The Painters' Bargain by William Makepeace Thackeray This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Painters' Bargain by William Makepeace Thackeray Simon Gamboge was the son of Solomon Gamboge. And, as all the world knows, both father and son were astonishingly clever fellows at their profession. Solomon painted landscapes which nobody bought. And Simon took a higher line and painted portraits to admiration, only nobody came to sit to him. As he was not gaining five pounds a year by his profession and had arrived at the age of twenty at least, Simon determined to better himself by taking a wife, a plan which a number of otherwise men adopted in similar years and circumstances. So Simon prevailed upon a butcher's daughter, to whom he owed considerably for cutlets, to quit the meat shop and follow him. Griskenissa, such was the fair creature's name, was as lovely as a bit of mutton, her father said, as ever a man would wish to stick a knife into. She had sat to the painter for all sorts of characters, and the curious who possess any of Gamboge's pictures will see her as Venus, Minerva, Madonna, and in numberless other characters. Portrait of a Lady. Griskenissa, sleeping nymph. Griskenissa, without a rag of clothes, lying in a forest. Maternal Solitude. Griskenissa again, with young master Gamboge, who was by this time the offspring of her affections. The lady brought the painter a handsome little fortune of a couple of hundred pounds, and as long as this sum lasted, no woman could be more lovely or loving. But Wamp began speedily to attack their little household. Baker's bills were unpaid, rent was due, and the relentless landlord gave no quarter, and to crown the whole her father, a natural butcher, suddenly stopped the supplies of mutton chops, and swore that his daughter, and the dauber her husband, should have no more of his wares. At first they embraced tenderly, and kissing and crying over the little infant, vowed to heaven that they would do without, but in the course of the evening Griskenissa grew peckish, and poor Simon pawned his best coat. When this habit of paunting is discovered, it appears to the poor a kind of El Dorado. Gamboge and his wife were so delighted that they, in the course of a month, made away with her gold chain, her great warming pan, his best crimson plush inexpressibles, two wigs, a wash-hand basin and oar, fire irons, window curtains, crockery, and armchairs. Griskenissa said, smiling, that she had found a second father in her uncle, a base pun which showed that her mind was corrupted and that she was no longer the tender, simple Griskenissa of other days. I am sorry to say that she had taken to drinking. She swallowed the warming pan in the course of three days, and fuddled herself one whole evening with the crimson plush breeches. Drinking is the devil, the father, that is to say, of all vices.  Her good humor changed to bilious, bitter discontent. Her pretty fond epithets to foul abuse and swearing. Her tender blue eyes grew watery and blear, and the peach color on her cheeks fled from its old habitation and crowded up into her nose where, with a number of pimples, it stuck fast. Add to this a dirty, draggletail chints, long matted hair, wandering into her eyes and over her lean shoulders, once so snowy, and you have the picture of drunkenness and Mrs. Simon Gamboge. Poor Simon, who had been a gay, lively fellow enough in the days of his better fortune, was completely cast down by his present ill luck and cowed by the ferocity of his wife. From morning till night the neighbors could hear this woman's tongue and understand her doings. Bellows went skimming across the room. Chairs were flumped down on the floor, and Mrs. Gamboge's oil and varnish pots went clattering through the windows or down the stairs. The baby roared all day, and Simon sat pale and idle in a corner, taking a small sip at the brandy bottle when Mrs. Gamboge was out of the way. One day as he sat disconsolently at his easel, fervishing up a picture of his wife and the character of peace, which he had commenced a year before, he was more than ordinarily desperate and cursed and swore in the most pathetic manner. Oh, miserable fate of genius, cried he. Was I a man of such commanding talents born for this, to be bullied by a fiend of a wife, to have my masterpieces neglected by the world or sold only for a few pieces? Cursed be the love which had misled me, cursed be the art which is unworthy of me. Let me dig or steal, let me sell myself as a soldier or sell myself to the devil I would not be more wretched than I am now. Quite the contrary, cried a small cheery voice. What exclaimed Gamboge, trembling and surprised? Who's there? Where are you? Who are you? You were to speak enough me, said the voice. Gamboge held in his left hand his pallet, in his right a bladder of crimson lake which he was about to squeeze out upon the mahogany. Where are you? cried he again. Squeeze! exclaimed the little voice. Gamboge picked out the nail from the bladder and gave a squeeze. When as sure as I am living, a little imp spurted out from the hole upon the pallet and began laughing in the most singular and oily manner. When first born he was little bigger than a tadpole. Then he grew to be as big as a mouse. Then he arrived at the size of a cat. And then he jumped off the pallet and turning head over heels asked the poor painter what he wanted with him. Strange little animal twisted head over heels and fixed himself at last upon the top of Gamboge's easel smearing out with his heels all the white and vermilion which had just been laid on the allegoric portrait of Mrs. Gamboge. What exclaimed Simon? Is it the devil? Exactly so. Talk of me you know and I am always at hand. Besides, I am not half so black as I am painted as you will see when you know me a little better. Upon my word said the painter it is a very singular surprise which you have given me to tell truth I did not even believe in your existence. The little imp put on a theatrical air and with one of McCready's best looks said there are more things in heaven and earth Gamboge than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Gamboge being a Frenchman did not understand the quotation but felt somehow strangely and singularly interested in the conversation of his new friend.  You will starve on your merit. You can only get money from me. Come my friend, how much is it? I ask easiest the interest in the world. Old Mordecai the assurer made you pay twice as heavily before now nothing but the signature of a bond which is a mere ceremony and transfer of an article which in itself is a supposition. Valueless, windy, uncertain property of yours called by some poet of your own I think an animula vagula blandula. There's no use being around the bush. I mean a soul. Come let me have it. You know you will sell it some other way and not get such good pay for your bargain. And having made this speech the devil pulled out from his fob a sheet as big as a double times only there was a different stamp in the corner. It is useless and tedious to describe law documents. Lawyers only love to read them and they have as good in chitty as any that are to be found in the devil's own. So nobly have the apprentices emulated the skill of the master. Suffice it to say Gambouge read over the paper and signed it. He was to have all he wished for seven years and at the end of that time was to become the property of the devil. Provided that during the course of the seven years every single wish which he might form should be gratified by the other of the contracting parties. Otherwise the deed became dull and non-avenue and Gambouge should be left to go to the devil in his own way. You will never see me again Diabolus in shaking hands with poor Simon on whose fingers he left such a mark as is to be seen at this day. Never at least unless you want me for everything you ask will be performed in the most quiet and everyday manner. Believe me it is best in most gentlemen like and avoids anything like sandal but if you set me about anything which is extraordinary and out of the course of nature as it were come my must you know and of this you are the best judge. So saying Diabolus disappeared but whether up the chimney through the keyhole or by any other aperture or contrivance nobody knows Simon Gambouge was left in a fever of delight as heaven forgive me I believe many a worthy man would be if he were allowed an opportunity to make a similar bargain. Hi ho! said Simon I wonder whether this be a reality or a dream I am sober I know for who will give me credit for the means to be drunk and as for sleeping I am too hungry for that I wish I could see a capon and a bottle of white wine Monsieur Simon cried a voice on the landing place C'est ceci qu'autre Gambouge hastening to open the door he did so and lo there was a restaurateur's boy at the door supporting a tray a tin-covered dish and plates on the same and by its side a tall amber-colored flask of sautern I am the new boy sir explained this youth on entering but I believe this is the right door and you asked for these things Simon Grinded said certainly I did ask for these things but such was the effect which his interview with the demon had had on his innocent mind that he took them although he knew that they were for old Simon the Jew dandy who was mad after an opera girl moved on the floor beneath go my boy he said it is good call in a couple of hours and remove the plates and glasses the little waiter trotted downstairs and Simon sat greedily down to discuss the capon and white wine he bolted the legs he devoured the wings he cut every morsel of flesh from the breast seizing his repasse with pleasant dross of wine and carrying nothing for the inevitable bill which was to follow all he God said he has he scraped away at the backbone a dinner what wine and how gaily served up too there were silver forks and spoons and the remnants of the fowl were upon a silver dish why the money for dish in these spoons cried Simon would keep me and Mrs. G for a month I wish and here Simon whistled and turned round to see that nobody was peeping I wish the plate were mine oh the hard progress of the devil here they are thought Simon to himself why should not I take them and take them he did detection said he is not so bad starvation and I would as soon live in the galleys as live with Madam Gamboge so Gamboge shoveled dish and spoons into the flap of his sir tout and ran downstairs as if the devil were behind him as indeed he was he immediately made for the house of his old friend the pawnbroker that establishment which is called in France the Monte Pit I am obliged to come to you again my old friend said Simon with some family plate of which I beseech you to take care the pawnbroker smiled as he examined the goods I can give you nothing upon them said he what cried Simon not even the worth of the silver no I could buy them at that price the café morasson rue de la verre where I suppose you got them a little cheaper and so saying he showed to the guilt ricken stricken Gamboge how the name of that coffee house was ascribed upon every one of the articles which he had wished upon the effects of conscience are dreadful indeed oh how fearful is retribution how deep is despair how bitter is remorse for crime when the crime is found cut otherwise conscience takes matters much more easily Gamboge cursed his fate and swore henceforth to be virtuous but Harky my friend continued the honest broker there is no reason why because I cannot lend upon these things I should not buy them they will do to melt if for no other purpose will you have half the money or I peach Simon's resolves about virtue were dissipated instantaneously give me half he said and let me go what scoundrels are these pawnbrokers ejaculated he is he passed out of the accursed shop seeking every wicked pretext to rob the poor man of his hard won gain when he had marched forwards for a street or two Gamboge counted the money which he had received found that he was in possession of no less than a hundred francs it was night as he reckoned out his equivocal gains and he counted them at the light of a lamp he looked up at the lamp and doubted as to the course he should next pursue upon it was inscribed the simple number one five two a gambling house thought Gamboge I wish I had half the money that is now on the table upstairs he mounted as many a rogue has done before him and found half a hundred persons busy at a table of red and black Gamboge's five Napoleons looked insignificant by the side of the heaps which were around him but the effects of the wine of the theft and of the detection by the pawnbroker were upon him and he threw down his capital stoutly upon the zero zero it is a dangerous spot that zero zero our double zero but to Simon it was more lucky than to the rest of the world the ball went spinning round in its predestined circle rolled as Shelly has it after Gota and plumped down at last in the double zero 135 gold Napoleons, Louis they were then were counted out to the delighted painter oh Diabolus cried he now it is that I begin to believe in thee don't talk about merit he cried talk about fortune tell me not about heroes for the future tell me of zeros and down went 20 Napoleons more upon the zero the devil was certainly in the ball round it twirled and dropped into zero as naturally as a duck pops its head into a pond our friend received 500 pounds for his steak and the croupiers and lookers on began to stare at him there were 12,000 pounds on the table suffice it to say that Simon won half and retired from the Palais Royale with a thick bundle of banknotes crammed into his dirty three-quartered hat he had been but half an hour in the place and he had won the revenues of a prince for half year Gamboge as soon as he felt that he was a capitalist and that he had a steak in the country discovered that he was an altered man he repented of his foul deed and his base purloining of the restaurateur's plate oh honesty he cried how unworthy is an action like this of a man who has a property like mine so he went back to the pawnbroker with the gloomiest face imaginable my friend said he I have sinned against all that I hold most sacred I have forgotten my family and my religion here is thy money in the name of heaven restore me the plate which I have wrongfully sold thee but the pawnbroker grinned and said nay Mr. Gamboge I will sell that plate for a thousand francs to you or I will never sell it at all well said Gamboge thou are an inexorable ruffian Troy's boilies I will give thee all I am worth and here he produced a billet of 500 francs look said he this money is all I own it is the payment of two years lodging to raise it I have told for many months and failing I have been a criminal oh heaven I stole that plate that I might pay my debt and keep my dear wife from wandering houseless but I cannot bear this load of ignominy I cannot suffer the thought of this crime I will go to the person to whom I did wrong I will starve I will confess but I will I will do right the broker was alarmed give me thy note he cried here is the plate give me an acquittal first cried Simon almost broken hearted sign me a paper and the money is yours all the Troy boilies wrote according to Gamboge's dictation received for 13 ounces of plate 20 pounds monster of inequity cried the painter beamed of wickedness thou art caught in thine own snares hast thou not sold me 5 pounds worth of plate for 20 have I it not in my pocket art thou not a convicted dealer and stolen goods yield scoundrel yield thy money art I will bring thee to justice the frightened pawnbroker burned and battled for a while but he gave up his money at last and the dispute ended thus it will be seen that Diabolus had a rather hard bargain in the wily Gamboge he had taken a victim prisoner but he had assuredly caught it harder Simon now returned home and to do him justice paid the bill for his dinner and restored the plate and the readers should ponder upon this as a profound picture of human life that Gamboge since he had grown rich grew likewise abundantly moral he was a most exemplary father he fed the poor and was loved by them he scorned a base action there was but one blot upon his character he hated Mrs. Gamboge worse than ever as he grew more benevolent she grew more virulent when he went to plays she went to Bible societies and vice versa in fact she led him such a life as zean to pee led Socrates or as a dog leads a cat in the same kitchen with all his fortune for as may be supposed Simon prospered in all worldly things he was the most miserable dog in the whole city of Paris only on the point of drinking Mrs. Simon agree and for many years and during a considerable number of hours in each day he thus dissipated partially his domestic chagrin oh philosophy we may talk of thee but except at the bottom of a wine cup where thou lies like truth in a well where shall we find thee he lived so long and in his worldly matters prospered so much there was so little sign of devilment in the accomplishment of his wishes and the increase of his prosperity that Simon at the end of six years began to doubt whether he had made any such bargain at all as that which we have described at the commencement of this history he had grown as we said very pious and moral he went regularly to mass and had a confessor into the bargain he resolved therefore to consult that reverend gentlemen and delay before him the whole matter I am inclined to think holy sir said Gamboge after he had concluded his history and shown how in some miraculous way all his desires were accomplished that after all this demon was no other than the creation of my own brain heated by the effects of that bottle of wine the cause of my crime and my prosperity the confessor agreed with him and they walked out of church comfortably together and entered afterwards a cafe where they sat down to refresh themselves after the fatigues of their devotion a respectable old gentleman with a number of orders at his buttonhole presently entered the room and sauntered up to the marble table before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend excuse me gentlemen he said as he took a place opposite them and began reading the papers of the day BAH! said he at last look sir he said handing over an immense sheet of the times to Mr. Gamboge was ever anything so monstrous? Gamboge smiled politely and examined the proffered page it is enormous said he but I do not read English nay said the man with the orders look closer at it, senior Gamboge it is astonishing how easy the language is wondering Simon took the sheet of paper he turned pale as he looked at it and began to curse the ices and the waiter come Mr. Abbey he said the heat and the glare of this place are intolerable the stranger rose with them I do not mind speaking before the Abbey here who will be my very good friend one of these days but I thought it necessary to refresh your memory concerning our little business transaction six years since and could not exactly talk of it at church as you may fancy Simon Gamboge had seen in the double sheeted times the paper signed by himself which the little devil had pulled out of his spot there was no doubt on the subject and Simon who had but a year to live grew more pious and more careful than ever he had consultations with all the doctors of the Sorbonne and all the lawyers of the Palais but his magnificence grew as worrisome to him as his poverty had been before and not one of the doctors whom he consulted could give him a penny worth of consolation then he grew outrageous in his demands upon the devil and put him to all sorts of absurd and ridiculous tasks but they were all punctually performed until Simon could invent no new ones and the devil sat all day with his hands in his pockets doing nothing one day Simon's confessor came banging into the room with the greatest glee my friend says he I have it Eureka I have found it send the pope a hundred thousand crowns build a new Jesuit college at Rome give a hundred gold candlestick to St. Peter's and tell his holiness you will double all if he will give you absolution Gambouge caught at the notion and hurried off a courier to Rome his holiness agreed to the request of the petition and sent him an absolution written out with his own fist and all in due form now said he I defy you arise Diabolus your contract is not worth a jot the pope has resolved me and I am safe on the road to salvation in a fervor of gratitude he clasped the hands of his confessor and embraced him tears of joy ran down the cheeks of these good men they heard an inordinate roar of laughter and there was Diabolus sitting opposite to them holding his sides and lashing his tail about as if he would have gone mad with glee why said he what nonsense is this do you suppose I care about that and he tossed the pope's missive into a corner Mr. Labe knows he said bowing and grinning that though the pope's paper may pass current here it is not worth two pence in our country what do I care about the pope's absolution you might just as well be absolved by your underbutler he had said the abbey the rogue is right I quite forgot the fact which he points out clearly enough no Gamboge continued Diabolus with horrid familiarity go thy ways old fellow that cock won't fight and he retired up the chimney chuckling at his wit and his triumph Gamboge heard his tail scuttling all the way up as if he had been a sweeper by profession Simon was left in that condition of grief in which according to the newspapers cities and nations are found when a murder is committed or a lord ill of the gout a situation we say more easy to imagine than to describe to add to his woes Mrs. Gamboge who was now first made acquainted with his compact and its probable consequences raised such a storm about his years as made him wish almost his seven years were expired she screamed, she scolded, she swore, she wept she went into such fits of hysterics that poor Gamboge who had completely knocked under to her was worn out of his life he was allowed no rest day or night he moped about his fine house solitary and wretched and cursed his stars that he had ever married the butcher's daughter it wanted six months of the time a sudden and desperate resolution seemed all at once to have taken possession of Simon Gamboge he called his family and his friends together he gave one of the greatest feasts that was ever known in the city of Paris he gaily presided at one end of his table while Mrs. Gamboge splendidly arrayed gave herself heirs at the other extremity after dinner using the customary formula he called upon Diabolus to appear the old lady screamed and hoped he would not appear naked the young ones tittered and longed to see the monster everybody was pale with expectation and a fright a very quiet gentlemanly man neatly dressed in black made his appearance to the surprise of all present and bowed all round to the company I will not show my credentials he said blushing and pointing to his hooves were cleverly hidden by his pumps and shoe buckles unless the ladies absolutely wish it but I am the person you want Mr. Gamboge pray tell me what is your will you know said that gentleman in a stately and determined voice that you are bound to me according to our agreement for six months to come I am replied the newcomer you are to do all that I ask whatsoever it may be or you forfeit the bond which I gave you it is true you declare this before the present company upon my honor as a gentleman said Diabolus bowing and laying his hand upon his waistcoat a whisper of applause ran around the room all were charmed with the bland manners of the fascinating stranger my love continued Gamboge mildly addressing his lady will you be so polite as to step this way you know I must go soon and I am anxious before this noble company to make a provision for one who in sickness as in health in poverty as in riches has been my truest and fondest companion Gamboge mopped his eyes with his handkerchief all the company did likewise Diabolus sobbed audibly and Mrs. Gamboge sidled up to her husband's side and took him tenderly by the hand Simon she said is it true and do you really love your Griskenissa Simon's continued solemnly come hither Diabolus you are bound to a baby and all things for the six months during which our contract has to run take then Griskenissa Gamboge live alone with her for half a year never leave her from morning till night obey all her caprices follow all her whims and all the abuse which falls from her infernal tongue do this and I ask no more of you I will deliver myself up at the appointed time no one could have looked more crestfallen nor howled more hideously than Diabolus did now take another year Gamboge screamed he two more ten more a century roast me on Lord's gritter and boil me in holy water but don't ask that don't don't pin me live with Mrs. Gamboge Simon smiled sternly I have said it he cried do this our contract is at an end the bevel of this grins so horribly that every drop of beer in the house turned sour he gnashed his teeth so frightfully that every person in the company well nigh fainted with the colic he slapped down the great parchment upon the floor trampled upon it madly and lashed it with his hooves and his tail at last spreading out a mighty pair of wings as wide as from here to Regent Street he slapped Gamboge with his tail over one eye and vanished abruptly through the keyhole Gamboge screamed with pain and started up you drunken lazy scoundrel cried a shrill and well-known voice you have been asleep these two hours in here he received another terrific box on the ear it was too true he had fallen asleep at his work and the beautiful vision had been dispelled by the thumps of the tipsy Grishkinesa nothing remained to corroborate his story I wish, said the poor fellow rubbing his tingling cheeks the dreams were true and he went to work again at his portrait my last accounts of Gamboge are that he has left the arts and is a footman in a small family Mrs. Gamboge takes in washing and it is said that her continual dealings with soap suds and hot water have been the only things in life which have kept her from spontaneous combustion end of The Painter's Bargain by William Makepeace Thackeray The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Morgan Scorpion E. F. Benson's The Room in the Tower it is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realised in the material world but in my opinion so far from this being a strange thing it would be far odder if this fulfilment did not occasionally happen since our dreams are as a rule concerned with people whom we know and places with which we are familiar such as might very naturally occur in the awake and daily world true these dreams are often broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident which puts them out of court in regard to their subsequent fulfilment but on the mere calculation of chances it does not appear in the least unlikely that a dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come true not long ago for instance I experienced such fulfilment of a dream which seems to me in no way remarkable and to have no kind of psychical significance the manner of it was as follows a certain friend of mine living abroad is amiable enough to write to me about once a fortnight thus when fourteen days or thereabouts have elapsed since I last heard from him my mind probably either consciously or subconsciously is expectant of a letter from him one night last week I dreamt that as I was going upstairs to dress for dinner I heard as I often heard the sound of the postman's knock on my front door and diverted my direction downstairs instead there among other correspondence was a letter from him thereafter the fantastic entered for an opening it I found inside the ace of diamonds and scrambled across it in his well-known hand-write I am sending you this for safe custody as you know it is running an unreasonable risk to keep aces in Italy the next evening I was just preparing to go upstairs to dress when I heard the postman's knock and did precisely as I had done in my dream there among other letters was one from my friend only it did not contain the ace of diamonds had it done so I should have attached more weight to the matter which as it stands seems to me a perfectly ordinary coincidence no doubt I consciously or subconsciously expected a letter from him and this was suggested to me by my dream similarly the fact that my friend had not written to me for a fortnight suggested to him that he should do so but occasionally it is not so easy to find such an explanation and for the following story I can find no explanation at all it came out of the dark and into the dark it has gone again all my life I have been an habitual dreamer the nights are few that is to say when I do not find on awakening in the morning that some mental experience has been mine and sometimes all night long apparently a series of the most dazzling adventures before me almost without exception these adventures are pleasant though often merely trivial it is of an exception that I am going to speak it was when I was about sixteen that a certain dream first came to me and this is how it befell it opened with my being set down at the door of a big red brick house where I understood I was going to stay the servant who opened the door told me that tea was being served in the garden and led me to a low dark panelled hall with a large open fireplace onto a cheerful green lawn set round with flower beds there were grouped about the tea table a small party of people but they were all strangers to me except one father called Jack Stone clearly the son of the house and he introduced me to his mother and father and a couple of sisters I was, I remember, somewhat astonished to find myself here for the boy in question was scarcely known to me and I rather disliked what I knew of him moreover he had left school nearly a year before the afternoon was very hot and an intolerable oppression reigned on the far side of the lawn ran a red brick wall with an iron gate in its centre outside which stood a walnut tree we sat in the shadow of the house opposite a row of long windows inside which I could see a table with cloth laid glimmering with glass and silver this garden front of the house was very long and at one end it stood a tower of three stories which looked to me older than the rest of the building before long Mrs Stone who liked the rest of the party had sat in absolute silence said to me, Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower quite inexplicably my heart sank at her words I felt as if I had known that I should have the room in the tower and that it contained something dreadful and significant Jack instantly got up and I understood that I had to follow him in silence we passed through the hall and mounted a great oak staircase with many corners and arrived at a small landing with two doors set in it he pushed one of these open for me to enter and without coming in himself closed it after me then I knew that my conjecture had been right there was something awful in the room and with the terror of nightmare growing swiftly and enveloping me I awoke in a spasm of terror now that dream or variations on it occurred to me intermittently for 15 years most often it came in exactly this form the arrival, the tea laid out on the lawn the deadly silence succeeded by that one deadly sentence the mounting with jack stone up to the room in the tower where horror dwelt and it always came to a close in the nightmare of terror at that which was in the room though I never saw what it was at other times I experienced variations on this same theme occasionally for instance we would be sitting at dinner in the dining room into the windows of which I had looked on the first night when the dream of this house visited me but wherever we were there was the same silence the same dreadful oppression and foreboding and the silence I knew would always be broken by Mrs. Stone saying to me Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower upon which this was invariable I had to follow him up the oak staircase with many corners and enter the place that I dreaded more and more each time that I visited it in my sleep or again I would find myself playing cards still in silence in a drawing room lit with immense chandeliers that gave a blinding illumination what the game was I have no idea what I remember with a sense of miserable anticipation was that soon Mrs. Stone would get up and say to me Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower this drawing room where we played cards was next to the dining room and as I have said was always brilliantly illuminated whereas the rest of the house was full of dusk and shadows and yet how often in spite of those bouquets of lights have I not poured over the cards that were dealt me scarcely able for some reason to see them the designs too were strange there were no red suits but all were black and among them were certain cards which were black all over I hated and dreaded those as this dream continued to recur I got to know the greater part of the house there was a smoking room beyond the drawing room at the end of a passage with a green bay's door it was always very dark there and as often I went there I passed somebody whom I could not see in the doorway coming at curious developments too took place in the characters that peopled the dream as might happen to living persons Mrs. Stone for instance who when I first saw her had been black haired became grey and instead of rising briskly as she had done at first when she said Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower got up very feebly as if the strength was leaving her limbs Jack also grew up and became a rather ill looking young man with a brown moustache while one of the sisters ceased to appear and I understood she was married then it so happened that I was not visited by the stream for six months or more and I began to hope in such inexplicable dread did I hold it that it had passed away for good but one night after this interval I again found myself being shown out onto the lawn for tea and Mrs. Stone was not there while the others were all dressed in black at once I guessed the reason and my heart leapt at the thought that perhaps this time I should not have to sleep in the room in the tower and though we usually all sat in silence on this occasion the sense of relief made me talk and laugh as I had never yet done but even then matters were not altogether comfortable for no one else spoke but they all looked secretly at each other and soon the foolish stream of my talk wound dry and gradually my apprehension, worse than anything I had previously known gained on me as the light slowly faded suddenly a voice which I knew well broke the stillness the voice of Mrs. Stone saying Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower it seemed to come from near the gate in the red brick wall that bounded the lawn and looking up I saw that the grass outside was stone thick with gravestones a curious greyish light shone from them and I could read the lettering on the grave nearest me and it was in evil memory of Julia Stone and as usual Jack got up and again I followed him through the hall and up the staircase with many corners on this occasion it was darker than usual and when I passed into the room in the tower I could only just see the furniture the position of which was already familiar to me also there was a dreadful odor of decay in the room and I woke screaming the dream with such variation and developments as I have mentioned went on at intervals for 15 years sometimes I would dream it two or three nights in succession once as I have said there was an intermission of six months but taking a reasonable average I should say that I dreamt it quite as often as once in a month it had as is plain something of nightmare about it since it always ended in the same appalling terror which so far from getting less seems to me to gather fresh fear every time that I experienced it there was too a strange and dreadful consistency about it the characters in it as I have mentioned got regularly older death and marriage visited this silent family and I never in the dream after Mrs Stone had died set eyes on her again but it was always her voice that told me that the room in the tower was prepared for me and whether we had tea out on the lawn or the scene was laid in one of the rooms overlooking it I could always see her gravestone standing just outside the iron gate it was the same too with the married daughter usually she was not present but once or twice she returned again in company with a man whom I had talked to be her husband he too like the rest of them was always silent but owing to the constant repetition of the dream it ceased to attach in my waking hours any significance to it I never met Jack Stone again during all those years nor did I ever see a house that resembled this dark house of my dream and then something happened I had been in London in this year up till the end of July and during the first week in August went down to stay with a friend in a house he had taken for the summer months in the Ashdown Forest District of Sussex I left London early for John Clinton was to meet me at Forest Road Station and we were going to spend the day golfing and go to his house in the evening he had his motor with him and we set off about five of the afternoon after a solely delightful day for the drive the distance being some ten miles as it was still so early we did not have tea at the clubhouse but waited till we should get home as we drove the weather which up until then had been though hot deliciously fresh seemed to alter in quality and became very stagnant and oppressive and I felt that indefinable sense of ominous apprehension that I am accustomed to before thunder John however did not share my views attributing my loss of likeness to the fact that I had lost both my matches events proved however that I was right though I do not think that the thunderstorm that broke that night was the sole cause of my depression our way lay through deep high bank lanes and before we had gone very far I fell asleep and was only awakened by the stopping of the motor and with a sudden thrill partly of fear but chiefly of curiosity I found myself standing in the doorway of my house of dream we went I half wondering whether or not I was dreaming still through a low oak paneled hall and out onto the lawn where tea was laid in the shadow of the house it was set in flower beds a red brick wall with a gate in it bounded at one side and out beyond that was a space of rough grass with a walnut tree the facade of the house was very long and at one end stood a three-storeyed tower markedly older than the rest here for the moment all resemblance to the repeated dream seized there was no silent and somehow terrible family but a large assembly of exceedingly cheerful persons all of whom were known to me and in spite of the horror with which the dream itself had always filled me I felt nothing of it now that the scene of it was thus reproduced before me but I felt intense as curiosity as to what was going to happen tea pursued its cheerful course and before long Mrs Clinton got up and at that moment I think I knew what she was going to say she spoke to me and what she said was Jack will show you your room I have given you the room in the tower at that for half a second the horror of the dream took hold of me again but it quickly passed and again I felt nothing more than the most intense curiosity it was not very long before it was amply satisfied John turned to me right at the top of the house he said but I think you'll be comfortable we're absolutely full up would you like to go and see it now by Jove I believed you were right and that we are going to have a thunderstorm how dark it has become I got up and followed him we passed through the hall and up the perfectly familiar staircase then he opened the door and I went in and at that moment sheer unreasoning terror again possessed me I do not know what I feared I simply feared then like a sudden recollection when one remembers a name which has long escaped the memory I knew what I feared I feared Mrs. Stone who's grave with the sinister inscription in evil memory I had so often seen it in my dream just beyond the lawn which lay below my window and then once more the fear passed so completely that I wanted what there was to fear and I found myself sober and quiet and sane in the room in the tower the name of which I had so often heard in my dream and the scene of which was so familiar I looked around it with a certain sense of proprietorship and found that nothing had been changed from the dreaming nights in which I knew it so well just to the left of the door was the bed lengthways along the wall with the head of it in the angle in a line of it was the fireplace and a small bookcase opposite the door the outer wall was pierced by two lattice-pained windows between which stood the dressing table while ranged along the fourth wall was the washing stand and a big cupboard my luggage had already been unpacked for the furniture of dressing and undressing lay orderly on the wash stand and toilet table while my dinner clothes were spread out on the coverlet of the bed and then with a sudden start of unexplained dismay I saw there were two rather conspicuous objects which I had not seen before in my dreams one a life-sized oil painting of Mrs. Stone the other a black and white sketch of Jack Stone but presenting him as he appeared to me only a week before in the last of the series of these repeated dreams a rather secret and evil-looking man of about thirty his picture hung between the windows looking straight across the room to the other portrait which hung at the side of the bed at that I looked next and as I looked I felt once more the horror of nightmare sees me it represented Mrs. Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams old and withered and white-haired but in spite of the evident feebleness of body a dreadful exuberance and vitality shone through the envelope of flesh an exuberance wholly maligned a vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil evil beamed from the narrow-learing eyes it laughed in the demon-like math the whole face was instinct with some secret and appalling mirth the hands clasped together on the knee seemed shaking with suppressed and nameless glee then I saw also that it was signed in the left-hand bottom corner and wondering who the artist could be I looked more closely and read the inscription Julia Stone by Julia Stone there came a tap at the door and John Clinton entered got everything you want he asked rather more than I want said I pointing to the picture he laughed hard-featured old lady he said by herself too I remember anyhow she can't have flattered herself much but don't you see said I it's scarcely a human face at all it's the face of some witch of some devil he looked at it more closely yes it isn't very pleasant he said scarcely a bedside manner eh yes I can imagine getting the nightmare if I went to sleep with that close by my bed I'll have it taken down if you like I really wish you would I said he rang the bell and with the help of a servant we detached the picture and carried it out onto the landing and put it with its face to the wall by Job the old lady's await said John mopping his forehead I wonder if she had something on her mind the extraordinary weight of the picture had struck me too I was about to reply when I caught sight of my own hand there was blood on it in considerable quantities covering the whole palm I've cut myself somehow said I John gave a little startled exclamation why I have too he said simultaneously the footman took out his handkerchief and wiped his hand with it I saw that there was blood also on his handkerchief John and I went back into the tower room and washed the blood off but neither on his hand nor on mine was there the slightest trace of a scratch or cut it seemed to me that having ascertained this we both by a sort of tacit consent did not allude to it again something in my case had dimly occurred to me that I did not wish to think about it was but a conjecture but I fancied that I knew the same thing had occurred to him the heat and impression of the air for the storm we had expected was still undischarged increased very much after dinner and for some time most of the party among whom were John Clinton and myself sat outside in the path bounding the lawn where we had had tea the night was absolutely dark and no twinkle of style or moonway could penetrate the pole of clouds that overset the sky by degrees our assembly thinned the women went up to bed men dispersed to the smoking or billiard room and by eleven o'clock my host and I were the only two left all the evening I thought that he had something on his mind and as soon as we were alone he spoke the man who helped us with the picture had blood on his hand too did you notice he said I asked him just now if he had cut himself and he said he supposed he had but he could find no mark of it now where did that blood come from but I didn't have telling myself that I was not going to think about it I had succeeded in not doing so and I did not want especially just at bedtime to be reminded of it I don't know Sadi and I don't really care so long as that picture of Mrs. Stone is not by my bed he got up but it's odd he said ha now you'll see another odd thing a dog of his an Irish terrier by breed had come out of the house as we talked the door behind us into the hall was open and a bright oblong of light shone across the lawn to the iron gate which led onto the rough grass outside where the walnut tree stood I saw that the dog had all his hackles up bristling with rage and fight his lips were curled back from his teeth as if he was ready to spring at something and he was growling to himself he took not the slightest notice of his master or me but stiffly intensely walked across the grass to the iron gate there he stood for a moment looking through the bars and still growling then of a sudden his courage seemed to desert him he gave one long howl and scuttled back to the house with a curious crouching sort of movement he does that half a dozen times a day said John he sees something which he both hates and fears I walked to the gate and looked over it something was moving on the grass outside and soon a sound which I could not instantly identify came to my ears then I remembered what it was it was the purring of a cat I lit a match and saw the purrer, a big blue Persian walking round and round in a little circle just outside the gate stepping high and ecstatically with tail-carried aloft like a banner its eyes were bright and shining and every now and again it put its head down and sniffed at the grass I laughed the end of that mystery I'm afraid I said here's a large cat having well Pergu's night all alone yes that's Darius, said John he spends half the day and all night there but that's not the end of the dog mystery for Toby and he are the best of friends but the beginning of the cat mystery what's the cat doing there and why is Darius pleased while Toby is terracedricken at that moment I remembered the rather horrible detail of my dreams when I saw through the gate just where the cat was now the white tombstone with the sinister inscription but before I could answer the rain began I suddenly and heavily as if a tap had been turned on and simultaneously the big cat squeezed through the bars of the gate and came leaping across the lawn to the house for shelter then it sat in the doorway looking out eagerly into the dark it spat and struck at John with its paw as he pushed it in in order to close the door somehow with the portrait of Julia Stone in the passage outside the room in the tower had absolutely no alarm for me and as I went to bed feeling very sleepy and heavy I had nothing more than interest with the curious incident about our bleeding hands and the conduct of the cat and the dog the last thing I looked at before I put out my light was the square empty space by my bed where the portrait had been here the paper was of its original full tint of dark red over the rest of the walls it had faded then I blew out my candle and instantly fell asleep my awakening was equally instantaneous and I sat brought up right in bed under the impression that some bright light had been flashed in my face although it was now absolutely pitch dark I knew exactly where I was in the room which I had dreaded in dreams but no horror that I ever felt when asleep approached the fear that now invaded and froze my brain immediately after a peel of thunder crackled just above the house but the probability that it was only a flash of lightning which awoke me gave no reassurance to my galloping heart something I knew was in the room with me and instinctively I put out my right hand which was nearest the wall to keep it away and my hand touched the edge of a picture frame hanging close to me I sprang out of bed upsetting the small table that stood by it and I heard my watch, candle and matches clatter onto the floor but for the moment there was no need of light for a blinding flash leapt out of the clouds and showed me that by my bed again hung the picture of Mrs. Stone and instantly the room went into blackness again but in that flash I saw another thing also namely a figure that leaned over the end of my bed watching me it was dressed in some close clinging white garment spotted and stained with mould and the face was that of the portrait overhead the thunder cracked and warred and when it seized and the deathly stillness exceeded I heard the rustle of movement coming near me and more horrible yet perceived an odor of corruption and decay and then a hand was laid on the side of my neck and close behind my ear I heard quick taken eager breathing yet I knew that this thing though it could be perceived by touch by smell by eye and by ear was not of this earth but something that had passed out of the body and had power to make itself manifest then a voice already familiar to me spoke I knew you would come to the room in the tower it said I have been long waiting for you at last you have come tonight I shall feast before long we will feast together and the quick breathing came closer to me I could feel it on my neck at that the terror which I think had paralyzed me for the moment gave way to the wild instinct of self-preservation I hit wildly with both arms kicking out at the same moment and heard a little animal squeal and something soft dropped with the thud beside me I took a couple of steps forward nearly tripping up over whatever it was that lay there and by the mearest good luck found the handle of the door in another second I ran out on the landing and had banged the door behind me almost at the same moment I heard a door open somewhere below and John Clinton, candle in hand, came running upstairs what is it? he said I sleep just below you and heard a noise as if good heavens there's blood on your shoulder I stood there so he told me afterwards swaying from side to side white as a sheet with the mark on my shoulder as if a hand covered with blood had been laid there it's in there I said pointing she you know the portrait is in there too hanging up on the place we took it from at that he laughed my dear fellow this is me a nightmare he said he pushed by me and opened the door by standing there simply inert with terror unable to stop him unable to move few what an awful smell he said then there was silence he had passed out of my sight behind the open door next moment he came out again as white as myself and instantly shut it yes the portrait's there he said and on the floor is a thing a thing spotted with earth like what they bury people in come away quick come away how I got downstairs I hardly know awful shuddering and nausea of the spirit rather than of the flesh and seized me and more than once he had to place his feet upon the steps while every now and then he cast glances of terror and apprehension up the stairs but in time we came to his dressing room on the floor below and there I told him what I have here described the sequel can be made short indeed some of my readers have perhaps already guessed what it was if they remember that inexplicable affair of the churchyard at West Fawley some eight years ago when an attempt was made three times to bury the body of a certain woman who had committed suicide on each occasion the coffin was found in the course of a few days again protruding from the ground after the third attempt in order that the thing should not be talked about the body was buried elsewhere in unconsecrated ground where it was buried was just outside the iron gate of the garden belonging to the house where this woman had lived she had committed suicide in a room at the top of the tower in that house her name was Julia Stone subsequently the body was again secretly dug up and the coffin was found to be full of blood that was E. F. Benson's The Room in the Tower of the two men who were talking one was a physician I sent for you doctor said the other but I don't think you can do me any good maybe you can recommend a specialist in psychopathy I fancy I'm a bit loony you look alright the physician said you shall judge I have hallucinations I wake every night and see in my room intently watching me a big black newfoundland dog with a white forefoot you say you wake are you sure about that? hallucinations are sometimes only dreams oh I wake alright sometimes I lie still a long time looking at the dog as earnestly as the dog looks at me I always leave the light going when I can't endure it any longer I sit up in bed and nothing is there hmm what is the beast's expression it seems to me sinister of course I know that except in art an animal's face in repose always has the same expression but this is not a real animal newfoundland dogs are pretty mild looking you know what's the matter with this one? really my diagnosis would have no value I'm not going to treat the dog the physician laughed at his own pleasantry but narrowly watched his patient from the corner of his eye presently he said Fleming your description of the beast fits the dog of the late Atwell Barton Fleming half rose from his chair sat again and made a visible attempt at indifference I remember Barton he said I believe he was well it was reported that wasn't there something suspicious in his death looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient the physician said three years ago the body of your old enemy Atwell Barton was found in the woods near his house and yours he had been stabbed to death there had been no arrests there was no clue some of us had theories I had one have you? I? my bless your soul what could I have known about it you remember that I left for Europe almost immediately afterward a considerable time afterward in the few weeks since my return you could not expect me to construct a theory in fact I have not given the matter a thought what about his dog? it was first to find the body it died of starvation on his grave we do not know the inexorable law of underlying coincidences Staley Fleming did not or he would perhaps not have sprung to his feet as the night wind brought him through the open window the long wailing howl of a distant dog he stirred several times across the room in the steadfast gaze of the physician then abruptly confronting him almost shouted what has all this to do with my trouble Dr. Halderman you forget why you were sent for rising the physician laid his hand upon the patient's arm and said gently pardon me I cannot diagnose your disorder offhand tomorrow perhaps please go to bed leaving your door unlocked I will pass the night here with your books can you call me without rising yes there's an electric bell good if anything disturbs you push the button without sitting up good night comfortably installed in an arm chair the man of medicine stared into the glowing coals and thought deeply and long but apparently to little purpose for he frequently rose and opening a door leading to the staircase listened intently then resumed to his seat presently however he fell asleep and when he woke it was past midnight he stirred the falling fire lifted a book from the table at his side and looked at the title it was deniker's meditations he opened it at random and began to read for as much as it is ordained of God that all flesh bath spirit and thereby taketh on spiritual powers so also the spirit bath powers of the flesh even when it is gone out of the flesh and liveth as it is staying apart as many of violence performed by Wraith and the Myrshuith and there be who say that man is not single in this but the beasts have the like evil inducement and the reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house as by the fall of a heavy object the reader flung down the book rushed from the room and mounted the stairs to Fleming's bed chamber he tried the door but contrary to his instructions it was locked he set his shoulder against it with such force that it gave way on the floor near the disordered bed in his nightclothes lay Fleming gasping away his life the physician raised the dying man's head from the floor and observed a wound in the throat I should have thought about this believing it's suicide when the man was dead an examination disclosed the unmistakable marks of an animal's fangs deeply sunken into the jugular vein but there was no animal End of Stanley Fleming's solution by Ambrose Pierce The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Reynard The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe True! Nervous Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am But why will you say that I am mad?  Harken and observe how healthily How calmly I can tell you the whole story It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain But once conceived it haunted me day and night Object there was none Passion there was none I loved the old man He had never wronged me He had never given me insult For his gold I had no desire I think it was his eye Yes, it was this He had the eye of a vulture A pale blue eye with a film over it Whenever it fell upon me My blood ran cold And so, by degrees Very gradually I made up my mind to take the life of the old man And thus rid myself of the eye forever Now this is the point You fancy me mad Mad men know nothing But you should have seen me You should have seen how wisely I proceeded With what caution With what foresight With what dissimulation I went to work I was never kinder to the old man Than during the whole week before I killed him And every night, about midnight I turned the latch of his door And opened it Oh, so gently And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head I put in a dark lantern All closed Closed that no light shone out And then I thrust in my head Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in I moved it slowly Very, very slowly So that I might not disturb the old man's sleep It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening So far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed Ha! Would a mad man have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room I undid the lantern Cautiously Oh, so cautiously Cautiously For the hinges creaked I undid it just so much That a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye And this I did for seven long nights Every night, just at midnight But I found the eye always closed And so it was impossible to do the work For it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye And every morning, when the day broke I went boldly into the chamber And spoke courageously to him Calling him by name in a hearty tone And inquiring how he had passed the night So you see, he would have been a very profound old man, indeed To suspect that every night, just at twelve I looked in upon him while he slept Upon this eighth night I was more than unusually cautious in opening the door A watcher's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers Of my sagacity I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph To think that there I was, opening the door Little by little And he, not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts I fairly chuckled at the idea And perhaps he heard me For he moved on the bed suddenly as if startled Now you may think that I drew back, but no His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness For the shutters were close-fartened through fear of robbers And so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door And I kept pushing on it steadily, steadily I had my head in and was about to open the lantern When my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening And the old man sprang up in bed crying Who's there? I kept quite still and said nothing For a whole hour I did not move a muscle And in the meantime I did not hear him lie down He was still sitting up in the bed listening Just as I have done night after night Harkening to the death-watches in the wall Presently I heard a slight groan And I knew it was the groan of mortal terror It was not a groan of pain or of grief Oh no! It was the low, stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul When overcharged with awe I knew the sound well Many a night, just at midnight When all the world slept It has welled up from my own bosom Deepening with its dreadful echo The terrors that distracted me I say I knew it well I knew what the old man felt And pitied him Although I chuckled at heart I knew that he had been lying awake Ever since the first slight noise When he had turned in the bed His fears had been ever since growing upon him He had been trying to fancy them causeless But could not He had been saying to himself It is nothing but the wind in the chimney It is only a mouse crossing the floor Or it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself With these suppositions But he had found all in vain All in vain Because death, in approaching him Had stalked with his black shadow before him And enveloped the victim And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow That caused him to feel Although he neither saw nor heard To feel the presence of my head within the room When I had waited a long time Very patiently Without hearing him lie down I resolved to open a little A very, very little crevice in the lantern So I opened it You cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily Until at length a simple dim ray Like the thread of the spider Shot out from the crevice And fell full upon the vulture eye It was open, wide, wide open And I grew furious as I gazed upon it I saw it with perfect distinctness All a dull blue with a hideous veil over it That chilled the very marrow in my bones But I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person For I had directed the ray as if by instinct Precisely upon the damned spot And have I not told you that? The state for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense Now I say there came to my ears A low, dull, quick sound Such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton I knew that sound well It was the beating of the old man's heart It increased my fury As the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage But even yet I refrained and kept still I scarcely breathed I held the lantern motionless I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased It grew quicker and quicker and louder and louder every instant The old man's terror must have been extreme It grew louder, I say, louder every moment Do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous So I am And now at the dead hour of the night Amid the dreadful silence of that old house So strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror Yet for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still But the beating grew louder, louder I thought the heart must burst And now a new anxiety seized me The sound will be heard by my neighbour The old man's hour had come With a loud yell I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room He shrieked once, only once In an instant I dragged him to the floor and pulled the heavy bed over him I then smiled gaily to find the deed so far done But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound This, however, did not vex me It would not be heard through the wall At length it ceased The old man was dead I removed the bed and examined the corpse Yes, he was stone, stone dead I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes There was no pulsation He was stone dead His eye would trouble me no more If still you think me mad You'll think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body The night waned and I worked hastily but in silence First of all I dismembered the corpse I cut off the head and the arms and the legs I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber And deposited all between the scantlings I then replaced the boards so cleverly so cunningly That no human eye, not even his, could have detected anything wrong There was nothing to wash out No stain of any kind, no blood spot whatever I had been too wary for that A tub had caught all, ha ha ha When I had made an end of these labours It was four o'clock Still dark as midnight As the bell sounded the hour There came a knocking at the street door I went down to open it with a light heart For what I had died now to fear There entered three men Who introduced themselves with perfect suavity As officers of the police A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night Suspicion of foul play had been aroused Information had been lodged at the police office And they, the officers, had been deputed to search the premises I smiled For what had I to fear I bade a gentleman welcome The shriek I said was my own in a dream The old man I mentioned was absent in the country I took my visitors all over the house I bade them search, search well I led them at length to his chamber I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed In the enthusiasm of my confidence I brought chairs into the room And desired them here to rest from their fatigues While I myself in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph Placed my own seat upon the very spot Beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim The officers were satisfied My manner had convinced them I was singular at ease They sat, and while I answered cheerily They chatted of familiar things But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale And wished them gone My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears But still they sat, and still chatted The ringing became more distinct It continued, and became more distinct I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling But it continued and gained definiteness Until at length I found that the noise was not within my ears No doubt, I now grew very pale But I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice Yet the sound increased And what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound Much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not I talked more quickly, more vehemently But the noise steadily increased I arose and argued about trifles In a high key, and with violent gesticulations But the noise steadily increased Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides As if excited to fury by the observations of the men But the noise steadily increased Oh God, what could I do? I foamed, I raved, I swore I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting And grated it upon the boards But the noise arose over all, and continually increased It grew louder, louder, louder And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God, no, no, they heard, they suspected They knew they were making a mockery of my horror This I thought, and this I think But anything was better than this agony Anything was more tolerable than this derision I could bear these hypocritical smiles no longer I felt that I must scream or die And now, again, hark, louder, louder, louder, louder Villains, I shrieked, dissemble no more I admit the deed, tear up the planks Here, here, it is the beating of his hideous heart End of The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe To Be Read at Dusk by Charles Dickens One, two, three, four, five, there are five of them Five couriers sitting on a bench outside the convent On the summit of the great St. Bernard in Switzerland Looking at their remote heights stained by the setting sun The mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountaintop And had not yet had time to sink into the snow This is not my simile, it was made for the occasion by the Stoutus Curia, who was a German None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me Sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door Smoking my cigar like them and also like them Looking at the red and snow and at the lowly shed, tarred by Where the bodies of belated travellers dug out of it slowly wither away Through no corruption in that cold region The wine upon the mountaintop soaked in as we looked The mountain became white, the sky a very dark blue The wind rose and the air turned piercing cold The five couriers buttoned their rough coats There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation The mountain being now out of the sunset they resumed But I had heard any part of their previous discourse For indeed I had not then broken away from the American gentleman And the travellous parlor of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire Had undertaken to realize to me the whole progress of events Which had led to the accumulation by the honorable Nanias Dodger Of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country My god said to the Swiss courier, speaking in French Which I do not hold, as some authors appear to do To be such an all-sufficient excuse for a naughty word That I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent If you talk of ghosts, but I don't talk of ghosts, said the German Of what then, asked the Swiss I find you of what then, said the German, I should probably know a great deal more It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious So I moved my position to that corner of my bench, which was nearest to them And leaning my back against the convent wall, heard privily, without appearing to attend Thunder and lightning, said the German, warming When a certain man is coming in to see you, unexpectedly and without his own knowledge Send some invisible messenger to put the idea of him into your head all day What do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street, at Frankfurt, Milan, London, Paris And think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich And then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich And so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you'll meet your friend Heinrich Which you do, though you believed him at Trieste What do you call that? It's not uncommon, either, remembered the Swiss and the other three Uncommon, said the German, it's as common as cherries in the black forest It's as common as macaroni at Naples And Naples reminds me, when the old Marchesse Senzanima shrieks at a card player on the Chiacha As I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine And I was overlooking the service that evening I say, when the old Marchesse starts up at the card table Wight through her rouge and cries, my sister in Spain is dead I felt her cold touch on my back And when that sister is dead at that moment, what do you call that? Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy As all the world knows that it does regularly once a year in my native city Said the Neapolitan courier after a pause with a comical look What do you call that? That cried the German Well, I think I know a name for that Miracles said the Neapolitan with the same sly face The German merely smoked and laughed And they all smoked and laughed Ba said the German, personally I speak of things that really do happen When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one And have my money's worth Very strange things do happen without ghosts Ghosts, Giovanni Vaptista, tell your story of the English bride There's no ghost in that, but something full of strange Why any man tell me what? As there was a silence among them, I glanced around He whom I've took to be Vaptista was lighting a fresh cigar He personally went on to speak He was a Genoese as I dodged The story of the English bride said he Basta, one odd not to call so slight a thing a story Well, it's all one, but it's true Observe ye well, gentlemen, it's true That which glitters is not always gold But what I'm going to tell is true He repeated this more than once Ten years ago I took my credentials to an English gentleman The Longs Hotel in Bond Street, London Who was about to travel It might be for one year, it might be for two He approved of them, likewise of me He was pleased to make inquiry The testimony that he received was favourable He engaged me by the six months, and my entertainment was generous He was young, handsome, very happy He was an amateur of a fair young English lady With a sufficient fortune, and they were going to be married It was the wedding trip in short that we were going to take For three months of rest in the hot weather It was early summer then He had hired an old place in the Riviera At an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice Did I know that place? Yes, I told him I knew it well It was a small palace with great gardens It was a little bear, and it was a little dark and gloomy Being close surrounded by trees But it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the seashore He said it had been so described to him exactly And he was well pleased that I knew it For it being a little bear of furniture, all such places were For it being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally For the gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather In their shade So all goes well, Baptista said he Endubidli, senore, very well We had a traveling chariot for our journey, newly built for us And our all respects complete All we had was complete, we wanted for nothing The marriage took place, they were happy I was happy, seeing all so bright Being so oversituated, going to my own city Teaching my language in the rumble to the maid La Bella Carolina His heart was gay with laughter Who was young and rosy The time flew, but I observed Listen to this, I pray And here the courier dropped his voice I observed my mistress sometimes brooding In a manner very strange, in a frightened manner And in a happy manner, with a cloudy, uncertain along upon her I think that I began to notice this When I was walking up hills by the carriage side And master had gone on in front At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind One evening, in the south of France When she called to me to call master back And when he came back and walked for a long way Talking encouragingly and affectionately to her With his hand upon the open window and hers in it Now and then he laughed in a merry way As if he were bantering her out of something By and by she laughed and then all went well again It was curious, I asked La Bella Carolina The pretty little one, was Mistress Unwell? No Out of spirits? No Fearful of bad roads or brigands? No And what made him more mysterious was The pretty little one would not look at me In giving answer, but would look at the view But one day she told me the secret If he must notice it, Carolina I find from what I have overheard That Mistress is haunted How haunted? By a dream What dream? By a dream of a face The three nights before her marriage She saw a face and a dream, always the same face And only one A terrible face? No The face of a dark, remarkable looking man In black, with black hair and a grey mustache A handsome man except for a reserved and secret heir Not a face she ever saw, or at all Like a face she ever saw Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her Darkness Does the dream come back? Never The recollection of it is all her trouble And why does it trouble her? Carolina shook her head That's Mistress' question, said LaBella She didn't know She won his wife herself But I heard her tell him only last night That if she was to find a picture of that face In our Italian house Which she is afraid she will She did not know how she could ever bear it Upon my word I was fearful after this Said the genuist courier Of her coming to the old palazzo Lest some such ill-starred picture Should have him to be there I knew there were many there And as we got nearer and nearer to the place I wished the whole gallery and the crater of Vesuvius To mend the matter it was a stormy dismal evening When we at last approached that part of the Riviera It thundered, and the thunder of my city And its environs rolling along the high hills Is very loud The lizards ran in and out of the chinks In the broken stone wall of the garden As if they were frightened The frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest The wind moaned and the wet trees dripped And the lightning, body of Saint Lorenzo How it lightened We all know what an old place in or near Genoa is How time and the sea air have blotted it How the drapery painted on the outer walls Has peeled off in great flakes of plaster How the lower windows are darkened With rusty bars of iron How the courtyard has overgrown with grass How the outer buildings are dilapidated How the whole pile seems devoted to ruin Our palazzo was one of true kind It had been shut up for close for months Months, years It had an earthy smell, like a tomb The scent of the orange trees on the broad back terrace And of the lemons ripening on the wall And of some shrubs that grew around a broken fountain Had gotten to the house somehow And had never been able to get out again There was, in every room, an aged mill Grown faint with confinement It pined in all the cupboards and drawers In the little rooms of communication Between great rooms it was stifling If you turn to picture To come back to the pictures There it still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame Like a sort of bath The lattice blinds were closed shut all over the house There were two ugly grey old women In the house to take care of it One of them was a spindle Who stood winding and numbling in the doorway And who would as soon have let in the devil As in there Master, mistress, la Bella Carolina And I went all through the palazzo I went first, though I have named myself last Opening the windows on the lattice blinds And shaking down on myself splashes of rain And scraps of mortar And now and then a dosing mosquito Or a monstrous flat blotchy, Genoese fighter When I had let the evening light into a room Master, mistress, and la Bella Carolina Entered Then we looked around at all the pictures And I went forward again into another room Mistress secretly had great fear Meeting with the likeness of that face We all had, but there was no such thing The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco San Sebastiano, Venus Santa Carolina Angels Brigands Friars Temples of sunset Battles White horses Forests Apostles Doge All my old acquaintances many times repeated Yes, dark handsome man in black Reserved in secret with black hair And grey mustache Looking fixedly at mistress out of darkness No At last we got through all the rooms And all the pictures and came out into the gardens They were pretty well kept Being rented by a gardener and were large Shady In one place there was a rustic theater Open to the sky The stage green slope The couluses Three entrances upon a side Sweet smelling leafy screens Mistress moved her bright eyes Even there as if she looked to see the face Come in upon the scene But all was well Now Clara, Master said in a low voice You see that it is nothing You are happy Mistress was much encouraged She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo And would sing and play the harp And copied the old pictures And stroll with Master under the green trees And vines all day She was beautiful He was happy He would laugh and say to me Mounting his horse for his morning ride Before the heat All goes well, Baptista Yes, signore, thank God, very well We kept no company I took La Bella to the Duomo And Annunciata To the cafe, to the opera To the village festa To the public garden To the day theater To the marionetti The pretty little one was charmed with all she saw She learned Italian Heavens miraculously Was Mistress quite forgetful of that dream I asked Carolina sometimes Newly said La Bella, almost It was wearing out One day Master received a letter And called me Baptista, signore A gentleman who is presented to me Will dine here today He is called the signore de l'ombre Let me dine like a prince It was an odd name I did not know that name But there have been many noblemen And gentlemen pursued by Austria On political suspicions lately And some names had changed Perhaps this was one Altra, de l'ombre Was as good a name to me as another When the signore de l'ombre Came to dinner Said the Genoese courier In the low voice Into which he had decided once before I showed him into the reception room The great sala of the gold palazzo Master received him with cordiality And represented him to Mistress As she rose her face changed She gave a cry And fell upon the marble floor Then I turned my head to the signore de l'ombre And saw that he was dressed in black And had a reserved and secret air And was a dark, remarkable looking man With black hair and a gray mustache Master raised Mistress in his arms And carried her to her room Where I sent La Bella Carolina straight La Bella told me afterwards That Mistress was nearly terrified to death And that she wanted in mind About her dream all night Master was vexed and anxious Almost angry and yet full of solicitude The signore de l'ombre Was a courtly gentleman And spoke with great respect For the beauty of Mistress's being so ill The African wind had been blowing for some days They had told him at his hotel The Maltese Cross And he knew that it was often hurtful He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon He begged permission to retire And to renew his visit When he should have the happiness of hearing That she was better Master would not allow of this And they dined alone He withdrew early Next day he called at the gate On horseback to inquire for Mistress He did so two or three times in that week What I observed myself And what La Bella Catalina told me United to explain to me That Master had now set his mind On curing Mistress of her fanciful terror He was all kindness But he was sensible and firm He reasoned with her That to encourage such fancies Was to invite melancholy If not madness That it rested with herself To be with herself That if she once resisted her strange weakness So successfully as to receive The signore de l'ombre As an English lady would receive Any other guest It was forever conquered To make an end The signore came again And Mistress received him Without mark distress Though with constraint and apprehension still And the evening passed serenely Master was so delighted with this change And so anxious to confirm it That the signore de l'ombre Became a constant guest He was accomplished in pictures, Books, and music Any society And any grim palazzo Would have been welcome I used to notice many times That Mistress was not quite recovered She would cast down her eyes And droop her head Before the signore de l'ombre Or would look at him with a terrified And fascinated glance As if his presence had some evil influence Or power upon her Turning for her to him I used to see him in the shaded gardens Or the large half-lighted sala Looking, as I might say, Fixically upon her out of darkness But truly I had not forgotten La bella carolina's words Describing the face in the dream After his second visit I heard Mistress say Now see, my dear Clara It's over The l'ombre has come and gone And your apprehension Is broken like glass Will he ever come again? Asked Mistress Again, why surely, over and over again? Are you cold? She shivered No, dear, but he terrifies me Are you sure that he need come again? That sureer for the question, Clara Replied Master cheerfully But he was very hopeful Of her complete recovery now And grew more and more so every day She was beautiful He was happy All goes well above Tista He would say to me again Yes, senority, thank God, very well We were all well, said the Genoese courier Concerning himself to speak a little louder We were all at Rome for the carnival I had been out all day with a Sicilian A friend of mine And a courier who was there with an English family As I returned at night to our hotel I met the little carolina Who never stirred from home alone Running distractedly along the Corso Carolina, what's the matter? Oh, Baptista Oh, for the Lord's sake Where is my Mistress? Mistress carolina? Gone since morning She told me when Master went out on his day's journey Not to call her For she was tired With not resting in the night Having been in pain And would lie in bed until the evening Then get up refreshed She's gone, she's gone Master has come back broken down the door And she's gone My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress The pretty little one so cried and raved And tore herself that I could not have held her But first, wounding on my arm As if she had been shot Master came up In manner, face or voice The master that I knew That I know was he He took me I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel And left her with a chamber-woman In a carriage, furiously through the darkness Across the desolate Campania When it was day And we stopped at a miserable post-house All the horses had been hired twelve hours ago And sent away in different directions Marked me By the Señor de Lombre Who had passed there in a carriage With a frightened English lady Crouching in one corner I never heard Said the Genoese courier Drawing a long breath That she was ever traced beyond that spot All I know is that she vanished into infamous oblivion With the dreaded face beside her That she had seen in her dream What do you call that? Said the German courier triumphantly Ghosts, there are no ghosts there What do you call this? That I am going to tell you Ghosts, there are no ghosts here I took an engagement once Pursued the German courier With an English gentleman Elderly and a bachelor To travel through my country My fatherland He was a merchant who traded with my country And knew the language But who had never been there since he was a boy As I judged some sixty years before His name was James And he had a twin brother John Also a bachelor Between these brothers there was a great affection They were in business together At Goodman's Fields But they did not live together Mr. James dwelt in Poland Street Turning out of Oxford Street, London Mr. John resided by Epping Forest Mr. James and I were to start For Germany in about a week The exact day depended on business Mr. John came to Poland Street Where I was staying in the house To pass that week with Mr. James But he said to his brother on the second day I don't feel very well James That's not much that mattered with me But I think I am a little gouty I'll go home and put myself under the care Of my old housekeeper Who understands my ways If I get quite better I'll come back and see you before you go If I don't feel well enough to resume My visit where I leave it off Why you will come and save me before you go Mr. James of course said he would And they shook hands Both hands as they always did And Mr. John ordered Out of his old fashioned chariot And rumbled whom It was on the second night after that That is to say the fourth in the week When I was awoke out of my sound sleep By Mr. James coming into my bedroom In his flannel gown With a lighted candle He sat upon the side of my bed And looking at me said Willem, I have reason to think I've got some strange illness upon me I then perceived that there was A very unusual expression in his face Willem said he, I am not afraid Or ashamed to tell you that I might Be afraid or ashamed to tell another man You come from a sensible country Where my mysterious things are inquired Into and are not settled to have been weighed And measured or to have been unwaivable And unmeasurable or in either case To have been completely disposed of For all time ever so many years ago I have just now seen the phantom Of my brother. I confess Of the German courier that he gave me A little tingling of the blood to hear it I have just now seen Mr. James repeated Looking full of me that I might see How collected he was The phantom of my brother John I was sitting up in bed unable to sleep When he came into my room in a white dress And regarding me earnestly Passed up to the end of the room Glassed some papers on my writing desk Turned and still looking earnestly at me As it passed the bed, went out the door Now I am not in the least mad And I am not in the least disposed To invest that phantom with any external existence Out of myself. I think it is a warning To me that I am ill I think I had better be hit lead I got out of bed directly Said the German courier and began to get on my clothes Begging him not to be alarmed And telling him that I would go to myself to the doctor I was just ready when we heard a loud Knocking and ringing at the street door My room being an attic at the back And Mr. James is being the second floor room in the front We went down to his room And put out the window to see what was the matter Is that Mr. James said a man below Falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up It is said Mr. James, and you are my brother's man Robert Yes, sir I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill He is very bad, sir It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death He wants to see you, sir I have a chaise here Pray come to him Pray lose no time Mr. James and I looked at one other Willem, he said he This is strange I wish you to come with me I helped him to dress partly there And partly in the chaise And no grass grew under the horse's eye And shoes between Poland Street and the forest Now, mine, said the German courier I went with Mr. James into his brother's room And I saw and heard myself what follows His brother lay upon his bed At the upper end of a long bed chamber His old housekeeper was there And others were there I think three others were there, not four And they had been with him since earlier in the afternoon He was in white, like the figure Necessarily so because he had his nightdress on He looked like the figure Necessarily so because he looked earnestly At his brother when he saw him come into the room But when his brother reached the bedside He slowly raised himself in bed And looked up full upon him, said these words James, you have seen me before, tonight And you know it, and so died I waited when the German courier ceased To hear something said over this strange story The silence was unbroken I looked round and the five couriers were gone So noisily that the ghostly mountain Might have absorbed them into its eternal snows By this time I was by no means in a mood To sit alone in that awful scene With the chill air echoing solemnly upon me Or if I may tell the truth to sit alone anywhere So I went back into the convent parlor And, finding the American gentleman Still disposed to relate the biography Of the honorable Ananias Dodger Heard it all out End of To Be Read at Dusk By Charles Dickens Recording by Alex E. Tlander Davis, California www.alexheatsalander.com