CHAPTER IX I SAW ONLY THE DONNA, whom I entrusted with a note for her younger mistress. In this note I mentioned that I should be absent but for a few days. I went to Treviso, to Bassano, to Castelfranco. I took walks and drives, and looked at musty old churches with ill-lighted pictures, and spent hours seated smoking at the doors of cafes, where there were flies and yellow curtains, on the shady side of sleepy little squares. In spite of these pastimes, which were mechanical and perfunctory, I scantily enjoyed my journey. There was too strong a taste of the disagreeable in my life. I had been devilish awkward, as the young men say, to be found by Miss Bordero in the dead of night, examining the attachment of her bureau, and it had not been less so to have to believe, for a good many hours afterward, that it was highly probable I had killed her. In writing to Miss Tita, I attempted to minimize these irregularities, but as she gave me no word of answer, I could not know what impression I made upon her. It rankled in my mind that I had been called a publishing scoundrel, for certainly I did publish, and certainly I had not been very delicate. There was a moment when I stood convinced that the only way to make up for this latter fault was to take myself away altogether on the instant, to sacrifice my hopes and relieve the two poor women forever of the oppression of my intercourse. Then I reflected that I had better try a short absence first, for I must already have had a sense, unexpressed and dim, that in disappearing completely it would not be merely my own hopes that I should condemn to extinction. It would perhaps be sufficient if I stayed away long enough to give the elder lady time to think she was rid of me, that she would wish to be rid of me after this, if I was not rid of her, was now not to be doubted. That nocturnal scene would have cured her of the disposition to put up with my company for the sake of my dollars. I said to myself that after all I could not abandon Miss Tita, and I continued to say this even while I observed that she quite failed to comply with my earnest request. I had given her two or three addresses, in little towns, post-restaunt, that she would let me know how she was getting on. I would have made my servant right to me, but that he was unable to manage a pen. It struck me there was a kind of scorn in Miss Tita's silence, little disdainful as she had ever been, so that I was uncomfortable and sore. I had scruples about going back, and yet I had others about not doing so, for I wanted to put myself on a better footing. The end of it was that I did return to Venice on the twelfth day, and as my gondola gently bumped against Miss Bordero's steps, a certain palpitation of suspense told me that I had done myself a violence in holding off so long. I had faced about so abruptly that I had not telegraphed to my servant. He was therefore not at the station to meet me, but he poked out his head from an upper window when I reached the house. They have put her into the earth's lavecchia, he said to me in the lower hall, while he shouldered my valise, and he grinned and almost winked as if he knew I should be pleased at the news. She's dead, I exclaimed, giving him a very different look. So it appears since they have buried her. It's all over. When was the funeral? The other yesterday, but a funeral you could scarcely call it, signore. It was a dull little passegio of two gondolas. Poveretta, the man continued, referring apparently to Miss Tita. His conception of funerals was apparently that they were mainly to amuse the living. I wanted to know about Miss Tita, how she was and where she was, but I asked him no more questions till we had got upstairs. Now that the fact had met me I took a bad view of it, especially of the idea that poor Miss Tita had had to manage by herself after the end. What did she know about arrangements, about the steps to take in such a case? Poveretta, indeed. I could only hope that the doctor had given her assistance and that she had not been neglected by the old friends of whom she had told me, the little band of the faithful whose fidelity consisted in coming to the house once a year. I elicited from my servant that two old ladies and an old gentleman had in fact rallied round Miss Tita and had supported her. They had come for her in a gondola of their own. During the journey to the cemetery, the little red-walled island of tombs which lies to the north of the town on the way to Murano. It appeared from these circumstances that the Mrs. Bordero were Catholics, a discovery I had never made as the old woman could not go to church and her niece so far as I perceived either did not or went only to early mass in the parish before I was stirring. Certainly even the priests respected their seclusion. I had never caught the whisk of the Kurato skirt. That evening an hour later I sent my servant down with five words written on a card to ask Miss Tita if she would see me for a few moments. She was not in the house where he had sought her, he told me when he came back, but in the garden walking about to refresh herself and gathering flowers he had found her there and she would be very happy to see me. I went down and passed half an hour with poor Miss Tita. She had always had a look of musty mourning as if she were wearing out old robes of sorrow that would not come to an end, and in this respect there was no appreciable change in her appearance.  But she had none of the formalism or the self-consciousness of grief, and I was almost surprised to see her standing there in the first dusk with her hands full of flowers smiling at me with her reddened eyes. Her white face in the frame of her mantilla looked longer, leaner than usual. I had had an idea that she would be a good deal disgusted with me, would consider that I ought to have been on the spot to advise her to help her. And though I was sure there was no rancor in her composition and no great conviction of the importance of her affairs, I had prepared myself for a difference in her manner, for some little injured look, half familiar, half estranged, which should say to my conscience, well, you are a nice person to have professed things. But historic truth compels me to declare that Tita Bordero's countenance expressed unqualified pleasure in seeing her late Hans Lodger. That touched him extremely, and he thought it simplified his situation until he found it did not. I was as kind to her that evening as I knew how to be, and I walked about the garden with her for half an hour. There was no explanation of any sort between us. I did not ask her why she had not answered my letter. Still lest did I repeat what I had said to her in that communication. If she chose to let me suppose that she had forgotten the position in which Miss Bordero surprised me that night and the effect of the discovery on the old woman, I was quite willing to take it that way. I was grateful to her for not treating me as if I had killed her aunt. We strolled and strolled, and really not much passed between us, saved the recognition of her bereavement, conveyed in my manner, and an invisible air that she had of depending on me now, since I let her see that I took an interest in her. Miss Tita had none of the pride that makes a person wish to preserve the look of independence. She did not in the least pretend that she knew at present what would become of her. I forbore to touch particularly on that, however, for I certainly was not prepared to say that I would take charge of her. I was cautious, not ignobly, I think, for I felt that her knowledge of life was so small that in her unsophisticated vision there would be no reason why, since I seemed to pity her, I should not look after her. She told me how her aunt had died very peacefully at the last, and how everything had been done afterward by the care of her good friends. Fortunately, thanks to me, she said, smiling, there was money in the house.  And when we had gone into this she asked me about my impressions, the places I had seen. I told her what I could, making it up partly, I am afraid, as in my depression I had not seen much. And after she had heard me she exclaimed, quite as if she had forgotten her aunt and her sorrow, dear, dear, how much I should like to do such things, to take a little journey. It came over me for the moment that I ought to propose some tour, say I would take her anywhere she liked, and I remarked at any rate that some excursion to give her a change might be managed. We would think of it, talk it over. I never said a word to her about the aspirin documents, asked no questions as to what she had ascertained or what had otherwise happened with regard to them before Miss Bordero's death. It was not that I was not on pins and needles to know, but that I thought it more decent not to betray my anxiety so soon after the catastrophe. I hoped she herself would say something, but she never glanced that way, and I thought this natural at the time. Later, however, that night it occurred to me that her silence was somewhat strange. For if she had talked of my movements, of anything so detached as the Giorgione at Castel Franco, she might have alluded to what she could easily remember was in my mind. It was not to be supposed that the emotion produced by her aunt's death had blotted out the recollection that I was interested in that lady's relics, and I fidgeted afterward, as it came to me, that her reticence might very possibly mean simply that nothing had been found. We separated in the garden. It was she who said she must go in. Now that she was alone in the rooms, I felt that, judged at any rate by Venetian ideas, I was on a rather different footing in regard to visiting her there. As I shook hands with her for good night, I asked her if she had any general plan, had thought over what she had better do. Oh yes, oh yes, but I haven't settled anything yet, she replied quite cheerfully. Was her cheerfulness explained by the impression that I would settle for her? I was glad the next morning that we had neglected practical questions, for this gave me a pretext for seeing her again immediately. There was a very practical question to be touched upon. I owed it to her to let her know formally that of course I did not expect her to keep me on as a lodger, and also to show some interest in her own tenure, what she might have on her hands in the way of a lease. But I was not destined, as it happened, to converse with her for more than an instant on either of these points. I sent her no message. I simply went down to the Sala and walked to and fro there. I knew she would come out. She would very soon discover I was there.  Gardens and big halls seemed at better places to talk. It was a splendid morning with something in the air that told of the waning of the long Venetian summer. A freshness from the sea which stirred the flowers in the garden and made a pleasant draft in the house, less shuttered and darkened now than when the old woman was alive. It was the beginning of autumn, of the end of the golden months. With this it was the end of my experiment, or would be in the course of half an hour, when I should really have learned that the papers had been reduced to ashes. After that there would be nothing left for me but to go to the station. For seriously, and as it struck me in the morning light, I could not linger there to act as guardian to a piece of middle-aged female helplessness. If she had not saved the papers, wherein should I be indebted to her? I think I winced a little as I asked myself how much, if she had saved them, I should have to recognize and, as it were, to reward such a courtesy. Might not that circumstance, after all, saddle me with a guardianship? If this idea did not make me more uncomfortable as I walked up and down, it was because I was convinced I had nothing to look to. If the old woman had not destroyed everything before she pounced upon me in the parlor, she had done so afterward. It took Miss Teeter rather longer than I had expected to guess that I was there. But when at last she came out, she looked at me without surprise. I said to her that I had been waiting for her, and she asked why I had not let her know. I was glad the next day that I had checked myself, before remarking that I had wished to see if a friendly intuition would not tell her. It became a satisfaction to me that I had not indulged in that rather tender joke. What I did say was virtually the truth, that I was too nervous, since I expected her now to settle my fate. Your fate? said Miss Teeter, giving me a queer look. And as she spoke I noticed a rare change in her. She was different from what she had been the evening before—less natural, less quiet. She had been crying the day before, and she was not crying now. And yet she struck me as less confident. It was as if something had happened to her during the night, or at least as if she had thought of something that troubled her— something in particular that affected her relations with me— made them more embarrassing and complicated. And she simply perceived that her aunt's not being there, now altered my position. I mean about our papers. Are there any? You must know now. Yes, there are a great many, more than I supposed. I was struck with the way her voice trembled as she told me this. Do you mean that you have got them in there, and that I may see them? I don't think you can see them, said Miss Teeter, with an extraordinary expression of entreaty in her eyes, as if the dearest hope she had in the world now was that I would not take them from her. But how could she expect me to make such a sacrifice as that after all that had passed between us? What had I come back to Venice for, but to see them, to take them? My delight in learning they were still in existence was such that if the poor woman had gone down on her knees to beseech me never to mention them again, I would have treated the proceeding as a bad joke. I have got them, but I can't show them, she added. Not even to me, ah, Miss Teeter, I groaned with a voice of infinite remonstrance and reproach. She culled, and the tears came back to her eyes. I saw that it cost her a kind of anguish to take such a stand, but that a dreadful sense of duty had descended upon her. It made me quite sick to find myself confronted with that particular obstacle. All the more that it appeared to me, I had been extremely encouraged to leave it out of account. I almost considered that Miss Teeter had assured me that if she had no greater hindrance than that. You don't mean to say you made her a deathbed promise. It was precisely against you drawing anything of that sort that I thought I was safe. Oh, I would rather she had burned the papers outright than that. No, it isn't a promise, said Miss Teeter. Pray, what is it then? She hesitated, and then she said, She tried to burn them, but I prevented it. She had hid them in her bed. In her bed? Between the mattresses. That's where she put them when she took them out of the trunk. I can't understand how she did it, because Olympia didn't help her. She tells me so, and I believe her. My aunt only told her afterward so that she shouldn't touch the bed, anything but the sheets, so it was badly made, added Miss Teeter simply. I should think so, and how did she try to burn them? She didn't try much. She was too weak those last days, but she told me. She charged me. Oh, it was terrible. She couldn't speak after that night. She could only make signs. And what did you do? I took them away. I locked them up. In the secretary? Yes, in the secretary, said Miss Teeter, reddening again. Did you tell her you would burn them? No, I didn't, on purpose. On purpose to gratify me? Yes, only for that. And what good will you have done me if after all you won't show them? Oh, non, I know that, I know that. And did she believe you had destroyed them? I don't know what she believed at the last. I couldn't tell. She was too far gone. Then if there was no promise and no assurance, I can't see what ties you. Oh, she hated it so. She hated it so. She was so jealous. But here's the portrait. You may have that, Miss Teeter announced, taking the little picture wrapped up in the same manner in which her aunt had wrapped it, out of her pocket. I may have it. Do you mean you give it to me? I questioned, staring, as it passed into my hand. Oh, yes. But it's worth money, a large sum. Well, said Miss Teeter, still with her strange look. I did not know what to make of it, for it could scarcely mean that she wanted to bargain like her aunt. She spoke as if she wished to make me a present. I can't take it from you as a gift, I said, and yet I can't afford to pay you for it, according to the ideas Miss Bordero had of its value. She rated it at a thousand pounds. Couldn't we sell it, asked Miss Teeter? God forbid, I prefer the picture to the money. Well, then keep it. You are very generous. So are you. I don't know why you should think so, I replied, and this was a truthful speech, for the singular creature appeared to have some very fine reference in her mind, which I did not in the least sees. Well, you have made a great difference for me, said Miss Teeter. I looked at Jeffrey Aspen's face in the little picture, partly in order not to look at that of my interlocutress, which had begun to trouble me, even to frighten me a little. It was so self-conscious, so unnatural. I made no answer to this last declaration. I only privately consulted Jeffrey Aspen's delightful eyes with my own. They were so young and brilliant, and yet so wise, so full of vision. I asked him what on earth was the matter with Miss Teeter. He seemed to smile at me with friendly mockery, as if he were amused at my case. I had got into a pickle for him, as if he needed it. He was unsatisfactory, for the only moment since I had known him. Nevertheless, now that I held that little picture in my hand, I felt that it would be a precious possession. Is this a bribe to make me give up the papers? I demanded in a moment, perversely. Much as I value it, if I were to be obliged to choose, the papers are what I should prefer. Ah, but ever so much. How can you choose? How can you choose? Miss Teeter asked, slowly, lamentably. I see. Of course, there is nothing to be said if you regard the interdiction that rests upon you as quite insurmountable. In this case it must seem to you that to part with them would be an impiety of the worst kind, a simple sacrilege.  You would understand if you had known her. I'm afraid, she quavered suddenly. I'm afraid. She was terrible when she was angry. Yes, I saw something of that, that night. She was terrible. Then I saw her eyes. Lord, they were fine. I see them. They stare at me in the dark, said Miss Teeter. You were nervous with all you have been through. Oh, yes, very, very. You mustn't mind. That will pass away, I said kindly. Then I added resignedly, for it really seemed to me that I must accept the situation. Well, so it is, and it can't be helped. I must renounce. Miss Teeter, at this, looking at me, gave a low, soft moan and I went on. I only wished to heaven she had destroyed them. Then there would be nothing more to say. And I can't understand why, with her ideas, she didn't. Oh, she lived on them, said Miss Teeter. You can imagine whether that makes me want less to see them, I answered, smiling. But don't let me stand here, as if I had it in my soul, tempted you to do anything base. Naturally, you will understand if I give up my rooms, I leave Venice immediately. And I took up my hat, which I had placed on a chair. We were still there rather awkwardly, on our feet, in the middle of the sala. She had left the door of the apartments open behind her, but she had not led me that way. A kind of spasm came into her face as she saw me take my hat. Immediately, do you mean today? The tone of the words was tragical. They were a cry of desolation. Oh, no, not so long as I can be of the least service to you. Well, just a day or two more, just two or three days, she panted, then controlling herself, she added in another manner. She wanted to say something to me the last day, something very particular, but she couldn't. Something very particular? Something more about the papers. And did you guess? Have you any idea? No, I have thought, but I don't know. I have thought all kinds of things. And for instance? Well, that if you were a relation, it would be different. If I were a relation, if you were not a stranger, then it would be the same for you as for me. Anything that is mine would be yours, and you could do what you like. I couldn't prevent you, and you would have no responsibility. She brought out this droll explanation with a little nervous rush, as if she was speaking words she had got by heart. They gave me an impression of subtlety, and at first I failed to follow. But after a moment her face helped me to see further, and then a light came into my mind. It was embarrassing, and I bent my head over Jeffrey Aspern's portrait.  Get out of it as you can, my dear fellow. I put the picture into the pocket of my coat, and said to Miss Tita, Yes, I'll sell it for you. I shan't get a thousand pounds by any means, but I shall get something good. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but she seemed to try to smile as she remarked, We can divide the money. No, no, it shall be all yours that I went on. I think I know what your poor aunt wanted to say. She wanted to give directions that her papers should be buried with her. Miss Tita appeared to consider this suggestion for a moment, after which she declared with striking decision, Oh no, she wouldn't have thought that safe. It seems to me nothing could be safer. She had an idea that when people want to publish, they are capable, and she paused, blushing. A violating attomb? Mercy, honest, what must she have thought of me? She was not just, she was not generous, Miss Tita cried with sudden passion. The light that had come into my mind a moment before increased. Ah, don't say that, for we are a dreadful race, then I pursued. If she left to will, that may give you some idea. I have found nothing of the sort, she destroyed it. She was very fond of me, Miss Tita added incongruously. She wanted me to be happy, and if any person should be kind to me, she wanted to speak of that. I was almost awe-stricken at the astuteness with which the good lady found herself inspired. Transparent astuteness as it was, and sown, as the phrase is, with white thread. Depend upon it, she didn't want to make any provision that would be agreeable to me. No, not to you, but to me. She knew I should like it, if you could carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you, but because she did think of me, Miss Tita went on, with her unexpected persuasive volubility. You could see them, you could use them. She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional. Stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been conscious, however, that though my face showed the greatest embarrassment that was ever painted on a human countenance, it was not set as a stone, it was also full of compassion. It was a comfort to me a long time afterward to consider that she could not have seen in me the smallest symptom of disrespect. I don't know what to do. I'm too tormented. I'm too ashamed, she continued reviamments. Then turning away from me and burying her face in her hands, she burst into a flood of tears. If she did not know what to do, it may be imagined whether I did any better. I stood there dumb, watching her while her sobs resounded in the great empty hall. At a moment she was facing me again with her streaming eyes. I would give you everything and she would understand where she is. She would forgive me. Ah, Miss Tita, ah, Miss Tita, I stammered for all reply. I did not know what to do as I say, but at the venture I made a wild, vague movement in consequence of which I found myself at the door. I remember standing there and saying, it wouldn't do, it wouldn't do, pensively, awkwardly, grotesquely, while I looked away to the opposite end of the sala as if there were a beautiful view there. The next thing I remember is that I was downstairs and out of the house. My gondola was there and my gondolier, reclining on the cushions, sprang up as soon as he saw me. I jumped in and to his usual dove comanda, I replied in a tone that made him stare. Anywhere, anywhere, out into the lagoon.  What in the name of the preposterous did she mean if she did not mean to offer me her hand? That was the price, that was the price. And did she think I wanted it? Poor, deluded, infatuated, extravagant lady. My gondolier behind me must have seen my ears red as I wondered, sitting there under the fluttering tenda, with my hidden face, noticing nothing as we passed. Wondered whether her delusion, her infatuation, had been my own reckless work. Did she think I had made love to her, even to get the papers? I had not, I had not. I repeated that over to myself for an hour, for two hours, till I was weary, if not convinced. I don't know where my gondolier took me. We floated aimlessly about in the lagoon, with slow, rare strokes. At last I became conscious that we were near the lido, far up on the right hand as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him put me ashore. I wanted to walk, to move, to shed some of my bewilderment. I crossed the narrow strip and got to the sea beach. I took my way toward Malamocco. But presently I flung myself down again on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse, dry grass. It took it out of me to think that I had been so much at fault, that I unwittingly, but nonetheless deplorably trifled. But I had not given her cause, distinctly I had not. I had said to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her, but it had been a joke without consequences, and I had never said it to Tita Bordero. I had been as kind as possible, because I really liked her. But since when had that become a crime, where a woman of such an age and such an appearance was concerned? I am far from remembering clearly the succession of events and feelings during this long day of confusion, which I spent entirely in wandering about, without going home until late at night. It only comes back to me that there were moments when I pacified my conscience, and others when I lashed it into pain.  The case, however it might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing. It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or not, it went without saying that I could not pay the price. I could not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers, marry a ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman. It was a proof that she did not think the idea would come to me, her having determined to suggest it herself, in that practical, argumentative, heroic way, in which the timidity, however, had been so much more striking than the boldness that her reasons appeared to come first, and her feelings afterward. As the day went on, I grew to wish I had never heard of Aspen's relics, and I cursed the extravagant curiosity that had put John Cummner on the scent of them. We had more than enough material without them, and my predicament was the just punishment of that most fatal of human follies, our not having known when to stop. It was very well to say it was no predicament, that the way out was simple, that I had only to leave Venice by the first train in the morning, after writing a note to Miss Teta, to be placed in her hand as soon as I got clear of the house. For it was a strong sign that I was embarrassed, that when I tried to make up the note in my mind in advance, I would put it on paper as soon as I got home, before going to bed. I could not think of anything, but how can I thank you for the rare confidence you have placed in me? That would never do. It sounded exactly as if an acceptance were to follow. Of course I might go away without writing a word, but that would be brutal, and my idea was still to exclude brutal solutions. As my confusion cooled I was lost in wonder at the importance I had attached to Miss Bordero's crumpled scraps. The thought of them became odious to me, and I was as vexed with the old witch for the superstition that had prevented her from destroying them, as I was with myself for having already spent more money than I could afford in attempting to control their fate. I forget what I did, where I went after leaving the Lido, and at what hour, or with what recovery of composure, I made my way back to my boat. I only know that in the afternoon, when the air was aglow with the sunset, I was standing before the Church of Saints John and Paul, and looking up at the small square-jawed face of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the terrible condottiere who sits so sturdily astride of his huge bronze horse on the high pedestal on which Venetian gratitude maintains him. The statue is incomparable, the finest of all mounted figures, unless that of Marcus Aurelius, who rides benignant before the Roman capital, be finer. But I was not thinking of that. I only found myself staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully personal. But he continued to look far over my head at the red immersion of another day. He had seen so many go down into the lagoon through the centuries, and if he were thinking of battles and stratagems, they were of a different quality from any I had to tell him of. He could not direct me what to do, gaze up at him as I might. Was it before this or after that I wandered about for an hour in the small canals to the continued stupefaction of my gondolier who had never seen me so restless and yet so void of a purpose and could extract from me no order, but go anywhere, everywhere, all over the place? He reminded me that I had not lunched and expressed, therefore, respectfully the hope that I would dine earlier. He had had long periods of leisure during the day when I had left the boat and rambled so that I was not obliged to consider him, and I told him that that day, for a change, I would touch no meat. It was an effect of poor, mischievous proposal, not altogether auspicious, that I had quite lost my appetite. I don't know why it happened that on this occasion I was more than ever struck with that queer air of sociability, of cousinship, and family life, which makes up half the expression of Venice. Without streets and vehicles, the uproar of wheels, the brutality of horses, and with its little winding ways where people crowd together, where voices sound as in the corridors of a house, where the human step circulates as if it skirted the angles of furniture and shoes never wear out. The place has the character of an immense collective apartment in which Piazza San Marco is the most ornamented corner, and palaces and churches for the rest play the part of great divans of repose, tables of entertainment, expanses of decoration. And somehow the splendid common domicile, familiar, domestic, and resonant, also resembles a theatre, with actors clicking over bridges and in straggling processions tripping along fondamentas. As you sit in your gondola, the footways that in certain parts edge the canals, assume to the eye the importance of a stage, meeting it at the same angle, and the Venetian figures moving to and fro against the battered scenery of their little houses of comedy strike you as members of an endless dramatic troupe. I went to bed that night very tired, without being able to compose a letter to Miss Tita. Was this failure the reason why I became conscious the next morning, as soon as I awoke of a determination to see the poor lady again, the first moment she would receive me? That had something to do with it, but what had still more was the fact that during my sleep a very odd revulsion had taken place in my spirit. I found myself aware of this almost as soon as I opened my eyes. It made me jump out of my bed with the movement of a man who remembers that he has left the house door a jar, or a candle burning under a shelf.  That question was in my heart, for what had now come to pass was that in the unconscious celebration of sleep, I had swung back to a passionate appreciation of Miss Bordero's papers. They were now more precious than ever, and a kind of ferocity had come into my desire to possess them. The condition Miss Tita had attached to the possession of them no longer appeared an obstacle worth thinking of, and for an hour that morning my repentant imagination brushed it aside. It was absurd that I should be able to invent nothing, absurd to renounce so easily, and turn away helpless from the idea that the only way to get hold of the papers was to unite myself to her for life. I would not unite myself, and yet I would have them. I must add that by the time I sent down to ask if she would see me, I had invented no alternative, though to do so I had had all the time that I was dressing. This failure was humiliating, yet what could the alternative be? Miss Tita sent back word that I might come, and as I descended the stairs and crossed the sala to her door, this time she received me in her aunt's falorn parlor. I hoped she would not think my errand was to tell her I accepted her hand. She certainly would have made the day before the reflection that I declined it. As soon as I came into the room I saw that she had drawn this inference, but I also saw something which had not been in my forecast. Poor Miss Tita's sense of her failure had produced an extraordinary alteration in her, but I had been too full of my literary concupiscence to think of that. Now I perceived it. I can scarcely tell how it startled me. She stood in the middle of the room with a face of mildness bent upon me and her look of forgiveness of absolution made her angelic. It beautified her. She was younger.  This optical trick gave her a sort of phantasmagoric brightness, and while I was still the victim of it I heard a whisper somewhere in the depths of my conscience. Why not, after all? Why not? It seemed to me I was ready to pay the price. Still more distinctly, however, than the whisper, I heard Miss Tita's own voice. I was so struck with the different effect she made upon me that at first I was not clearly aware of what she was saying. Then I perceived that she had bad me goodbye. She said something about hoping I should be very happy. Goodbye, goodbye. I repeated with an inflection interrogative and probably foolish. I saw she did not feel the interrogation. She only heard the words.  Are you going today? She asked. But it doesn't matter. For whenever you go I shall not see you again. I don't want to. And she smiled strangely with an infinite gentleness. She had never doubted that I had left her the day before in horror. How could she, since I had not come back before night to contradict, even as a simple form, such an idea? And now she had the force of soul. Miss Tita with the force of soul was a new conception to smile at me in her humiliation. What shall you do? Where shall you go? I asked. Oh, I don't know. I have done the great thing. I have destroyed the papers. Destroyed them? I faltered. Yes, what was I to keep them for? I burned them last night, one by one in the kitchen. One by one? I repeated mechanically. It took a long time. There were so many. The room seemed to go round me, as she said this. And a real darkness for a moment descended upon my eyes. When it passed, Miss Tita was there still. But the transfiguration was over, and she had changed back to a plain, dingy, elderly person. It was in this character she spoke, as she said, I can't stay with you longer. I can't. And it was in this character that she turned her back upon me, as I had turned mine upon her at 24 hours before, and moved to the door of her room. Here she did what I had not done when I quitted her. She paused long enough to give me one look. I have never forgotten it, and I sometimes still suffer from it, though it was not resentful. No, there was no resentment, nothing hard or vindictive in poor Miss Tita. For when, later, I sent her in exchange for the portrait of Jeffrey Aspen, a larger sum of money than I had hoped to be able to gather for her, writing to her that I had sold the picture. She kept it with thanks. She never sent it back. I wrote to her that I had sold the picture, but I admitted to Mrs. Prest at the time. I met her in London in the autumn, that it hangs above my writing table. When I look at it, my chagrin at the loss of the letters becomes almost intolerable. End of the Aspen Papers by Henry James.


Hello, welcome to the Cinder project overview and update. My name is Brian Ross-Meta. I'm a principal software engineer at Red Hat. I was the PTL for the Victoria Release, and I'm serving again as PTL for Cinder for the upcoming Bollaby Release. So what does Cinder do? Well, it's the block storage service. So what we do is implement services and libraries that provide on-demand self-service access to block storage resources. And you can see in the diagram the basic layout. We provide a REST API for clients to contact. There's a message bus, there's several different services that comprise Cinder. There's the scheduler and then the volume managers. And so the long story short, we provide software to define block storage by abstraction and automation on top of various traditional back-end block storage devices. So if you want a volume for your instance, Cinder is where you get it from. So what does the Cinder project do? Well, we produce software in a whole lot of repositories. So the Cinder repository is where the main Cinder code is stored. So that provides the REST API and then all the services that make the block storage service work. We also have a library called OS Brick and that's what's used to actually attach volumes. So Nova uses it to attach volumes to any of your instances. Cinder itself also uses Brick when it needs to attach a volume to perform some type of service for it. We provide the Python Cinder client which provides a Python, it provides Python bindings to the REST API. We also provide the Python Brick Cinder client extension which allows you to use OS Brick to do attachments but via the command line for particular applications. We also provide the Cinder Tempest plugin and Cinderlib and I'll talk about those a little bit later. So who does it? Well, we've been working on Cinder since the Falsal release of OpenStack. This is a photograph from the recent PTG just about a week and a half ago. It's not the entire team, it's the people who stuck around for the photograph but it gave you an idea of the people who were involved working on Cinder. As far as contributors go, we had about 124 contributors in train from 42 companies and you saw we had about 97 contributors from 31 companies and the stats for Victoria right now are 77 contributors from 25 companies. So you can see there's been kind of a decrease but it may also be due to the data in Stackalytics not being completely up to date because the last time I presented it looked like we only had 30 contributors in Yusuri and it turned out that that was wrong. So the project seems fairly healthy as far as number of contributors goes. Now who does it? As far as company goes, you can see Red Hats doing about 38.8% of the commits into Cinder in the Victoria cycle. Dell EMC was responsible for a bit over 20% and then we had InSpar and NEC and Mirantis and then a lot of other companies making a few commits. Red Hats commitment is pretty large but overall to open stack Victoria it was 38.2%, something like that. So we're right on target as far as Cinder goes. Although my point in showing you this isn't to show off that Red Hats the best just because I work for them but it's just that we could use some more diversity and it would be worth putting some resources towards Cinder if you have some. Okay, the latest survey numbers as far as who's using Cinder, it's deployed in 86% of production deployments. This is based on the 2019 survey numbers I believe. So there were 331 respondents for this. Just to give you some perspective, NOVA was running at 90%. So it looks like we're pretty up there so I can't imagine how you're gonna run open stack and not include NOVA. And then as far as testing and proof of concept deployments we're deployed in about 73% of those. NOVA's 75% so it's a lot is basically what I would say. We're almost everywhere in open stack. Okay, why are we looking at the horse's back end? So if you've been looking at the Cinder logo you notice the horse is sort of facing the wrong direction but from our perspective it's the right direction because your block storage has to actually be stored somewhere. So the storage back ends are very essential to Cinder and the way Cinder supports these back ends is through drivers. So the drivers are code that mediate between the block storage API which provides a consistent interface to users and the particular back ends where data is actually stored. So as far as the back end drivers go in Cinder, right now we have 79 volume drivers and seven of these are marked unsupported. I'll explain that in a little bit. We've got six backup drivers. One is unsupported and is going to be removed in Wallaby. It's the IBM Tivoli storage management driver that does not have a maintainer. And then there's two fiber channel zone manager drivers. One of those is unsupported. If you're interested in Cinder drivers what they do, because there's a basic set of functionality that all drivers have to implement but then drivers can also provide more optimized functionality depending on what their design is and what their back ends can support.  So what's an unsupported driver? So all Cinder drivers must run third party CI systems that test proposed patches against an open stack environment that's connected to the vendor's back end. So open stack runs its own continuous integration system but open stack does not own every kind of vendor hardware that people want to use with open stack or that people wanna sell to open stack clouds. So the way we've handled this is we ask people who contribute drivers to also run third party CI so that they can run continuous integration tests on the code as it's being developed and we can also tell that it hasn't broken any connections to the driver. So continuous the CI's for the third party CI's have to report on every patch whether the changes in their own driver or not because you never know what the effect of some change might be. And then if no CI reporting occurs within a two week span or some other issues are found and aren't addressed in a timely manner the driver is marked as unsupported. So if a driver is unsupported at the time of release then an operator has to set the specific configuration option in order to use that driver. So that way we get information out to the operators that you can use the driver as far as we know it's still working but be aware that support is lacking right now. So that makes the driver eligible for removal in the next development cycle. Now since January 2020 the Cinder team has decided to allow an unsupported driver to stay in tree as long as they continue to pass OpenStack CI testing. So even though we don't have the third party CI for the unsupported drivers they do still have to pass the regular OpenStack CI testing which includes all the unit tests and functional tests. So they are being tested but just not against their actual backends which of course you do want them tested against. Now the reason we did this is that our experience has been that most vendors address driver issues eventually or fairly quickly and dropping drivers and then restoring them was becoming inconvenient for operators because a driver might be unsupported and disappear for a cycle and then be back again. And so for the release where the driver was not included you had to get it from somewhere and that was causing problems. So we've decided to go with this model and we would be very interested in feedback on whether this is a good idea or not. Okay, so what tests are the third party CI's running? The OpenStack integration test suite is called Tempest but the difference is that Cinders configured to use the vendors hardware instead of in the gate where it uses some test backends. We also run additional Cinder focused API and scenario tests that are contained in the Cinder Tempest plugin which was one of the software products I mentioned earlier. What that allows us to do is add extra integration tests for drivers that can focus on particular areas of functionality or regressions we've seen for particular configurations. So it's kind of helpful. And if you wanna see what one of those looks like you can take a look at the review that's listed there review.opendev.org and it's 737-380. It's just an example of a patch to the Cinder Tempest plugin that adds some extra testing. So that's what we have going on with the drivers. Now an interesting thing is that Cinder drivers can be reused for container persistent volumes in two different ways. There's something called Ember CSI and that uses Cinderlib which I had mentioned earlier. And what that does is allow you to use the Cinder drivers which have been developed and tested with vendor backends but you don't have to actually run Cinder. So it's an interesting project. And there's also the Cinder CSI plugin which uses the CSI interface to connect to an actual running Cinder. So if you're running Kubernetes on OpenStack say, so and Cinder is there as part of the OpenStack then you can use a Cinder CSI plugin so that the containers that are running on top of OpenStack can get access to Cinder and to persistent volumes. There's also a way to run Cinder in standalone mode but that's kind of heavyweight. But anyway, you can use your favorite search engine to find out more information about this. But this is a nice feature because vendors have spent time developing Cinder drivers. We've been asking them to run the third party CI and this gives them another context in which to use the drivers that have been tested very carefully. All right, so what you're here for those, you wanna know what's new in Victoria. Okay, so a few things. Microversion 3.61 adds the cluster name to the volume detail response if it's called in an administrative context. So regular end users don't see it but administrators do and that can be very helpful when you're troubleshooting. We've also got Microversion 3.62 that adds a default volume types API and it allows management of a default volume type for any particular project. So this is a way operators asked us for a way so that they can have particular projects use particular volume types that are either tied to a particular backend or a particular storage class or something like that. So this gives you an API by which you can do it. And we also have improved handling of the Cinder default volume type. And this improved handling has been back ported to Yassuri to 1620 and to train 1540 to keep the behavior consistent. So default volume types have been around for a while and train they were made mandatory in the sense that Cinder does not allow you to have untyped volumes anymore. So you can consult the release notes to see in what way this handling has been improved but trust me it has. Also we've got the Z standard algorithm compression support was added to the Cinder backup service. So the default is still deflate or what's known as Zlib but now we also have this very popular modern technique of Z standard that can be used with the backup service. Also a couple of new drivers were added. Dell added the power stored driver for I SCSI and Fiverr channel. And I Tachi added the HSPD driver for I SCSI and Fiverr channel. Then in addition to that many volume drivers added features beyond the Cinder required features. So if you look at the Victoria release notes you can see a list of what's been added. Okay and we just some security issues also. So there was OSSN 0086 Dell EMC scale IO or VX FlexOS back end credentials exposure. So that was fixed during the Victoria development cycle and then back ported as far as Queens. So the vulnerability did not occur in Victoria because it was fixed before Victoria was released but we discovered it during the cycle and it's been back ported. So that's something to be aware of if you use Dell EMC scale IO. There's also OSSN 0085. Cinder configuration option can leak secret key from SEF back end. It only applied to SEF deployments that were using this particular RBD key ring comp option with SEF and that option has been removed in Victoria. So it was deprecated in Ysuri and the OSSN was issued and then we removed it in Victoria. Okay, one other thing I just wanna bring to your attention there was an upgrade to Ysuri issue that was discovered during the Victoria cycle but it does not affect the Victoria release but I wanna bring it to your attention just so you're aware of it. Now, if you've already successfully upgraded from train to Ysuri, then there's nothing to worry about because the problem that's caused would not allow you to upgrade. So if you're able to upgrade, you're fine. And if you started with train, so if train was your first open stack installation then you don't have to worry about anything either. But if you upgraded from Stein to train 15.3 or earlier and you did not purge your Cinder database before the upgrade, not that you need to purge the Cinder database in general, it's just that it so happened if you didn't, you ran into this problem. So if that applies to you, you upgraded Stein to train 15.3 or earlier and you didn't purge the database before the upgrade, then please read the release notes for Cinder 15.4.0 and for Cinder 16.2.0. So there's several ways that you can address this issue but you need to read through the release notes and just decide what's the best way for your particular situation. So just be aware of your upgrade path from train to Ysuri may require some actions in the train deployment before you do the upgrade. So I just wanna make everyone aware of that. All right, so what's planned for Wallaby? Well, one major thing is we're gonna move version two of the block storage API. It was deprecated in Pyke and version 3.0 is just like 2.0. Now the difference, the difference. Why would you use version 3.0 when you can use version 3.62? That's entirely up to you but if for some reason you have scripts or something and they're expecting the responses from the version two API, you can get something very much like those responses. If you specify version 3.0 when you make your requests to the block storage API. So consult the block storage API reference documents for more information about that but we will remove version two during the cycle. There's some new drivers that have been proposed. OpenE, Jovian, DSS has already merged. So that's a new driver that's guaranteed to come. Cephyscuzzi's most likely gonna be delivered. It's very close. And then Keoxia Kumoscale is going to be contributing a driver. It's kind of an interesting driver because it uses NVME-OF and they're gonna make some updates to the OS Brick libraries handling of NVME-OF to bring it up to date and then also to support Kumoscale. So that's gonna be interesting. We're also gonna be doing a consistent and secure policies initiative. So not too much to say about that other than we will be consistent with other projects and the policies will be as secure as we can make them. And then there gonna be various internal improvements in Cinder. We have a whole list that we discussed at the Wallaby PTG, the project teams gathering that was just held about a week and a half ago. And if you're interested in seeing what these various internal projects are, you can go to the OpenStack Wiki and look for the Cinder Wallaby PTG summary. And there's a list of everything we discussed and what we plan to do. And if you wanna contact the Cinder team, I've given you this tiny cc slash cinder info. It'll take you to our base contributors page but it gives you a very nice listing of all the repositories the project contributes to and also our various means of communication and what our basic processes are.  All right, and get involved. There are some things that we would like you to do that we could use some help. So for instance, the Cinder documentation could use an analysis by a good information architect or even just an information architect or even a high school student could probably do this. Basically, we have documentation that's been written by various people aimed at various audiences and it's kind of interleaved and we would like to separate out things that are aimed primarily at operators for running Cinder, operators for configuring Cinder, documents aimed at end users and documents aimed at developers. We have all those and we have actually some pretty good documentation but it's not always easy to find things because of the way it's organized. So we could use some help with somebody coming up with a nice plan for a good way to organize it. Also be good to make your backend vendors aware that you value Cinder third-party CI and their drivers. It's not easy for the vendors to maintain the third-party CI as we can see because they're constantly going down and having to be fixed. So it'd be good if you let your backend vendor know that you think it's important that their third-party CI is constantly running on Cinder changes because it guarantees better quality code. There's always a possibility to add tests to the Cinder Tempest plugin if you're so inclined you may have run into a scenario that would be good to be tested. We're always looking for that. And then there's an interesting article that I've been telling people about. It was written in 2013, I think, but it's still very relevant. It's 10 ways to contribute to an open-source project without writing code. So if you don't wanna write code for tests, you don't wanna write code for features, there are various other ways that you can contribute to open-source projects like Cinder. And so I encourage you to check that out. That's all I've got, thank you very much. And I'll be happy to take questions at the appropriate time. Thank you very much.


What is up everyone January is in the books for my live stream So let's check out the monthly results Overall a little lighter month of trading. There just wasn't a ton of good setups So I'm still doing three or four trades today. I was doing just a couple for the most part But 28 total trades 19 winners nine losers 68 percent This is above where I want to be at 60 percent, so we'll take that total profit loss 4648 Breaking it down by strategy Mighty 90s were great 11 and 2 85% plus 1650 Volume runners 4 and 3 but definitely most P&L had some good ones even though out of those four I had some really good ones, so and then the continuation runners 50% 4 and 4 plus 992 So I'll take it for a light month 4648 And I'll be back in the live stream tomorrow the new trading month. See you then peace


And it is truly an honor to be here, to be not only in this local church family, but to be working with pastor Lee and a wonderful team of ministers here. You know, not every church is an apostolic house. You might say, what is an apostolic house? An apostolic house is led by an apostolic pastor, given a gift by God to not only bless his church, his region, his community, but to resource and lay godly foundation in other churches and to pastor, pastor. So that's what kind of anointing is upon pastor Lee. Did you know that church? I hope you do because this church invests so much in giving to other churches, other pastors. And it is a joy of our heart. Becky and I find great joy in pastoring pastors. The way we like to say it is we help pastors do ministry effectively without losing their own soul in the process. And that's what we're all about. And so with that, we're coming to Acts chapter 27. So if you have your Bible, open it to Acts chapter 27. And the title of this message is shipwrecked and snakebitten. Sounds like a good time, doesn't it? Shipwrecked and snakebitten. But I do have a subtitle to help you understand how to stay tethered to God's plan through every storm of life. You know, Becky and I raised our four kids in Winona, Minnesota. For 30 years, we lived there, pastored, ministered there, launched an international ministry out of Winona, Minnesota. The church is still thriving today, Radiant Church in Winona, Minnesota. And we raised our kids on the Mississippi River. One of our hobbies was boating. Do I have any fellow boaters in the crowd this morning? In portage, yes, I see those hands, kind of, in portage.  I never thought I would be a boater. But when we moved to the banks of the Mississippi River, which by the way is the state dividing line at that point between Wisconsin and Minnesota. And so it's a beautiful place to boat.  It's much more dangerous than lake boating. When you're boating around here, it's a piece of cake. When you're boating on the mighty Mississippi, it's moving. There are underwater hazards. There are huge barges going up and down the river, and all other kind of crazy boat drivers out there. But we raised our kids doing that, and one of the things we love to do in the spring is really get out there early. We were so avid. We were what you call river rats. We were so avid, we would love to get out. And so it was early April. And we said, come on, kids, let's go out. It's the first time we're going to dump the boat in the water. We trailer it up the boat. And I said, Becky, you're going to back the boat into the water. I'll get in the boat. We just need to make sure the motor's running right first time of the year starting out here. And what happened next is a part of family lore that's a deep mystery. Becky thought, I said, I'll tell you when to stop backing in. And I thought, I said, you know when to stop when the water gets this high on the edge of the boat. There's a massive disagreement between us to this day about what happened at that precise moment. I was in the boat. Everything was, all the hitches were undone. Becky backs me into the Mississippi River, and she keeps going.  She launched me. The boat floated right off of the trailer. And I was like free floating down the river. All the kids were like, oh my, what's happening? Dad's floating right? I said, no problem, honey. I've got this. I went to go start the boat. And it went, er, er, click, click, click, click. Uh-oh, something's wrong. Er, er, click, click, click, click. A third time, just click, er. Dead battery. I didn't charge it enough. So I had done my job winterizing the boat so thoroughly. But I forgot to charge the battery properly. I said, I'm floating away. In my mind, the next lock-in dam was about two miles down river. I saw myself going over the dam. So being the resourceful person that I was, I ran to the front of the boat, opened up the hold, and grabbed the anchor. I said, I'm not going to float away too far. I threw the anchor out. And as it left my hands, it was all slow motion. And I realized that the, because of my cleaning of the boat, the months earlier, I was cleaning the rope and forgot to tie it back on the anchor. So the anchor goes over. And it's like, no. Splash, and it goes down to the bottom of the river. Little did I know, but there was a young man, a vagabond, traveling with his guitar from California across the United States, sitting up on the hill, watching all of this unfold. And he was one of these creative hippie types with his guitar singing everything that was going on. I wanted to give him an El Cabang with a guitar. But he was like, oh, no. Oh, no. There goes the anchor. Oh, no. Totally unhelpful. I'm getting further away from Becky. I said, I'll go down into the storage compartment. And I got a 75 foot ski rope. I said, honey, catch this. And I whipped it as hard as I could, but it was tangled to my foot. So it just went like that. I said, I'm going to do it again. This time I'm really going to whip this thing. 75 feet. Becky, catch this. And I whip it so hard. All of the rope goes out and leaves the boat and it starts floating away down the river. This is a great day. But there was a guy fishing, a couple of guys, but a guy named Roger, an older guy, was fishing, watching all this happen. And I didn't know Roger, but I said, hey, you fisherman. Cast your line over here and save me. I had this great idea. I said, Roger, it went the wrong way. This was literally my idea.  Oh my, it went to the third row. OK, there's no hook on it. OK, Roger, pretend you're me. I tied it. I literally took Roger's fishing line and tied it around the front cleat of my boat to hold me back from the raging Mississippi River blowing me down to the lock and dam. And he says, it's a 12-pound test line. And then he said, I'm going to put it on full drag. You fishermen know what that means. And guess what? I was hoping and praying. I was watching that test line get as tight as a piano eye. And then poing, that broke. I was floating down the river, no anchor, no rope, a motor that wouldn't start. And I went to the hold again. And I said, I forgot to put the paddles back in the boat. You guys can come boating with me anytime, by the way. It's really fun. All I had was a ski. I had a water ski. So I got to the front of the boat. And I took that water ski. And I started paddling, paddling, paddling. Now, the current's pushing me further away. Luckily, fortunately, that vagabond guitar player decided to get involved in the game. He went to the barge company that was a block or so downriver. And he said, there is a boater in distress. We need to help him. He's about to float by your loading station. Well, at the loading station was a big, empty barge container. These are huge, by the way. They're like 12, 14 feet high, made out of iron. They go up and down the Mississippi River, hauling grain and everything else.  I see the barge hand get up there. And he's a strapping young guy. And he has this massive rope. And I said, he said, paddle over here. So I'm with the ski, I'm paddling, paddling, as much as I can. And then I get close enough. And he says, all right, catch. And he whips the barge rope. And the best sound to my ears was a barge rope hitting my boat. I grabbed that barge rope. I braced myself and I said, pull me ashore. He pulled me ashore. We went back, we walked the boat back to the trailer. We went home with our tail between our legs.  But one thing I learned, there's a big difference between a fishing line and a barge rope when it comes to saving your bacon. And here we come to Paul, who is now in a shipwreck at the end of the Book of Acts that is about to take his life. And we all go through storms, don't we? We all go through things that really are so challenging. We think we may not make it through this. How did Paul stay tethered to God's plan in the midst of a shipwreck? We have so much to talk about. So I'm gonna really try to move quickly. So here we see on this voyage to Rome. By the way, why was Paul going to Rome? He appealed to Caesar. He was arrested. He was in Caesarea by the sea as a prisoner for two years. There he witnessed to Felix and Festus and King Agrippa telling them about the kingdom of God. And two years he stayed there. Becky and I have been there at Caesarea. Some of you have as well. And it's amazing to think that the apostle Paul was imprisoned there before his trip to Rome. But this trip to Rome was very significant because Dr. Luke, the writer of Luke and the writer of Acts was on board with him as was a solid disciple, Aristarchus. And in verse six of Acts 27, you see it says, there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria that's Egypt sailing for Italy and he put us on board. Now here we go. They board this massive ship. It looks something like this. We've got a picture of it. These were the largest sailing ships of their time. They would hold tons, hold tons of corn or wheat and haul them from the bread basket of the Roman world, Egypt, up to Italy to feed all the people living in Italy and North. And so not only would they haul grain and cargo, they would haul people. Now Jewish historian Josephus writes of one such ship carrying 600 people and he describes it as being 800 feet long and over 40 feet wide. On this particular ship that Paul was boarding, there were 276 people on this thing. Now look at the room. Pretend there's a dividing line in the room. About 276 people, half of the people of this room are on board ship with us. So everyone over there, look at half of these people and all you people look over there and in portage you do the same because it's roughly about the same. That's a lot of people, right? On this massive ship headed to Rome. So pick up an Acts 27, verse seven and following. We sailed slowly for a number of days and we arrived with difficulty off Snidus and as the wind did not allow us to go further and we sailed under the lee of Crete of Salomon, coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fairhaven's near which was the city of La Silla since much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous because even the fast was over, the fast was the day of atonement which would have put this trip early to mid-October. Very dangerous to sail the Mediterranean during that time in the first century. Paul advised them. Here's a Bible teacher, tent maker, advising the sailors and the captain. He advised them saying, verse 10, Sir, as I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship but also of our lives but the centurion paid more attention to the pilot, imagine that and the owner of the ship than to what Paul said. And because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there on chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete that's about 40 miles away, facing both Southwest and Northwest and spend the winter there. Now this map shows you about the journey we're about to take. You see there that Crete had Fairhaven's and they didn't wanna stay at Fairhaven's, they wanted to go over to Phoenix but they were unable to do so which led to a, get this, two week storm at sea where in the writer of Luke literally thought he would lose his life. And this is just to give you a visual picture of what's about to happen to the apostle Paul. This would be like half of us in this room getting on a ship and sailing in hurricane force winds from Kalamazoo to Nashville, Tennessee. In the dark, no eating, just puking. Keep in mind that Paul had already been shipwrecked three times. See he wrote prior to the Corinthians, I have been shipwrecked three times and I've spent a night and a day in the open sea. Paul was very familiar with navigating by ship. What's interesting is none of those shipwrecks are in the biblical record. If I was the writer I'd say here's all this exciting stuff that happened to Paul. We only have one of the four that he was involved in. But most importantly, you heard Pastor Rick Renner say this a couple of weeks ago from this pulpit. In second Corinthians 14, Paul divulges that he has a problem with his life. A messenger from Satan that had been assigned to him to bring him all manner of grief, suffering and unexplainable calamity. He prayed three times for this thorn to be removed. And Rick Renner, you remember said this is not the little thorn that pricks your finger, this is the pike on which you put the head of your enemy. Satan wanted God's man dead. Paul prayed three times, God says no, I'm gonna teach you the secret of weakness, Paul. My strength is made perfect when you're weak. My grace, Paul, is sufficient for you. So Paul went through life with this messenger of Satan, dogging him, causing harm and calamity and drama to distract him. Paul was the only disciple who could say with Freddie Mercury of Queen, Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me. Or if you're the more easy listening type, you could say he could sing with Christopher Cross, Sailing takes me away. If Paul asked me to get on a ship, I would really have to think hard about sailing with him. Shipwreck four times. It's like, yeah, I've crashed in an airplane a few times, survived, let's go flying together. No, thanks, buddy. Can I give you a ride home? I've only totaled three cars. No, I'll walk, thanks, Paul. Luke gets on the ship with him. Aristarchus is on the ship with him. And here we go. Ready? Let's take the storm at sea. And I literally want to read all of these verses to us very quickly because Luke goes into great detail in nautical terms, describing exactly what happens, verse 13 and following. Now when the South wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor, sailed across Crete, close to the shore, but soon a tempestuous wind called the North Easter struck down from the land. And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and we're driven along. I can almost hear it right now. It's like, my ship is rocking, people. And the ship was driven along. Running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat that's a lifeboat. After hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship, then fearing that they would run aground on Sardis, they lowered the gear, the sea anchor, your translation may say, and thus they were driven along. Since we were violently storm tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo, watch the timestamp. And on the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest lay on us, all hope for our being saved was at last abandoned. Luke admits, I thought I would die. Verse 21, since they'd been without food for a long time, Paul stood up in the midst of them and said, men, you should have listened to me and not gone to set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet I know, I now, I urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night, there stood before me an angel from God to whom I belong and who I worship. And he said, do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar and behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as we have been told, but we must run aground on some island. When the 14th night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea about midnight, the sailors suspected they were nearing land. So they took soundings and found 20 fathoms, that's 120 feet deep. A little further, they took sounding again and they found 15 fathoms, that's 90 feet deep. And fearing that we might run aground on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for the day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, they had lowered the ship's boat, that's the lifeboat into the sea under the pretense of laying out anchors from the bow. Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat, the lifeboat, and let it go. As day was about to dawn, Paul urged all of them to take some food, saying today is the 14th day that you have continued in suspense without food, having taken nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will give you strength. Not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you. And when he had said these things, he took bread, giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and he began to eat. And they were encouraged and ate some food themselves. And there were 276 persons in the ship. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. Now when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach on it, and they planned if possible to run ashore. So they cast off anchors and left them in the sea. And the same time loosened the ropes that tied the rudders, then hoisting the fore sail, that's the sail in front of the ship, to the wind. They made for the beach, but striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf. The soldier's plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim away and escape. But the centurion wishing to save Paul kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first, and to make sure the land and the rest on planks or pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to the land. How are we like the apostle Paul to stay tethered to God's plan, not like a fishing line friend, but like a barge rope, even through every storm of life. The first thing of three is this, you've got to be tethered to God's call. What do I mean? Paul knew that he was smack dab in the middle of God's will, and he was on his way to testify before Caesar at Rome's expense. Even though there was a two year delay in Caesarea, he knew that he was God's man on God's plan. Do you know that you have a call? You might think, well, calls are only for preachers and missionaries. Every Christian has a call. You have a purpose and a destiny in God.  He saved you to walk with him as a missionary wherever you go. This is your call. This is the 30,000 foot view of your life. This is the stuff that people end up talking about at your funeral. You're calling in God, your destiny, and will you hold on to it? Will you seek God about it?   It may be that you're a teacher or a scientist. It does not matter. It looks so different for all of us. You need to find out, God, I want to do your will with my one and only life. How can I know and follow your calling? How did Paul know he was in the middle of the will of God? In Acts 23, 11, when he was arrested, it said the following night, the Lord stood by Paul. This is amazing because the Lord came in and talked to Paul in Acts 9 when he got saved. But here in Acts 23, the Lord stood again before Paul and said, take courage for as you have testified to the facts about me and Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome. Acts 23, 11, Paul had a sure word that he was going to testify in Rome. By the way, the Apostle Paul could not die in this shipwreck. God had seven more epistles in him to write. Before he died, that would become part of our cannon. He had the four prison epistles and then he had the three pastoral epistles yet to be written and those were inside of him. He was not going down. Why? Because he was tethered to God's call. You know there's two people that are fully convinced about the call of God in your life? God and the devil. God will move heaven and earth for you to realize it. Satan will throw every storm at you to get you to abandon it. Come on, I think we need to contend for one another's calling and destiny. Too many people are being blown off course. When the winds hit our lives, we forget that God owns us, that God has called us to something specific. Hebrews 12, one and two says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and let us do what? Run with endurance, what? The race that is set before us. That's our call. Looking to Jesus, not our circumstances, not the storm, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfect of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Just like Jesus set his face like flit to go to Jerusalem to fulfill God's call. So the apostle Paul was unreservedly tethered to serve in God's purpose with his life, regardless of the cost. Friend, if you're confused about what is God's call for me, I encourage you to go back to the last thing that the Holy Spirit spoke to you and refined your path. If you're lost, if you feel like, man, I got off base somehow, what was the last thing that God spoke to you from the word? What was the last thing someone maybe even prophesied to you or that when you were praying the Holy Spirit just spoke something to you? What was that? Go back to that. That is your bread trail, if you will, to find the will, calling, and purpose of God. Not like a fishing line, but like a barge rope. Not only was Paul tethered to the call of God, he was tethered to the care of God, God's care. Pivotal of this whole awful ordeal at sea was a visit from a messenger angel to the apostle Paul at night. This was not a vision, this was not a dream, this was a real angel that showed up to Paul. We don't know if it was Gabriel, the messenger angel, we have no idea what kind of angel, or who it was, or Paul's guardian angel, but all we know is that God sent a message to Paul that was abundantly clear, and you read about it in verses 23 and 24, for this very night, he says, there stood before me an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar and behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you. You've got to be tethered to the understanding of God's great care. Did you notice how Paul described to this ship full of heathens? As far as we know, Aristarchus and Luke were the only other believers on board, there might have been others. He described the God that he served, he says, the God who owns me. Did you see it? The God to whom I belong, that's the power of ownership, and the God who I worship. See, it wasn't just I'm God's kid. It's this loving, abandoned service of love that Paul had. I know I'm held in God's tight grip of ownership, but I'm also intimately connected to him. Do you see the beauty of what Paul was describing to these heathens? I'm God's property, this is the God I love and worship and serve. I hope that describes your relationship with the Father and with his care. You know, when we're not firmly tethered to God's care, we set out to save ourselves. Oh, we are really good at this. Christians, this is not just for the world. We're saved, but we set out to save ourselves in pickles and predicaments. And just to illustrate this, look at the two other people that are mentioned in Paul's story, as Luke wrote it, the sailors and the soldiers. They set out to save themselves. Look at the sailors in verse 30, to save themselves through manipulation. What were they gonna do?  We're gonna save ourselves through manipulation. Some of us turn to manipulation when we're in trouble. We need to repent of that. We really do. The soldiers wanted to save themselves through might.  Why?  Let's kill them all. Kill them all. Even though we're in near land, kill them. They might escape. Thank God, the centurion to charge of Paul said, no, that's not gonna happen. This is what we know in 1 Timothy 2. It's 1 Timothy 1-12. In the NLT, it says this, that is why I'm suffering here in prison, Paul writes. By the way, this is the Roman prison he eventually went to. But I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust. Here, Paul is writing from a prison in Rome. I know this God I'm trusting in. And I am persuaded or sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return. So if Jesus cares for the birds of the air and the flowers of the fields, friend, he's gonna care for you. You're going through a tempest, you're going through a storm. Be tethered, just like this. Be tethered to not only the call of God but the care of God. But most importantly, thirdly, be tethered to the character of God. What do I mean by character of God? The character of God is his ways, his attributes, his distinguishing marks. These are described in the Bible. But if the world, the flesh or the devil can get you to doubt God's character, they can sweep your faith out to sea. Oh, we have to know the character of God. This was the first lie told to Adam and Eve in the garden. The tempter that hissing snake came and he said, God is holding out on you. You know what? Satan's deception to Eve really had to do with undermining the character of God. He doesn't care about you. He doesn't have your best. He's actually deceiving him. He's holding you back from everything you can be. People are still eating the fruit of the serpent's deception. May it not be said of you or me. We must be firmly committed to the character of God as it's clearly displayed in the scripture. Why? Because today, friends, and you know what I'm talking about, whole denominations and churches are leaving the character of God as it's revealed in Holy Scripture and making up some other kind of God with the attributes that they want to place upon him. But when the storm is rocking your boat, know that you must trust this character. What did Paul know? He knew that God was always faithful. Hey, I've been through three shipwrecks. This is my fourth. When you're going through a storm, start counting your blessings. Start thinking about the ways God's been faithful to you, okay? Paul knew that God was always sovereign. We forget this one because we're charismatic. We're spirit-filled people. We believe that God answers prayers powerfully and he does. But we also have to understand that God did not tell Paul to go stand at the bow of the ship and say like Jesus, peace, be still. Here's what I've come to know. Jesus will either speak peace, be still to the storm at the sea or he will speak sovereignly peace, be still to the storm in your heart. Either way, you win. Peace, be still. Paul knew the character of God was always faithful, always sovereign and get this, always redemptive. God did not have to save everyone else on board. The 275 other people, right? He said, Paul, I'm gonna save you and guess what, super great promise. I'm gonna save everyone. Isn't that the beauty of the character of God? So amazing. Why? Because God never wastes a hurt. Psalm 46, one through three, says God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help and trouble. Because David knew the character of God, he could go through all of his storms. Friend, are you convinced of the goodness and sovereignty of God's character? Is it like a fishing line or is your faith more like a rope? This story is amazing because it ends and I'm just gonna read six verses and then we're gonna close. But Acts 28, verses one through six is where the story ends. They all, God answers the prayer. The angel was not lying. They all get to the shore safely. Look at verse one of 28. When they had escaped, they learned that the island was called Malta. The natives showed extraordinary kindness and they kindled a fire and welcomed us. Just imagine, they've been like in a thunderstorm for two weeks, cold, wet. They kindled a fire, thanks. They welcomed us because of the rain and the cold and when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper driven up by the heat fastened on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, surely this man is a murderer. Though he's escaped the sea, justice does not allow him to live. By the way, a lot of people will have their opinion about your calamities. Stay focused. Verse five, I love it. Probably my favorite verse in this whole story. But Paul shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They expected him to swell up. Why? Because the Maltese knew of the poisonous snakes. The Maltese knew the effect of an authentic bite of a poisonous snake.  Dead, that's what it says. But while they waited and saw no harm befall him, they changed their mind. They said he was a God. So here Paul is feeding the fire. The ever vigilant, hardworking apostle Paul, even though he was God's apostle on his way to Rome to testify before Caesar, he picks up a bundle of wood, let me help. The ever industrious Paul. And as he comes over to the fire, the heat draws out that serpent and it attaches itself to his hand. And in my sanctified imagination, I see a freeze frame right here. Freeze frame, serpent hanging from Paul's hand. The Maltese people are looking at him saying, Luke is looking at him and writing it all down. The soldiers are looking at him and like, what do we do, draw a sword? Everyone around the fire is looking at the snake hanging from Paul's hand. The guy who just told him, them all that their lives were gonna be saved. Freeze frame, what was going through Paul's mind? Maybe the fact that Luke just wrote in his gospel where Jesus said, you will trample on serpents and scorpions. Hey, Luke, didn't you just write that? Yes, I did, Paul. Then I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I almost died three times today. The soldiers wanna, well, first of all, the shipwreck, then two, the soldiers wanted to kill me, then three, I had to make my way through the rugged surf to get to the island without drowning.  In the context of the apostle Paul, now get into his mind, in the context of the apostle Paul's thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan, he said, not today, Satan. And he shook it off into the fire. I think sometimes when Satan tries to get on your last nerve and you look down in a freeze frame and you're like, this is almost too ironic. What's happening to me right now? This is too demonic. Don't lose faith, shake it off into the fire, shake it off. When the snake bites, shake it off. I think Paul was at such a great level of faith.  Paul was like, I am bulletproof in Jesus. And sometimes we need to shake it off. Sometimes we need to say not today, Satan. As a matter of fact, under Paul's tunic, if he would have ripped it open like Superman, he would have had a T-shirt on that says not today, Satan. Sometimes your faith needs to have a little swag. Sometimes our faith needs to have confidence and boldness. Why? Because we know in whom we have believed. We are people of his calling. We are people under his care. We are people who know the character of God. And because of that, let the winds of circumstances blow. I'm not making light of your drama, your trauma or your abuses or all the hellish things that have happened to many of us. But what I am saying is that there is a tether. There is a tether for you. It goes beyond the veil. The anchor will hold. Let's stand and let's pray together. I just want to be sensitive to those of you who when I talk about a storm, it's actually very real and it's now. And I want to speak to you something that the older I get in the more years in ministry that the Lord gives me as a young believer, this is what my faith life looked like. God, I'm holding on tight. But the older I get, the more I realize that my faith lock, friends, looks a whole lot more like this. And I realize that God's got a way bigger hold on me than I could ever have on him. Ah, he's so sovereign. He's so caring. But my faith, it's about to let go. I know sometimes your grip does get weak like mine, but this is how God answered Paul's prayer about the thorn and the flesh. Paul, I'm going to introduce you to the grace of weakness. And it's not about how strong you can hold on, Paul, but it's about God's supernatural grace working so deeply in you. I'm not going to take away that thorn, but I will give you such abundant grace that you're going to go through it and not be a survivor, but be more than a conqueror. Friend, this is for you. Yes, there was a shipwreck in the apostle Paul's life, but next time there's a storm, realize that you're tethered, not with a 12-pound test line, by the way, something much greater. Prayer team members, if you would come forward, we're going to have people to pray for you. These people are people of faith. These people want to help you. Know God's way and follow it and believe for God's will in your life. So I'm going to pray, but if you feel drawn to, you know, there's something powerful about having someone pray with you. Yes, you can say your own prayers, and that's a great thing, isn't it? But there's something really powerful when someone agrees in prayer with you. And it might be a little bit humbling even to come down front when everyone else is going that way and say, but come stand with one of these people. We're not going to keep you long, but we're going to pray for you. Father, I want to thank you that you are a refuge and a strength, your ever-present help in times of trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way and though the mountains are moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its swelling, we're going to trust in you. The one who has such a grip on us as we hold tight to you in Jesus' name, amen.


Hi, I'm Lorraine Wakna, Alden Library Reference and Instruction. This video will show you how to get started using JSTOR. How to find JSTOR. The best way to find JSTOR is to go to our homepage and use the Databases tab, type in the name of the database, and hit Search. It will take you to the record for JSTOR in our ALICE catalog, and then take you to the database. Whether you're off campus or on campus, it's best to access JSTOR and any and all of our databases from the website. Once you're in JSTOR, I would highly recommend going right to the Advanced tool, the Advanced Search. This will allow you to refine your search in different ways. Once JSTOR looks at really old stuff, I can search for works about Christopher Marlowe, including only content I can access. I'm not going to use external content because we might not have it. I would like an article, and I would like it to be in English, and I'm not going to limit my field of study right now, and I'll search. This gives me articles using the words Christopher Marlowe. Since I know that Christopher Marlowe has to do with theater, I'm going to modify my search, and I'm going to ask it to give me things from language and literature and from performing arts. And then I can redo my search now that it's more focused on the subject areas I'm looking for. Now we get a little bit better results. I still have a lot of results. If I want to narrow them further, I of course can go back into my modify search. I can add that I want to see what's been written about Faustus, and I can search again, and I get even less articles. I can look at them by relevance from newest to oldest, or from oldest to newest. Out of curiosity, I will look at oldest to newest. Wow. We have something from PMLA from 1890. We have an article from the Sawane Review from 1894. So JSTOR digitizes core journals in every field from the very first issue of the journal up to and including three to five years ago. If you're interested in one of these, you can open the record, get a page by page view, or view the entire PDF. You just have to accept the terms and conditions. You can email yourself the citation, save the citation, and when you're done, go back to your search. If you have more questions about JSTOR, feel free to ask us. So that's a quick look at JSTOR. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us.


But that's the insanity of what Google and all these tech companies are trying to do.  So they're trying to force this and cram this. And it's not even the fact that they're only 20%, let's say women in tech positions in Google is not in and of itself proof of any bias if they're only getting 20% qualified applications or the best applications or 80% men. I mean, there's no proof of bias just by the numbers. Even if we believe in bias that exists, it's not reflected in these numbers. You can't the numbers don't provide proof of that.