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[Assistant] That old bitch has been an avatross around my neck ever since I got here, you said. Don't trust her, Robert.


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[Assistant] My ancestors rode her ancestors across on the main flower. And she was very rich in that alone. We were both very young and optimistic then.


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[Assistant] I did not have to wear a beard or a hat or be especially hip or ultra-avenegish. I did not have to smoke pot or supply her with it or be for any cause at all except myself. I only had to be myself which pleased me and only had to produce which pleased both of us.


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[Assistant] And all the valuable time I was wasting listening to him rattle on and on.


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[Assistant] His conversations, she thought, were useless, repetitious, and promised nothing value to me.


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[Assistant] She was accustomed to the old rich whose conversations meandered around a leitmotif of how well off they were and how much they would leave behind very soon. She was not at all cold.


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[Assistant] When I first introduced them because he saw that she was not a beatnik and could not be dismissed.


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[Assistant] It is in the nature of things that liberal people will tolerate two interracial beatniks more than they will an intelligent, serious-minded mixed couple.


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[Assistant] The formal liaison is easy to dismiss as a direct of both races, deserving of each other, and a contempt of both races.


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[Assistant] But the latter poses a threat because there is no immediacy of overpowering since you utterly are, you pick math, please, I pick yours, apparent on the surface of things.


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[Assistant] And people, even the most publicly liberal, cannot dismiss it so easily.


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[Assistant] He had asked one day in my apartment, soon after I had introduced him. No, I said differently. What's her name? Judy Smith, I said, which was not her name at all. Everybody's got a little Irish blood, I told him.


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[Assistant] He looked at me cattily and craftily from behind his thick lenses. Well, she's from a good family I suppose. I suppose I said. He paused to let some ashes fall to the rug.


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[Assistant] They say the Colonel's lady and Elio Grady are sisters under the skin. Then he added, Rugged Kipling.


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[Assistant] That's true, I said, with equal innuendo.


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[Assistant] That's why you have to maintain a distinction by marrying a colonel's lady. Understanding passed between us then, and we never spoke more on this subject.


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[Assistant] Almost every night the cats wet the second floor while Meg Sullivan watched the Johnny Carson show and the dog howled and clawed the door.


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[Assistant] Doing commercials, make with Curse James to get out and stop rubbing ashes on the floor.


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[Assistant] Discarded trunks, beer bottles, chairs, old tools, and a filthy sofa on which he sometimes slept. Seeing him there made me want to cry.


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[Assistant] He drank the cheapest sherry, the guano kind, straight from the bottle. And on many nights that summer at 2 a.m., my phone would ring me out of bed. Rob, Jimmy Sullivan here. What are you doing? There was nothing suitable to say. Going down to the basement for a drink. I had to be at work at 8.30, I would protest. Can't you have just one drink? He would say pathetically.


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[Assistant] I would carry down my own glass that I would not have to drink out of the bottle. Looking at him on the sofa.


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[Assistant] I could not be mad because now I had many records for my stereo, a story that was going well, a girl who believed in me and who belonged to me and not to the race, a new set of dishes, and a tomorrow morning with younger people. I don't want to burden you unduly, he would always preface. I would force myself not to look at my watch and say, of course not. My mag is not in the best health, you know, he would say.


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[Assistant] Handing the bottle to me. She's just old. Doctors say she should be in an institution. That's no place to be. I'm a sick man myself, Rob. I can't take much more. She's crazy. Anybody who loves animals can't be crazy. He took a little long drop from his bottle. I won't live another year. I'll be dead in a year. You don't know that.


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[Assistant] He looked at me closely without his glasses so that I could see the desperation in his eyes. I just hope Meg goes with who I do. I don't want them to put her in an institution after I'm gone.


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[Assistant] At two a.m. with a cat stench in my nose and a glass of bad sherry standing still in my hand because I refuse in my mind to touch it.


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[Assistant] And all my dreams of greatness are above him and the basement and the building itself. I did not know what to say. The only way I could keep from hating myself was to start even talking about that the AMA on the Medicare program are beatniks. He was pure hell on all three. To him the medical profession was morally bankrupt. Medicare was a great farce


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[Assistant] He could reach on and on in perfect phrases about all three of his major dislikes.


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[Assistant] And I had the feeling that because the sentences were so well constructed, and so well turned, he might have memorized them from something he had read. But then he was extremely well read, and it didn't matter if he had borrowed a phrase or two from someone else. The ideas were still his own. It would be 3am before I knew it, and then 3.30, and still he would go on. He hated politicians in general, and liked to recount


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[Assistant] At these times, it's private catalog of political observations. By the time he got around to civil rights, it would be 4 a.m., and I could not feel responsible for him at that hour. I would begin to yawn, and at first he would just ignore it. Then I would start to edge towards the door,


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[Assistant] And he would see that he could hold me no longer, not even by declaring that he wanted to be an honorary Negro, because he loved the race so much.


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[Assistant] I hope I haven't burdened you unduly. He was here again. Of course not. I would say because it was over then. And I could leave him and the smell of the cats there.


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[Assistant] And sometimes I would go out in a cool night and walk around the yard and be thankful that I was only an assistant janitor and a transient one at that.


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[Assistant] Walking in the early dawn and seeing the summer school fellows sneak out of the girls' dormitories in the yard gave me a good feeling.


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[Assistant] And I thought that tomorrow night, it would be good to make love myself. So that I could be busy when he called.


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[Assistant] Why don't you tell that old man your job doesn't include babysitting with him?


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[Assistant] Jean told me many times when she came over to visit during the day and found me sleeping. I would look at her


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[Assistant] And think to myself about social forces and the pressures massing and poised waiting to attack us. It was still July then. It was hot. And I was working good. He's just an old man, I said. Who else would listen to him? You're too soft.


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[Assistant] As long as you do your work, you don't have to be bothered with him. He could be a story if I listen long enough. There are too many stories about old people. No, I said, thinking about us again. There are just too many people who have no stories.


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[Assistant] Sometimes he would come up and she would be there.


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[Assistant] But I will let him come in anyway, and he will stand there looking dirty and uncomfortable, offering some even better excuse for having intruded.


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[Assistant] At these times, something silent would pass between them, something I cannot name, which would reduce him to exactly what he was.


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[Assistant] An old man come out of his basement to intrude where he was not wanted.


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[Assistant] But all the time this was being communicated, there would be a surface friendly conversation between them.


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[Assistant] And after five minutes or so of being unwelcome, he would apologize for having come, drop a few ashes in the rug, and back out the door. Downstairs, we could hear his wife screaming.


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[Assistant] We endured and aged and August was almost over. Inside the building the cats were still wetting.


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[Assistant] Meg was still screaming, the dog was getting madder, and Sullivan began to drink during the day.


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[Assistant] And middle-aged men down by the Charles were going wild on their bridge. Everyone was restless for change.


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[Assistant] Well, August is the month when undone summer things must be finished or regretted all through the winter.


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[Assistant] Being imaginative people, Gene and I played a number of original games. One of them we called Social Forces, the object of which was to see which side could break us first.


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[Assistant] We played it with the unknown nightwaters who screamed obscenities from passing cars and because


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[Assistant] That was her side. I would look at her expectantly, but she would laugh and say no.


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[Assistant] We played at parties with unaware blacks who attempted to enchant her with skillful dances and hip vocabularies, believing her to be community property. She would be polite and aloof, and much later, it then being my turn,


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[Assistant] You look at me expectantly, and I would force a smile and say, no.


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[Assistant] The last round was played with taking her home in a subway car on a hot August night.


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[Assistant] On one side of the car was black, intense and hating, and the other side was white and had the same mind.


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[Assistant] Feeling all the eyes between the two sides of the car and the two sides of the world. We aged.


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[Assistant] And getting off finally at the stop which was no longer ours. We looked at each other again expectantly and there was nothing left to say.


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[Assistant] I began to void the old man, would not answer the door when I knew it was he who was knocking and waited until very late at night when he could not possibly be awake to haul the trash down. I hated the building then and I was really a janitor for the first time. I slept a lot and wrote very little and I did not give a damn about Medicare, the AMA, the building, Meg, or the crazy dog. I began to consider moving out.


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[Assistant] Mr. Harrah finally succeeded in badgering Murphy, the celibate Irishman, and a few other tillers into signing a complaint about the dog. No doubt Murphy signed because he was a nice fellow and women like Mr. Harrah had always dominated him. He did not really mind the dog. He did not really mind anything. She called him Frank dear.


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[Assistant] And I had the feeling that when he came to that place, fresh from Montgomery's campaign, he must have had a will of his own.


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[Assistant] But she drained it all away year by year so that now he would do anything just to be agreeable.


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[Assistant] One day soon after the complaint, the little chubby property manager came around to tell Sullivan that the dog had to be taken away. Mr. Herrera told me the good news later when she finally got around to my door. Well, that crazy dog is gone now, Robert. Those two are enough. Where is the dog, I asked?


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[Assistant] I don't know, but Albert Rustin made them get him out.


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[Assistant] You should have seen the old drunk's face, she said, that dirty old useless man. You should be at peace now, I said. Almost was her reply.


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[Assistant] The best thing is to get rid of those two old boozers along with that dog. I congratulated Ms. Sahara and went out.


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[Assistant] I knew that the old man would be drinking and would want to talk.


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[Assistant] I had never been in his apartment before and did not want to go then. But I went down anyway.


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[Assistant] They had three rooms, all grammy from corner to corner. There was a peculiar odor in that place. I did not ever want to smell again.


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[Assistant] And his wife was dragging herself around the room, talking in mumbles. When she saw me coming the door, she said,


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[Assistant] Every change to the bulb on the fifth floor is done.


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[Assistant] He was silent for a while, drinking from a bottle of sherry and he gave me some in a dirty glass.


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[Assistant] You're the first person who's been in here in years, he said. We couldn't have company because of the dog.


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[Assistant] Somewhere in my mind was a note that should never go into his apartment, for the dog had never been the reason. Well, he's gone now, I said, fingering the dirty glass of sherry. He began to cry.


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[Assistant] They took my dog away, he said. It was all I had. How can they take a man's dog away from him?


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[Assistant] There was nothing I could say. I couldn't do nothing, he continued, after all he added. What I know who it was, it was that old bitch, Johara. Don't ever trust her, Rob. She smiles in your face, but it was her kind that laughed when they burned Joan of Arc in the States.


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[Assistant] Seeing him there crying and making me feel unmanly because I wanted to touch him. I say something warm.


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[Assistant] But you young man, you have a future, not me. I'll be dead inside of a year.


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[Assistant] Justin's wife dragged herself in to offer me a cigar. They were being hospitable. And I forced myself to drink a little of the sherry. They took my dog away today, she mumbled. That's all I had in the world, my dog.


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[Assistant] I looked at the old man. He was drinking from the bar.


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[Assistant] During the first week of September, one of the middle-aged men done by the child's


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[Assistant] And that same week, a dead body was found on the banks of the Charles.


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[Assistant] The miniskirt brigade had moved out of the yard and it was quiet and green and peaceful there. In our building, another Jewish couple moved into 44. They did not eat gourmet stuff and on occasion threw out broken bean cans. But I had lost interest in perception. I now had many records from my stereo.


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[Assistant] At least three times a day, and I had resembled myself to it.


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[Assistant] If I refuse to let him in, he will always come back later with a missing bulb on the fifth floor.


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[Assistant] We had taken the buying case of the beer together, and when he had finished his half, which was very frequently, he would come up to polish off mine.


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[Assistant] I began to enjoy talking politics to the AMA Medicare beatniks and listening to him recite from books he had read.


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[Assistant] I discovered that he was very well-read in history, philosophy, literature, and law. He was extraordinarily fond of saying, I am really caught about being a building superintendent. Circumstances made me what I am. And even though he was drunk and dirty and it was very late at night, I believed him and liked him anyway. Because having him there was much better than being alone.


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[Assistant] After he had gone, I could sleep, and I was not lonely asleep.


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[Assistant] And it did not really matter how late I was at work this morning. Because when I thought about it all,


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[Assistant] I discovered that nothing really matters except not being old and being alive.


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[Assistant] And having the potential to dream about and not being alone.


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[Assistant] For some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned. And last the day.


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[Assistant] If you will not undo what you have done, that is kill him whom you have recovered, desire it not. Fare you well at once.


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[Assistant] But I'm pretty told me this. Has Ford's wife and Paige's wife acquainted each other? How do you love me?


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[Assistant] Now, fare thee well. Commend me to them both. There's my purse. Oh, and yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with this woman.


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[Assistant] Let them think it's grossly done, so it'd be fairly done, no matter.


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[Assistant] The witch has something emboldened me to this unseasoned intrusion.


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[Assistant] If you will help me to bear it, Sir John, take all o'heart for easing me of the carriage.


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[Assistant] Good Master Bloom, I shall be glad to be your servant.


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[Assistant] And you have been a man long known to me, though I had never so good means as desire to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you.


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[Assistant] In gross opportunities to meet her, feed every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her, and not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given. Briefly, I have pursued her, as love have pursued me, which have been on the wing of all occasion.


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[Assistant] But whatsoever I have merited, neither in my mind nor in my means, need I am sure I have received none. Unless experience, dear Jewel, that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that has taught me to say this.


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[Assistant] Have you importuned her to such a purpose? Never.


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[Assistant] If any man may, you may as soon as any. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your affection that I should win what you would enjoy?


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[Assistant] Good. I see you shall. Want no money, Sir John? You shall want none. Want no, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Broom? You shall want none.


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[Assistant] I shall be with her, I may tell you.


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[Assistant] They say the jealous, wittily knave have masses of money, for which his wife seems to be well favored.


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[Assistant] Master Bloom, thou shalt know I will predominate over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night. Ford the naval, I will aggravate his style.


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[Assistant] Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent this.


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[Assistant] To take my wife, be revenged on full staff, and laugh at Paige. I will about it. Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.


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[Assistant] Keep again from the dice and the good student from his book and if it's wonderful.


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[Assistant] Give me thy hand, celestial. So, boys of art, I have deceived you both. I've directed you to wrong places.


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[Assistant] My God, we go my ass.


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[Assistant] Yay, Richard, when I know. But I protest, as yet I do not.


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[Assistant] It should be, and for my name of George begins with G, it follows in his thought that I am he.


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[Assistant] What one, my lord? Her husband, Nath. Wouldst thou betray me? I do beseech your grace to pardon me. Forbear your confluence of the noble Duke. We know thy charge, Brackenberry.


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[Assistant] I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my cousin Mary. Dear Celia, show more mercy than I am mistress of, and would you yet I were merrier. Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me to remember any extraordinary pleasure. Herein I see thy love is me not with the full weight that I love thee.


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[Assistant] If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke, my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine.


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[Assistant] So would thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered as mine is to thee. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate to rejoice in yours.


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[Assistant] You know my father hath no child, but I, nor none is like to have.


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[Assistant] And the bountiful blind woman that most mistakenly gifted.


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[Assistant] If you do keep your promises in love, but justly as you have exceeded all promise, your mistress shall be happy. Gentlemen, wear this.


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[Assistant] Shall we go, cuz? Aye. Fare you well, fair gentleman.


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[Assistant] I'm doubtful with my fortunes, I'll ask him what he would. Did you call sir? Sir, you have wrestled well.


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[Assistant] Treason is not inherited, m'lord. Or if we did derive it from our friends, what's that to me? My father was no traitor. Then good malice must take me not so much to think my poverty is treacherous. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.


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[Assistant] I did not then entreat to have her stay. It was your pleasure and your own remorse. I was too young that time to value her. But now I know her. If she be a traitor, why so am I?


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[Assistant] You pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her company.


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[Assistant] Shall we be sundered? Shall we part, sweet girl? No. Let my father seek another heir.


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[Assistant] To fly the boar before the boar pursues, but to incent the boar to followeth and make pursuit where he did me no chase.


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[Assistant] But I shall laugh at this at twelve months hence, that they which brought me my master's hate, I live to look upon their tragedy. Well, Kate's Maid, ere a fortnight make me older, I'll send some packing that you have not think of.


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[Assistant] This day, those enemies are put to death, and I in better state than error was.


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[Assistant] Stanley did dream, the boar did raise our helms, and I did scorn it, and disdain to fly.


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[Assistant] Three times today my foot cloth horse did stumble and darted when he looked upon the tower as loath to bear me to the slaughterhouse.


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[Assistant] Oh, momentary grace of mortal men, which we more hunt for than the grace of God, who builds his hope in air of your good look, lives like a drunken sailor on a mast.


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[Assistant] Oh now my love, why is your cheek so pale?


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[Assistant] How chance the rose is there to fade so fast.


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[Assistant] For all that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth. But either it was different in blood,


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[Assistant] Brief as the lightning in the collied night, that in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, and ere a man have power to say behold, the jaws of darkness to devour it up, so


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[Assistant] Quick, right things come to confusion.


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[Assistant] Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold her silver visage in the watery glass, decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, a time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,


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[Assistant] My conscience has a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tales.


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[Assistant] I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.


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[Assistant] Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity.


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[Assistant] On this occasion, a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to us.


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[Assistant] All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination.


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[Assistant] But by some fatality, the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies.


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[Assistant] It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.


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[Assistant] All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable.


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[Assistant] By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation,


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[Assistant] And entertained the greatest disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge.


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[Assistant] In this mood of mind, I betook myself to the mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure foundations and so worthy of my consideration. Thus, strangely, are our souls constructed.


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[Assistant] It seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will


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[Assistant] Was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life.


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[Assistant] The last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was announced


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[Assistant] By an unusual tranquility and gladness of soul which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies.


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[Assistant] It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution, happiness with their disregard. It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent


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[Assistant] And her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.


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[Assistant] When I had attained the age of 17, my parents resolved that I should become a student at the University of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva.


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[Assistant] But my father thought it necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my native country.


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[Assistant] My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred. An omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever.


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[Assistant] During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties.


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[Assistant] But when she heard that the life of her favorite was menaced she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sick bed. Her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper. Elizabeth was saved.


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[Assistant] And the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day, my mother sickened.


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[Assistant] Her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event.


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[Assistant] On her deathbed, the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her.


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[Assistant] She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. My children, she said.


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[Assistant] My firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union.


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[Assistant] This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas, I regret that I am taken from you, and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all?


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[Assistant] But these are not thoughts befitting me. I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world. She died calmly.


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[Assistant] And her countenance expressed affection even in death.


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[Assistant] I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance.


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[Assistant] It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day


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[Assistant] And a sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard.


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[Assistant] These are the reflections of the first days. But when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences.


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[Assistant] Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection?


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[Assistant] And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt and must feel? The time at length arrives.


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[Assistant] When grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity.


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[Assistant] And the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead. But we still had duties which we ought to perform. We must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate.


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[Assistant] Which had been deferred by these events was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks.


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[Assistant] It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose akin to death of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me.


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[Assistant] She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all.


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[Assistant] She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal.


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[Assistant] She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins.


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[Assistant] Never was she so enchanting as at this time.


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[Assistant] When she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us.


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[Assistant] She forgot even her own regret in her endeavors to make us forget. The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us.


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[Assistant] He had endeavored to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain.


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[Assistant] His father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son.


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[Assistant] But when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve


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[Assistant] Not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce. We sat late.


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[Assistant] We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade ourselves to say the word farewell.


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[Assistant] It was said, and we retired unto the pretense of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived.


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[Assistant] But when at morning's dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there. My father again, to bless me, clever to press my hand once more.


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[Assistant] My Elizabeth, to renew her entreaties that I would write often, and to bestow the last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. I threw myself into the shades that was to convey me away, and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions


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[Assistant] Continually engaged in endeavoring to bestow mutual pleasure, I was now alone.


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[Assistant] In the university where I was going, I must form my own friends and be my own protector.


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[Assistant] My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth and Clairvaux. These were old familiar faces.


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[Assistant] But I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey.


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[Assistant] But as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge


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[Assistant] I had often when at home thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place, and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would indeed have been folly to repent.


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[Assistant] I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing.


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[Assistant] At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes.


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[Assistant] I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased.


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[Assistant] The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to some of the principal professors. Chance.


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[Assistant] For rather the evil influence, the angel of destruction which asserted omnipotence way over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's door, led me first to Monsieur Krempe, professor of natural philosophy.


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[Assistant] He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.


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[Assistant] I replied carelessly and partly in contempt.


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[Assistant] I mentioned the names of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared.


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[Assistant] He said, really spent your time in studying such nonsense? I replied in the affirmative. Every minute, continued Musi Krempe with warmth.


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[Assistant] You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names. Good God.


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[Assistant] In what desert land have you lived?


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[Assistant] When no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient, I little expected in this enlightened and scientific age


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[Assistant] To find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear sir.


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[Assistant] You must begin your studies entirely anew.


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[Assistant] So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure.


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[Assistant] Would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he omitted. I returned home not disappointed.


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[Assistant] For I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated. But I returned, not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape.


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[Assistant] Monsieur Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance.


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[Assistant] The teacher therefore did not prepossess me in favor of his pursuits.


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[Assistant] In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years.


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[Assistant] As a child I had not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science.


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[Assistant] I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy.


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[Assistant] It was very different when the masters of the science sought immortality and power. Such views although futile were grand. But now the scene was changed.


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[Assistant] The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded.


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[Assistant] I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at Ingolstadt.


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[Assistant] I thought of the information which Mr. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures.


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[Assistant] And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver sentences out of our pulpit,


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[Assistant] I recollected what he had said of Monsieur Waldman whom I had never seen as he had hitherto been out of town.


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[Assistant] Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness I went into the lecturing room, which Mr. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his colleagues.


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[Assistant] He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence.


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[Assistant] He began his lecture by a recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by different men of learning


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[Assistant] Pronouncing with fervour the names of the most distinguished discoverers.


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[Assistant] He then took a cursory view of the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary terms.


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[Assistant] After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded


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[Assistant] Which in my lord's behalf I come to entreat your honor to supply, who having great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent for your lordship to furnish him.


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[Assistant] By your patience, I may not suffer you to visit them. The King has strictly charged the contrary.


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[Assistant] In the late afternoon it rained, and the entire world was dark grey.


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[Assistant] He stood in the hall of his house, putting on his badge with the orange salamander burning across it. He stood looking up at the air conditioning vent in the hall for a long time. His wife in the TV parlor paused long enough from reading her script to glance up.


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[Assistant] Yes, he said. I wanted to talk to you. He paused. You took all the pills in your bottle last night. Oh, I wouldn't do that, she said, surprised. The bottle was empty.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would I do a thing like that? She said.


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[Assistant] Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more and forgot again and took two more and were so dope you kept right on till you had thirty or forty of them in you. Heck, she said.


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[Assistant] What would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for? I don't know, he said.


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[Assistant] She was quite obviously waiting for him to go. I didn't do that, she said. Never in a billion years. All right, if you say so, he said. That's what the lady said. She turned back to her script. What's on this afternoon, he asked tiredly. She didn't look up from the script again.


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[Assistant] Well, this is a play that comes on the wall-to-wall circuit in ten minutes. They mailed me my parts this morning. I sent in some box tops.


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[Assistant] They write the script with one part missing. It's a, it's a new idea. The homemaker, that's me, is the missing part.


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[Assistant] When it comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls, and I say the lines. Here, for instance, the man says, What do you think of this whole idea, Helen? And he looks at me sitting here, center stage, see? And I say, I say,


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[Assistant] And then they go on with the play until he says, do you agree to that, Helen? And I say, I sure do. Isn't that fun, guy? He stood in the hall looking at her. It's sure fun, she said. What's the play about?


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[Assistant] I just told you, there are these people named Bob and Ruth and Helen. Oh.


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[Assistant] It's, it's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed.


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[Assistant] How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars. That's one third of my yearly pay.


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[Assistant] It's only two thousand dollars, she replied, and I should think you'd consider me sometimes. If we had a fourth wall, why, it'd be just like this room wasn't ours at all. But all kinds of exotic people's rooms. We, we could do without a few things.


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[Assistant] We're already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall. It was put in only two months ago, remember?


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[Assistant] Goodbye, he said. He stopped and turned around. Does it have a happy ending? I haven't read that far.


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[Assistant] He walked over, read the last page, nodded, folded the script, and handed it back to her. He walked out of the house, into the rain.


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[Assistant] Chapter 14. Looking for the treasure.


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[Assistant] They have the ship, Silver told the men, and I don't know where it is, but once we have the treasure, we'll find it soon enough


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[Assistant] The men were happy, but I was afraid. If Silver's plan came true, he would forget Dr. Livesey and the others, I was sure. And if things went wrong, how could a boy and a one-legged man fight five strong men?


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[Assistant] When we left the stockade, everyone had weapons except me. Silver had two guns.


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[Assistant] And the parrot, Captain Flint, sat on his shoulder.


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[Assistant] There was a rope around me, and I followed after Silver, who held the other end.


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[Assistant] Some of the men carried spades, others food and rum, and we made our way to the beach where the two boats were waiting.


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[Assistant] The men talked about the map. The cross was too large to be of much help, and the words on the back of the map were no better. Tall tree, spyglass shoulder to the north of north-northeast. Skeleton island east-southeast and by east.


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[Assistant] We landed the boats at the mouth of the second river, then began to climb Spyglass Hill.


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[Assistant] Silver and I followed a long way behind the rest, and I had to help him. We were near the top when a man on the left cried aloud. The others started to run towards him. He can't have found the treasure, said Morgan. And indeed, it was something very different. The bones of a human skeleton


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[Assistant] A few pieces of clothing still on it. Cold fear filled every heart. He was a seaman, said George Merry. Yes, agreed Silver. But look at the way those bones are lying. It isn't natural. The man lay perfectly straight, his feet pointing one way, his hands over his head.


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[Assistant] Pointing the opposite way. I've got an idea! Said Silver. Look!


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[Assistant] We can see the top of Skeleton Island from here. These bones are a pointer, telling us which way to go. He was right.


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[Assistant] Our compass showed that the body pointed straight towards Skeleton Island and in a line east-southeast and by east.


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[Assistant] We left the skeleton behind, but now the pirates kept together and talked in frightened whispers. At the top of the hill, Silver took out his compass again.


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[Assistant] There are three tall trees, he said, in about the right place.


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[Assistant] Spyglass shoulder must be that lower place there. A child could find the treasure now. Suddenly, out of the middle of the trees in front of us,


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[Assistant] A high, shaking voice began to sing.


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[Assistant] The effect on the pirates was terrible to see. The color went from their six faces, and they caught hold of each other like frightened children. Morgan fell to the ground, trembling with fear. It's Flint, cried George Merry. No, said Silver, fighting to get the word out. It's someone playing games.


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[Assistant] It's no ghost! Then the voice came again.


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[Assistant] Those were Flint's last words before he died, cried Morgan. I'm here to get that treasure, shouted Silver.


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[Assistant] And I'll not be beaten by man or ghost!


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[Assistant] I was never afraid of Flint in his life. And by thunder, I'll face him dead.


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[Assistant] There's seven hundred thousand pounds, not a quarter of a mile from here.


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[Assistant] I'll not leave that much money for a drunken old seaman. Him dead too. And there's something strange. There was an echo.


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[Assistant] And no man ever saw a ghost with a shadow.


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[Assistant] So why should a ghost's voice have an echo? It's not natural. The words calmed George Merry. Yes, that's right, he said. Now I think about it. It was like Flynn's voice, but not exactly like it. It was like another person's voice, more like


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[Assistant] Ben Gunn! shouted Silver. If it was, it's still a ghost, said Dick. Ben Gunn's not here in body any more than Flint is. But the older man laughed.


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[Assistant] Nobody minds Ben Gunn dead or alive! cried George. The men were happy again. The colour back in their faces as they talked together and began to walk on. George Merry went first, leading the way with Silver's compass.


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[Assistant] We reached the first tall tree, but it was the wrong one. So was the second. The third was tall enough to be seen from the sea, both east and west of the island. My companions hurried on.


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[Assistant] desperate to get their hands on the seven hundred thousand pounds in gold which lay somewhere under the tree shadows.


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[Assistant] Silver pulled at the rope that held me and turned his eyes upon me with a deadly look. I could read his thoughts. So near to the gold now, everything was forgotten. His promise and the doctor's warning. I knew he hoped to take the treasure, cut every honest throat on that island, find and board the Hispaniola at night,


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[Assistant] Not ten meters farther on, they stopped and cried out. Silver moved quickly. And the next moment, we were with them. Before us was a large hole. But it was not a new hole. Because grass grew on the bottom. There was no treasure. The seven hundred thousand pounds had gone.


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[Assistant] Lights flicked on and the house doors opened all down the street to watch the carnival set up.


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[Assistant] Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before them, this, this main ring in which torches would be juggled, and fire eaten. Well, said Beatty, now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun, and now that he's burnt his damned wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the hound around your place?


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[Assistant] Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless. He felt his head turn like a stone carving to the dark place next door, set in its bright border of flowers. Dead he snorted,


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[Assistant] You weren't fooled by that little idiot's routine, were you? Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets, oh hell. It's all in her file. I'll be damned, I've hit the bullseye. Look at the stick look on your face. A few grass blades and the quarters of the moon, what trash. What good did she ever do with all that? Montag sat on the cold fender of the dragon.


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[Assistant] Moving his head half an inch to the left, half an inch to the right, left, right, left, right, left. She saw everything. She didn't do anything to anyone. She just let them alone. Alone, Hal! She chewed around you, didn't she? One of those damn do-gooders with her shocked, holier-than-thou silences. Their one talent making others feel guilty. God damn you!


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[Assistant] They rise like the midnight sun to sweat you in your bed. The front door opened. Mildred came down the steps running, one suitcase held with a dreamlike clenching rigidity in her fist as a beetle taxi hissed to the curb.


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[Assistant] She ran past with her body stiff, her, her face flowered with powder, her mouth gone without lipstick. Meldred, you, you didn't put in the alarm. She shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in, and sat mumbling. Poor family, poor family, oh, oh, everything gone, everything, everything gone now. Beatty grabbed Montag's shoulder as the beetle blasted away and hit seventy miles an hour.


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[Assistant] Far down the street. Gone. There was a crash like the falling parts of a dream, fashioned out of warped glass, mirrors, and crystal prisms. Montag drifted about as if still another incomprehensible storm had turned him to see stonemen and black, wielding axes, shattering window panes to provide cross-fetulation. The brush of a death's-head moth against a cold black-screened


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[Assistant] For everyone knows nowadays absolutely is certain that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities, except that there are. But let's not talk about them, eh? By the time the consequences catch up with you, it's too late. Isn't it, Montag? Montag, can you get away? Run, as favor.


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[Assistant] Montag walked, but did not feel his feet touch the cement, and then the night crashes. Betty flicked his igniter nearby.


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[Assistant] And a small orange flame drew his fascinated gaze. What is there about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it? Baby blew out the flame and did it again. It's, it's perpetual motion.


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[Assistant] The thing man wanted to invent, but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. If you let it go on, it'll burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledygook about friction and molecules, but they don't really know.


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[Assistant] His real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome. Then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you're a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders. Clean, quick, sure, nothing to rot later. Antibiotic? Aesthetic? Practical. Montag stood looking in now at this square house


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[Assistant] By murmuring neighbor voices by littered glass, and there on the floor, their covers torn off and spilled like swan feathers, the incredible books that look so silly and really not worth bothering with, for these were nothing but black type and yellowed paper and raveled binding. Mildred, of course. She must have watched him hide the books in the garden, and brought them back in. Mildred.


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[Assistant] I want you to do this job all by your lonesome, Montag, not with kerosene and a match, but piecework with the flame thrower. Your house, your clean up. Montag, can't you run? Get away. No, cried Montag helplessly. The hound, because of the hound.


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[Assistant] Faber heard, and, and Bailey thinking it was meant for him heard.


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[Assistant] Yes, the hound's somewhere about this neighborhood, so don't try anything. Ready? Ready. Montag snapped the safety catch on the flamethrower. Fire! A great, nuzzling gout of fire leapt out to laugh at the books and knock them against the wall.


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[Assistant] He stepped into the bedroom and fired twice and the twin beds went up in a great simmering whisper with more heat and passion and light than he would have supposed them to contain. He burnt the bedroom walls and the


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[Assistant] Cosmetic's chest because he wanted to change everything, the chairs, the tables, and in the dining room the silverware and plastic dishes, everything that showed that he had lived here in this empty house with a strange woman who would forget him tomorrow, who had gone and quite forgotten him already listening to her seashell radio


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[Assistant] Pour in on her and in on her as she rode across town alone. And as before, it was good to burn. He felt himself gush out in the fire, snatched, rend, rip in half with flame, and put away the senseless problem. If there was no solution, well then now there was no problem either. Fire was best for everything. The books, Montague! The books leapt and danced like roasted birds.


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[Assistant] The wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers. And then he came to the parlor where the great idiot monsters lay asleep with their white thoughts and their snowy dreams, and he shot a bolt at each of the three blank walls and a vacuum hissed out at him. The emptiness made an even emptier whistle a senseless scream. He tried to think about the vacuum upon which the nothingness had performed, but he could


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[Assistant] He held his breath so the vacuum could not get into his lungs. He cut off his terrible


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[Assistant] Drew back and gave the entire room of gift a one huge bright yellow flower of burning. The fireproof plastic sheath on everything was cut wide, and the house began to shudder with flame. "'When you're quite finished,' said Betty behind him, "'you're under arrest


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[Assistant] To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher sitting on his stool in Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and a variety of objects in movement were everyday presented.


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[Assistant] Who could fit upon anything in Fleet Street during the busy hours of the day and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions?


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[Assistant] One ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun.


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[Assistant] Both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down.


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[Assistant] With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one stream.


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[Assistant] Saving the jetty had no expectation of their ever running dry.


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[Assistant] Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind.


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[Assistant] Since the small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women,


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[Assistant] Mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life.


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[Assistant] From Telson's side of the tides to the opposite shore.


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[Assistant] Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the honor of drinking her very good health.


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[Assistant] And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent purpose that he recruited his finances as just now observed.


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[Assistant] Time was when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible and looked about him.


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[Assistant] And when his affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast,


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[Assistant] That Mrs Cruncher must have been flopping in some pointed manner.


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[Assistant] When an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet Street Westwood attracted his attention.


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[Assistant] Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along.


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[Assistant] And that there was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar. Young Jerry, said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, it's a burying. Hurrah, father, cried young Jerry.


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[Assistant] The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill


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[Assistant] What do you mean? What are you hoorahing at? What do you want to convey to your father, you young rip? This boy is a-getting too many for me, said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. Him and his hoorahs. Don't let me hear no more out of you, or you shall feel some more of me. Do you hear?


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[Assistant] Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. Drop it then, said Mr. Cruncher. I won't have none of your no harms. Get a top of that there seat and look at the crowd. His son obeyed, and the crowd approached.


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[Assistant] They were bawling and hissing round a dingy hearth and dingy morning coach, in which morning coach there was only one mourner.


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[Assistant] Dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of the position.


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[Assistant] The position appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach deriding him


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[Assistant] Making grimaces at him and incessantly groaning and calling out


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[Assistant] Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher.


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[Assistant] He always pricked up his senses and became excited when a funeral passed Tellson's.


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[Assistant] Ada now, returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth, nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest ada.


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[Assistant] A person better informed on the merits of the case tumbled against him.


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[Assistant] And from this person, he learned that the funeral was the funeral of one Roger Clyde. Was he a spy? Asked Mr. Cruncher. Old Bailey spy returned his informant.


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[Assistant] Why, to be sure, exclaimed Jerry, recalling the trial at which he had assisted. I've seen him. Dead easy.


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[Assistant] The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea that the crowd caught it up with eagerness.


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[Assistant] And loudly repeating the suggestion to have them out and to pull them out.


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[Assistant] The one mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their hands for a moment.


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[Assistant] But he was so alert and made such good use of his time that in another moment he was scouting away up a by street after shedding his cloak hat.


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[Assistant] Long hatband, white pocket handkerchief, and other symbolical tears.


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[Assistant] These the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops. For a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded.


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[Assistant] When some brighter genius proposed instead, it's being escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing.


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[Assistant] Practical suggestions being much needed, this suggestion too was received with acclamation.


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[Assistant] And the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out.


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[Assistant] While as many people got on the roof of the hearse, as could by any exercise of ingenuity, stick upon it.


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[Assistant] Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Crunchy himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of Telsons in the further corner of the morning coach.


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[Assistant] The officiating undertake has made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies. But the river being alarmingly near,


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[Assistant] And several voices remarking on the efficacy of a cold immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief.


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[Assistant] Advised by the regular driver who was perched beside him under close inspection for the purpose, and with a piment.


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[Assistant] Gave quite an undertaking heir to that part of the procession in which he walked.


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[Assistant] Thus, with beer drinking, pipe smoking, song roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe,


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[Assistant] The disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was the old church of St. Pancras, far off in the fields.


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[Assistant] It got there in course of time, insisted on pouring into the burial ground.


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[Assistant] Finally, accomplished the internment of the deceased Roger Ply in its own way and highly to its own satisfaction.


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[Assistant] The dead man disposed of and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself. Another brighter genius or perhaps the same.


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[Assistant] Conceived the humor of impeaching casual passers-by as old Bailey spies and wreaking vengeance on them.


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[Assistant] Chase was given to some score of inoffensive persons who had never been near the old Bailey in their lives. In the realization of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated.


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[Assistant] The transition to the sport of window breaking and thence to the plundering of public houses was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer houses had been pulled down and some area railings had been torn up to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumor got about that the guards were coming. Before this rumor, the crowd gradually melted away.


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[Assistant] And perhaps the guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob. Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind in the churchyard to confer and condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a neighboring public house and smoked it.


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[Assistant] Looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot. Jerry.


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[Assistant] Said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophizing himself in his usual way.


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[Assistant] You see that there Clye that day, and you see with your own eyes that he was a young'un and a straight maiden, having smoked his pipe out and ruminated a little longer.


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[Assistant] He turned himself about that he might appear before the hour of closing on his station at Tellson's.


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[Assistant] Or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss.


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[Assistant] Or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man is not so much to the purpose.


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[Assistant] As that he made a short call upon his medical advisor, a distinguished surgeon on his way back.


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[Assistant] The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. Now I'll tell you where it is, said Mr. Cruncher to his wife on entering.


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[Assistant] If, as an honest tradesman, my ventures goes wrong tonight, I shall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I've seen you do it. The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. Why, you're at it afore my face, said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension.


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[Assistant] Well then, don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate.


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[Assistant] You may as well go and gimme one way or another. Drop it altogether.


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[Assistant] Ah, it is Yes Jerry. That's about it. You may say Yes Jerry.


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[Assistant] Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general, ironical dissatisfaction. You endure, yes, cherry, said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread and butter.


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[Assistant] And seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. Ah, I think so. I believe you. You are going out tonight? Asked his decent wife when he took another bite. Yes, I am. May I go with you, father? Asked his son briskly. No, you mayn't. I'm a-going, as your mother knows, a-fishing. That's where I'm going, going a-fishing. Your fishing rod gets rather rusty, don't it, father?


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[Assistant] Never you mind. Shall you bring any fish home, father? If I don't, you'll have short commons to morrow, returned that gentleman, shaking his head.


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[Assistant] That's questions enough for you. I ain't a going out till you've been long a bed.


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[Assistant] He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher and solemnly holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions to his disadvantage.


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[Assistant] With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her.


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[Assistant] Rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflection.


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[Assistant] The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. And mind you, said Mr. Cruncher, no games tomorrow.


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[Assistant] If I, as an honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinty of meat or two, none of your not touching of it and sticking to bread


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[Assistant] I don't know how scarce you may make the vittles and drink here by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy. He is your ninny. He's as thin as a lap. Do you call yourself a mother?


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[Assistant] And not know that a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out. This touched young Jerry on a tender place, who adored his mother to perform her first duty.


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[Assistant] And whatever else she did or neglected, above all things, to lay a special stress on the discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parents.


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[Assistant] Thus the evening wore away with the Concha family until young Jerry was ordered to bed.


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[Assistant] Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pape.


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[Assistant] And did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o'clock.


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[Assistant] Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him in skillful manner,


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[Assistant] He bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out.


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[Assistant] Young Jerry, who had only made a faint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness, he followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court, followed out into the street.


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[Assistant] He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodges and the door stood ajar all night.


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[Assistant] Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father's honest calling,


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[Assistant] Young Jerry, keeping us close to house fronts, walls and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his honored parent in view.


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[Assistant] The honored parent steering northward had not gone far when he was joined by another disciple of Isaac Walton and the two trudged on together. Within half an hour from the first starting


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[Assistant] They were beyond the winking lamps and the more than winking watchmen and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here.


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[Assistant] And that so silently, that if young Jerry had been superstitious,


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[Assistant] He might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have all of a sudden split himself in two. The three went on and young Jerry went on.


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[Assistant] In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road and up a blind lane of which the wall there risen to some eight or ten feet high formed one side.


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[Assistant] Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that young Jerry saw was the form of his honored parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate.


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[Assistant] He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate and lay there a little, listening perhaps. Then they moved away on their hands and knees.


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[Assistant] It was now young Jerry's turn to approach the gate, which he did holding his breath, crouching down again in a corner there and looking in


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[Assistant] He made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass and all the gray stones in the churchyard. It was a large churchyard that they were in looking on like ghosts in white.


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[Assistant] While the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep far before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to fish. They fished with a spade at first.


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[Assistant] Presently the honoured parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard.


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[Assistant] But his long cherished desire to know more about these matters not only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again.


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[Assistant] They were still fishing perseveringly when he peeped in at the gate for the second time. But now they seemed to have got a bite.


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[Assistant] And saw his honored parents about to wrench it open. He was so frightened, being new to the site.


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[Assistant] That he made off again and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.


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[Assistant] He would not have stopped then for anything less necessary than breath.


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[Assistant] It's being a spectral sort of race that he ran and one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen was running after him.


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[Assistant] And pictured as hopping on behind him bolt upright upon its narrow end.


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[Assistant] It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too.


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[Assistant] Fearful of its coming, hopping out of them, like a dropsicle boy's kite without tail and wings.


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[Assistant] It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against the doors, and drawing them up to its ears as if it were laughing.


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[Assistant] It got into shadows on the road, and they cunningly on its back to trip him up.


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[Assistant] All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him.


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[Assistant] So that when the boy got to his own door, he had reason for being half dead.


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[Assistant] And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair.


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[Assistant] Scrambled into the bed with him and bumped down dead and heavy on his breast when he fell asleep. From his oppressed slumber.


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[Assistant] Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise by the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him, at least so young Jerry inferred from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears and knocking the back of her head against the headboard of the bed. I told you I would, said Mr. Cruncher, and


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[Assistant] His wife implored. You oppose yourself to the profit of the business said Jerry and me and my partner suffer.


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[Assistant] You was to honor and obey, and why the devil don't you?


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[Assistant] Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business?


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[Assistant] Is it honoring your husband to dishonor his business?


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[Assistant] Is it obeying your husband to disobey him on the vital subject of his business? You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry. It's enough for you.


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[Assistant] Retorted Mr. Cruncher to be the wife of a honest tradesman and not to occupy your female mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn't.


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[Assistant] A honoring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether.


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[Assistant] You have no more natural sense of duty than the bed of this Eartems River has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you. The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice.


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[Assistant] And kept an iron pot lid by him as the projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher.


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[Assistant] In case he should observe any symptoms of her saying grace.


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[Assistant] He was brushed and washed at the usual hour and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible calling.


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[Assistant] Young Jerry walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street.


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[Assistant] Was a very different young Jerry from him of the previous night.


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[Assistant] Running home through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer.


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[Assistant] His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone with the night.


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[Assistant] Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered. How should I know?


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[Assistant] Returned Mr. Cruncher going on again and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play. He's a tradesman. What is goods, father? Asked the brisk young Jerry. Is goods, said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, is a branch of scientific goods. Person's bodies, ain't it?


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[Assistant] Asked the lively boy, I believe it is something of that sort, said Mr. Cruncher.


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[Assistant] Oh father, I should so like to be a resurrection man when I'm quite grown up. Mr. Cruncher was soothed but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. It depends upon how you develop your talents.


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[Assistant] Be careful to develop your talents and never to say no more than you can help to nobody.


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[Assistant] As young Jerry thus encouraged went on a few yards in advance to plant the stool in the shadow of the bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself, Jerry,


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[Assistant] You honest tradesman, there's hopes what that boy will yet be a blessing to you and a recompense to you for his mother.


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[Assistant] There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine shop of Monsieur Defarge.


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[Assistant] As early as six o'clock in the morning, shallow faces peeping through its barred windows had described other faces within, bending over measures of wine.


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[Assistant] Mr. Defarge filled a very thin wine at the best of times.


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[Assistant] What its influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy.


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[Assistant] No vivacious bacchanalian flame leapt out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge.


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[Assistant] This had been the third morning in succession on which there had been early drinking at the wine shop of Michel Defarge. It had begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking.


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[Assistant] For many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door.


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[Assistant] Who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls?


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[Assistant] These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine.


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[Assistant] And they glided from seat to seat and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lier of drink with greedy looks.


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[Assistant] Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine shop was not visible. He was not missed, for nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him. Nobody asked for him.


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[Assistant] Nobody wanted to see only Madame Defarge in her seat.


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[Assistant] Presiding over the distribution of wine with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress-


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[Assistant] As the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come.


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[Assistant] A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine shop.


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[Assistant] Drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine. Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick.


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[Assistant] Thus sent Antoine in this Venus feature of his until midday.


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[Assistant] It was high noontide when two dusty men passed through his streets and under his swinging lamps, of whom one was Monsieur Defarge, the other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All a dust and a thirst, the two entered the wine shop.


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[Assistant] Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along.


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[Assistant] Which stirred and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet no one had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wine shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. Good day, gentlemen, said Monsieur Defarge. It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited an answering chorus of good day. It is bad weather, gentlemen, said Defarge, shaking his head.


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[Assistant] And then all cast down their eyes and sat silent, except one man who got up and went out. My wife, said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge.


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[Assistant] I have traveled certain leagues with this good mender of roads called zha.


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[Assistant] I met him, by accident, a day and a half's journey out of Paris.


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[Assistant] He is a good child, this mender of roads called Jacques. Give him to drink, my wife. A second man got up and went out.


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[Assistant] Madame Defarge sat wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company and drank. In the breast of his blouse, he carried some coarse dark bread. He ate of this between wiles and sat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge's counter. A third man got up and went out. Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine, but he took less than was given to the stranger.


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[Assistant] You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.


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[Assistant] Out of the wine shop into the street. Out of the street into a courtyard. Out of the courtyard up a steep staircase. Out of the staircase into a garret.


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[Assistant] Formerly the garret where a white haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. No white haired man was there now.


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[Assistant] But the three men were there who had gone out of the wine shop singly.


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[Assistant] And between them and the white-haired man afar off was the one small link that they had once looked in at him through the chinks in the wall.


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[Assistant] Defarge closed the door carefully and spoke in a subdued voice. Jacques 1, Jacques 2, Jacques 3.


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[Assistant] This is the witness encountered by appointment by me, Jacques Faure. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Vibre.


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[Assistant] The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with it and said, Where shall I commence, Monsieur? Commence.


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[Assistant] The carriage of the marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by the chain, like this.


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[Assistant] Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance in which he ought to have been perfect by that time.


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[Assistant] Seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during a whole year.


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[Assistant] Jacques 1 struck in and asked if he had ever seen the man before. Never, answered the mender of roads recovering his perpendicular.


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[Assistant] Jacques 3 demanded how he afterwards recognized him then. By his tall figure.


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[Assistant] When Monsieur de Marquis demands that evening, say what is he like, I make a response, tall as a spectre. You should have said short as a dwarf, returned Jacques too.


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[Assistant] But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished. Neither did he confide in me.


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[Assistant] Observe, under those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing near our little fountain, and says, To me, bring that rascal. My faith, Monsieur, I offer nothing.


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[Assistant] I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the village below where it is already dark when I raise my eyes and see coming over the hill six soldiers.


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[Assistant] In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms bound, tied to his sides like this.


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[Assistant] I see that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road and are on the hill above it and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp. But when they advance quite near to me,


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[Assistant] I recognize the tall man, and he recognizes me.


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[Assistant] Ah, but he would be well content to precipitate himself over the hillside once again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot. He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly. Perhaps he had not seen much in his life.


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[Assistant] I do not show the soldiers that I recognize the tall man. He does not show the soldiers that he recognizes me. We do it and we know it with our eyes.


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[Assistant] Come on, says the chief of that company pointing to the village, bringing him fast to his tomb.


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[Assistant] Because he is lame and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns, like this.


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[Assistant] He imitated the action of a man's being impelled forward by the buttons of muskets. As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it. Thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the village. All the village runs to look. They take him past the mill and up to the prison.


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[Assistant] He opened his mouth as wide as he could and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth.


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[Assistant] In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison on my way to my work.


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[Assistant] Behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through.


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[Assistant] He has no hand see to wave to me, I dare not call to him. He regards me like a dead man. Defarge and the three glance darkly at one another.


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[Assistant] The looks of all of them were dark, repressed and revengeful as they listened to the countryman's story.


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[Assistant] The manner of all of them while it was secret was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal.


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[Assistant] Jack 1 and 2 sitting on the old pallet bed, each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the road mender.


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[Assistant] Jacques 3, equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand, always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose.


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[Assistant] Defarge, standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to them and from them to him. Go on, Jacques, said Defarge.


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[Assistant] He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth for it is afraid.


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[Assistant] They are turned towards the prison. They whisper at the fountain that although condemned to death, he will not be executed.


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[Assistant] They say that petitions have been presented in Paris showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child.


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[Assistant] Know that a petition was presented to the king and queen.


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[Assistant] All here, yourself accepted, saw the king take it in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the queen.


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[Assistant] It is the sage whom you see here who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses with the petition in his hand. And once again listen, Jacques," said the kneeling number three.


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[Assistant] His fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves.


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[Assistant] The guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner and struck him blows. You hear? I hear, monsieur. Go on then, said Defarge. Again, on the other hand, they whispered at the fountain, resumed the countryman.


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[Assistant] They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants, serves what you will, he will be executed as a parasite.


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[Assistant] One old man says at the fountain that his right hand armed with the knife will be burnt off before his face.


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[Assistant] There will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax and sulphur. Finally.


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[Assistant] That he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses.


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[Assistant] That old man says all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King Louis XV. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar. Listen once again then, Jacques, said the man with the restless hand and the craving air. The name of that prisoner was Damien.


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[Assistant] And it was all done in open day in the open streets of the city of Paris. And nothing was more noticed in a vast concourse that saw it done than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion who were full of eager attention to the last.


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[Assistant] To the last Jacques prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed. And it was done. Why, how old are you? Thirty-five, said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.


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[Assistant] It was done when you were more than ten years old. You might have seen it. Enough, said the Farge, with grim impatience. Long live the Devil, gone. Well, some whisper this, some whisper that. They speak of nothing else. Even the fountain appears to fall to that dune.


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[Assistant] At length on Sunday night when all the village is asleep.


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[Assistant] Come soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street.


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[Assistant] Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing. In the morning by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water. The mender of the roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. All work is stopped.