section 8 of unprofessional tales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Anita Sloma Martinez unprofessional tales by Norman Douglas section 8 in the Red Sea it began in the Red Sea let me at once admit gentlemen that the matter is quite unintelligible to me convince yourselves that I am perfectly calm I do not pose as a prophet a seer a dreamer of dreams I do not profess to know what it means or whether indeed it means anything that will be for you to decide is it a mere accident a warning a punishment who knows alcohol certainly not I have been accustomed to it all my life and perhaps I drink more than some men why not I am my own master and those who know me well may have guessed why I sometimes drink more than necessary they know that if I indulged in excesses there would be some excuse for me for twenty years I have tried to forget in vain my life has been clouded by an affliction such as falls to the lot of very few my happiness has been blasted I wonder gentlemen if you fully realize what these words mean I doubt it but let that pass look at me I am old and robust I have served in a dozen campaigns my hand is as steady as yours I have never suffered from any of the evils incident to an abuse of spirits spirits are their spirits perhaps it is a spirit it comes often nowadays I see it before me on all sides of me and behind me yes I see it behind me you who know everything how do you explain that it used to come much seldomer nowadays the moment my mind is unoccupied the moment I am not actively engaged in some pursuit for conversation there it is staring at me it lies and wait for my idle moments that is what has made me so nervous I used to be anything but excitable but now I do and say the strangest things in order to escape from it it wears me out you would not believe how I suffer it began in the Red Sea we were coming home last year from India and just entering the Gulf of Suez it was prodigiously hot weather the hottest I ever remember I have made the trip about 40 times perhaps the heat had something to do with it the heat affect some person strangely I recollect that we sat up on deck three or four of us to a late hour it was past midnight but old campaigners like ourselves keep out an extra bottle of whiskey and buy our soda water before the bar closes the lights were out but the moon was magnificent I never saw such a fine moon and I have seen a good many it seemed to soar in the sky like a living thing we were running close to the shore and one could see every line of those African mountains parched and mysterious with their fantastic peaks and clefts a barren desolation almost worse than India someone I think it was major keen said that there was good lion shootings still to be had and hyenas no doubt hideous Brutes hyenas then I told them about my sport with the lions in Katowar many years ago I believe there are not many of them left now the Gujarati lion you know has generally not much of a main he seems to feel the indignity of it and looks unhappy now the tiger never looks unhappy then came put down his glass and said I have met with an exception general I remember once wounding a tigress in Bangalore an enormous beast we tracked her to a nulla where she lay dying beside a pool of dirty water couldn't move wounded in the spine and Lord you should have seen the expression on her face it was horrible perfectly human I assure you perfectly human the skin was spoiled but I kept the head and had it set up on around shield good head capital head I am a weak old fool in some things but I cannot help it whenever others talk of suffering I must always think of my poor daughter she was all I had in this world she died nearly 20 years ago 20 years I might have forgotten by this time curiously enough I cannot recall her exact features I have often spent hours trying to do so but it is not so easy as you might think to call up a banished base again have you ever tried sometimes her pace visits me in my dreams but it leaves me waking I nursed her through a long illness and how she suffered my friends hardly realized to what an extent this bereavement has weighed on my mind I tried to be cheerful but the sudden recollection at times positively unnerves me it was the same that evening I could not listen to them any longer I got up to go to my birth turning in already general yes I suppose I must try to sleep an hour or two why not sleep on deck in this heat I dislike the moon good night dislike the moon good night but it was vain to attempt to sleep the heat was intense and not a breath of air entered the cabin I tossed about for an hour or more then I gradually became more drowsy I caught myself repeating scraps of ridiculous conversation a sign of weariness they say I remember thinking of that stuffed tiger head everyone was asleep the ship was dark and quiet there was not a sound save the regular throbbing of the screw and the swirl of the water at the ship side I suppose it was two or three o'clock but the moon was still bright she must be on my side of the ship I calculated I hoped she would not come down as low as my port I detest the moon shining on me ask any old Anglo-Indian and he will tell you there is nothing more unhealthy Europeans know nothing about the moon and southern climates sometimes they suffer for it I have seen a man totter home looking exactly like a corpse after sleeping a few hours in the moonlight I suppose I slept after all for about half an hour yes I must have dozed then I suddenly woke up with the feeling that something was wrong you know that feeling the feeling as if one were no longer alone and sure enough there was something looking into my cabin from the outside my window looked straight on to the water the object was round and bright and filled up the port hole exactly I looked at it there was not a shadow of doubt about the matter I sat up and rubbed my eyes to see more clearly was I awake I pinched myself I was as wide awake as you are it never moved at first I could distinguish nothing more than luminous disc the moon nothing of the kind it might have been the moon so far as roundness and whiteness were concerned but it was not the moon for as I continued to look I was surprised to discover features painted upon it was a face mask I saw it distinctly that tiger story a tiger's face no not exactly a human face also not not quite human the features partook both of the man and up the tiger for the eyes were human in shape and meaning the rest was of the beast and it was completely round and white conceive it if you can it looked in at the port hole and stared at me all this gentleman is perfectly true I can discuss it quite dispassionately I take a rational view of the matter I said to myself at the time the nerves play strange tricks occasionally especially upon persons who have lived long in unhealthy climates then I remember saying wake up wake up you are half asleep still but I was not half asleep and yet I was not frightened beyond all measure why because in spite of its hellish disguise the countenance the human part of it was familiar to me it had visited me before many times in my dreams I think I can hear you say optical illusion how I hate those words I willingly admit that we may be the dupes of our imagination now and then but I know too much besides why should you disbelieve me do I look like a liar I have not that reputation let me therefore tell you once and for all that I am past persuading against what I know to be a fact what happened next I slowly stretched out my arm and without taking my eyes off the face turned on the electric light it vanished then I turned it off it was there again but a change was taking place it began to die slowly and painfully it nashed its ferocious fangs and agony it gasped and struggled for breath the eyelids quivered a while and closed then they suddenly opened wide once more it looked at me just like she did suddenly it was withdrawn it had melted away before my eyes and a brother bear I felt it distinctly came into the cabin I looked for my whiskey bottle found it and then took a turn on deck in my pajamas they were all lying about asleep it was an hour before sunrise the quietest hour how quiet a ship can be when I returned to my cabin I fully expected to see it again but it never came and I slept soundly I only saw it once again during that voyage but it made a more fearful impression on me for up to that moment I had been inclined to believe I had secretly hoped that I had experienced nothing but a kind of vivid dream we were off port Said I was paying the steward for something and thrust my hand into my pocket to take out a shilling at that moment I had a curious presentiment that something was about to happen a peculiar feeling that I often have nowadays I took out the shilling looked at it and there before my very eyes was the face graven in miniature upon the coin I fainted away and there was some little commotion since that day I have never been the same man it is a living reality to me and it will never leave me it has become a companion for life I know a day or two later when I was sufficiently recovered from the shock I mentioned the matter to the ship's doctor he was rather astonished seen it before only once and I related all the circumstances drink he suggested no touch of the sun maybe for the moon then he endeavored to prove to me that it was a mere optical illusion his arguments doubtless represented the medical view of the case and they so discouraged me that I determined not to mention the matter in future to anyone perhaps I ought to have done so laterally indeed I have not been so sure of myself yes gentlemen I may as well confess that I'm beginning to be afraid afraid I have fears which I dare not put into words things cannot go on in this fashion how will it end every day there is some new difficulty since that affair at the club I dislike being left alone in the streets for nowadays I not only see it I have begun to hear it it comes into the room with me and after I have been for some time in one place it drives me out I see it everywhere whenever I think of her it comes from the clouds from the houses it stares down upon me it expands and contracts in unearthly fashion I see it plainly in the eyes of a friend in the jewel of a ring and imagine to yourselves yesterday whilst crossing the serpentine bridge I happen to glance over the water there it lay enormous with half closed eyes stretched in horrid grimace from one short to the other I have forgotten to tell you when I first saw it behind me that was three weeks ago I suddenly left London for Whitehurst I cannot remain long in one place nowadays although I knew that this house would call up old memories I ought not to have gone but I went it was cold and foggy in the evening I wrote in the old library I used to detest writing but now it distracts me I write feverishly and never pause to think that evening however I must have paused to think I said to myself I have escaped from it for today I wrote and then paused again have I and then I said to myself I believe I felt it enter the room behind me I took up my pen again it is looking at me out of the fireplace I began to write again or rather I pretended to write busily even as I am doing at this moment knowing full well that what I have said was true but the pen refused to work and then without turning my head I saw it it was looking at me from behind I saw it distinctly even even as I see it now my god how will it end end of section eight section nine of unprofessional tales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by David Brent unprofessional tales by Norman Douglas section nine an acreontic nimble wag tail wherefore run in the fiery noonday sun sprightly foul in livery gray why not shun the scorching ray why not rest a while content till Apollo's rage relent I secure in rosy bowers dream away the flaming hours dream away in slumbrous ease fears that harass doubts that tease dream and with prophetic eye joeves exalted aims a spy his arrangement wisely bends all his works to various ends sparrows hop and lizards creep wag tails run and sages sleep joe for things of every kind happiness contrives to find into every element some inhabitants he sent in the earth's recesses of bleak sightless moles their substance seek in the air the nats meander in the fire the salamander broods upon the crimson flame wag tail you your taste proclaimed by the water cool and clear of the silver margined mirror sober one i envy not such an unconvivial lot watery fashions i disdain give me wine all else is vain some with hoarded gold are blessed give me wine and take the rest i'll not share a cheerless pleasure give me back us he's my treasure harky wag tail mend your ways life is brief anachron says brief its joys its ventures toilsome wine befriends them water spoils them who's for water wag tail you give me wine i'll drink for two end of section nine section number ten of unprofessional tales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jason in Canada unprofessional tales by Norman Douglas section 10 the ignoble it was in the depths of winter some 20 years ago we were sitting up late a party of four round an immense fire at the country house of my brother-in-law in the Dordogne the new arrival of that morning was the then minister of justice Monsieur Henri de Blanc a cousin of our host and a pleasant man of undoubted ability whose independent action in the notorious Vignal case has been deservedly praised i had never met him before indeed it was the first time that he had visited the district a prodigious wolf hunt was already organized for the next day weather permitting in honor of his coming the conversation had turned upon the recent catastrophe of the Taybridge in Scotland a lamentable disaster that will be fresh no doubt in the memory of everyone truly horrible said our host it is difficult to conceive any form of death more harrowing the minister remarked i can conceive more distressful accidents doubly horrible added our other guest a neighbor and a retired army surgeon occurring as it did in the pitch black night in that howling tempest on the contrary monsieur i ventured to think that we must regard that as an alleviating circumstance our host said i believe you are right Henri i was once eyewitness of an accident that seemed to me far more horrible on that very account i happened to be walking one cloudless afternoon along the path that runs at the edge of the rainfall of shaft house and imagine my surprise on seeing not far away a boat containing some dozen ladies and gentlemen visitors at my hotel and with whom i had already exchanged a few words of civility i called to warn them of the evident danger but although they must surely have heard me they seemed to be entirely occupied with their rowing then the truth dawned upon me they were already caught in the terrific current and the men strained every nerve to row upstream again but it was too late oh my dear Henri what a sickening spectacle those two or three minutes were prolonged to an eternity as the boat approached the fatal edge it was drawn forwards with inconceivable rapidity then the men suddenly dropped their oars and a scream came from the boat a scream such as i hope never to hear again it leapt like lightning over the edge and i saw nothing but a confused mass of brightly colored dresses mingling with the rainbows and mists that rose up to meet them from the steaming abyss not a particle of them was ever found they must have been literally torn to shreds a horrible death when one thinks of those happy young people within a stone's throw of land the glorious sun shining overhead horrible yes replied the minister your illustration is from the point of view of the horrible doubtless and improvement in various ways upon the scotch catastrophe but there are yet worse deaths there are ignoble deaths let me explain myself i use that word as opposed to noble ignoble deaths are always horrible and sometimes more this was a horrible death but it was not an ignoble one a fine distinction said the doctor besides he added it was merciful in as much as it was sudden these poisonings by presic acid these fallings into vat of melted sugar or into agricultural machines are all quick deaths what are two or three minutes on the other hand a lingering fatal disease is too long the sufferer enjoys a respite an interval of forgetfulness of hope no patients so hopeful as those who suffer from hopeless diseases therefore an agony must be protracted to a proper length of time it must be neither too short nor too long you are an ogre i said a harmless blogger added my brother-in-law like all military men i agree with you monsieur said the minister a particle of hope a momentary release of pain destroys the artistic effect the artistic effect we all laughed it was characteristic of him to throw his whole soul into a subject i observed your excellency is not easily satisfied let me suggest as the nooble of ignoble deaths the possibility of being buried alive in this instance you will admit we pass a sufficiently disagreeable quarter of an hour an uninterrupted agony of body and mind a sensation of utter hopelessness well yes perhaps mused the minister but i think the agony might under certain circumstances be protracted yet further and it is such an extremely important element that duration of time in a coffin the air would soon be exhausted i fear we all laughed again he dilated con amore upon the gruesome subject and then sir while we are treating of this question i think that a premature burial is not for another reason entirely satisfactory it does not exhaust the full capabilities of suffering why for the simple reason that there is something worse than this sheer hopelessness of which you speak yes there is something infinitely worse i conceive that there must be cases on record in which the victim while realizing the hopelessness of his position is tormented in addition by the knowledge that friends are close at hand eager to help if they but knew of his plight would you not regard that as an aggravation an aesthetic refinement certainly that point of view has never struck me before and i think i could cite a case in illustration i lately read of a shoemaker one of a large party who accidentally slipped into the crater of mount visuvius and was suspended head downwards and at a great depth by his coat which had miraculously caught on a projecting rock he hung over the awful cauldron not daring to move or even to call out for fear of shaking himself free besides dreading every minute to lose consciousness in the sulfur fumes and drop down his friends on the height shouted down to him utterly powerless to help but he dared not answer at last they went away perhaps they thought him dead imagine his feelings and yet he objected i fear he may have been buoyed up by some shadow of hope however faint and that would impair the perfect harmony he was saved in the end after hanging there for four days he was saved he said it in a tone of bitter disappointment that ruins the situation besides an agony of four days surely that is too long i consider 12 hours a substantial measure you reason like a philosopher the doctor added with enthusiasm his excellency speaks like a true artist in connoisseur the doctor resumed the subject permit me to submit to your excellency's consideration the following example which i trust may meet with your approval some 15 years ago i was called at saint etienne to view unprofessionally the remains of a stoker who had met with a singular fate it seems that the poor wretch had climbed presumably for the sake of coolness it was in the heat of summer into some part of an immense unfinished furnace he fell asleep there and during this interval the entrance was bricked up and the fire lighted it was only next day that his absence was remarked and the furnace open an expensive piece of work at the suggestion of one of his fellow workers who remembered having seen the unhappy man creep in the men all agreed in stating that they had heard unnatural roaring in the furnace that died away as the fire grew hotter i congratulate you my friend i said that last stroke especially was masterful you have brought us a good step forward monsieur said the minister and i am particularly thankful to you for this illustration as it supports my previous contention for this is decidedly a more ignoble form of death than a premature burial in so far as it is even less natural and less decorous and in addition i cannot but think that the agony was prolonged to more than that bad quarter of an hour of which we spoke only imagine a large roomy furnace as opposed to a narrow coffin and then that delicate embellishment the proximity of friends only a foot of brick and mortar between life and death yes we are narrowing the sphere and yet from an artistic point of view this case leaves much to be desired it suffers in my humble opinion from a most serious defect how so we all asked he replied the ignoble becomes intensified in proportion as it afflicts those who are not ignoble what is a shoemaker a stoker ignoble personages the quality must be brought into sharper relief to the bodily suffering there must be super added a mental and moral agony such as we cannot suppose ignoble persons to appreciate for let us freely confess there are like men of another nation in this that their sufferings do not appeal to us the impalement of ten thousand chinamen leaves me cool interrupted the doctor very true monsieur but i was referring exclusively to accidental deaths for to the ignoble ones devised by man against man there is i fear no conceivable limit and i was saying that the sufferings of vulgar people are rarely interesting only indifferent authors treat of the emotions of the lower classes and no man of taste reads them the great dramatists know why they selected exalted personages to suffer a tragic or noble fate and the german schopenhauer i think it is he has correctly explained the matter when he says that they fall from a greater height than the common herd the same applies to ignoble fates tragic deaths move our tears ignoble ones are discussed and i conceive that the extreme of either is reserved for the aristocracy i said that the noble and the ignoble should coincide upon one point is a curious fact which i have not seen established elsewhere they seem to lie at opposite polls they do sir he replied but they touch in their extremes and it is precisely in the extreme of the ignoble in this particular department which i am seeking to attain that point beyond which there is nothing more ignoble and therefore i say for the ignoble list deaths the subject must be of noblest race and noblest mind he cannot be too carefully chosen i mark and appreciate your excellency's qualification said the doctor i would suggest further as regards the age of the subject that he should be young that seems appropriate there is doubtless something more outrageous something more revolting to our sense of fitness and beauty in the death of a young person than in that of one who has already taken his fill of years yet i venture to disagree with you to my way of thinking youth is invariably deficient in dignity and repose two qualities perhaps only extrinsic ones that figure in our conception of what is truly noble the full-blooded generosity of youth may shine in tragical situations but it does not offer such an antithesis to the ignoble as the calm and almost sacred dignity of age the violation of which is ignoble in a particular degree no i am disposed to think that the subject should be well stricken in the years let me add another restriction i said the sufferer should be a woman there is a pathos in the helplessness and the refinement of the sex by all means sir it should be a woman we are approaching the climax for it now only remains to decide upon the agency of her death and the manner it should above all things be as unnatural as degrading as possible for the essence of the ignoble is that which debases the dignity of man even as the tragic exalts it our host is thoughtful well edmund you're about to make a suggestion i perceive strangely enough he said i could relate from my own experience a case that fulfills i think every one of the various conditions that you have deduced in fact if i may say so it improves upon your ideal i would call it the denier moat the denier moat aha it concerns an old lady who lived when i was still a boy in a two-roomed cottage on this estate she was popularly known as the marquis from the great heirs she gave herself but my mother told me that her correct name was de la marlinière she was of noble blood but poor poor as a rat and a chronic sufferer from rheumatism she lived alone with a large family of cats in whose company she seemed to take the greatest pleasure perhaps because they were the only remaining friends who would deign to share her lot and not make her poverty a subject of reproach laterally i understand the sisters of charity lent her a half-witted little girl to attend on her during the long attacks of illness that nailed her to her couch as to her character everyone was agreed that she was gracious amiable and spiritual and that she bore her bitter fate with composure my mother took sincere pleasure in her company she made pitiable efforts to disguise her poverty nothing i can imagine can be more distressing than poverty to a refined female mind nothing more calculated to undermine the sense of dignity very true we agreed i have no doubt that while my sainted mother yet lived she was in fairly good circumstances for her pride never disdained to accept help from a friend of her own sex and whom she considered as of her own standing i well remember those periodical visits to the cottage and the impression of destitution they made upon me as a boy everything seemed small and mean doubly so when i heard her discoursing in an affected language and of matters i did not understand to revenge myself i used to tease her cats they sat about the room sleek and mysterious occupied with their own thoughts she used to starve herself in order to feed them and gave to each of them the name of some royal personage that struck me i remember as peculiarly laughable such cases are not rare observed the doctor common enough i dare say my mother told me never to laugh at her but to respect her age and poverty sometimes she added that she was a distant connection of our family whose pride prevented her from appearing as such that was presumably said to heighten my reverence but it only made me laugh yet more it struck me as a very ludicrous idea and i am sorry to say that after my mother's sudden death the affairs of my poor relation went from bad to worse she fell into the direst want such want as we can scarcely believe to exist she was clothed in rags and suffered terribly from cold often she had scarcely a crust of bread for dinner and in addition to her poverty the torments of rheumatism increased so that she spent many weeks in bed unable to move a joint i need hardly say that i only discovered all this when it was too late for soon after my bereavement i left for paris and thence as you know for the east i wrote from paris to the charity sisters and to several ladies interesting them on her behalf but her pride did not simplify matters she refused to accept aid even indirectly from myself for the rest these excellent ladies seemed to have forgotten my recommendations very quickly i am told that one of her last fancies was that she professed to be afraid of being robbed and murdered on account of her diamonds it was sad and yet laughable when i returned from my voyage she was already dead and buried she had been found dead in her bed the magistrate volunteered to repeat to me what he elicited from the little girl who was the only witness of her death it was in this fashion now josephine tell me the truth truth tell me the exact manner of her death death you do not understand that word good she was ill she lay in bed for two days with pains she could not move no only her fingers a little like this had she something to eat there was bread beside her bed did you see it yes through the window had she water she often called for water why did you bring her no water i was afraid afraid of what afraid to open the door why did you not open the door i do not know what frightened you the cats they were thirsty it was a hot day i was afraid how many cats six and three little ones and then there was no more but they sprang about why did you not break the window and let them out she forbade me to touch it she feared the thieves and then they began to eat maria and twinette the old tailess one ate first then the others jumped up only the dolphin the little white one did not eat they ate much no not much that time and then they sprang about more than before and made a noise what did you do i looked into the window and watched it was near her head what did she do she looked at me and cried out often what did she say i do not know she spoke differently why did you not open the door i was afraid why did you not fetch help help you do not understand good why did you not call the sisters i do not know why did you not call them i do not know she disliked the sisters because they gave her food and laughed at her when you watched the cats what did you say to yourself i said it is all as it should be sa doit être ainsi and then they were wild and she cried there was blood and then they ate again that was about the hour of ave maria after that she cried less what did you do then i fetched my loaf and went into the kitchen to sleep and then i went to sleep on my bench and then in the morning i looked in at the window i was frightened and then i was frightened i ran into the woods that messieurs is approximately what the obliging magistrate communicated to me you spoke of the denier mo said the doctor now let us suppose that instead of one there had been two of these poor old ladies each equally helpless and suffering within sight of the other the ignoble effect would clearly have been heightened and so on add infinitum therefore alas it is not the denier mo suppose there had been three or four or a hundred insatiable monster the minister said i think monsieur that from the point of view of the ignoble the effect would not have been heightened it seems to me that wherever we encounter intelligent spectators even though they be fellow sufferers the tragic element intervenes and where it intervenes it dominates for my part he added in a whisper audible only to myself i consider that we have exhausted the discussion he seemed to be suddenly preoccupied for he stood up from his chair and raised his hand to his brow as though he had remembered something yes i said aloud i think we have nearly reached the climax nearly echoed the doctor in a somewhat dissatisfied tone he was apparently still waiting for the denier mo our host summed up the discussion evidently he said there is in human nature an element that takes pleasure in contemplating or at least in discoursing upon the sufferings of our fellow creatures and of animals it is useless to deny the fact the tiger ancestry maybe let us go on to the balcony and examine the sky we rose at his suggestion and stepped out it was bitterly cold the thermometer had fallen to many degrees below the freezing point the air was exhilarating and pure and we walked up and down for a while in silence another spirit had fallen upon us his excellency appeared to be absorbed in meditation at last the doctor remarked to me in the plenitude of life how glibly one talks of death the sights that i have seen the words that i unwilling have heard i was present my friend on the field of sulferino but the minister took his cousin aside and asked in a low voice that lady of whom you spoke was it by chance a mademoiselle helene de la marlinière that i believe was her full name she left paris in the early thirties so i understand my mother told me that she left it on account of her poverty and in order to escape the persecutions of her relations she hid herself so well that they never discovered her whereabouts and this little triumph gave her pleasure they had treated her as little short of a disgrace to themselves it is infamous ah because she refused to marry a gentleman called billboard i have heard something to that effect i see you're acquainted with the matter perhaps in your official capacity my god she was the only sister of my grandfather we looked out into the night the park with its solemn avenues lay at our feet embedded in snow beyond stretched a vast expanse of undulating forest country the young moon had already gone to rest but the snow between the somber patches of shadow glittered tremulously with the reflected scintillations of a myriad stars there was a stillness in the atmosphere that promised good sport for the moral end of the ignoble recording by jason in canada section 11 of unprofessional tales this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by beth tomas unprofessional tales by norman douglas section 11 a tyronian fable once upon a time they lived in the country of atlantis a king and his queen the king was just and pious but his name has been forgotten the queen who was unjust and overbearing was called salona in due time a daughter was born to them at this event there were great feastings in all the towns and the neighboring princes sent gifts and messages of congratulation but the queen was secretly angry for she had wished to herself a son instead of a daughter the little princess was named mytho she was the perfection of loveliness her eyes were blue not the dim glaucus blue of northern skies but deep and glowing serene in their depths like a rift of the asia firmament walled in between two heavy thunderclouds and of more dazzling glow than the legions of tiny gentians that carpet moist mountain meadows in springtime and whenever she turned to speak there was a world of tenderness in her look now because all mythos nation and kinsfolk were of dark eyes and complexion the king was alarmed such a thing had never been seen before and he wondered what the prodigy could mean so he consulted in the first place the astrologers and the great teachers of medicine and those skilled in the knowledge of herbs they opened their books but soon shut them again in despair then he called together the ministers of the land who talked and wrangled together for many days at last when it seemed least likely that they should ever come to a decision the voice of the oldest of them prevailed and he thus addressed the king no oh king that this is no child like others she is destined me thinks to a strange fate let her be brought up apart from her kindred and do not oppose her will for she can do no wrong action and look you govern your people wisely exercising justice in all your dealings else evil will come upon your dominions i can call to mind that my father told me of some prophecy and then to blue-eyed maiden but i paid a little heed to his words young folks are ever forgetful all this was long ago in the days when there was less wrongdoing and when everyone was more wise and happy than they are nowadays some of the younger counselors were seen to turn away their faces as though they would hide a smile but the king gave heed to these words and thus it came about that mytho while she was yet a little child was taken away from the great town and grew up in a palace that was especially built for her among the wild woods she used to wander alone among the trees and often played with the wild fawns of the forest or crept along the streamlets to aspire the painted kingfisher darting down the current swift as an arrow of light or poised like a quivering flame over the still pools the days glided by as in the borderland between sleep and waking the musings of her gentle mind were clad in rainbow hues and the gods looked down from their cloudy pavilions and smiled and took joy in her beauty and innocence because she longed for a playmate they sent their favorite the young huntsman alphas to be her companion mytho and alphas became the dearest of friends to one another and between them was such harmony and understanding as never falls to our lot and so the golden months passed but after these years of happiness queen salona recalled her daughter to her own palace and said it is now time mytho that you should think of your marriage i will ask the courtiers and nobles of the kingdom to come here in order that you may choose one among them and be happy but when she heard these words the princess wept and answered oh my mother i have been brought up far away from all these strangers and i was happy with alphas and have promised to be ever true to him asked the queen who is alphas when all had been explained to her she was very angry but she determined to conceal it for fear of the king who loved his daughter so she bit her lips and merely said try to chase him from your remembrance before that day mytho had never known what it was to feel disappointment she was surprised at these hard words and the more she thought of them the more cruel they seemed till at last she became quite ill with sadness so the queen in her perplexity applied to the king for advice explaining to him her projects and mythos resistance to them and hoping to make him think as she did but he only shook his head and replied i can do nothing such and such is the reed of my counselors and we would do well to follow it whereupon queen salona waxed yet more angry for she hated to be crossed in her wishes and she bit thought her of other shifts she summoned to the palace the witch or luxo that lived far away in a hollow mountain a master of enchantments such was a luxo's might that she could drain rivers to their sources and transform men into beasts and coax the very elements into obedience the evil hag laid back the journey of three moons in the twinkling of an eye and stood before salona who told her all that had happened and concluded by saying change me therefore the heart of this girl and moulded to my wishes that she may forget this vagrant alphas but a luxo mighty as she was winced at these words alas so queen she replied it is beyond my heart to turn the intent of a maiden's heart her desires are inviolable and may not be thwarted by spells command to me therefore some other be hest salona considered a while and then said we must rid the earth of this lover nothing is easier laugh to luxo such a terrible laugh and so after the heat of the day when alphas was resting near a favorite spring of water he was suddenly changed into the likeness of a fawn such a fawn as mytho had played with in the woods and a black panther who came to the same place to slake his thirst fell upon him and devoured him thus alphas died unbeknown to his beloved but in the palace meanwhile mytho could not escape from the attentions of her suitors the fame of her blue eyes had spread over the whole land and they all said among themselves she is indeed beautiful so that the nobles flocked to the capital from the furthest outskirts of the country seeking her favor and the queen urged her to accept one of them without delay for she feared the king might come to hear of her machinations but mytho remained true to her friend and left her father's palace in the hopes of meeting him once more she wandered far away but the suitors followed her everywhere quarreling with one another as to who should be her husband and each striving that she should notice only himself and one evening as she lay down to rest foot saw and sick at heart the witch oloxo suddenly stood up before her her eyes gleamed with wicked pleasure at the sight of mytho's humiliation and she said wretched girl see to what straits you have come through disobedience you are now at the furthest end of your father's country therefore take one of these to your husband or i will never more let you return home but the princess remembered her vow to the nobles who pressed her to help them the witch said i cannot alter the bent of her mind it is for you to do this if you can but do you persevere and i will pray to my great master that he preserve your lives in this pursuit more i cannot do for you so mytho rose up again and wandered on and came to strange regions to the land of the trogdelites that live in dark caves and subsist on roots and noisome reptiles to the dwarves cunning and treacherous to the anthropophagy the devour men's flesh all these and many more were under oloxo's sway whenever therefore mytho prayed them for help they said we will not aid you leave us and her loveliness was gone the color left her cheeks for excessive treatment at last she reached a little rock islet jutting out of the waves now this rock belonged to a good fairy who loved to dive among the crimson groves of coral at his foot and then to mount with streaming hair up to its breezy summit where she took her pleasure in watching the clouds as they drifted into dainty shapes overhead mytho thought herself safe on this islet and all her hardships ended but scarcely had she set foot on it then the suitors climbed up likewise and surrounded her each praising his own merits and disparaging the others by the light of her eyes said the most pretentious of them i was the first to follow her to this spot and she is now mine forever but the others only mocked him and they said to quarrelling more than ever when mythos or all this her heart failed her turning her blue eyes full upon them she cried out in despair there is indeed no release for me save in death i will therefore put you to the task let him who loves me follow me and with those words she threw herself down headlong from the cliff the nobles stood aghast but they were much too cowardly to think of doing likewise they had once began to wrangle among themselves about who was to blame and how they should escape out of these straits but the good fairy lifted her white arms and said you shall never more quit this islet to see your homes and because a mighty charm preserves you from death i shall chain you living to this rock where you shall crawl eternally and your blue color shall proclaim to such as have understanding the tale of mytho and her eyes and they felt their bodies shrinking under a sleek and scaly armor their faces became pointed like lizard snouts their limbs squat and each of them laughed thinking his fellow smaller and uglier than himself haha how ugly you are they said to another for they were transmute one and all into sky blue lizards they immediately began to dispute about such things as my interest a reptile community and their contentious voices and habits are remarked to this day many travelers have visited the rock in order to see these wonderful lizards but not everyone knows how they reached that islet or came by their strange color the fairy sought and found a new rock on which to deport herself in peace meanwhile the kingdom of atlantis was invaded by enemies and suffered great defeats because the chief nobles were away and could not defend it and this was a right punishment for the unkindness of the queen towards her daughter but mytho after her fateful plunge from the rock and before her delicate feet could touch the crest of the waves was upborn by a silvery mist in the semblance of a white seamew that disbred its wings and flew away with her to meet alphas on some happy star end of section 11 section 12 of unprofessional tales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org unprofessional tales by Norman Douglas section 12 the case of mrs. Hillier many years ago the exigencies of business compelled me to reside for several months at the town of Landau in the Bavarian Paladinate I found it a peculiarly dull spot especially in the winter months later when the leaves are green there are some pleasant excursions to be made in the wooded mountains a chain of red sandstone hills forms the backbone of the country and nearly every point of eminence is crowned by the ruins of a castle stupendous works they are some of they are all grim records of the feudal ages when a human life was of little account and men were sending gangs groaning and toiling with the lash at their backs to carve the face of the cliff or to hew dark passages into the solid rock till they dropped dead from fatigue there is proud mattenberg laid low by the french whose iron bows are still fixed in the walls trifles were richard courtelian they say languished until his romantic rescue by blundell frowning fleckenstein celebrated of old in the pages of the nibelungen lied faglinburg don in fact a region full of knights and dragons and enchantments the gray mists of the middle ages still float about those decayed pinecurdled fastnesses after some weeks of loneliness I became acquainted with a mr. and mrs. Hillier who were so far as I know the only anguish residence in lendow at the time the acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship mr. Hillier had been for some 20 years professor of physiology and comparative anatomy at the university of new leads us he was now well advanced in years mrs. Hillier was a fair lady wreathed in smiles and somewhat younger and stouter than her husband they had apparently settled down to spend the remainder of their lives in lendow though I soon found out that it was the lady and not her husband who had selected this dreary spot mr. Hillier indeed seemed to dislike it particularly they were fairly wealthy people and I was for a long time puzzled to explain this curious affection on mrs. Hillier's part for an obscure german town a mere accident led to the solution of the mystery I was sitting one evening alone with mr. Hillier and turning over the pages of a large volume that he just derived by post it was entitled a monograph of the boa family and more on his title page the written inscription to his former teacher professor hillier in token of friendship and respect a bellwood the professor corroborated the fact a former pupil of mine a great enthusiast of his servants he spent many years in the swamps of South America these american scientific publications are luxuries I said glancing over the pages the book was open at a magnificent plate representing a black boa constrictor whose extenuated lungs seemed to heave with lifelike motion while iridescent tints played about the dusky coils it was a masterpiece of the engraver's art one expected every minute to see the shimmering monster wake into life and glide out of the pictured page I glanced at the accompanying text it ran with partable pride this new subspecies of anaconda for which I venture to propose the name unctis marinas va tartarius was obtained by me in a single specimen a male in the marshy forest bordering upon the upper brancose river nothing can surpass the beauty of its rainbow hues which only I have hither too been in a position to appreciate unfortunately the marvelous tints fade rapidly after death then followed measurements and other details I have never seen a black anaconda I remarked I have replied mr hillier then mr bellwood is mistaken missus hillier at that moment entered the room behind me she glanced over my shoulder at the engraving and then to my amazement uttered a scream of terror and fainted into the arms of her husband who had hastily risen from his chair my dearest alice he cried in consternation supporting her as best he could out of the room presently he returned alone I must apologize he said the fact is my wife cannot endure snakes on that evening he volunteered no further information but during the course of my stay at thandow I elicited from him a story that offers an adequate explanation of mrs hillier's indisposition this is what he told me I studied at the renowned university of dublin in those days that was forty years ago I worked hard for I had my ambitions my ambition was to become a great doctor a benefactor to mankind I have relapsed as you perceive into mediocrity that is the end of many a promising career it was not long before I made the inevitable discovery that owing to the vastness and complexity of subjects I would be compelled to devote myself as a specialist to one branch or another if I intended to do work of any value after some deliberation therefore I decided to take up the respiratory organs as a particular subject this I thought would soonest bring me into prominence especially in england where there is such an appalling mortality from pulmonary complaints during my preliminary researches I found nothing so interesting as the lungs of snakes one can picture to oneself from the form of a snake what singularly shaped organs its lungs must be and under what unusual conditions of compression and simultaneous elongation the work of breathing proceeds besides it is precisely in this class of animals that one meet with some of those curious transitional forms the boa family for instance where two lungs are gradually converted into the single organ of most snakes generally by the reduction of the left lobe but these are technicalities a difficulty arose at the outset of my studies St. Patrick having banished all snakes from Ireland I was put to considerable trouble and expense in sending for material for my daily work of dissection from London Hamburg and other places I required large specimens boa constrictors and other giants for the smaller individuals did not allow me to carry on with sufficient clearness those minute histological investigations into the lining of delicate blood vessels and so forth especially with the microscopes of those days in this dilemma a fellow student supplied me with a letter of introduction to a Mr. Denbig a retired naturalist with whom he used to have dealings some years ago I found this man's house with some little difficulty it lay near the end of Wilcox Street on the outskirts of one of the dirtiest quarters of the town it was a large old-fashioned building with a patch of grass in front the door was opened by a young girl who I afterwards discovered to be Miss Lenora Moore an orphan and Mr. Denbig niece she lived alone with her uncle she was slim with a plaintive and ethereal expression of countenance that accorded well in her somewhat romantic name she glanced through my friend's letter and said I cannot ask you to speak to Mr. Denbig at this moment but perhaps you would care to see some of the larger serpents Mr. Morris writes that you are interested in them we ascended some stairs and entered a room that was stiflingly hot along the walls I observed a number of cages containing tropical reptiles opposite to that of a large labaria snake from a guinea a man with sitting motionless it was Mr. Denbig he was about sixty years of age sallow clean shaven and dressed in a tight fitting suit of black material he made no signs of having hurt us the reptile's head was slightly raised and Mr. Denbig appeared to be looking fixedly into its eye I laid my letter of recommendation upon a writing table and his elbow it is useless to interrupt him now my companion whispered he is often like this nowadays he has changed so much lately it is horrible horrible she added in a yet lower tone she was evidently not happy in the company of this old man in his strange bets descending from this room by another staircase we found ourselves on the lower floor again this portion of it had been laid out into cages for some ten or twelve tropical serpents I ought to have said was was for that alone give some idea of the luxurious furniture of these apartments that contrasted singularly with the impoverished appearance of Mr. Denbig and his niece I learned long afterwards that recently on being appointed her guardian he had appropriated all her wealth which was considerable and employed it in buying new serpents from time to time and in fitting up the rooms we wandered from one to the other of them and I was lost in admiration over their inmates an admiration that Miss Moore did not seem to share horrible she repeated and I have to attend to these awful creatures and to feed them at fixed hours and to report on their health my uncle seldom climbs stairs on account of his heart he is so different from what he used to be he threatens to lock me up with them if I disobey he seems to be a tyrant two days ago a python died and I thought he would have killed me in his rage fortunately it was not one of his favorites on account of its irregular markings can you understand that if zeffro were to die he would murder me outright zeffro I asked she pointed to a door closed with a large padlock that is where he keeps zeffro she explained it has not had any food for two months he pretends to worship it as a kind of holy creature I never know what he will do from one day to the next he changes continually I entered mr denby's room alone and saw him walking about excitedly his face was flushed so far as his pale complexion would allow as after an abundant meal he was talking to himself and seemed to be in an excellent humor his was a strange physiognomy it reminded me of something I knew not what I have read mr morris's letter he began and I'm delighted to welcome you hardly anyone comes to see me nowadays so you are studying anatomy I have put aside some preparations out of my museum for you to take home and study at your ease may they be to you the stepping stones to other knowledge greater knowledge I have passed that stage long ago a wonderful man braid I was barely acquainted with the name for that was at a time when the hypnotic experiments of james braid were quite new to the scientific world he continued I possess a fountain mr hillier whence proceeds joy more delicious than wine have you never lost to yourself in a fixed gaze have you never floated away into another existence drunk copious wonder drafts of wisdom he seemed to be bursting with some secret pleasure you have some magnificent live serpents downstairs mr denby so I have he replied somewhat surprised I found out afterwards that he was never aware of my acquaintance with his niece only one of them however is perfect and before you pay your respects to zefro mr hillier I should like to say a few words to prepare you for the mysteries of which he is the living symbol he spoke earnestly his voice habitually never rose above a cold civil with a whisper and his eyes remained fixed upon me they were long slit and glassy without any expression and sunk under deep bony brows he said the sun wanders from east to west towns and villages spread from east to west civilization progresses from east to west the yeast is the old the west the new we looked the west for better things zefro needless to say comes from the furthest west I nodded in acquiescence a word as to markings in myosin times you are aware the fauna was more striped than nowadays stripes are dying out as you can observe in the color development of many animals between the immature and the adult stages they break up into bars then spots and these coalesce to form an eye pattern a ring the oscilis is the purest form of ornamentation even as the circle is the purest line as a naturalist you have undoubtedly been astonished at the fact that many varieties of ophidians sardians and bactructians widely separated groups of animals are striped in the east and become oscillated toward the west my explanation of this hitherto mysterious phenomenon is very simple the oscilis represents the eye and it is the eye as braid has shown once can be drawn new thoughts new truths new life zefro needless to say displays the highest form of decorative design now let us descend as you open the padlock of the door I found myself looking through a crystal pane into another serpent boudoir larger and more extravagantly furnished than the others the first object that attracted my attention was an enormous black boa constrictor that wound itself in mighty convolutions about a moderately sized skeleton tree in the center of the room it was the same anaconda the unectis marinas vaartatarius of which mr. bellwood has given a description I saw at a glance that everything possible had been done to assure its health and happiness every interst see in the room except the proper ventilators have been carefully closed with cotton wool as a protection from drafts the room was handled up to a man's height with polished rosewood above that the walls and the vaulted ceiling had been painted alfresco to represent a primeval forest a delicate attention with dark green foliage and gaudy birds fluttering along the branches at one corner a rivulet of tepid water trickled out of a dolphin's mouth and breaking in miniature cascades down some terraces paved in the moorish fashion with golden and green mosaics lost itself at the foot of the tree in a clear round pool a fine specimen of victoria ragina slumbered upon its surface the light fell through double windows an additional precaution the inner ones being split up into small panes of rosy intent produced bright patches of color that lay tremulously like shreds of crimson lace upon the white marble floor here and there were costly silken mats of oriental workmanship a small silver thermometer marked the temperature and the heating apparatus of the chamber situated beneath the floor could be regulated to a nicety from where I stood by means of a simple screw whilst I was contemplating this bizarre establishment the black monster lazily uncoiled itself and glided into the water it gave me the impression of relentless ferocity but there could be no two opinions as to its beauty the smooth the jet black skin shown with a lively play of colors and a series of exquisite oceli with emerald centerpiece framed in a ring of cobalt blue ran down its back in wonderful regularity of design they appeared to dilate and contract with its heaving breath browned its neck I observed a necklace of beads of rock crystal or moonstone set in gold oh wonderful specimen I said and you have done your best to make him feel at home might I inquire as to the object of that collar the necklace a harmless deceit on my part he thinks it is for ornament but it is really only a device for customing him to abstinence I consider it beneath his dignity as a god to swallow animals alive he should partake only of menna and ambrosia of course this could not be done all at once such little ruses are quite permissible all human beings practice him upon the object of their worship he must be nearly thirty feet long I said I dare say he could swallow a man at least there are authenticated instances of these serpents swallowing what was twice as thick as their own heads thanks to the accommodating capacity of their jaw bones ah really do you really think he could do so I have often wondered about this perhaps I was wrong perhaps he would not stay yet to accept a pure offering perhaps he ought to wrestle with some warm-blooded victim in order that he might rejoice like a god in his strength he seemed to entertain my idea quite seriously he looks ferocious his rage Mr. Hillier is even as the all-devouring rage of the sun his silence symbolizes the stillness of the stars his convolutions the winding ways of the planet his temperature the coldness of the moon his iridescent flashes the rainbow that displays the spectral hues of all things his blackness primordial slime and chaos his protracted length the distance from untruth to truth behold yourself Mr. Hillier at the threshold of the mysteries I began to understand Miss Moore's apprehensions after this visit I only met Mr. Denbig once again the immediate cause of my coming was to obtain some more material for my studies but I have often marveled at the strange fate that caused me to select that particular day it was the 10th of November an old serving woman answered the bell I thought Mr. Denbig sitting alone he was surrounded by books and I observed with surprise the necklace of the black boa constrictor lying upon the table at his elbow he assumed led me into another room the walls of which were lined with cupboards containing innumerable reptiles preserved in spirits this he explained is my museum mausoleum I should say or my favorite sleep after death the Egyptians must have felt the same kind of reverence for their dead as I do ah those Egyptians on that shelf Mr. Hillier you will find an exhaustive series of preparations illustrating the diseases of servants I imagine it is unique in the world come and study it whatever you like perhaps it will be of use to you in your pulmonary investigations but I trust you will soon grow out of that stage I also used to take pleasure in dissecting limbic lands and whatnot I have done what is called good work a brilliant career maybe for me but I realized its futility and chose the thorny path of poverty providence lately has thrown some money in my lap as a reward I suppose of my honest purpose and his frozen features melted into the semblance of a smile but it was a strange smile a stony smile the corners of his mouth were drawn up into an expression of hard mockery such as one may see in the faces of many snakes yes that was the secret of his countenance its resemblance to the snake type a resemblance further accentuated by the toneless hissing voice long contact with reptiles had presumably modified his physiognomy you have given your specimens wonderfully lifelike poses I said admirably I perceive you agree with Hogarth as to the beauty of serpentine lines that was an excellent suggestion you made the other day what suggestion I asked wondering to what he could refer you have forgotten yes I confess I have taken a great deal of trouble with this collection I used to dissect serpents but nowadays I find it hard to cut up my favorites with a knife it seems a kind of outrage upon the dead any true lover of snakes will understand I also dealt in reptiles formerly but I found it increasingly difficult to part with them I am an old man all my friends have either died or deserted me and thus I am thrown upon the affection of dumb animals that at least is how my love for them began nowadays understanding them as I do I spare myself nothing in order to gratify their tastes I try to anticipate their smallest desires the Egyptians knew why they paid reverence to these creatures the orientals the Mexicans and all the other enlightened nations of the world they knew are your hypnotic studies progressing I asked better far better than I ever dreamed whatever I may have thought of some of mr denby's theories he was evidently an original thinker and a practical worker in some departments he had anticipated by many years the discovery of certain laws of animal coloration and he must have studied profoundly the art an art that has since been completely revolutionized of preparing lifelike specimens in alcohol he was a pioneer in this field his collection was a revelation to me the museum specimens of those days were brown shrunken mummies leathery shriveled through the action of spirits and devoid of all semblance to their former state mr denby's preparations were rounded and plastic and bright in the coloration the most delicate internal organs were preserved in lifelike condition and even the tenderest tints those effervescent blues and reds were retained in their intensity presumably my means of a hypodermic injection of some preservative fluid known only to himself was it a fact or was it imagination a part of that same design that had led me here on this day I seem to hear in the direction of the cages downstairs the sound of a low human moan a terrible suspicion flashed across my mind and I ran down the stairs regardless of mr denby's entreaties the door of zeppro's apartment was a jar and I saw a miss more standing calmly open-eyed in that chamber of death she was in a state of trance the reptile lay partly in the water that magnified its used dimensions its tail appearing above the surface lashed angrily to and fro I'd lost no time in dragging her out of a danger that a harmless remark of mine had prepared for her and she told me later that this moment of awakening when she realized her position was worse than all the conceivable torments of hell I can well believe it mr denby himself had followed me hastily he fell down at the door of the cage we thought he had fainted but he was after was discovered to be stone dead the emotion combined with the ravages of a long-standing cardiac disease had been too much for him and since that day professor hillier added my wife naturally objects to the sight of snakes that is why she has at last persuaded me to settle down here at laden dow because it is one of the few parts of europe that are absolutely free from them your wife you did not guess I call her by her second name now the other one reminds her too much of that awful period but I objected I saw a snake only the other day near lindenbron an unmistakable thrill of delight passed over the professor's features is it possible that is too good to be true I have never heard of such a thing I said it was about a yard in length and of reddish color ah the coronella lavis a very harmless species if you are prepared mr r to assure mrs hillier of that fact you will make me your debtor for life it is useless for me to tell her she knows how I dislike this place he added elliptically I gladly volunteered and we passed into the drawing room Alice said her husband with an air of concern and gravity a mr r has some information which I am sorry to say will not be very agreeable to you the textbooks are wrong it is the old story one writer makes a mistake and all the others copy from him I controlled my features and told my story mrs hillier seemed to take the news very calmly but within a week the establishment was broken up and I was once more alone in landow end of section 12 recording by Todd section 13 of unprofessional tales this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org unprofessional tales by Norman Douglas to EFG Gaudium the mansion of the late Duke was noteworthy in more than one respect it stood at a great altitude many leagues from the nearest farmstead in one of the wildest districts of his wild domain and upon a natural platform at the head of a tortuous glen that led up into the solitary recesses of the mountains his father had originally selected the site in a moment of caprice to build a summer hunting lodge for certain of his friends who were fond of the chase but his mother the lady Matilda a discerning woman loved its seclusion at all seasons and had spent the latter part of her married life there alone with her infant for her husband I presume found it every year more difficult to tear himself away from the pleasures and intrigues of the capital it was in the month of February I remember that I made my first acquaintance with the place the mock death the immobility of winter was yet upon all living things the sledge in which I lay half torpid had been winding for many hours between high piled snow drifts up the sinuosities of the ice bound glen towards evening we encountered a bank of fog that seemed interminable but suddenly as we attained the plateau and came close under the gray walls we emerged out of the mists and passed into an atmosphere of intensest sparkling blue I found it difficult at first to inhale the clear air the optical effect was marvelous we were standing as it seemed aloof from the world upon some high poised cloud and surveying a billowy ocean of vapor nothing in all this heaving expanse attracted the eye save where some mountain peaks soared island like into the ether above the tany flood and reflected on its snows the crimson rays of sunset though the spell was only momentary I have never been able to dismiss the notion that I then entered upon something more than mere terrestrial isolation the winter at this altitude was sublime but the most enjoyable season was the great summer calm when the fountains were released and the moist precipices glistened with a thousand silvery threads of water when one might lie dreaming for hours upon some dry knoll amid that indefinable but overpowering fragrance of wild nature listening to the hum of insects the music of the waters or the harsh cries of kite or curlew or fern owl for never a sound of humanity reached the mansion the lady Matilda would often gaze from her window over the wide table land glowing in russet and mauve tints and her eye unconsciously followed the meanderings of the rill that burst from a chill cleft near the mansion as it leaped in busy cataracts between the brown boulders and finally after a descent of more than three thousand feet lost itself in the belt of forest where flowed the great river all around was silence and solitude at this serene height the landscape was spread out before her like a map and her glance often rested where in the dim distance far below some glittering spire rising among the purple haze of a village reminded her of the existence of her fellow creatures in that world so far away that she once knew so well and every evening there appeared in the sky such flashes of colors such lustrous cloud configurations as would have gladdened the heart of a turner or clode Lorraine sometimes the firmament was alive with hosts of ready demons that advanced with flying banners and all the pomp of arms towards some mimic citadel then suddenly the gorgeous pageantry would fade away in pale distressful phantoms stretched arms from east to west a non appeared a golden harvest swaying to the breeze or high piled terraces browsed by flocks of sheep or curious portraiture of crosses and spears thus gazing she learned to sympathize with those simpler minds of other days that were pleased to discover in these sky pictures portents of deep significance to themselves a lonely spot indeed but it suited the purpose of lady Matilda her sensitive mind recoiled at the prospect that her son should imbibe like his father the brutality that is often enough the result of a purely worldly education however praiseworthy its objects and admirable its general results her own unfortunate experiences therefore had counseled her to bring up the child at her side in this isolation until such a time at least as he should be sufficiently wise to repel those evil influences and passions to which his father had succumbed I have never been able to fathom the reasons of her marriage she must have known something of her future husband's character and reputation her own birth had placed her above the temptation of social ambition nor can ignorance be pleaded on her behalf for she was over 30 at the time of her marriage and a woman of the world in every sense of that word I can therefore only attribute this step to one of those ill-starred whims that sometimes afflict the most reasonable of her sex it was soon seen that hers was a nature whose full beauty only blossoms in the wintery storm of adversity but it is unnecessary to rake up any of these ancient scandals whose influence upon her was such that before the timely birth of her son her friends often feared that her mind would give way under the strain after the death of her husband she resumed her inward harmony and laid aside with antique dignity all memory of the past she was now freed from a life of continual apprehensions and reproaches her self divided existence had ended and here in the solitudes of the mountains her true nature again found itself the mellow the morose the frivolous these are the three categories into one of which when the plasticity of youth has passed away the human character tends to fall the lady matilda belonged to the first named and it is this class who enjoy one priceless privilege to which youth can never aspire the perfect humor true to itself tempered and refined by affliction it is their prerogative to smile when youth weeps to be not embittered but enlightened not indifferent but resigned the lady matilda had possessed throughout life something of that coordinating and systematic spirit of great thinkers like Humboldt and Linnaeus she had never learned to detach the part from the whole but her formerly materialistic views had undergone a transformation and they were now chastened and suffused by a rosy at tinge of poetry she began to see through the dull body into the living soul of things she had lived long enough to survey herself and all human affairs in their true perspective to comprehend their utter insignificance in the great plan of macrocosm above all she had suffered and that fiery ordeal had not been undergone without a corresponding gain of moral purification a permanent addition to her sum of knowledge all those who have endured real grief of heart have learned to know the value the appalling stupefying non-value of the comforts of philosophy and the promises of religion this then was a definite acquisition of wisdom and therefore like others who have traveled by the same road of grief and enlightenment she now took refuge in such literature and thoughts as removed her from those purely human interests that had been the burden of her latter life into the dim and airy regions of the superhuman for while we can never hope to escape wholly out of our own human atmosphere or even wish to do so it remains a suggestive fact that some great thinkers are not forever satisfied with the actions and passions of the purely human nor yet with those of beings purely divine as they labor under analogous disadvantages being inevitably endowed with ideas of good and evil akin to our own only somewhat caricatured in intensity the purely divine therefore is and ever has been profoundly uninteresting I should hence have better said the extra human for it is precisely in this admixture of the fanciful in this interpretation of human motives with a new and unaccountable element that thinkers congenial to herself have delighted and I have referred at some length to this tendency in the mind of the lady Matilda in the hope of throwing light upon certain much abused peculiarities of her son that are intelligible only when traced back to this source but let me at once confess my candid opinion that amiable and interesting as he was nothing but the accident of his birth and the innate snobbishness of his fellow creatures can explain that phenomenal outpouring of idle and mischievous gossip on the occasion of his death she used to exemplify her views by referring to that universal love of the fabulous that underlies the popular tales of all nations and has doubtless some deep meaning did not the illustrious go to experience in his old age a kindred longing a longing after the extra human when he wrote his Faust that Olympic genius that had delved so deep into the torturous caverns of the human soul had now become weary of mankind in their ordinary manifestations he craved for other company and no one has taken such sympathetic delight in the extra natural as our Shakespeare he was clearly animated by that self same longing when he traced in the last effluence of his divine inspiration the delicately ethereal framework of the tempest and breathed into it that atmosphere of witchery and new images new images new springs of action he had played enough upon the human pipe these demigods among men that had spent their lives in conning the book of humanity engaging the lusts and hatreds of their fellows in arranging and rearranging the puppets upon this stage of ours these masterminds were grown tired of their pastime the truth foreshadowed in the child's love of fairy tales is borne out by the matured wisdom of sages new beings new secrets enough of man she would say and her son interpreted it later after his own extravagant fashion that whoever deals much with mankind must yearn to build up a world of fancy for himself to escape from their sorted lives and interests their weary some virtues their self praise ceaseless as the cicadas song to be in touch with other thoughts and passions with something new something different humanity leaves a bad taste in the mouth the child meanwhile grew up in this calm wilderness hearty and supple in body in mind wholly lovable like herself he possessed that anthropomorphism characteristic of all solitary children and I often amused myself in endeavoring to penetrate into the tangled system of nature worship that he had built up for himself but the recesses of a child's mind are inaccessible as that hercene forest of old I saw a good deal of the family in that memorable winter when the whole country was convulsed in rebellions whose thunders reverberated up to the very walls of the gray mansion among the clouds within all was peace during those long evenings when the beach and logs flickered on the hearth the lady Matilda revealed herself to me for the first time in the character of a fire worshiper not in the strict zoroastrian sense of the word nor yet in the sense of an artist who merely delights in the transcendent beauty of the flames that surpass in purity and luster every gem of the earth as they climb upwards in game motion clustering brightly on some devoted spot and liberating with mirthful sound the prisoned life within but in a profound and yet romantic sense of the word gazing steadily into the fire in a kind of trance she enjoyed she said brief moments of ecstatic bliss sudden thrills of enlightenment when as under the influence of some potent drug or responsive to an angel's touch the mind feels capable of resolving every enigma of life when the doubts the contradictions the injustices of nature are no longer felt in their individual torturing manifestations but do build themselves up into one harmonious and righteous whole she remembered the sun the source of all light and her knowledge of the mighty alchemic operations whereby all earthly organisms derive their first breath of life and the faculty of continued living inevitably led her to view the great fire as the benign originator and preserver of all things when she remembered that solar virtues fashioned also the wondrous forms of inanimate matter and contrived their manifold tints when she reflected that the flashing ruby was kindred not in color only but in substance with the arterial life that flowed through her veins when she encountered the great truth the truth of the kinship of the tie of blood that binds the cosmos to herself and to all mankind whose structure contains the common properties of the earth whose humors of body and mind are swayed by her satellite whose very thoughts are but expressions of solar energy in the contemplation of these vistas her own individual preoccupations and those of her fellow creatures seemed to melt away like mists there was grandeur she declared in such views there was a tuneful sequence of cause and effect above all there was repose heaven knows what were her ulterior intentions with regard to the education of her child but i presume she meditated for him some years of travel among the capitals of the world where he might shake off any singularity or unmanliness acquired during his solitary childhood in the meanwhile the principal task she imposed upon herself and upon his teachers was that he should grow up free from those superstitions from which she had painfully liberated herself free at the same time from all dogmatic assertion of knowledge from that lack of consideration for the opinions of others which characterized i regret to say his own father whose common politeness was wont to evaporate together with his common sense in the heat of discussion the due alloy of humility and dignity that ideal state was nowhere to be discovered she thought save in the teachings of nature for a purely metaphysical education is apt to infect young minds with the malady of introspection while priest craft that seeks to humanize the great unknown thereby debases it and exalts its creatures above their station few i imagine would have known better than herself how to draw from the common truths of nature such lessons as might tend to humble him before that great unknown humbling simultaneously and conclusively the derisive pretensions of his fellows none more able to decompose as she used to express herself the dry light of knowledge into those rainbow tints of kindness that soften and gladden the human heart to extract with magicians cunning the romance of life out of its murky facts even as out of that foul coal tar some who know the secret craftily distill most delicate aromas and colors exquisite all these educational designs i remember sounded admirable at the time when she propounded them looking at things in the light of later knowledge i cannot but think that she leaned unduly towards the side of sentimentality her projects whatever they were remained unfulfilled for she died in the following spring after a short illness leaving the child at a critical age and hardly yet able to materialize the immensity of his loss of the following years of his life i only know that he seldom left the mountains and that with an astuteness worthy of a better cause he soon managed to dismiss his various tutors and to thwart his guardians into a sullen compliance with his wishes up to the day when he could legally dispense with their services in later years he often expressed regret at his boyish waywardness and intolerance many years elapsed before i again had an opportunity of seeing him he was grown to manhood but i was concerned to observe that many of the tastes which he may be supposed to have inherited or acquired from his mother had deviated so to speak from their natural line of development he never possessed her controlling common sense whether consciously or not he carried all her peculiarities to extremes the yearning towards the extra human for instance that was so intelligible on her part had degenerated in the young man into something akin and yet very different i refer to an unhealthy craving after the monstrous which survived throughout his short life and colored or discolored all his thoughts and actions whatever was normal serene reposeful was liable a o ipso to become distasteful to him this propensity towards the inordinate the grotesque is more widely distributed than may be supposed i could cite the names of several eminent writers and artists of recent times whose minds are undoubtedly tainted though in a lesser degree with this idiosyncrasy it is an essentially modern phenomenon a protest possibly like the pest of symbolism on the part of man's mystery loving soul against the scientific spirit of the times its psychological investigation might prove an interesting study and that which in his mother's case was a justifiable desire for solitude a deliberate retirement with a set purpose had become with him a morbid and irrational disinclination to leave his home he was consistent in nothing so much as this refusal to make himself acquainted with the actual living world of men i hardly think he was out of his own domain more than once in the course of his life and his life in this eagles nest was not only solitary it was absolutely aimless he possessed talents of no mean order and sometimes in a frenzy of good intentions he would lock himself into his library to pursue the study of some particular subject but he suffered from one of the commonest defects of genius diffusiveness lack of concentrative grasp he recoiled at the immensity of the task before him sighed at the impossibility of realizing his intellectual projects and therefore dreaded to tread where a less dainty and pretentious person would have boldly ventured his mental horizon extended too far and in this again i seem to recognize a perversion of those broad all comprehensive views of his mother how many great men have been lost to the world through this failure to realize their own limitations a restless spirit is a dungeon unto itself his very thirst for knowledge his manifold ambitions paralyzed his initiative in fact he simply lacked the sense of measure and the standards which he set up for himself were such as no mortals may hope to attain when peaked on his indolence he used to quote bacon's counsel as to reading not to learn but to weigh and consider and advised his friends to do likewise at other times he gravely professed as a legitimate and even laudable aim in life to study his individuality a masked form of egoism if that term can be employed in speaking of one who with all his whims was the type and pattern of humility his caprice at first found an object in reconstructing the mansion of his birth to the total neglect of his other family seats and upon a scale entirely disproportionate to his needs while the fit lasted the work proceeded furiously building materials were transported at an enormous cost up the congested Glen and the weary laborers summoned from distant towns and villages lived in crowded sheds and complained of Agu and insufficient nourishment he fitted the house with such luxurious appliances of modern comfort as ill accorded with its rustic character and amazed his somewhat infrequent visitors under his hands it grew into the outward token of a tormented mind meaningless towers reared their heads into the clouds and at every turn in the interior the eye was confounded by some grotesque arrangement of color or design the evident intention was to astonish rather than to please he built large conservatories to contain forests of palms and one day I remember there wound up the valley some 30 or 40 wagons containing a costly assortment of vegetable products from Central America poisonous growths of most bestial shapes that fatten on air and sunscorched rock tortoises among plants slow growing on cooth tenacious of life with porcupine spikes and blossoms of scarlet flame I commented upon this singularly unlovely collection it pleases me and harms no one he replied that was his favorite palliation of every folly the mention of tropical plants recalls a conversation that is yet fresh in my mind it began with his reading out to me a glowing but fantastic description of a Brazilian primeval forest as he imagined it in which one particular passage ran something to this effect it was a dazzling spectacle a blaze of color rained down upon my eyes clusters of flowers wrestled with the matted branches breathing themselves into golden festoons that glittered with lightning flashes or hung in mid-air dangling by gossamer threads like tremulous stars of light to my left a torrent of blood red blossoms of wondrous shapes streamed down some blighted trunk while a stupendous liana just so I said just so that comes of not traveling if you had ever visited one of these forests you would have noticed that they are remarkably devoid of flowering plants they are nothing but tangled emerald wildernesses well he asked and your conclusion therefore travel in this isolation you cannot avoid acquiring exaggerated views and opinions you have just proved it yourself you see exaggeration is the salt of life your knowledge of the world would be corrected and enlarged I have my books and my imagination it is precisely your imagination that is liable to lead you astray I urged the naked truth is always different the naked truth is always disenchanting I prefer my illusions to your realities hence this isolation that you disparage you prefer the wrong to the right he only smiled what are right and wrong in such matters nothing but pitfalls stumbling blocks in our search after delight you have proved it yourself you see true beauty is only to be found here he added tapping his forehead with a significant gesture you would contract the sphere of the beautiful whereas I seek to widen it deliberately and systematically with a view to increasing my own capacity for enjoyment at the expense of common sense I asked common sense is a good servant but a bad master and in disregard of experience where experience enters fancy fleas besides he added evasively I have my mountains you know an intelligent person I maintained is not permanently satisfied with contemplating even the sublimest phenomena of nature you remind me of dr. johnson because I insisted they lack the element of tradition to be able to discover in a mountain something more than a mere terrestrial deformity argues a certain modern complexity of feeling a simple peasant has no eye for these natural beauties but a worldly man who rarely loses touch with the human race or a poet who is daily reminded of its petty hopes and fears appreciates nowadays at least this solemnity therefore go first to the Ganges and the Nile to Persepolis and Rome and Athens observe how the works of man have grown and perished then return to your eternal mountains and be assured that they will speak to you in a new tongue you are altogether too bound up in your fellow creatures that is what makes you so cententious as for my mountains I am quite satisfied with them as they are and I do not wish them to speak to me I only wish to speak to them as he uttered these last words his voice sink into a pathetic whisper even that is hardly a sufficient motive for secluding yourself half a lifetime among them drive that nightmare of motivation out of your head he cried it is based upon a pernicious misconception of the human mind I do not profess to be guided by any motives where are my motives doubtless they are slumbering somewhere in my brain or more probably in my lower gastric region but I have never attempted to make their acquaintance and please don't stir them up for me he added with a laugh or I may be suddenly seized with a disastrous longing to learn Chinese or to join the Moravian Brotherhood that is precisely what I was about to suggest to you even if you remain here your life need not necessarily be an idle one there is a world of suffering and strife and unkindliness to be medicine your wealth your position offers exceptional facilities for becoming a missionary a policeman or a scavenger fellow creatures again no the world is too full of useful persons already they create daily new desires and new complaints and new regrets besides encouraging overpopulation we breed our proletariat as if they were orchids if you knew the world you would be more charitable then do something at least with your own talents I suggested do something do something that seems to be the chief infatuation of modern times do something are we never to grow out of that pure isle doctrine again the gospel of work my friend is written only for poppers work for the poor leisure for the rich it is only in our enlightened age that the expression a man of leisure a dilettante and amateur have become tinctured with the flavor of reproach it is only nowadays that a man dares to confess I am old and rich but my mind lacks resources I cannot entertain myself I am a cart horse harness me a drudge kick me to my desk what shall be said of a society that prides itself upon such monsters progress perhaps but not civilization I see your principle is do nothing and that well you have formulated it very clearly and concisely he replied smiling a charming smile full of unaffected childlike perverseness it was this particular smile I suspect that alienated from him a good many excellent persons who would otherwise have given him credit at least for sincerity and self-consistency but they saw only the fretful dreamer dogmatic and supercilious while a sympathetic mind soon discovered in him and homogeneous entity delightfully different from those composite characters of whom the world is only too full the last occasion on which I saw my friend was not many weeks before that deplorable accident concerning which enough and more than enough has been written he struck me at first as being more tolerant and reasonable than formerly I imagined that he had reached a turning point in his development the termination of one of those definite life periods when all men worthy of the name having passed through a cleansing process of spiritual desquamation and slipped their outworn weeds of thought and feeling enter with quickened pulses upon a fresh and radiant existence he had always represented to my mind the type of a northern nature slow but strong groping its way unaided from darkness to light and only attaining full intellectual maturity at a comparatively late age it was not long however before he took me into his new paragon library that has likewise not escaped its share of comment I could see at a glance that it had been constructed according to his own ideas ideas that were generally right in principle and sometimes singularly felicitous but seldom lacked the savor of the outrageous utre in their execution it was not so much a single room as an assorted group of small chambers opening into each other by archways at irregular angles with a not unpleasing labyrinthine effect there were nine of these separate compartments voluptuously furnished and dedicated he told me to the nine muses he explained that in thus breaking up the space his intention was to prevent the studious eye from unconsciously wandering and that he generally excluded the intrusive daylight with the same object closing all the shutters and lighting a lamp at midday in order to illuminate the particular cell in which he happened to be engaged while the rest of the suite was artificially drowned in egyptian gloom the walls of these nine chambers were concealed behind an unnumbered multitude of books reposing in cases of aromatic oriental woods whose heavy perfume saturated the air there were works of every size and age and in every tongue besides those that might naturally be found in a scholar's library i observed entire shelves groaning under a load of folios fancy bindings editions day locks or monographs upon subjects whose very existence was unknown saved to students for a private collection it was the most heterogeneous one i ever saw he guessed my thoughts college rather a geological deposit contorted perhaps but not faulty there are well marked strata of different classes of books according to the different phases of my life each of which has produced a crop of literature that has temporarily interested me the books may look confused but there is no such confusion in my head he was perhaps going to say but a fear of ridicule caused him to break off abruptly in one chamber i stumbled upon an immense pile of unclassified manuscripts these were the fruits of a certain occupation that he had pursued with rare consistency throughout his life namely the systematic collection and elaboration of all those local legends in which that part of the country abounded his knowledge of the district lore i am told was nothing short of marvelous in regard to its extent and minuteness he made himself acquainted with every nook of the mountains not a real not a ruin escaped his eye and the archives of parishes monasteries and private mansions were ransacked for any extracts that might bear upon the history of his domain and of the particular glen which he had learned to love with an almost fanatical veneration and needless to say all that inclined to the monstrous and what are old chronicles but a compilation of monstrosities exercised a peculiar charm upon him in fact it was probably this one quality that endeared to him the pursuit he confessed to an inordinate liking for the middle ages with their grim sorceries prodigies and demonology whereas i used to contend that they constitute the most disgraceful era of man's history upon earth being nothing but a long succession of murders and prayers enlivened only by the buffoonery of night air entry and occasional visitations of the plague in age where everything is improbable and what is not improbable is worse ah but read this he said triumphantly as he tenderly fished out a single parcel from among the pile it was a medieval legend connected with the site of his own house i read it and found it remarkable only in so far as it seemed even more grotesque than the generality of its kind but herein no doubt lay its fascination for my friend end of section 13


My name is Vernon Downs, and I'm a Navy veteran. I was on the verge of being drafted, so I had to enlist to get the Navy. My parents had to sign for me reluctantly, so that's how I wound up in the Navy. I was fresh off the farm. I had never traveled, and I did learn there was a life beyond the farm and beyond the small town. I got exposed to various things, such as radio, radar, and a deck gang, chipping paint, and things of that nature. April the 1st was the invasion of Okinawa, and we fired our rockets at the beach, the seawall, to break the seawall down for the Army and Marines to go in. After the invasion of Okinawa, we were put on radar picket duty up toward Japan, and there were several planes going over, Japanese planes, and I was on the bow, 40mm, and we were firing off the starboard side. I had no idea there was another plane Japanese close by until all of a sudden, you know, everything just erupted. We were in the water about five hours. At night we could hear people screaming in the water some distance from us, and some of our life jackets were burned or destroyed, so they formed a big circle and we locked arms. You wanted to see somebody coming to pick you up so bad. When I got back to Okinawa, I was put on a hospital ship and then I was transported from Okinawa to Saipan, and I was in the hospital on Saipan for about a month.