Part 5 of Blast, Issue Number 1. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Saddest Story by Ford Maddox-Huffer. Beati Makulati 1. We had known the Ashburnams for nine seasons of the town of Naohaim with an extreme intimacy, or rather with an acquaintancehip as loose and easy and yet as close as a good gloves with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs Ashburnam as well as it was possible to know anybody and yet in another sense we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom till today when I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I know nothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England and certainly I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows. I don't mean to say that we were not acquainted with many English people, living as we before slived in Europe and being as we before were leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that we were un-American, we were thrown very much into the society of the nicer English. Paris you see was our home, somewhere between Nice and Bodiguerre, provided yearly winter quarters for us, and Nauheim always received us from July to September. You will gather from this statement that one of us had, as the saying is, a heart, and from the statement that my wife is dead, the cheapo thing was the sufferer. Captain Ashburnam also had a heart, but whereas a yearly month or so at Nauheim tuned him up to exactly the right pitch for the rest of the twelve month, the two months or so were only just enough to keep poor Florence alive from year to year. The reason for his heart was approximately polo or too much sportsmanship in his youth. The reason for poor Florence's broken years may have been in the first instance congenital, but the immediate occasion was a storm at sea upon our first crossing to Europe and the immediate reasons for our imprisonment in that continent were doctors' orders. They said that even the short channel crossing might well kill the poor thing. When we all first met, Captain Ashburnam, home on sick leave from India, to which he was never to return, was thirty-six and poor Florence thirty. Thus today Florence would have been thirty-nine and Captain Ashburnam forty-two, whereas I am forty-five and Leonora thirty-seven. You will perceive therefore that our friendship has been a young middle-aged affair, more particularly since we were all of us of quiet dispositions. The Ashburnam's been more particularly what in England is the custom to call quite good people. They were descended, as you will probably expect, from the Ashburnam who accompanied Charles I to the scaffold, and, as you must also expect with this class of English people, you would never have noticed it. This is Ashburnam was a Powis. Florence was a hurlbird of Stamford, Connecticut, where, as you know, they are more old-fashioned than ever the inhabitants of Cranford, England could have been. I myself am a Lowell of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where, it is historically true, there are more old English families than you would find in any six English counties taken together. I carry about with me indeed, as if it were the only thing that invisibly anchored me to any spot upon the globe, the tidal deeds of my farm, which once covered the blocks between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, at 16-26. These tidal deeds are upon Wampum, the grant of an Indian chief to the first dowel who left Farnham in Surrey, accompanied with William Penn. Florence's people, as is often the case with the inhabitants of Connecticut, came from the neighborhood of Fordingbridge, where the Ashburnam's places. From there, at this moment, I am actually writing, You may well ask why I write, and yet my reasons are quite many, for it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefits of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote, or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads. Someone has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the whole sack of Rome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking up of our little four square coterie was such another unthinkable event.  You would have said that as human affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. We were, if you will, one of those things that seemed the proudest and the safest of all the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mind of men to frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better? Permanence, stability. I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe that that long tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished in four crushing days at the end of nine years and six weeks. For my word, yes, our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion, and in every possible circumstance, we knew where to go, which table we unanimously should choose, and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music of the Kuer Orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discrete shelters. No indeed, it can't be gone.   In the cupboard and presses, the rats may destroy the white satin favours. The mob may sack Versailles. The Trianon may fall, but surely the minuet, the minuet itself, is dancing itself away into the furthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessean bathing places must be stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful dances, old beautiful intimuses prolong themselves? Isn't there any nirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that have fallen into the dust of Wormwood, but that yet had frail, tremulous, and everlasting souls? No, by God, it is false. It wasn't a minuet that we stepped. It was a prison, a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not out sound the rolling of our carriage-wheels, as we went along the shaded avenues of the taurnous vault. And yet, I swear by the sacred name of my creator, that it was true. It was true sunshine, the true music, the true plush of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the same tastes, with the same desires acting, or no, not acting, sitting here and there unanimously. Isn't that the truth? If, for nine years, I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core, and discovered its rottenness only in nine years and six months, less four days. Isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple? So it may well be with Edward Ash Burnham, with Leonora, his wife, and with poor dear Florence. And if you come to think of it, isn't it a little odd that the physical rottenness of at least two pillars of our four square house never presented itself to my mind as a menace to its security? It doesn't so present itself now, though the two of them are actually dead. I don't know. I know nothing, nothing in the world of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone, horribly alone. No hearthstones will ever again witness for me, friendly intercourse. No smoking room will ever be other than peopled, with incalculable simulacra amid smoke-breathes. Yet, in the name of God, what should I know if I don't know the life of the hearth and of the smoking room, since my whole life has been passed in those places? The warm hearth side. Well, there was Florence. I believe that for the twelve years her life lasted after the storm that irretrievably weakened her heart. I don't believe that for one minute she was out of my sight, except when she was safely tucked up in bed, and I should be downstairs talking to some good fellow or other in the lounge or smoking room, or taking my final turn with a cigar before going to bed. I don't, you understand, blame Florence, but how can she have known what she knew all the time? How could she have got to know it, to know it so fully? Heavens, there doesn't seem to have been the actual time. It must have been when I was taking my baths and my Swedish exercises being manicured. Leading the life I did of the sedular, strained nurse, I had to do something to keep myself fit. It must have been then, yet even that can't have been enough time to get the tremendously long conversations full of worldly wisdom that Leonora has reported to me since their deaths, and is it possible to imagine that during our prescribed walks in Nowheim and the neighborhood, she found time to carry on the protracted negotiations which she did carry on between Edward Ashburnham and his wife, and is it incredible that during all that time Edward and Leonora never spoke a word to each other in private? What is one to think of humanity? For I swear to you, that they were the model couple. He was as devoted as it was possible to be without appearing fatuous, so well set up with such honest blue eyes, such a touch of stupidity, such a warm good-heartedness, and she, so tall, so splendid in the saddle, so fair. Yes, Leonora was extraordinarily fair, and so extraordinarily the real thing that she seemed too good to be true.  To be the county family, to look the county family, to be so appropriately and perfectly wealthy, to be so perfect in manner, even just to the saving touch of insolence, that seems to be necessary, to have all that and to be all that. No, it was too good to be true, and yet, only this afternoon, talking over the whole matter, she said to me, Once I tried to have a lover, but I was so sick at the heart, so utterly worn out, that I had to send him away. That struck me as the most amazing thing I had ever heard. She said, I was actually in a man's arms, such a nice chap, such a dear fellow, and I was saying to myself fiercely, hissing it between my teeth, as they say in novels, and really clenching them together. I was saying to myself, Now I am in for it, and I'll really have a good time for once in my life, for once in my life. It was in the dark, in a carriage, coming back from a hunt ball. Eleven miles we had to drive, and then, suddenly, the bitterness of the endless poverty, of the endless acting, it fell upon me like a blight. It spoiled everything. Yes, I had to realise that I had been spoiled even for the good time when it came, and I burst out crying, and I cried and cried for the holy 11 miles.  It certainly wasn't playing the game, was it now? I don't know. I don't know. Was that last remark of hers, the remark of a harlot? Or is it what every decent woman, county family or not county family, thinks at the bottom of her heart, or thinks all the time for the matter of that? Who knows? Yet if one doesn't know that at this hour and day, at this pitch of civilisation to which we have attained, after all the preachings of all the moralists, and all the teachings of all the mothers to all the daughters, in ceculum ceculorum, but perhaps that is what all mothers teach all daughters, not with the lips, but with the eyes, or with heart whispering to heart, and if one doesn't know as much as that about the first thing in the world, what does one know, and why is one here? I asked Mrs Ashburn and whether she had told Florence that, and what Florence had said, and she answered, Florence didn't offer any comment at all. What could she say? There wasn't anything to be said. With the grinding poverty we had to put up with to keep up appearances, and the way the poverty came about, you know what I mean. Any woman would have been justified in taking a lover and presence too. Florence once said about a very similar position. She was a little too well-bred to American to talk about mine, that it was a case of perfectly open riding, and the woman could just act on the spur of the moment. She said it in American, of course, but that was the sense of it. I think her actual words were that it was up to her to take it or leave it. I don't want you to think that I am writing Teddy Ashburnam down a brute. I don't believe he was. God knows. Perhaps all men are like that. For as I've said, what do I know even of the smoking-room?  And yet they'd be offended if you suggested they weren't the sort of person you would trust your wife alone with. And very likely they'd be quite properly offended. That is, if you can trust anybody alone with anybody. But that sort of fellow obviously takes more delight in listening to, or telling gross stories, more delight than in anything else in the world. They'll hunt languidly, and dress languidly, and dine languidly, and work without enthusiasm, and find it a bore to carry on three minutes' conversation about anything whatever. And yet, when the other sort of conversation begins, they laugh and wake up and throw themselves about in their chairs. Then, if they so delight in the narration, how is it possible that they can be offended, and properly offended at the suggestion that they might make attempts upon your wife's honour? Or again, Edward Ashburnam was the cleanest looking sort of chap, an excellent magistrate, a first-rate soldier, one of the best landlords. So they said in Hampshire, England, to the poor and to hopeless drunkards, as I myself have witnessed, he was like a painstaking guardian, and he never told a story that could have gone into the columns of the field, more than once or twice in all the nine years of my knowing him. He didn't even like hearing them. He would fidget and get up and go out to buy a cigar, or something of that sort. You would have said that he was just exactly the sort of chap that you could have trusted your wife with, and I trusted mine, and it was madness. And yet again you have me. If poor Edward was dangerous because of the chastity of his expressions, and they say that that is always the hallmark of a libertine, what about myself?  And what then does it all work out? Is the whole thing a folly and a mockery, am I no better than a eunuch, or is the proper man, the man with the right to existence, a raging stallion forever, neighing after his neighbour's womankind? I don't know, there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is so nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what is there to guide us in the most subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, and activities? Or are we meant to act on impulse alone? It is all a darkness. 2. I don't know how it is best to put this thing down, whether it would be better to tell the story from the beginning, as if it were a story, or whether to tell it from this distance of time, as it reached me from the lips of Leonora, or from those of Edward himself. So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so, at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite to me. And I shall go on talking in a low voice, while the sea sounds in the distance, and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars. From time to time we shall get up and go to the door, and look out at the bright moon and say, why, it is nearly as bright as in Provence. And then we shall come back to the fireside, with just the touch of a sigh, because we are not in that Provence, where even the saddest store is our gay. Consider the lamentable history of Père Vidal. Two years ago, Florence and I motored from Biarritz to Las Tours, which is in the Black Mountains. In the middle of a tortuous valley there rises up a pinnacle, and on the pinnacle are four castles, last tour, the towers. And the immense mistral blew down that valley, which was the way from France into Provence, so that the silver-gray olive leaves appeared like hair flying in the wind, and the tufts of rosemary crept into the iron rocks that they might not be torn up by the roots. It was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las Tours. You had to imagine that, however much her bright personality came from Stamford, Connecticut, she was yet a graduate of Poughkeepsie. I never could imagine how she did it, the queer, chattery person that she was, with the faraway look in her eyes, which wasn't, however, in the least romantic. I mean that she didn't look as if she was seeing poetic dreams or looking through you, for she hardly ever did look at you, holding up one hand as if she wished to silence any objection, or any comment for the matter of that. She would talk, she would talk about William the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris frocks, about how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fontaine-Latorre, about the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranée train de luxe, about whether it would be worthwhile to get off at Tarascans and go across the windswept suspension bridge over the Rhône to take another look at Bocair. We never did take another look at Bocair, of course, beautiful Bocair with the high triangular white tower that looked as thin as a needle and as tall as the flat iron between fifth and Broadway. Bocair with the gray walls on the top of the pinnacle, surrounding an acre and a half of blue irises, beneath the tallness of the stone pines. What a beautiful thing the stone pine is. No, we never did go back anywhere, not to Heidelberg, not to Hamlin, not to Verona, not to Mount Magnus, not so much as to Carcassonne itself, not so much as to Carcassonne itself. We talked of it, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted out of one look at a place. She had the seeing eye. I haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I want to return, towns with the white sun upon them, stone pines against the blinking blue of the sky, corners of gables, all carved and painted with stags and scarlet flowers, and crow stepped gables with the little saints at the top, and gray and pink palazzi and walled towns a mile or so back from the sea on the Mediterranean between Leghorn and Naples. Not one of them did we see more than once, so that the whole world for me is like spots of colour in an immense canvas. Perhaps if it weren't so, I should have something to catch hold of now. Is all this digression, or isn't it digression? Again, I don't know. You, the listener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell me anything. I am at any rate trying to get you to see what sort of life it was I led with Florence, and what Florence was like. Well, she was bright, and she danced. She seemed to dance over the floors of castles and overseas, and over the salons of modists, and over the plage of the Riviera, like a gay tremulous beam reflected from water upon a ceiling. And my function in life was to keep that bright thing in existence, and it was almost as difficult as trying to catch with your hand that dancing reflection, and the task lasted for years. Florence's aunts used to say that I must be the laziest man in Philadelphia. They had never been to Philadelphia, and they had the New England conscience. You see, the first thing they said to me when I called in on Florence in the little ancient colonial wooden house beneath the high thin-leaved elms. The first question they asked me was, not how I did, but what did I do? I did nothing. I suppose I ought to have done something, but I didn't see any call to do it. Why does one do things? I just drifted in and wanted Florence. First I had drifted in on Florence at a browning tea, or something of the sort in 14th Street, which was then still residential. I don't know why I had gone to New York. I don't know why I had gone to the tea. I don't see why Florence should have gone to that sort of spelling bee. It wasn't the place at which, even then, you expected to find a Poughkeepsie graduate. I guess Florence wanted to raise the culture of the Stuyvesant crowd, and did it as she might have gone in slumming. Intellectual slumming, that's what it was. She always wanted to leave the world a little more elevated than she found it. Poor dear thing, I have heard her lecture Teddy Ashburnham by the hour, on the difference between a Franz Halst and a Wauermans, and why the pre-Mycenae statues were cubical with knobs on the top. I wonder what he made of it. Perhaps he was thankful. I know I was. For do you understand, my whole attentions, my whole endeavours were to keep poor dear Florence onto the topics like the finds at Knottos, and the mental spirituality of Walter Peter. I had to keep her at it you understand, or she might die. For I was solemnly informed that if she became excited over anything, or if her emotions were really stirred, her little hearts might cease to beat.  Yes, the first doctor that we had when she was carried off the ship at Avra assured me that this must be done. Good God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, or is there a free masonry between all of them from end to end of the earth? That is what makes me think of that fellow, Père Vidal. Because of course his story is culture, and I had to head her towards culture, and at the same time it's so funny, and she hadn't got to laugh, and it's so full of love, and she wasn't to think of love. Do you know the story? Last tour of the four castles had for Chateaulayne, Blanche, somebody or other, who was called as a term of commendation, La Louvre, the she-wolf, and Père Vidal the troubadour paid his court to La Louvre, and she wouldn't have anything to do with him. So, out of compliment to her, the things people do when they're in love, he dressed himself up in wolfskins and went up into the Black Mountains, and the shepherds of the Montagnois and their dogs mistook him for a wolf, and he was torn with the fangs and beaten with clubs. So they carried him back to La Tour, and La Louvre wasn't at all impressed. They polished him up, and her husband remonstrated seriously with her. Vidal was, you see, a great poet, and it was not proper to treat a great poet with indifference. So, Père Vidal declared himself emperor of Jerusalem or somewhere, and the husband had to kneel down and kiss his feet, though La Louvre wouldn't. And Père set sail in a rowing boat with four companions to redeem the holy sepulchre, that they struck on a rock somewhere, that at great expense the husband had to fit out an expedition to fetch him back. And Père Vidal fell all over the lady's bed, while the husband, who was the most ferocious warrior, remonstrated some more about the courtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louvre was the more ferocious of the two. Anyhow, that is all that came of it. Isn't that a story? You haven't an idea of the queer old-fashionedness of Florence's aunts, the Mrs Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle, an extraordinarily lovable man, that uncle John, thin, gentle, and with a heart that made his life very much what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't reside at Stamford. His home was in Waterbury, where the watches come from. He had a factory there, which, in our queer American way, would change its functions almost from year to year. For nine months or so, it would manufacture buttons out of bone. Then it would suddenly produce brass buttons for Coachman's liveries. Then it would take a turn at embossed tin lids for candy boxes. The fact is that the poor old gentleman with his weak and fluttering heart didn't want his factory to manufacture anything at all. He wanted to retire, and he did retire when he was 70. But he was so worried at having all the street boys in the town point after him and exclaim, There goes the laziest man in Waterbury, that he tried taking a tour around the world, and Florence and a young man called Jimmy went with him. It appears from what Florence told me that Jimmy's function with Mr. Hurlbird was to avoid exciting topics for him. He had to keep him, for instance, out of political discussions. For the poor old man was a violent Democrat in days when you might travel the world over without finding anything but a Republican. Anyhow, they went round the world. I think an anecdote is about the best way to give you an idea of what the old gentleman was like. For it is perhaps important that you should know what the old gentleman was, since of course he had a great deal of influence in forming the character of my poor dear wife. Just before they set out from San Francisco for the South Seas, old Mr. Hurlbird said he must take something with him to make little presence to people he met on the voyage, and it struck him that the things to take for that purpose were oranges, because California is the orange country and comfortable folding chairs. So he bought, I don't know how many cases of oranges, the great cool Californian oranges, and half a dozen folding chairs in a special case that he always kept in his cabin. There must have been half a cargo of fruit, for to every person on board the several steamers that they employed, to every person with whom he had so much as a nodding acquaintance, he gave an orange every morning, and they lasted him right round the girdle of this mighty globe of ours. When they were at North Cape even, he saw on the horizon poor dear thin man that he was a lighthouse. Hello he says to himself, these poor fellows must be very lonely, let's take them some oranges. So he had a boatload of his fruit out, and had himself rode to the lighthouse on the horizon. The folding chairs he lent to any lady that he came across and liked, or who seemed tired and invalidish on the ship, and so guarded against his heart, and having his niece with him, he went round the world. He wasn't obtrusive about his heart, you wouldn't have known he had one. He only left it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefits of science, since he considered it to be quite an extraordinary kind of heart. And the joke of the matter was that, when, at the age of 84, just five days after poor Florence he died of bronchitis, there was found to be absolutely nothing the matter with that organ. It had certainly jumped or squeaked or something, just sufficiently to take in the doctors, but it appears that that was because of an odd formation of the lungs. I don't much understand about these matters. I inherited his money, because Florence died five days before him. I wish I hadn't. It was a great worry. I had to go out to Waterbury just after Florence's death, because the poor dear old fellow had left a good many charitable bequests, and I had to appoint trustees. I didn't like the idea of there not being properly handled. Yes, it was a great worry, and just as I had got things roughly settled, I received the extraordinary cable from Ashburnham, begging me to come back and have a talk with him. And immediately afterwards came one from Leonora saying, yes, please do come. You could be so helpful. It was as if he had sent the cable without consulting her, and it afterwards told her. Indeed, that was pretty much what had happened, except that he had told the girl, and the girl told the wife. I arrived, however, too late to be of any good, if I could have been of any good.  It was amazing. It was overwhelming. I never shall forget the polished cob that Edward beside me drove, the animal's action, its high stepping, its skin that was like satin, and the peace, and the red cheeks, and the beautiful old house. Just near Branshaw Tellara it was, and we descended on it from the high clear windswept waist of the new forest. I tell you, it was amazing to arrive there from Waterbury, and it came into my head, but Teddy Ashburnham you remember had cabled to me to come and have a talk with him, that it was unbelievable that anything essentially calamitous could happen to that place and those people. I tell you, it was the very spirit of peace, and Leonora, beautiful and smiling, with her coils of yellow hair, stood on the top doorstep, with a butler and footman and a maid or so behind her, and she just said, so glad you've come. As if I'd run down to lunch from a town ten miles away, instead of having come half the world over at the call of two urgent telegrams.  3. It was a very hot summer in August 1904, and Florence had already been taking the baths for a month. I don't know how it feels to be a patient at one of these places. I never was a patient anywhere. I dare say the patients get a home feeling and some sort of anchorage in the spot. They seem to like the bath attendance with their cheerful faces, their air of authority, their white linen, but for myself to be at Nauheim gave me a sense, what shall I say, a sense almost of nakedness, the nakedness that one feels on the seashore or in any great open space. I had no attachments, no accumulations. In one's home it is as if little innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem to unfold one in an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seem friendly when others may be hostile. And believe me, that feeling is a very important part of life. I know it's well that have been for so long a wanderer upon the face of public resorts. And one is too polished up. Heaven knows I was never an untidy man, but the feeling that I had when, whilst poor Florence was taking her morning bath, I stood upon the carefully swept steps of the English off, looking at the carefully arranged trees and tubs upon the carefully arranged gravel, whilst carefully arranged people walked past in carefully calculated gaiety, the carefully calculated hour, the reddish stone of the baths, or were they white half timber chalets? Upon my word I have forgotten, I who was there so often, that will give you the measure of how much I was in the landscape. I could find my way blindfolded to the hot rooms, to the douche rooms, to the fountain in the centre of the quadrangle, where the rusty water gushes out. Yes, I could find my way blindfolded, I know the exact distances. From the hotel Regina, you took 187 paces, then turning sharp, left handed, 420, took you straight down to the fountain from the English off. Starting on the sidewalk, it was 97 paces, and the same 420, but turning left handed this time. And now you understand, that having nothing in the world to do, but nothing whatever, I fell into the habit of counting my footsteps. I would walk with Florence to the baths, and of course she entertained me with her conversation, it was, as I have said, wonderful what she could make conversation out of. She walked very lightly, and her hair was very nicely done, and she dressed beautifully and very costily. Of course she had money of her own, as I shouldn't have minded, and yet, you know, I can't remember a single one of her dresses. Or, I can remember just one, a very simple one of blue-figured silk, a Chinese pattern, very full in the skirts, and broadening out over the shoulders. And her hair was copper coloured, and the heels of her shoes were exceedingly high, so that she tripped upon the points of her toes. And when she came to the door of the bathing place, and when it's open to receive her, she would look back at me with a little coquettish smile, so that her cheek appeared to be caressing her shoulder. I seem to remember that, with that dress, she wore an immensely broad leghorn hat, like the chapeau de paille of Rubens, only very white. The hat would be tied with a lightly knotted scarf of the same stuff as her dress. She knew how to give value to her blue eyes, and round her neck would be some simple pink coral beads. And her complexion had a perfect clearness, a perfect smoothness. And what the devil, for whose benefit did she do it? For that of the bath attendant or the passer's-by? I don't know, anyhow, it can't have been for me, but never in all the years of her life, never on any possible occasion, or in any other place, did she so smile to me, mockingly, invitingly. Ah, she was a riddle. But then, all other women are riddles, and it occurs to me that some way back I began a sentence that I never finished. It was about the feeling I had when I stood on the steps of my hotel every morning before starting out to fetch Florence back from the bath. Natty, precise, well-brushed, conscious of being rather small amongst the long English, the Lanke-Americans, the rotund Germans, and the obese Russian duesses. I should stand there tapping a cigarette on the outside of my case, surveying for a moment the world in the sunlight. But today was to come when I was never to do it again alone. You can imagine, therefore, what the coming of the ash-burnums meant for me. I have forgotten the aspect of many things. But I shall never forget the aspect of the dining-room of the Hotel Excelsior on that evening, and on so many other evenings. Whole castles have vanished from my memory, whole cities that I have never visited again, but that white room festooned with paper-mache fruits and flowers, the fall windows, the many tables, the black screen round the door with three golden cranes flying upward on each panel, the palm tree in the centre of the room, the swish of the waiter's feet, the cold, expensive elegance, the mean of the diners as they came in every evening, the air of earnestness as if they must go through a meal prescribed by the cur authorities. The air of sobriety as if they must seek not by any means to enjoy their meals. Those things I shall not easily forget. And then, one evening in the twilight, I saw Edward Ashburnham lounge round the screen into the room. The head waiter, a man with a face all grey, in what subterranean nooks or corners do people cultivate those absolutely grey complexions, went with the timorous deference of these creatures towards him, and held out a grey ear to be whispered into. It was generally a disagreeable ordeal for newcomers, but Edward Ashburnham bore it like an Englishman and a gentleman. I could see his lips form a word of three syllables. Remember, I had nothing in the world to do but to notice these niceties. And immediately, I knew that he must be Edward Ashburnham, captain, 14th Hussars of Branshaw House, Branshaw Tellera. I knew it because every evening, just before dinner, whilst I waited in the hall, I used, by the courtesy of Misha Shantz, the proprietor, to inspect the little police reports that each guest was expected to sign upon taking a room. The head waiter piloted him immediately to a vacant table, three away from my own. The table that the green falls of Falls River, New Jersey had just vacated. It struck me that that was not a very nice table for the newcomers, since the sunlight, low though it was, shone straight down upon it, and the same idea seemed to come at the same moment into captain Ashburnham's head. His face, if the two had, in the wonderful English fashion, expressed nothing, whatever, nothing. There was in it neither joy nor despair, neither hope nor fear, neither boredom nor satisfaction. He seemed to perceive no soul in that crowded room. He might have been walking in a jungle. I never came across such a perfect expression before, and I never shall again. It was insolence and not insolence, it was modesty and not modesty. His hair was fair, extraordinarily, ordered in a wave, running from the left temple to the right. His face was a light brick red, perfectly uniform in tint. His yellow moustache was as stiff as a toothbrush, and I verily believe that he had had his black smoking jacket, thickened a little over the shoulder blades, so as to give himself the air of the slightest possible stoop. It would be like him to do that. That was the sort of thing he thought about. Martingales, chifny bits, boots, where you got the best soap, the best brandy, the name of the chap who rode a plater down the kybercliffs, the spreading power of number three shot before a charge of number four powder. By heavens, I never heard him talk of anything else. Not in all the years that I knew him, did I hear him talk of anything but these subjects. Oh yes, once he told me that I could buy my special shade of blue ties cheaper from a firm in Burlington Arcade than from my own people in New York, and I have bought my ties from that firm ever since. Otherwise, I should not remember the name of the Burlington Arcade. I wonder what it looks like. I've never seen it. I imagine it to be two immense rows of pillars, like those of the Forum at Rome, with Edward Ashburnam striding down between them, but it probably isn't in the least like that. Once he advised me to buy Caledonian deferred, since they were due to rise, and I did buy them, and they did rise, but of how he got the knowledge I haven't the faintest idea. It seemed to drop out of the blue sky. And that was absolutely all that I knew of him until a month ago. That's and the profusion of his cases, all of pigskin and stamps with his initials, EFA. There were gun cases and collar cases and shirt cases, and letter cases and cases each containing four bottles of medicine, and hat cases and helmet cases. It must have needed a whole herd of the Gadarean swine to make up his outfits, and if I ever penetrated into his private room, it would be to see him standing with his coat and waistcoat off, and the immensely long line of his perfectly elegant trousers, from waist to boot heel. And he would have a slightly reflective air, and he would be just opening one kind of case, and just closing another. Good God, what did they all see in him, for what there was of him, inside and outside, though they said he was a good soldier.  How could he rouse anything like a sentiment in anybody? What did he even talk to them about, when they were under four eyes? Ah, well, suddenly, as if by a flash of inspiration I know, for all good soldiers are sentimentalists, all good soldiers of that type. Their profession, for one thing, is full of the big words, courage, loyalty, honour, constancy. And I have given a wrong impression of Edward Ashburnham, if I have made you think that literally, never in the course of our nine years of intimacy, did he discuss what he would have called the graver things. Even before his final outburst to me, at times, very late at night, say, he has blurted out something that gave an insight into the sentimental view of the cosmos that was his. He would say how much the society of a good woman could do towards redeeming you, and he would say that constancy was the finest of the virtues. He said it very shyly, of course, but still, as if the statement admitted of no doubt. Constancy, isn't that the queer thought? And yet, I must add, that poor dear Edward was a great reader, he would pass hours lost in novels of a sentimental type, novels in which typewriter girls married marquises and governesses earls. And in his books as a rule, the course of true love ran as smooth as buttered honey. And he was fond of poetry of a certain type, and he could even read a hopelessly sad love story. I have seen his eyes filled with tears at reading of a hopeless parting, and he loved with a sentimental yearning all children, puppies, and the feeble generally. So, you see, he would have plenty to gurgle about to a woman, with that and his sound common sense about martingales, and his still sentimental experiences as a county magistrate, and with his intense, optimistic belief that the woman he was making love to at the moment was the one he was destined, at last, to be eternally constant to. Well, I fancy he could put up a pretty good deal of talk when there was no man around to make him feel shy. And I was quite astonished during his final burst out to me. At the very end of things, when the poor girl was on her way to that fatal brindisi, and he was trying to persuade himself and me that he had never really cared for her. I was quite astonished to observe how literary and how just his expressions were. He talked like quite a good book, a book not in the least cheaply sentimental. You see, I suppose he regarded me not so much as a man. I had to be regarded as a woman or a solicitor. Anyhow, it burst out of him on that horrible night, and then, next morning, he took me over to the Assizes, and I saw how, in a perfectly calm and business like way, he set to work to secure a verdict of not guilty for a poor girl, the daughter of one of his tenants, who had been accused of murdering her baby. He spent two hundred pounds on her defence. Well, that was Edward Ashburnham. I had forgotten about his eyes. They were as blue as the sides of a certain type of box of matches.  But the brick pink of his complexion, running perfectly level to the brick pink of his inner eyelids, gave them a curious sinister expression, like a mosaic of blue porcelain set in pink china. And that chap, coming into a room, snapped up the gaze of every woman in it, as dexterously as a conjurer pockets billiard balls. It was most amazing. You know the man on the stage who throws up sixteen balls at once, and they all drop into pockets all over his person, on his shoulders, on his heels, on the inner side of his sleeves. And he stands perfectly still and does nothing. Well, it was like that. He had rather a rough horse voice. And there he was, standing by the table. I was looking at him with my back to the screen, and suddenly I saw two distinct expressions flicker across his immobile eyes. How the deuce did they do it? Those on flinching blue eyes with the direct gaze. The eyes themselves never moved, gazing over my shoulder towards the screen. And the gaze was perfectly level and perfectly direct, and perfectly unchanging. I suppose that the lids really must have rounded themselves a little, and perhaps the lips moved a little too, as if he should be saying, There you are, my dear. At any rate, the expression was that of pride, the satisfaction of the possessor. I saw him once afterwards, for a moment, gaze upon the sunny fields of Brandshaw and say, All this is my land. And then again, the gaze was perhaps more direct, harder if possible, hardy too. It was a measuring look, a challenging look. Once when we were at Biesbaden watching him play in a polo match against the Bonner Hussarland, I saw the same Luke come into his eyes, balancing the possibilities, looking over the ground. The German captain, Count Edigolf von Le Lörfel, was right up by their goalposts, coming with the ball in an easy canter in that tricky German fashion. The rest of the field were just anywhere. It was only a scratch sort of affair. Ashburnen was quite close to the rails, not five yards from us, and I heard him saying to himself, Might just be done, and he did it.  Well, it was just that Luke that I noticed in his eyes. It might. I seem even now to hear him muttering to himself. Just be done. I looked round over my shoulder, and saw tall, smiling brilliantly unboyant, the Enora, and little unfair, and as radiant as the track of sunlight along the sea, my wife. That poor wretch, to think that he was at that moment in a perfect devil of a fix, and there he was, saying at the back of his mind, It might just be done. It was like a chap in the middle of the eruption of a volcano, saying that he might just manage to bolt into the tumult and set fire to a haystack. Madness, predestination, through in the devil's nose. Mrs. Ashburnen exhibited at that moment more gaiety than I have ever since known her to show. There are certain classes of English people, the nicer ones when they have been to many spas, who seem to make a point of becoming much more than usually animated when they are introduced to my compatriots. I have noticed this after. Of course, they must first have accepted the Americans, but that once done they seem to say to themselves, Hello, these women are so bright, we aren't going to be outdone in brightness, and for the time being they certainly aren't, but it wears off. So it was with Leonora, at least until she noticed me. She began, Leonora did, and perhaps it was that that gave me the idea of a touch of insolence in her character, but she never afterwards did any one single thing like it.  And that was an extraordinary thing to say, quite extraordinary. I couldn't for the life of me refer to total strangers as nice people. But of course, she was taking a line of her own, in which I at any rate, and no one else in the room, but she too had taken the trouble to read through the list of guests, counted any more than so many clean bull terriers. As she sat down rather brilliantly at a vacant table besides ours, one that was reserved for the Guggenheimers, and she just sat absolutely deaf to the remonstrances of the head waiter, with his face like a grey rams. That poor chap was doing his steadfast duty too. He knew that the Guggenheimers of Chicago, after they had stayed there a month and had worried the poor life out of him, would give him two dollars fifty and grumble at the tipping system. And he knew that Teddy Ashburnham and his wife would give him no trouble whatever, except what the smiles of Leonora might cause in his apparently unimpressionable bosom. Though you never can tell what may go on behind even a not quite spotless plastron. And every week, Edward Ashburnham would give him a solid sound golden English sovereign. Yet this stout fellow was intent on saving that table for the Guggenheimers of Chicago. He'd ended in Florence saying, why shouldn't we all eat out of the same trough? That's a nasty New York saying, but I'm sure we're all quite nice people, and there can be four seats at our table. It's round. Then came, as it were, an appreciative gurgle from the captain, and I was perfectly aware of a slight hesitation, a quick sharp motion in Mrs Ashburnham as if her horse had checked. But she put it at the fence all right, rising from the seats she had taken and sitting down opposite me, as it were, all in one motion. I never thought that Leonora looked her best in evening dress. She seemed to get it too clearly cut. There was no ruffling. She always affected black and her shoulders were too classical.  I don't know. I loved Leonora always, and today I would very cheerfully lay down my life what is left of it in her service. But I'm sure I never had the beginnings of a trace of what is called the sex instinct towards her. And I suppose, no, I am certain that she never had it towards me. As far as I'm concerned, I think it was those white shoulders that did it. I seemed to feel when I looked at them that if ever I should press my lips upon them, they would be slightly cold, not icily, not without a touch of human heat, but as they say of baths, with the chill off. I seemed to feel chilled at the end of my lips when I looked at her. No, Leonora always appeared to me at her best in a blue tailor maid. Then her glorious hair wasn't deadened by anything in the world. Certain women's lines guide your eyes to their necks, their eyelashes, their lips, their breasts. But Leonora seemed to conduct your gaze always to her wrist, and the wrist was at its best in a black or a dogskin glove. And there was always a gold circlet with a little chain supporting a very small golden key to a dispatch box. Perhaps it was that in which she looked up her heart and her feelings. Anyhow, she sat down opposite me, and then, for the first time, she paid any attention to my existence. She gave me suddenly, yet deliberately, one long stare. Her eyes, too, were blue and dark, and the eyelids were so arched that they gave you the whole round of the irises. And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me. I seemed to perceive the swift questions chating each other through the brain that was behind them. I seemed to hear the brain ask and the eyes answer with all the simpleness of a woman who was a good hand at taking in qualities of a horse, as indeed she was. Stanzwell has plenty of room for his oats behind the girth, not so much in the way of shoulders, and so on. And so her eyes asked, Is this man trustworthy in money matters? Is he likely to try to play the lover? Is he likely to let his women be troublesome? Is he above all likely to babble about my affairs? And suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive China blue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition. Oh, it was very charming and very touching, quite mortifying. It was the look of a mother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It implied trust. It implied the want of any necessity for barriers. By God she looked at me as if I were an invalid, as any kind of woman may look at a poor chap in a bath-chair. And yes, from that day forward she always treated me, and not Florence, as if I were the invalid. Why, she would run after me with a rug upon chilly days.  And then Florence said, and so the whole round table is begun. Again Edward Ashburnham gurgled slightly in his throat, but Leonora shivered a little, as if a goose had walked over her grave, and I was passing her the nickel-silver basket of rules. Avanti. So began those nine years of uninterrupted tranquillity. They were characterised by an extraordinary want of any communicativeness on the part of the Ashburnams, to which we on our part replied by leaving out quite as extraordinarily and nearly as completely the personal note. Indeed, you may take it that what characterised our relationships more than anything else was an atmosphere of taking everything for granted. The given proposition was that we were all good people. We took for granted that we all liked beef underdone, but not too underdone, that both men preferred a good liqueur brandy after lunch, that both women drank a very light rye wine, qualified with facking and water, that sort of thing. It was also taken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off to afford anything that we could reasonably want in the way of amusements fitting to our station, that we could take motorcars and carriages by the day, that we could give each other dinners and dine our friends, and we could indulge if we liked in economy. Thus Florence was in the habit of having the daily telegraph sent to her every day from London. She was always an angle maniac was Florence. The Paris edition of the New York Herald was always good enough for me, but when we discovered that the Ashburnams copy of that London paper followed them from London, Leonora and Florence decided between them to suppress one subscription one year and the other the next. Similarly, it was the habit of the Grand Duke of Nassan-Schwerin, who came yearly to the baths to dine once with about 18 families of regular cured guests. In return he would give a dinner to all the 18 at once, and since these dinners were rather expensive, you had to take the Grand Duke and a good many of his suite and any members of the diplomatic bodies that might be there. Florence and Leonora, putting their heads together, didn't see why we shouldn't give the Grand Duke his dinner together, and so we did. I don't suppose the serenity minded that economy or even noticed it. At any rate, our joint dinner to the royal personage gradually assumed the aspect of a yearly function. Indeed, it grew larger and larger until it became a sort of closing function for the season, at any rate, as far as we were concerned. I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort of persons who aspired to mix with royalty. We didn't. We hadn't any claims. We were just good people. But the Grand Duke was a pleasant affable sort of royalty, like the late King Edward VII, and it was pleasant to hear him talk about the races, and very occasionally there's a bombouche about his nephew, the Emperor, or to have him pause for a moment in his walk, to ask after the progress of our cures, or to be benignly interested in the amount of money we had put on L'Eleufel's Hunter for the Frankfurt welter stakes. But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one put in one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and to have nothing whatever to show for it? Nothing whatever, you understand. Not so much as a bone pen holder, carved to resemble a chessman with a hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim. And as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings, nothing either. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who sold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to the station was cheating me on Nau. I can't tell whether the porter who carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or Nau when he said that the regular tariff was a leer at a parcel. The instances of honesty that one comes across in the world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. One ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings, but one doesn't. I think the modern civilized habit, the modern English habit of taking everyone for granted is a good deal to blame for this. I have observed this matter long enough to know the queer subtle thing that it is, to know how the faculty for what it's worth never lets you down. Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of life in the world, that this is not an almost unreasonably high standard, for it is really nauseating when you detest it to have to eat every day several slices of thin tepid pink India rubber, and it is disagreeable to have to drink brandy when you prefer to be cheered up by warm sweet cummel, and it is nasty to have to take a cold bath in the morning when what you want is really a hot one at night, and it stirs a little of the faith of your fathers that is deep down within you to have to have it taken for granted that you are an Episcopalian when really you are an old-fashioned Philadelphia Quaker, but these things have to be done, it is the cock that the whole of this society owes to Isculapius, and the odd queer thing is that the whole collection of rules applies to anybody, to the anybody's that you meet in hotels, in railway trains, to a less degree perhaps in steamers, but even in the end upon steamers.  You know that is to say, whether they will go rigidly through with the whole program, from the underdone beef to the Anglicanism, it won't matter whether they be short or tall, whether the voice squeak like a marionette or rumbles like a town bulls, it won't for the matter of that, matter whether they are Germans, Austrians, French, Spanish or even Brazilians, they will be the Germans or Brazilians who take a cold bath every morning, and who move roughly speaking in diplomatic circles. But the inconvenience, well hang it all I will say it, the damnable nuisance of the whole thing is, that with all the taking for granted, you never really get an inch deeper than the things I have catalogued. I can give you a rather extraordinary instance of this, I can't remember whether it was in our first year, the first year of Osfor at Nauheim, because of course it would have been the fourth year of Florence and myself, but it must have been in the first or second year, and that gives the measure at once of the extraordinaryness of our discussion and of the swiftness with which intimacy had grown up between us. On the one hand we seem to start out on the expedition so naturally and with so little preparation that it was as if we must have made many such excursions before, and our intimacy seemed so deep. Yet the place to which we went was obviously one to which Florence at least would have wanted to take us quite early, so that you would almost think we should have gone there together at the beginning of our intimacy. Florence was singularly expert as a guide to archaeological exceptions, and there was nothing she liked so much as taking people round ruins and showing you the window from which someone looked down upon the murder of someone else. She only did it once, but she did it quite magnificently. She could find her way with the sole help of Baedica, as easily about any old monument as she could about any American city where the blocks were all square and the street is all numbered, so that you can go perfectly easily from 24th to 30th. Now it happens that 50 minutes away from Nauheim by a good train is the ancient city of M upon a great pinnacle of basalt, good with a triple road running sideways up its shoulder like a scarf, and at the top there is a castle, not a square castle like Windsor, but a castle all slate gables and high peaks with gilt weathercocks flashing bravely, the castle of St Elizabeth of Hungary. It has the disadvantage of being in Prussia, and it is always disagreeable to go into that country, but it is very old and there are many double spired churches, and it stands up like a pyramid out of the green valley of the lawn. I don't suppose the Ashburnums wanted especially to go there, and I didn't especially want to go there myself, but you understand there was no objection to be continued. End of part five


Hello everybody, it's Iva from Bohemian Crafting here again Welcome to my channel, thank you so very much for sharing your time with me today and I hope you will enjoy what I'm going to share with you I love vintage style and the most of those vintage styles we do I love that rusty style when it's grungy and when it's rusty effect and you know that very rusty style So this journal I created for Tania she sent me a few of her goodies, beautiful, beautiful things I use them in this journal, I will show you what I used and I try to somehow match it together and first I thought I'm gonna do that classical binding book but then you know I realized that I really love to use this spiral binding that Zutr machine it's amazing, amazing binding machine and I love that effect so I created book again with that this binding that front cover was first like this and I was missing something and I love to use acetate pieces and because Tania sent me a few of her acetate designs so I was thinking that will be amazing to use another acetate piece so I created this like window this is my own design which I created myself and I used Tim Holtz that cabinet card die I think first, first I put the paper I guess, first I put the paper first I used that die for paper where I had double sided tape from one side that was you know piece of paper with double sided tape I print out my design on acetate sheet I glued that paper that sheet of paper on that acetate sheet and then I just put around that Tim Holtz off-cut this was Tim Holtz off-cut so I could with my hand around this frame very easily and then I use that rusty effect wonderful wonderful thing I love that thing here I use that rusty effect on again Tim Holtz die this is with that those labels book labels plus that large stack here I created this we created with my patrons this it's like drawer holder or I think it's called the drawer holder we created together it's from things I've got at home and it was really easy it wasn't easy to realize what do I want to use but once I found the things at home I created this small holder and I use that rusty effect again so this is top cover this is back cover of that journal I again I didn't put together that spiral because I wanted to have space for my pages and I do have only I think it's three quarters of inch that spiral binding here I've got this small cameo it's empty now so it's waiting for Tanya to put there some pictures and it's closing with this small clasp when we open it we've got journal like this and because Tanya sent me in her goodies also there are circles with different words and inside of those circles are some different pictures and one of them was this bicycle and I really love that and because I've got few photographs from the past with bicycles I use that like my theme so we've got pocket here it can be open like this so we've got writing space here it's pocket behind so something can be slide behind and I used my you know leftovers and two scooted pages and it's closing with this tab it's pocket here and I think this is only one picture without a bicycle but you know when I start to create this one I created for this journal so I had to add that this is Tim Holtz embossing folder that I used Tim Holtz embossing folder for this one here I've got just this beautiful tag here this is one of my envelope envelope design envelope pockets I don't want to call it that and we've got first picture with this is tricycle I think in English language it's tricycle it's really gorgeous it can be used like writing space and it's closing like this with this string when we flip it over we've got like tag spot or pocket here using this uh index card and I've got that this tag we've got envelope here and these are Tania's goodies she sent me I've got here this card and here is writing space and it can be you know like beautiful decoration and like also like stopper when we flip it over this is also from Tania and I've got that this gorgeous picture I love these old bicycles and I had to up there a few ephemera so I've got here this typewriter here I made small cluster using hair designs these are hair designs this is from my stuff and I used again that rusty patina look at that rusty effect I love that effect and these are uh this is my design this is from Tania and I made like you know like clipped clipped or not clipped this is brad bras brad so brad together two tags and this beautiful military stump and it's pocket here very large pocket here and I've got this one this is from my my design from my drawing with these digital and this beautiful picture there is always reason to smile and it's true we always have to find some reason here I make it like hungers like decoration this is from Tania I've got here just this stump and I made pocket here using those corners I made them from my book book leftovers book pages leftovers this beautiful picture so it's holding those this come on go there like this and like this when we open it we've got writing space and it's pocket behind and I made from a few tags and from few dies I made this it's like a clipboard and it's writing space also and it's you know decorated with small tag and they really love to play with those those wonderful dies and Tania sent me those monthly monthly circles so I use them here I used few stumps and I'm not sure if I use some stencils I think I use just stumps in this journal here I created this is like that corner bookmark from one side it's this epimera from other side it's acetate and the circle from Tania and it's hanging over this corner and I've got here my stamping you saw that few months ago when I share my stamping like yay I'm stamping like something so exciting and here those beautiful ladies on bicycles or with bicycles again pages for writing here this is one of my envelopes I showed you the tutorial on my youtube so here I add them again to this binding so it's pocket here and it's pocket with window and it's pocket here so you can slide there something and I've got here this beautiful picture and it's also like writing space that's here when we flip it over we've got like small teeny mean small pocket here and I've got this guess check this I designed myself and this small stamp and when we flip it up it's space maybe for pictures and here that another pocket and this lady and pages pages here I created this one it's just decoration and I've got that this and it can be open and this is like a dark spot with small quote and I used in this journal few quotes I found on Pinterest on Google you've been googling a lot this can be open with this tap like this and in this small envelope pocket I've got teeny mean small tag with another my stamping and it's decorated with this one and it's hanging here over the edge like this close with tap pages for writing and again one of these envelopes I showed you I will put a link for this tutorial down below for people who didn't see that yet so here it's another tag when we flip it over you know that envelope this one and it's stuck inside it's that clocking card and we've got this beautiful girl with another quote again pages for writing pages for writing writing and this is just like decoration it's one of those my stamping tags here I've got like a pocket here with this gorgeous picture I really love this picture amazing picture and another like a writing board I created with my leftovers washy tapes so it's here it's pocket behind and when we flip it up we've got another pocket here so something can be slide behind this beautiful picture and we've got pocket here with another quote index card and tag decorated with this small tag with small charms and from other side stamping and mini tag and it's in this pocket here when we close it we can open it like this and it's another hanging so many tags this is just like decoration here another quote and beautiful picture with this man with bicycle so it's here and as you can see I created again that heart paper clip yeah heart paper clip here another beautiful ephemera this we had actually when I've been small we had a poster on our wall my sister and me in our kid's room and I remember this one and there was another one which I didn't find I found a little bit different one but I remember this poster and I love that poster that was amazing when I saw that this poster here another gorgeous picture on bicycle I can't imagine how hard it has to be to to write this bicycle here just small ephemera when we flip it over we've got another hanging tags and quotes and here I use it like decoration this is a card from my country it's like a warehouse card or I'm not sure how to call that yeah warehouse card or industry card not sure pages for writing ledger paper stamped pages linux pages and another of those envelopes with clocking clock card inside and here we've got another quote and beautiful picture look at this bicycle it's not probably not even bicycle it has seeds between those two wheels so I'm not sure if that is bicycle and small tag it's here when we flip it over we've got pocket here and this was open itself so space here and can be locked with this small tag writing pages and another opening we've got pocket here I used this film strip from Tanya and I created this another film strip using my Zooter machine here I've got this is a clock card I decorate with those acetate pieces here we've got this beautiful picture some stamping postcard and it's like you know it's holding that picture here and it can be slide behind this one so you can see through when we flip it up we've got space maybe for journaling or maybe for some picture we've got pocket here for saving some another epimeras when we open it we've got another lady this is also like sliding spot or tag spot here and I decorated with those braids here and there and the first you don't have to notice but it's like matching all together and those small touches they put so much to your journals so don't forget to put there even small touches even small bra here and there or or a button here and there and it will make so much so much for your journal this is another picture I found on Pinterest this one this is there just like decoration and I've got here this beautiful vintage letter here another quote here I decorated with those goodies from Tania this small bulldog clip like this and I've got writing space here and from that other side I've got hanging on that writing space my teeny mini small file folder it looks like this it's from those leftovers I told you a while ago it's pocket small pocket here and this is just like decoration so I hung there so many goodies then I will put that and here I created another acetate piece I use this book plate from Tim Holtz dice here I created teeny mini small pocket and I've got there my stump pink and those two small tickets and when we flip it over I'm created again like charm from those goodies using this small small I'm not sure how to call it this one Tim Holtz have them in his stuff small tag and this clipper and this is I think Marianne design design clocks so I use them like my pocket like this pages for writing writing postcard pages for writing and we are on the end here I've got closing with this small tap with clocks on it I've got here pockets here writing space another picture with bicycles small ticket small ticket they are here in this pocket and it's envelope here and I think I forgot to put there something what I decorated with this young man with really large top hat here I've got another that die it's beautiful really this clipboard die it's a very gorgeous I've got writing space here writing space here writing space here and it's pocket behind so you can slide something behind so this is my very quickly sharing today I really hope you like this this journal because I love that journal and I hope that Tanya will like it as well it's already on its way when this video it's up so this journal hopefully already arrived I really hope so you will see that in comments if it arrived already thank you so much for sharing your time with me today this is my sharing very vintage rusty bicycle journal thank you so much for sharing your time with me today take care about yourself and see you next time bye


5. Advantages and disadvantages of teaching business English Teaching business English is an interesting context for an English teacher. A lot of teachers are concerned about teaching in this context, because they think that they need detailed knowledge or experience about business. Even though a knowledge of business is useful, it is not the number one skill or ability a teacher should have. On the contrary there is nothing to fear as essentially you are still an English teacher, and your students often have the business knowledge they need, but can just not express themselves in English. So it is all about adapting and taking your normal teaching approach from the general English class, and making it work in the business context. A teacher should remember that he or she is not there to teach students business, since they are already business people but to teach them English. In the next section we will look at the advantages and disadvantages of teaching in a business context. What are the advantages of teaching business English? One of the advantages about teaching this group is that teaching can take place in many different formats, for example a teacher can have one-to-one classes, a company group where the teacher gives lessons at the company during work hours or after work, and in school groups. It gives the teacher a lot of variety and more flexibility. Another advantage here is that you as a teacher can gain a lot of knowledge from your students about the business world and how it works. Also in the professional world your skills and abilities as a teacher, can be developed seeing as your students might be required to perform tasks, like giving presentations or using particular online applications. In addition your language knowledge can grow dramatically, because you are required to function in a professional context. One last point to mention is that the teacher does not have to deal with discipline issues, and motivation seeing as these are professional people. And it is worth adding that your creativity might be developed when you need to design materials specifically for your students. Some of the disadvantages of teaching business English. On the other hand, there are many disadvantages to working in the business context. Firstly when you have to teach in the evening after your students have had a long day at work, they come tired and as a teacher you may have to compromise by using less challenging materials, or even doing something entirely different. Secondly attendance could be problematic sometimes as your students may have conferences or other business trips, or maybe pulled out the lesson at any time when problems arise. Thirdly if you are teaching in groups, mixed level classes can be an issue. Students can be mixed in terms of their language abilities, but also in terms of their age where younger students might learn faster than older ones. In such cases the teacher will have to balance things by challenging the stronger ones so that they don't get bored, but at the same time making sure that you do not lose the weaker ones. Fourthly with group classes, it could be problematic when you have managers and secretaries in the same group, this can influence your group dynamic negatively. As the teacher you will have to keep your eye on this and make sure that you are proactive. Lastly often the reason students are taking English lessons as directly linked with their salaries and promotions. This might put unnecessary strain on the students and demotivate them. Important factors to consider at the start of a course. Now let's think about the initial stages of the course. There are two important things that a teacher needs to do at the beginning of the course. The first one is finding out what the clients want and need, because often what the client wants may be different from what the company needs. After finding out what they want and what they need, you will be able to balance the two. This is called doing a needs analysis. This is where you establish the client's specific objectives and could be a questionnaire or simply an informal chat. The second one to be done is to test the clients to get an idea of their English level, a placement test. Then it is important to choose the right resources for your client and make sure that they get what they expect from the course. To conclude here are some of my ideas that are important in becoming an effective business English teacher. Try to find as much information about your student's company, like what they produce or which services they deliver, and it is worthwhile building a good relationship with other staff members in the company, because they can be helpful with the facility and other necessities. Lastly make sure you dress appropriately for the company environment, because no matter how good your teaching skills are, at the end of the day you will also be judged by your appearance. Finally make sure you keep up to date with online resources that contain useful materials, for example the English blog or British Council website. Are you ready to start teaching business English?


Movies have become an event now like going to a theme park for me and the family each ticket is $12 There's no matinee price. You go at 3 in the afternoon. It's the same as going at 7 p.m You still pay $12 a person. I have a wife two kids and Myself and I have the regal pass.  There's like three theaters by me all regal all the time You have to pay 21 bucks a month good deal for one person. I mean I see I see a few movies a month, which I do I'm making up. It's like they're paying me. However Once you bring that family, you're paying you're paying dearly So when Dr. Strange 2 came out the whole family wanted to see it of course and we're going to the theater It's an event, right?  We sit down in our assigned seats theaters probably about 80% full family right in front of me family to the left of me Regal cinemas must have something in their contract with movie studios where they will show at minimum 35 movie trailers because that's how much I average when I go to these goddamn things and how many times Do I have to see that Downton Abbey trailer before I want to take a gun and swallow it which reminds me I have a Downton Abbey rant coming up So make sure to subscribe here after witnessing the same trailer I've seen about 50 times now a new one comes up one wasn't even expecting I guess I was out of the loop on the news Avatar 2 hits Amazing had no idea was coming.  I refuse.  I'm not getting off this thing. I refuse I will be buried with my phone.  He looks at me.  He doesn't even give me the courtesy of dropping it So I just see a white outline around where his heart probably used to be before he ripped it out Sweat is beating down my face. I am furious right now.  Because as they're on their phones, I see people in the front row Like a lightsaber it comes up full brightness Checking out the phone the movie is starting at this point and now it's it's like fireflies all around the theater Well, you won't believe your eyes.  I had already asked them to stop They didn't I know that further requests are gonna go unheated I know that going to a manager will bear no fruit because I'd be tattling on 10% of the audience at this point And they'd know I was led did it so I Bent over I took it, but I believe somewhere out in the multiverse Things were different.    Retract I don't know but the blades come out of my fist because I'm Wolverine here. I'm Logan Pull it out the guy's hands are bleeding. He's got three strikes through him and now he's out.   I let her go. I feel bad for the relationship. She's been in hopefully she'll find what she's looking for out There I know what I'm looking for and it's that dirt bag next to me I Wolverine Logan sprint into a full bore adamantium rage Phonies get up and come after me one guy comes right at me I Cut his head right off and then I kick the head it goes soaring into another person And then like making a kebab I take the blades through both heads And pull them both off Showing the kill clean up I'll you And these experiences go on and on throughout the multiverse people dying in beautiful horrific ways but in this one In this one nothing happens except for me Losing out on 60 or 70 bucks and a couple hours Because I didn't get the experience I paid for because jackasses Posers that go to the movies don't care about them. They're more interested in kind of half-watching Half-scrolling. This is my life now. I don't appreciate art. I don't even appreciate craft You can argue that the MCU movies aren't art, but there's definitely craft put into them There's a lot of people that work on these films every film across the board Love it or hate it and believe me.  I recommend movies I talk about them these assholes ruin them and as for that Avatar 2 trailer yet I still haven't rewatched it that that experience was taken from me. I'll never get it back I could put it up on my computer. I could put it up on the TV. I don't want to I'll wait I'll wait at this point for another trailer to hit the theater.  Because it's not worth it. The price is way too high. The food is ridiculously overpriced and the people are trash Human excrement. I just don't want to let it go. That's my problem It's a it's a pastime of mine that I just cherish and I realize it's not the same anymore But once in a while once in a while, it still works out and that's depressing It's depressing to think that that's where we're at with the odds All right. Thanks for watching. Please subscribe if you haven't I post lots of movie related content all the time And hopefully I'll see you next time In this multiverse, I'm Gunza Kimbo. I have guns for hands.  No Hatch in my arm There's other videos to watch over here


Now, despite the Department of State Security, Raid and Residents of the Yoruba Nation Architators, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, the Yoruba Nation rally in Lagos will go on as planned. But Lagos Commissioner of Police, Hakee Odomosu, has warned Igboho and other Architators not to stage any rally in the state. He stated that anyone caught participating or facilitating the rally would be dealt with, with the ambit of the law. In a live broadcast on Friday, morning Igboho's spokesman, Olaio Mikoiki, explained that the rally will go on as planned at Ojota, other than that Igboho will be back stronger.


So today we're going to wrap up the lecture on application and security, Adam is in here, so I'll be finishing up the slides for you guys. And after the lecture, we're going to have like a two class office hours, so if you have any questions about the assignment, you can just walk up to, we walk around the rooms and answer those. That's why we brought a laptop? Yeah, that's why we brought a laptop. Alright. So before we talk about various security techniques for the staff, we talked about the non-interviewable staff, where basically any code that you put on the staff will actually run if you jump into it. And now we want to make that even harder by preventing actual data overwrite. So the subject of doing the assignment right now is attempting to write some value onto the safe EIT set, and that's what we'll be trying to do. So a technique that is used to do this is called canaries, and this name comes from coal mining, where the miners would use burbs to detect whether or not there was enough oxygen down there. And then the burbs start showing signs that would make a leak or something like that. So the first technique that came out from these canaries was called stack art, and this basically follows right after the nines do the stack. So the idea of canaries is putting some value on the stack as like a sanity check before the address they want to overwrite. So you're putting some value on the stack, and then you're verifying that value before jumping to whatever address is on the stack. So the first type of canary is a terminated canary, which is null by a character termed line feeder EOL, and let me know why they picked this as a sanity check. Let's take a look at the diagram.  Well, let me pull up this chart, and then we'll take a look at that. Okay. So we're going to go back to the vertical stack, sorry guys. If you like the horizontal one. This is the way that I was going to explain that. So you can see here at the very top of the stack, the return address is what you want to overwrite through like a buffer for example. And the canary value is just below that, so that if you were to overwrite the return address, you can also overwrite the canary. So going back to what we talked about earlier, why would they put null as the canary value? Because you have to write a zero. What was that? You have to write a zero, so a zero would be in your shell code. Exactly. And then stir copy would stop at that zero, you know, before overwriting. So it's kind of like a sand check to make sure that you can't do that. But that's easy to get around unfortunately. So there's another type of canary called the random canary where they put some value that's supposed to be unknown to the attacker in that spot on the stack. And then before the jump instruction, there's code that will check that canary value to see if it's been modified or not. And the way this works is that there's additional instructions added to the program itself, so you'd have to recompile something to be able to have the canary support. And it is supported at 30 white in nowadays. This is not that kind of stuff. So because the random value is supposed to be unknown, what they do is they pad it somewhere in memory with unreadable sections, so that if you were to try to read memory sequentially to get at the stored canary value, you would get a segmentation fault. So unless you know the exact address of the canary value, you wouldn't be able to read it. But again, it doesn't offer protection if you actually are able to read specific memory locations. So then they came up with one other tip. And that's the next order canary where they're basically calculating the canary value using some random value and the address that you're wanting to protect. So in this way, the attacker would need to know the original chump address and the random canary value and the algorithm for the XOR before being able to successfully overwrite that. So like I said, there's modifications in code to make this canary protection happen. And that obviously introduces overhead. So I don't think it's too much, but you don't want to be putting canaries on every single value in your program. So GCC, I think, as a version 4.8 supports canaries by default. So you actually have to say have to know it's that protective if you want to say otherwise it'll be on. And girl police is one of the locations that was used. That's only if it does the first two types of canary so that it doesn't do XORs. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think that's right. And another thing that these tools do is they rearrange the variables so that let's say you have a buffer somewhere as a local variable interfunction. That buffer shouldn't be behind any other variables. So if you overflow the buffer you don't overflow any other locals in the function because that might alter behavior in other ways. So if you want to learn more about this stuff. So like I said, canaries are not foolproof. One easy way to get around them is just not to touch them. If you don't touch them and they stay in their original form then they're not going to offer any protection. And not everything has a canary either. So mainly just the return address made of base pointer. It doesn't protect against garbage sharing memories either. If you have full control of the process then you can override the canary with the correct value. So in Windows there's a gs compiler option which adds canaries and that should also support password canaries. I'm not sure if it's default or not it probably is though. So one interesting attack against canaries exploits pretty big vulnerability of the system and that is that a process supports or a certain new threat that canaries don't change. So if you have like let's say a web server that has canaries protecting some values on the stack you could attack each individual threat, get that threat to restart itself and then run the same attack without having to worry about different canary values. So that's what this Brock, a black or green orange program is. And there's a link to Brock. So there's a link to Brock a very interesting research paper on how they get around breaking canaries into a partial observer which supports the exact the only way to get new canaries is to start a learning process. One thing I forgot to mention is that in order to be able to attack these vulnerabilities of canaries you have to be able to exploit some sort of stack vulnerability. So if there's no stack vulnerability then you can't hold on to this. But assuming there's a stack vulnerability you can overwrite the canaries in a pretty simple manner. So let's say the canary value is some 32 bit or yeah, it's a 32 bit XOR value of the return address. And that's going to comprise of four bytes, right? So what you can do in the Brock attack is instead of guessing the whole canary value which would give you a search space of four million or something, four billion, you can do it byte by byte. You can alter one byte of the canary, check to see if the server crashed or not. If it crashed then you increment that value, right? And then you try it to 226 times times four days or six. So you've gone from four billion search space to a thousand which is really good. So another technique that's also pretty much becoming mainstream nowadays is control flow integrity. And here I don't know if you guys use either Pro or some other tool when doing the password don't work. Do you start out there that there was a control flow graph with different basic blocks following edges for jumps, right? So the idea with control flow integrity is we analyze the program on the front, generate that control flow graph and the possible edges that the jumps can take and then verify that the jumps happening inside the program are actually legitimate jumps and not jumps in some arbitrary address. So for control flow integrity this is actually a pretty big topic so I recommend you guys check this out on your own. But it is a very powerful technique and it's as of I believe the November 2017 update of Windows Hazard for all the current code. So this is actually being used nowadays to protect the Windows stuff. And the way it works is it maintains state of all the legal jumps in some bitmap, for example. And that bitmap also needs to be protected. So it was those those that used this hyper-releaching to kind of virtualize that and make sure other processes can't. In control flow integrity there's four basic types of checks. The first check is for call instructions which are direct jumps. And a direct jump is basically a jump to some statically defined function of the program. So that's a pretty simple thing if there's a call instruction that should go to real function not to fake function. The nice type of protection is for jumps. So here you have some pointer in the memory address that you can be jumping to it's like a function pointer, for example. And it's a little bit harder to do this check because in addition to allowing legitimate function pointers you also have to allow jumps within the current function. You're allowed to jump lower or higher within the same function. So there's a little bit more logic to that. And then I think the most important type of controls I'm going to be checking is sometimes referred to as reverse or backwards edge checking. And this is actually verifying that the return address is being retrieved from the stack. It's like the save VIP. They're verifying that the save VIP actually takes you to one line below some call or jump instruction. So it's not going to some random place. And this can be combined with two S6 to, for example, identify rock gadgets or short combinations of instructions to see if you're jumping to that. Then it's probably an exploit and a problem can be practically significant. So there we go. So in order to get controls on time, you have to work. The compiler also has to modify the binding. This doesn't have to be done in source. It could be done through assembly also. But in either case, it's a process called instrumentation where they're adding additional checks into the code to make this kind of detergent checking possible. And as you can see here what happens is it's checking to see that the callback argument is a valid target within the program, and not some random shell code, for example. And if it's valid, then the control continues. If it's not valid, then it'll just terminate the program through some instruction that's baked into the program. So I think that's it for controls on time. And I remember going to something really awesome. And that's a math exploit. But basically, this is the framework to carry out various next points. It has a database of known attacks and vulnerabilities across a variety of platforms. And essentially what you do is you select a vulnerability from the tool. You pick some payload that's going to trigger that vulnerability. You pick an encoding that might bypass the firewall. So if a system is protecting a specific port, or if it's looking for some string, you want to use a different port or encode it in some way that that string isn't visible to the firewall. And then you just run the exploit through MathsPlayer. And it is available as a version. There's also a professional version of the software which I guess is used by penetration testers and security professionals and whatnot. So, the spring is off already. You just pick an exploit and run it. Does that mean that all of our manual testing is obsolete? Do we even need to bother with graphing shell code or checking addresses? We have a tool that's got all the known exploits. It plays human insight as a database of vulnerabilities because most security issues are zeroed in. You don't know about them when they're being exploited. So these sorts of tools aren't something that you should switch to. It's something you can use in addition to other security techniques that we've talked about. So along those lines are there automated tools that can find zeroed-in vulnerabilities that haven't ever been seen before? You hope so. The answer is yes, there are. That's a pretty cutting edge area of research right now. I think Metasploit does do a little bit of this, but not really in depth. There's a technique called buzz testing which basically generates random inputs in some programmatic manner and then tests it against the target program and you might actually get some crashes through that way. It's a very powerful technique and when you combine it with other techniques to more carefully traverse through the different basic blocks of binary then you can actually discover new crashes that have never been seen before. But that's not something that Metasploit does for you. There are other research paper and other tools out there because you'll search for fuzzing or symbolic executions and other techniques. Those are really cutting edge research ideas. Wouldn't that almost be like starting as like a black box test and then figuring out how the inputs change? Kind of, yeah, absolutely. It's not quite that simple, but the idea is that the tool will automate a lot of other things and then when the human insights need it to guide the tool you can narrow your focus and then hopefully deliver a payload that will do it more. So, wrapping up this whole section on application security essentially you can see that to do exploits we had to come up with inputs that the program isn't really expecting. It could be command line arguments it could be the environment it could be the operating system it could be hardware. There's a lot of different methods that you can use to act stuff. And the key defense is sanitizing the input and making sure that the logical checks you're making are complete and they cannot omit any important things or using normal functions. So all these things together allow you to write safer software. And to summarize, so we have ASLR, we have the non-executive stack, we have canaries and we have controls on tiger team. Does that mean that all modern applications are safe from member corrosion? So if you have all these things enabled on a program, is it safe? Is it guaranteed? Okay, to be more specific how might the protections How might the protections not be enough? All of this is looked at the stack so far. There is the heat as well, but is there any sort of way? The same ideas really go for that. So the thing is what these exploits is, yeah I mean with these protections is that there's always a cat asking going on between hackers and security engineers. And there's new techniques such as it's called co-op counterfeit object oriented programming which actually is able to defeat the control flow integrity by creating fake objects in C++ so these use virtual functions that can be used to fool the control flow integrity checks because they're actual methods that are just being overrated like a rom style approach. So there's always this cat but the other bigger concept is is everything always going to be enabled? Is every single binary going to have every single protection all the time? Probably not. There might be a case where you disable some protections for speed or a legacy system or maybe it's not available so you'd be aware of the limitations of these protections and don't rely on them as a replacement for writing a safe code because memory leaks I mean memory exposure and applications if you look up the recent exploits they're all based on memory being exposed and arbitrated means. So here I wrap it up. Do you guys have any other questions? If not we're going to go ahead and jump into the office hours. So we'll just walk around and answer whatever questions you might have on the assignment which is due tomorrow night. Bye.