurs, Daisy admired this aspect or that of the feudal silhouette against the sky. Admired the gardens, the sparkling odor of Jonquils, and the frothy odor of Hawthorne, and the pale gold odor of Kiss Me at the Gate.


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[Assistant] It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out of the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees.


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[Assistant] I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through. As Gatsby closed the door of the Merton College Library I could have sworn I heard the owl-eyed man break into ghostly laughter.


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[Assistant] We went upstairs, through period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and vivid with new flowers, through dressing rooms and pool rooms and bathrooms with sunken baths, intruding into one chamber where a disheveled man in pajamas was doing liver exercises on the floor. It was Mr. Clipspringer, the border.


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[Assistant] Finally we came to Gatsby's own apartment, a bedroom and a bath and an Adam's study, where we sat down and drank a glass of some chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall. He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy.


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[Assistant] And I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes.


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[Assistant] Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.


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[Assistant] His bedroom was the simplest room of all, except where the dresser was garnished with a toilet set of pure, dull gold.


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[Assistant] Daisy took the brush with delight and smoothed her hair whereupon Gatsby sat down and shaded his eyes and began to laugh.


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[Assistant] It's the funniest thing old sport, he said hilariously. I can't, when I try to...


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[Assistant] He had passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third.


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[Assistant] After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy, he was consumed with wonder at her presence.


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[Assistant] He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.


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[Assistant] Now in the reaction he was running down like an over-wound clock.


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[Assistant] Recovering himself in a minute he opened for us two hulking patent cabinets which held his masked suits and dressing gowns and ties and his shirts piled like bricks in stacks a dozen high.


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[Assistant] I've got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.


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[Assistant] He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them one by one before us. Shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many colored disarray.


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[Assistant] While we admired, he brought more and the soft, rich heap mounted higher. Shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids and coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strange sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.


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[Assistant] They're such beautiful shirts, she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. It makes me sad because I've never seen such, such beautiful shirts before.


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[Assistant] After the house we were to see the grounds and the swimming pool and the hydroplane and the midsummer flowers.


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[Assistant] But outside Gatsby's window it began to rain again, so we stood in a row looking at the corrugated surface of the sound.


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[Assistant] If it wasn't for the mist, we could see your home across the bay, said Gatsby.


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[Assistant] You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock. Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said.


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[Assistant] Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever.


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[Assistant] Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy, it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock.


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[Assistant] His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.


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[Assistant] I began to walk about the room, examining various indefinite objects in the half darkness.


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[Assistant] A large photograph of an elderly man in yachting costume attracted me, hung on the wall over his desk. Who's this? That? That's Mr. Dan Cody, old sport.


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[Assistant] The name sounded faintly familiar. He's dead now, he used to be my best friend years ago.


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[Assistant] There was a small picture of Gatsby, also in yachting costume on the bureau. Gatsby, with his head thrown back defiantly, taken apparently when he was about eighteen.


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[Assistant] I adore it, exclaimed Daisy, the pompadour. You never told me you had a pompadour or a yacht.


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[Assistant] Look at this, said Gatsby quickly. Here's a lot of clippings about you. They stood side by side, examining it.


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[Assistant] I was going to ask to see the rubies when the phone rang and Gatsby took up the receiver. Yes. Well, I can't talk now. I can't talk now, old sport.


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[Assistant] I said a small town. You must know what a small town is.


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[Assistant] Well, he's no use to us if Detroit is his idea of a small town, he rang off. Come here, quick! cried Daisy at the window.


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[Assistant] The rain was still falling but the darkness had parted in the west.


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[Assistant] I'd like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around. I tried to go then, but they wouldn't hear of it.


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[Assistant] Perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone. I know what we'll do, said Gatsby. We'll have Clipspringer play the piano.


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[Assistant] He went out of the room calling Ewing and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed slightly worn young man with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blonde hair.


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[Assistant] He was now decently clothed, in a sport shirt open at the neck, sneakers and duck trousers of a nebulous hue.


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[Assistant] Did we interrupt your exercises? Inquired Daisy politely.


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[Assistant] I was asleep, cried Mr. Clipspringer in a spasm of embarrassment. That is, I'd been asleep, then I got up.


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[Assistant] Clipspringer plays the piano, said Gatsby, cutting him off. Don't you ewing old sport? But I don't play well. I don't, I hardly play at all. I'm out of prac. We'll go downstairs, interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The grey windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light.


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[Assistant] In the music room Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp beside the piano. He lit Daisy's cigarette from a trembling match and sat down with her on a couch far across the room where there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall.


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[Assistant] When Clipspringer had played the love nest, he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in the gloom.


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[Assistant] I'm all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn't play. I'm all out of prac- Don't talk so much, old sport, Commander Gatsby. Play! In the morning, in the evening, ain't we got fun?


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[Assistant] Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the sound.


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[Assistant] All the lights were going on in West Eggnow, the electric trains men carrying were plunging home through the rain from New York.


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[Assistant] It was the hour of a profound human change and excitement was generating on the air. One thing sure and nothing surer, the rich get rich and the poor get children. In the meantime, in between time,


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[Assistant] As I went over to say goodbye, I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby's face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness.


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[Assistant] Almost five years. There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams. Not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.


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[Assistant] It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.


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[Assistant] As I watched him, he adjusted himself a little visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear, he turned toward her with a rush of emotion.


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[Assistant] I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating feverish warmth because it couldn't be over dreamed. That voice was a deathless song. They had forgotten me.


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[Assistant] But Daisy glanced up and held out her hand. Gatsby didn't know me now at all.


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[Assistant] I looked once more at them and they looked back at me remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together.


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[Assistant] Course you are, he said. You been goin' at it wrong.


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[Assistant] Magistrate Tiger will do anything to flaunt his power and overstretch his authority. But this painting will buy his favor and free the village from his unfair taxes. What, master? The apprentice said. Nothing, the master said. Only that I have painted this dragon on the ground, not flying in the sky like all other dragons.


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[Assistant] The only inkstone that was able to be made from a rock my master cut from a mountain far from here. He never told anyone which mountain, so he could never make another. Yes, master, the apprentice said. But the dragon? Yes, the master said. Is it finished? The apprentice asked. You have not painted the eyes. As a painting, it is finished, the master said.


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[Assistant] Which I humbly painted in tribute to the great magistrate's rule. There was a silence as all gazed, I supposed, at me. Painter ten, another voice said, in great awe. This is indeed a great work. Thank you magistrate, the master said. I am glad it pleases you. Then our agreement will be fulfilled? Yes, said the voice.


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[Assistant] The village will be free from taxation for the next year, and I will take the painting. Even though I did not know exactly what was going on, I knew I did not want to belong to Magistrate Tiger. His voice had an undertone of cruelty and greed, even while he was expressing his pleasure. I tried to protest, but my still lips uttered no sound. Then I was rolled up and all sound and feeling disappeared.


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[Assistant] That explains why you are so different from the dragons my father told me about.


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[Assistant] My grandmother, Lau Lau, was a famous fortune teller.


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[Assistant] People from far away villages would line up at our home, asking for lucky dates for weddings and predictions for their children. If she was ever wrong, we never heard of it. But a week before my 19th birthday, we heard her moaning in her room. When we rushed to her,


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[Assistant] Before the aromas of the delicacies were captured in our most ornate box, they floated in the air.


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[Assistant] There was a vast mountain in front of me, whose tip seemed to touch the moon.


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[Assistant] Perhaps if you cannot trust that your daughter will find Neverending Mountain, you should trust that she will return home to you, because that is not impossible. So, whether Min Lee brings it to you or not, I wish you good fortune.


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[Assistant] And the skin on her fingers and toes was wrinkled from being in the dragon's lake of tears for so long. She was also very thirsty. The dragon offered to carry her to the freshwater stream. He knew the forest well. You'll get there much faster, he said. Min Li was a little doubtful about riding the dragon. It was one thing to climb on top of him while he was half covered by water. But now on dry land,


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[Assistant] But his large body had to constantly maneuver around trees and rocks so it was awkward going.


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[Assistant] He is very old, Min Lee thought to herself, imagining the growth of the trees. Dragon must have been in this forest for a hundred years. And she felt a pang of pity as she imagined the dragon, alone, unable to fly, endlessly struggling between trees and branches.


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[Assistant] The monkey's shrieks were starting to sound like hysterical laughter, getting louder and louder, like a volcano about to erupt. She looked from side to side, but the monkeys seemed to be everywhere. There was no way around them. Then, the dragon asked, what are we going to do?


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[Assistant] Min Li and the dragon had sat in the clearing and made camp for the night. As the sun fell and the moon rose, the dragon showed her how he could make sparks by scratching his claws against the stone, and they built a small campfire.


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[Assistant] As Min Li and the dragon made no moves to go farther into the forest, the monkeys had quieted down. But they still watched.


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[Assistant] I have seen them refuse to let go of rotten mushrooms and fight over piles of mud. At those words,


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[Assistant] Min Li said abruptly. Oh, the dragon said, you must be hungry. Too bad we cannot get you some peaches. It's not for me, Min Li said, and she smiled mysteriously. It's for the monkeys. The monkeys? The dragon said. Why? If you mean it as a gift or as a way to bribe them, it will not work.


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[Assistant] Min Li had the dragon place it very close to the trees where the monkeys were watching.


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[Assistant] Once, a long, long time ago, a family grew famous for their happiness. It seemed odd that this would happen, but they were truly an unusual household. Even though aunts and uncles, cousins and grandchildren lived together, there was never a crossword or unhappy noise. All were polite and thoughtful to each other. Even the chickens did not fight each other for feet. It was said


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[Assistant] And tell them that I want the secret of their happiness put in this box. If they do not do so, have the soldiers destroy their home. The emissary did as he was told. When the troop of soldiers surrounded the house, the family looked fearful. But when the magistrate's demand was announced, the grandfather smiled. That is easy enough, he said, and he had the trunk brought into the house and returned in moments.


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[Assistant] The emissary knew the magistrate would be impatient for his return, so the soldiers marched through the night with only the light of the moon to guide them. The treasure box, lying on a platform carried by four men, seemed to glow. However, as the ground grew rocky and steep, a sudden wind blew, like the mountain itself was yawning. One of the soldiers stumbled in the rising dust and the box crashed to the ground.


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[Assistant] He was little more than a boy and had only recently joined the magistrate's army from a small, poor, far away village. You, the magistrate said.


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[Assistant] The family must have thought they could deceive me. Emissary, gather all of my troops. I personally will get the secret of happiness and punish that family of lowly dogs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The emissary led the way to the home of the happy family. But when they arrived, nothing was there. No house, no chickens or sheep, no family. Instead, there was only a flat plain as if the whole home had been scooped from the earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Magistrate Tiger scowled at the blank ground with rage and vowed to punish the family for their disrespect. But while he glared,


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[Assistant] The wind blew and covered him with a grayish green dust. As he stood, like a green powdered statue, he felt as if the sky were laughing at him.


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[Assistant] So, I think Min Li, like the secret word in the paper of happiness, Ba said, is not meant to be found. He glanced at Ma, and while she did not meet his gaze, she made no objection either.


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[Assistant] But this is for our fortune, so they don't have to work so hard anymore. Min Lee told herself when she thought about the worry they must be feeling. When I get back, Pa can rest and Ma will never have to sigh again. Felsy.