Хрестоматия по истории американской литературы (XIX - первая половина XX века) = Reader in American Literary History: для студентов отделения романо-германской филологии

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Составитель доц. В.Б.Шамина Рецензенты проф. О.О.Несмелова (КГУ), доц. Л.Ф.Хабибуллина (КГПУ)

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Хрестоматия по истории американской литературы (XIX – первая половина XX века) = Reader in American Literary History: Для студ. отделения романо-германской филологии / Казан. гос. ун-т. Филол. фак-т. Каф. заруб. лит-ры; Сост. В.Б.Шамина.– Казань: Казан. гос. ун-т, 2004. – 192 с.

УДК 82(091); 821.111(73) ББК 83.3(0)5; 83.3(0)6; 84(7)

© Филологический факультет Казанского государственного университета, 2004

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HISTORIC BACKGROUND 1492 – Christopher Columbus landed on some island near Cuba, which he mistook for India. A few years later a Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, explored the coast and found that it was not India. So the new continent was named after him America. It was not until the beginning of the 17th century that colonization of America really started. Four European nations competed in the struggle for the colonies – Holland, France, Spain and England. 1619 – a Dutch ship, the Treasurer, landed at Jamestowm, Virginia with first 20 black slaves in chains. 1620 – November 11, a ship called Mayflower carrying one hundred and two English Puritans dropped anchor at Cape Cod Bay. These people are now referred to as the Pilgrim Fathers. 1775-1783 – American Revolution, or War for Independence. Revolutionary War in America led to the birth of a new nation--the United States. The war, which is also called the American Revolution, was fought between Great Britain and its 13 colonies that lay along the Atlantic Ocean in North America. The war began on April 19, 1775.On July 4, 1776 – the colonies declared themselves a Democratic Republic, issued a Declaration of Independence and later adopted the Constitution. The war lasted eight years. On Sept. 3, 1783, Britain signed the Treaty of Paris, by which it recognized the independence of the United States. Declaration of Independence is the historic document in which the American Colonies declared their freedom from Britain. The Second Continental Congress, a meeting of delegates from the colonies, adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776. This date has been celebrated ever since as the birthday of the United States. The Declaration of Independence can be divided into four parts: (1) The Preamble; (2) A Declaration of Rights; (3) A Bill of Indictment (обвинение); and (4) A Statement of Independence. The Preamble When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind -requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Notes: This paragraph tells why the Continental Congress drew up the Declaration. The members felt that when a people must break their ties with the mother country and become independent, they should explain their reasons to the world. A Declaration of Rights We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Notes: The signers of the Declaration believed it was obvious that "all men" are created equal and have rights that cannot be taken away from them. By "all men," the signers meant people of every race and both sexes. The rights to "Life" included the right to defend oneself against physical attack and against unjust government. The right to "Liberty" included the right to criticize the government, to worship freely, and to form a government that protects liberty. The "pursuit of Happiness" meant the right

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to own property and to have it safeguarded. It also meant the right to strive for the good of all people, not only for one's personal happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,… Notes: The Declaration states that governments exist to protect the rights of the people. Governments receive their power to rule only through agreement of the people. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, Notes: People may alter their government if it fails in its purpose. Or they may set up a new government. People should not, however, make a revolutionary change in long-established governments for unimportant reasons. But they have the right to overthrow a government that has committed many abuses and seeks complete control over the people. A Bill of Indictment Notes: The Declaration states that the colonists could no longer endure the abuses of their government and so must change it. It accuses King George III of inflicting the abuses to gain total power over the colonies. It then lists the charges against him. A Statement of Independence Notes: The Continental Congress had asked the king to correct many abuses stated in the Declaration. These appeals were ignored or followed by even worse abuses. Notes: Congress had also appealed without success to the British people themselves. Notes: Because all appeals had failed, the signers of the Declaration, as representatives of the American people, felt only one course of action remained. They thus declared the colonies independent, with all ties to Britain ended. The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1788, is the oldest written national constitution still in force. One of the country's major contributions to the world is the idea that a written constitution is necessary and desirable. The Constitution establishes the form of the United States government and the rights and liberties of the American people. Probably the most important part of the Constitution is a declaration of the government's goals and purposes. The constitutional principles of the United States are declared in the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Washington, George (1732-1799), won a lasting place in American history as the "Father of the Country." For nearly 20 years, he guided his country much as a father cares for a growing child. In three important ways, Washington helped shape the beginning of the United States. First, he commanded the Continental Army that won American independence from Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. Second, Washington served as presi-

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dent of the convention that wrote the United States Constitution. Third, he was elected the first President of the United States. Most Americans of his day loved Washington. His army officers would have tried to make him king if he had let them. From the Revolutionary War on, his birthday was celebrated each year throughout the country. Washington lived an exciting life in exciting times. As a boy, he explored the wilderness. When he grew older, he helped the British fight the French and Indians. Several times he was nearly killed. As a general, he suffered hardships with his troops in the cold winters at Valley Forge, Pa., and Morristown, N.J. He lost many battles, but led the American army to final victory at Yorktown, Va. After he became President, he successfully solved many problems in turning the plans of the Constitution into a working government. Quotations from Washington: "Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all." "To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." "Promote ... institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge ... it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."

Enlightenment The ideas of the Age of Reason in America were expressed in the revolution. The outstanding writers of the time were first and foremost the key figures of the American Revolution – Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), was a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. No other American has done so many things so well. During his long life, Franklin concerned himself with such different matters as statesmanship and soapmaking, book-printing and cabbage-growing, and the rise of tides and the fall of empires. He also invented an efficient heating stove and proved that lightning is electricity. As a statesman, Franklin stood in the front rank of the people who built the United States. He was the only person who signed all four of key documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, and the Constitution of the United States. Franklin's services as a diplomat in France helped greatly in winning the Revolutionary War. Many historians consider him the ablest and most successful diplomat that America has ever sent abroad. Famous Franklin sayings: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Nothing than honey is sweeter than money God helps those who help themselves. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), is best remembered as a great President and as the author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's interests and talents covered an amazing range. He became one of the leading American architects of his time. He greatly appreciated art and music and tried to encourage their advancement in the United States. Jefferson enjoyed playing the violin in chamber music concerts. His collection of more than 6,400 books became a major part of the Library of Congress. He developed the decimal system of coinage that allows Americans to keep accounts in dollars and cents. He prepared written vocabularies of Indian languages. Jefferson also cultivated one of the finest gardens in America.

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Jefferson did not consider himself a professional politician. Instead, he regarded himself as a public-spirited citizen and a broad-minded, practical thinker. He preferred his family, his books, and his farms to public life. But he spent most of his career in public office and made his greatest contribution to his country in the field of politics. His ideal society was a nation of landowning farmers living under as little government as possible. The term Jeffersonian democracy refers to such an ideal and was based on Jefferson's faith in self-government. He trusted the majority of people to govern themselves and wanted to keep the government simple and free of waste. During Jefferson's two terms as President (elected President of the United States on Feb. 17, 1801), the United States almost doubled in area. The Declaration of Independence remains Jefferson's best-known work. The following quotations come from some of Thomas Jefferson's speeches and writings Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself. Never spend your money before you have it. ... were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

ROMANTICISM Romanticism appeared in American literature in the years of social unrest, which followed the Revolution as great disappointment with the results of the revolution took hold of the people. At the same time Romanticists created authentic national literature and can justly be called its forefathers. WASHINGTON IRVING 1783-1859 Main works: A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809) The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20) Bracebridge Hall (1822) Tales of a Traveller (1824) History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (!828) The Alhambra (1832) Oliver Godsmith (1840) George Washington (1855-59) Text to read and discuss: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW Found among the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky. CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch

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navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small markettown or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry1 Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market-days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon uniform tranquility. I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time, when all nature is particularly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley. From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his pow-wows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some bewitching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper2, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a 1

To tarry – to delay, to put off. Хессенский воин. Во время войны за независимость на стороне англичан сражались наемники из немецкого княжества Хессе. 2

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midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions. I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed; while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream; where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom. In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane3; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried", in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a corn-field. His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window-shutters; so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out: an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard on a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a bee-hive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a con3

Имя библейского происхождения, в переводе с древнееврейского означает «бедняга», «несчастный».

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scientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."–Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little, tough, wrongheaded, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty" by their parents; and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it, and thank him for it the longest day he had to live." When school-hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time; thus going the rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay; mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from pasture; and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him, on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church-gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook", the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed,

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inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays’ gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream, and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination; the moan of the whippoorwill from the hill-side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them wofully with speculations upon comets and shooting-stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy! But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimneycorner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show his face, it was dearly purchased by the

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terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! – With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! – How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! – How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on a frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! – and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings! All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was – a woman. Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex; and it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its broad branches over it; at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well, formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farm-house was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning till night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldly porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole

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fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farm-yard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish discontented cry. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart–sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye he pictured to himself every roasting pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion-sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where. When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farm-houses, with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza. along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on along dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the clawfooted chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mockoranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it, a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner-cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

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From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with; and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle-keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor. Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roistering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short, curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cockfights; and, with the ascendency which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and, with all his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at the bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-houses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and when any madcap prank, or rustic brawl, occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries; and though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination to cross a line in his amorous; insomuch, that, when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, "sparking," within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other quarters. Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competi-

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tion, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack– yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure yet, the moment it was away – jerk! he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amorous, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he had made frequent visits at the farm-house; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, – that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence. I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point or door of access, while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined; his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow. Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore–by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him: he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would "double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house;" and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singingschool, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the school-house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window-stakes, and turned everything topsyturvy: so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom

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he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's to instruct her in psalmody. In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, a constant terror to evil-doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as half-munched apples, pop-guns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a Negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, halfbroken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or "quilting frolic", to be held that evening at Mynheer4 Van Tassel's; and having delivered his message with that air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a Negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the Hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation. The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass, that hung up in the school-house. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral; but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country. 4

(Dutch) – Sir, Mister.

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Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and, as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble-field. The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cockrobin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous notes; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged wood-pecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light-blue coat and white under-clothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove. As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills, which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glossy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple-green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hang-

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ing uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted shortgowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short squareskirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed, throughout the country, as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair. Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed, Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oly koek5, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger-cakes and honey-cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple-pies and peach-pies and pumpkin-pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst– Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer; and whose spirits rose with eating as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house; snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out-of-doors that should dare to call him comrade! Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as the harvest-moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to "fall to, and help themselves." And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. 5

(Dutch) – oily pastry.

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The musician was an old gray-headed Negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the Negroes; who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner. When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about the war. This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those highly favored places, which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time has elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every exploit. There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defense, parried a musket-ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination. But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered long-settled retreats; but are trampled underfoot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves before their surviving friends have traveled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts, except in our longestablished Dutch communities. The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow peo-

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ple were present at Van Tassel's and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. This was one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman; and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that, on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but, just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvelous events that had taken place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about the Sleepy Hollow. The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they gradually died away–and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress, fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have

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gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chopfallen.– Oh, these women! These women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks?–Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? – Heaven only knows, not I! – Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen-roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover. It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills–but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog, from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed. All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky; and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost-stories had been laid. In the centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled, and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its illstarred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told concerning it. As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle: he thought his whistle was answered, – it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree,– he paused and ceased whistling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan,–his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety; but new perils lay before him. About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick

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with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the school boy who has to pass it alone after dark. As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler. The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents– "Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm-tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and, with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness. Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind,–the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm-tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellowtraveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was headless! – but his horror was still more increased, on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle: his terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip, – but the spectre started full jump with him. Away then they dashed, through thick and thin; stones flying, and sparks flash-

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ing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church. As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got half-way through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled underfoot by his pursuer. For a moment, the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind – for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder. An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church-bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash,–he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast;–dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the school-house, and strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the bundle, which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted stockings, an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm-tunes, full of dogs' ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the community, ex-

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cepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who from that time forward determined to send his children no more to school; observing, that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance. The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him. The school was removed to a different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same time, had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the millpond. The school-house, being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm-tune, among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. Questions for self-control: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

What is the function of the exposition? What are the key words in the setting description? What is the major means of Ichabod Crane’s characterization? How is historical and national authenticity created? What is the conflict of the story, (possible to mention several) and its climax? What is special about the denouement, and what is its function? What narrative method does the author use, and what is the role of the narrator? What specific features of American romanticism can be traced in the story?

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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 1789-1851 Main works: The Spy (1821) The Pioneers (1823) The Pilot (1824) The Last of the Mohicans (1826) The Prairie (1827) The Monikins (1835) The Pathfinder (1840) The Deerslayer (1841)

Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is the main conflict of the novel The Last of the Mohicans? How does the novel reflect Cooper’s attitude to the pioneers’ movement? How are the Indians described? What are realistic and romantic features of the novel? What is the message?

EDGAR ALLAN POE 1809-1849 Main works: Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827) Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Man That Was Used Up (1843) The Raven and Other Poems; Tales (1845) Texts to read and discuss. From The Philosophy of Composition.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION [...] I have often thought how interesting a magazine paper might be written by any author who would - that is to say who could - detail, step by step, the processes by which any one of his compositions attained its ultimate point of completion. Why such a paper has never been given to the world, I am much at a loss to say - but, perhaps, the autorial vanity has had more to do with the omission than any one other cause. Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought - at the true purposes seized only at the last moment - at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view - at the fully matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable - at the cautious selections and rejections - at the painful erasures and interpolations - in a word, at the wheels and pinions - the tackle for scene-shifting - the step-ladders and demon-traps - the cook's feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio. I am aware, on the other hand, that the case is by no means common, in which an author is at all in condition to retrace the steps by which his conclusions have

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been attained. In general, suggestions, having arisen pell-mell, are pursued and forgotten in a similar manner. For my own part, I have neither sympathy with the repugnance alluded to, nor, at any time the least difficulty in recalling to mind the progressive steps of any of my compositions; and, since the interest of an analysis, or reconstruction, such as I have considered a desideratum, is quite independent of any real or fancied interest in the thing analyzed, it will not be regarded as a breach of decorum on my part to show the modus operandi by which some one of my own works was put together. I select "The Raven", as most generally known. It is my design to render it manifest that no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition - that the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem. Let us dismiss, as irrelevant to the poem, per se, the circumstance -or say the necessity - which, in the first place, gave rise to the intention of composing a poem that should suit at once the popular and the critical taste. We commence, then, with this intention. The initial consideration was that of extent. If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important effect derivable from unity of impression - for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and every thing like totality is at once destroyed. But since, ceteris paribus, no poet can afford to dispense with any thing that may advance his design, it but remains to be seen whether there is, in extent, any advantage to counterbalance the loss of unity which attends it. Here I say no, at once. What we term a long poem is, in fact, merely a succession of brief ones - that is to say, of brief poetical effects. It is needless to demonstrate that a poem is such, only inasmuch as it intensely excites, by elevating, the soul; and all intense excitements are, through a psychal necessity, brief. For this reason, at least one half of the Paradise Lost is essentially prose - a succession of poetical excitements interspersed, inevitably, with corresponding depressions - the whole being deprived, through the extremeness of its length, of the vastly important artistic element, totality, or unity, of effect. It appears evident, then, that there is a distinct limit, as regards length, to all works of literary art - the limit of a single sitting - and that, although to certain classes of prose composition, such as Robinson Crusoe (demanding no unity), this limit may be advantageously overpassed, it can never properly be overpassed in a poem. Within this limit, the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit - in other words, to the excitement or elevation - again in other words, to the degree of the true poetical effect which- it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect: - this, with one proviso -that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while not below the critical, taste, I reached at once what I conceived the proper length for my intended poem -a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight. My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or effect, to be conveyed; and here I may as well observe that, throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the design of rendering the work universally appreciable. I should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the slightest need of demonstration - the point, I mean, that Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem. A

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few words, however, in elucidation of my real meaning, which some of my friends have evinced a disposition to misrepresent. That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect -they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart - upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating "the beautiful". Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes - that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment - no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to is most readily attained in the poem. Now the object, Truth, or the satisfaction of the intellect, and the object Passion, or the excitement of the heart, are, although attainable, to a certain extent, in poetry, far more readily attainable in prose. Truth, in fact, demands a precision, and Passion a homeliness (the truly passionate will comprehend me) which are absolutely antagonistic to that Beauty which, I maintain, is the excitement, or pleasurable elevation, of the soul. It by no means follows from any thing here said, that Passion, or even Truth, may not be introduced, and even profitably introduced, into a poem - for they may serve in elucidation, or aid the general effect, as do discords in music, by contrast - but the true artist will always contrive, first, to tone them into proper subservience to the predominant aim, and, secondly, to enveil them, as far as possible, in that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the essence of the poem. [...] Questions for self control: 1. Characterize Poe’s literary method. 2. How does it differ from the works of other romanticists? 3. What are his major artistic principles as described in The Philosophy of Composition? 4. How are they revealed in his stories?

RALF WALDO EMERSON 1803-1882 Main works: Nature (1836) The American Scholar (1837) Essays, First Series (1841) Essays, Second Series (1844) Poems (1847)

Questions for self control: What are the main principles of Transcendentalism? What European philosophies does it echo?

HENRY DAVID THOREAU 1817-1862 Main works: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; On duty of Civil Disobedience (essays) (1849)

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Walden, or life in the Woods (1854) Text to read and discuss: Walden: From I. Economy; From II Where I Lived, And What I Lived For. From VIII. Conclusion

WALDEN From I Economy When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again. I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders6, as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penence in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Brahmins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars, - even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, 6

Жители Сэндвичевых островов – так называл капитан Кук Гавайские острова

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and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolaus7 to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up. I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh. But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha 8created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them: Inde genus durum sumus, experiens qua laborum, Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati. Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way, "From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are." So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell. Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life, that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by 7

Иолай, спутник Геракла, помогший ему рубить головы Лернейской гидры Дефкалион и Пирра – в греческой мифологии Дефкалион, сын Прометея, и его жена Пирра уцелели после потопа, посланного на землю Зевсом, и дали начало новому человеческому роду. 8

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experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins oes alienum9, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in a brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little. I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamaster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? HOW godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination, - what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. 9

(лат.) - долги, долги.

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One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about. One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with;" and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plough along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown. The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor." Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?" We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! - I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be. The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man, you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind, - I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels. I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of

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some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle, which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding. I foresee that all men will at length establish their lives on that basis. Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I nave referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or, at least, careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over the old daybooks of the merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors. By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. To the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the mountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego10 that, while his own party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, "to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting". So, we are told, the New Hollander11 goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the "hardiness of these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According to Liebig12, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some defect in the 10

Огненная Земля Новая Голландия – старое название Австралии 12 Либих, Юстус (1803-73), немецкий химик 11

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draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It appears, therefore from the above list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us, - and Fuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition from without, - Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed. The grand necessity, then, for our bodies is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly a great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live, - that is, keep comfortably warm, - and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts, of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury, which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance if his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men? When a man is warmed by the several modes, which I have described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer

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food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above? - for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season. I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live, - if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers, - and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; - but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished. In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate. I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves. To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have J been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it. So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it. If it had concerned

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either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again in the sun. For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward. For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility. I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons. In short, I went on thus for a long time, I may say it without boasting, faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that. [...] Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I stayed there, or more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still

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numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to myself, Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that blows Is all that anybody knows. I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips, which I had made By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising, I had already bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Door-sill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there a board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were "good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window", - of two whole squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk parasol, giltframed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents to-night, he to vacate at five to-morrow morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at six. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain indistinct but wholly unjust claims, on the score of ground rent and fuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. At six I passed him and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all, - bed, coffee mill, looking-glass, hens, - all but the cat; she took to the woods and became a wild

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cat, and, as I learned after-ward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails and removed it to the pond side by small cartloads, spreading the boards on the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I was informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley, an Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still tolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his pocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and look freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation; there being a dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with the removal of the gods of Troy. I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any winter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow. At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose, as the Iliad. [...] Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to straighten with a plane. I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them:

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Boards Refuse shingles for roof and sides Laths Two second-hand windows with glass One thousand old brick Two casks of lime Hair Mantle-tree iron Nails Hinges and screws Latch Chalk Transportation In all

$ 8.03% 4.00 1.25 2.43 4.00 2.40 0.31 0.15 3.90 0.14 0.10 0.01 1.40 28.12%

Mostly shanty boards

That was high. More than I needed

I carried a good part on my back

These are all the materials excepting the timber, stone, and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small wood-shed adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the house. I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one. I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my short-comings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much cant and hypocrisy, - chaff which I find it difficult to separate from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man, - I will breathe freely and stretch myself in this respect, it is such a relief to both the moral and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student's room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. Those conveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would with proper management on both sides. Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge, is made. The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme, - a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection, - to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives actually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights . successive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and re-

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tirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. "But," says one, "you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?" I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where anything is professed and practiced but the art of life; - to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vegabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month, - the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, - or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rogers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? ... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation! - why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably. [...] From II. WHERE I LIVED, AND WHAT I LIVED FOR […] Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire, - or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. Hardly a man takes a half hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels' Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe,"-and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

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For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life - I wrote this some years ago - that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thought which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure, - news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy. As for Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos and the Infanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to time in the right proportions, - they may have changed the names a little since I saw the papers, - and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted. [...] Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine. From XVIII. CONCLUSION [...] The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks, which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts, - from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by

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the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at the first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb, - heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festive board, - may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and hand-selled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. Questions for self control: 1. amples. 2. 3. 4.

What does Thoreau think to be the main problem of his contemporaries? Give exHow does he understand freedom? To what extend did his experiment prove the ideas of Transcendentalism? Which of his ideas do you think applicable to modern life?

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 1804-1864 Main works: Twice-Told Tales (1837) The Scarlet Letter (1850) The House of the Seven Gables (1851) The Marble Faun (1860) Text to read an discuss

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN Young Goodman13 Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown. "Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year." "My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?" "Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons; "and may you find all well when you come back." 13

Вежливый титул перед именем человека простого происхождения

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"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons. "Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done to-night. But no, no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be, concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. "There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown's approach and walked onward side by side with him. "You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone." "Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected. It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in King William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light. "Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellow-traveller. "This is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary." "Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st of." "Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet."

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"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept" – "Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem14; and it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war15. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight I would fain be friends with you for their sake." "If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they never spoke of these matters; or verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness." "Wickedness or not,” said the traveler with the twisted staff, "I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too - But these are state secrets." "Can this be so?" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. "Howbeit," I have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husband-man like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day." Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. "Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself, “Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill me with laughing." "Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, considerably nettled, "there is my wife. Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own." "Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us that Faith should come to any harm." As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. "A marvel, truly, that Goody16 Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall," said he. "But with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going." 14

Пуритане жестоко преследовали инакомыслящих, в том числе квакеров. Война поселенцев Новой Англии с индейскими племенами, во главе которых стоял вождь Митакома, прозванный королем Филиппом. 16 Вежливое обращение к замужней женщине простого происхождения. 15

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"Be it so," said the fellow-traveller. "Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path." Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staffs length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words - a prayer, doubtless - as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail. "The devil!" screamed the pious old lady. "Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick. "Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?" cried the good dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But - would your worship believe it? - my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf's bane" "Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said the shape of old Goodman Brown. "Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling." "That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will." So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life being one of the rods, which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened. "That old woman taught me my catechism," said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment. They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther. "Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?" "You will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance, composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along."

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Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it. On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. "Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "I had rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. They tell me that some I of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian pow-wows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the I best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion." "Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the minister. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground." The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it. "With heaven above and faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!" cried Goodman Brown. While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hand to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the

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old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of night. There was one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. "Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. "My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given." And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds - the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. "Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. "Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian pow-wow, come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fears you." In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black pines brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles

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at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once. "A grave and dark-clad company," quoth Goodman Brown. In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to an fro between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council-board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath17, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or pow-wows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English witchcraft. "But where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled. Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches. "Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest. At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to 17

Слово означает «воскресенье» у пуритан и «шабаш ведьм».

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warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. "Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind you!" They turned; and Hashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage. "There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows' weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep' in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damsels - blush not, sweet ones, - have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest, to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places - whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest -where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power - than my power at its utmost - can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each other." They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar. "Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon one y another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race." "Welcome," repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph. And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed land what they saw! "Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one." Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily

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away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meetinghouse, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stem, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear arid drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the grey blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. Questions for self control: 1. To what extent does the story reveal the major problems of Hawthorn’s works and his Puritan background? 2. What is the main peculiarity of the story, which is reflected in its plot and imagery? 3. What is its conflict? 4. What is the allegoric meaning of the story?

HERMAN MELVILLE 1819-1891 Main works: Typee (1846) Omoo (1847) Moby Dick(1851) Billy Budd and Other Prose pieces; Poems (1924) (published posthumously)

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Texts to read and discuss: From Moby Dick: Chapter I. Loomings; Chapter XXVIII Ahab; Chapter CXXXV. The Chase – Third Day; Epilogue

MOBY DICK (OR THE WHITE HALE) CHAPTER I LOOMINGS Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely -having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off-then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato18 throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they, but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs - commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-town is the Battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see? Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster - tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here? But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand - miles of them -leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues - north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither? Once more. Say, you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale; and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries - stand that man on his legs, set his feet agoing, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. 18

Катон Младший, римский политический деятель, противник Цезаря

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Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever. But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies - what is the one charm wanting? - Water - there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be overconscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must need have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick - grow quarrelsome - don't sleep of nights - do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing; - no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook, - though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board – yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls; - though once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids. No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first , this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van

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Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. 19And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time. What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the desks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about – however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way- either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content. Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a moneyed man enter heaven. Ah! How cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way - he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this: “Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.” “WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.” “BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.” Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased free will and discriminating judgment. 19

Семейства влиятельных политических деятелей.

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Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped lo sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be sociable with it - would they let me - since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in. By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. CHAPTER XXVIII AHAB For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face was visible; for my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the sea became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitingly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness - to call it so - which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warranty to cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchantship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this - and rightly ascribed it - to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colorless misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three better more likely seaofficers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy

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rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out - which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered - then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birthmark on him from crown to sole. So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the Sperm Whale's jaw. "Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old Gay-Hand Indian once; "but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em." I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod's quarter-deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored, about half an inch or so, into the plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse;

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as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. CHAPTER CXXXV THE CHASE - THIRD DAY The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar. "D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight. "In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all. Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day again! were it a newmade world, and made for a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm - frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it! - it's tainted. Were I the wind I’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing - a nobler thing than that. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a most special, a most cunning, oh a most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and gracious in the

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wind. These warm Trade Winds , at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them - something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see? "Nothing, sir." "Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun! Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start! Aye, he's chasing me now; not I, him - that's bad; I might have known it, too. Fool! the lines - the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look-outs! Man the braces!" Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake. "Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. "God keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!" "Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. "We should meet him soon." "Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high. A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it. "Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck there! brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there's time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same! - the same! - the same to Noah as to me. There's a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead somewhere - to something else than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the White Whale goes that way; look to windward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good-bye, good-bye, old mast-head! What's this? -green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O 20

Восточные ветры

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Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head - keep a good eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail." He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck. In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mate, - who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck - and bade him pause. "Starbuck!" "Sir?" "For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck." "Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so." "Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!" "Truth, sir: saddest truth." "Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood; and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old; - shake hands with me, man." Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue. "Oh, my captain, my captain! - noble heart - go not - go not! - see, it's a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!" "Lower away!" - cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by the crew!" In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stem. "The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!" But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the boat leaped on. Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks - a matter sometimes well known to affect them, however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others. "Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck, gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat - "Canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight? - lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed, to the chase; and this the critical third day? -For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; by sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing - be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant, fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between - Is my journey's end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart, - beats it yet? - Stir

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thyself, Starbuck! - stave it off - move, move! speak aloud! -Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the hill? - Crazed; aloft there! -keep thy keenest eye upon the boats: mark well the whale! - Ho! again! -drive off that hawk! see! he pecks - he tears the vane" - pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck - "Ha! he soars away with it! - Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight, oh Ahab! - shudder, shudder!" The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads -a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered against the opposing bow. "Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no hearse can be mine: - and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!" Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the I sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale. "Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white Forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two mates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar. While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round and round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines around him, the half-torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab. The harpoon dropped from his hand. "Befooled, befooled!" drawing in a long lean breath-"Aye, Parsee! 1 see thee again. - Aye, and thou goest before; and this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me; if not, Ahab is enough to die - Down, men! the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me. - Where's the whale? gone down again?" But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship, -which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming

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with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea. "Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!" Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; for other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him; whichever was true, the White Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip. "Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! 'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water." "But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!" "They will last long enough! pull on! - But who can tell" - he muttered -"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab? - But pull on! Aye, all alive, now - we near him. The helm! take the helm! let me pass," - and so saying, two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat. At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its advance -as the whale sometimes will - and Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout, curled round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen - who foreknew not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects - these were flung out; but so fell, • that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea. But when Ahab cried

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out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! "What breaks in me. Some sinew cracks! - 'tis whole again; oars! oars! Burst in upon him!" Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it - it may be - a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind; hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't night?" "The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen. "Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?" But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its halfwading, splashing crew trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forwardflowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the downcoming monster just as soon as he. "The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's fainting fit. Up helm, 1 say - ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my lifelong fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!" "Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattress that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, 0 Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and oversalted death, though; - cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!" "Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up." From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal

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man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. "The ship! The hearse! - the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!" Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent. "I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! Let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou un-cracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow, - death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!" The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove; - ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths. For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. "The ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking look-outs on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all | round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight. But as the; last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the main-mast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched; - at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that ethereal thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink lo hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

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Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawing gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. EPILOGUE "And I only am escaped alone to tell thee." JOB.

The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth? Because one did survive the wreck. It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the half-spent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion21 I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What does the first chapter prepare us for? Are there any foreshadowings? What implications are created by the use of biblical names? Are there any other allusions to the Bible or mythology? What is the conflict of the novel? How do you understand the symbolism of the plot?

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 1807-1882 Main works: Ballads and other poems (1841) Poems on Slavery (1842) The Song of Hiawatha (1855) The Divine Comedy: A Translation (1865-67) Text to read and discuss: From The Song of Hiawatha : IV. Hiawatha and Medjekeewis 21

Иксион, фессалийский царь, наказанный Зевсом за его любовь к Гере – бы л привязан к вечно вращающемуся колесу.

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THE SONG OF HIAWATHA IV. HIAWATHA AND MUDJEKEEWIS Out of childhood into manhood Strung with sinews of the reindeer; Now had grown my Hiawatha, In his quiver oaken arrows, Skilled in all the craft of hunters, Tipped with jasper, winged with feathLearned in all the lore of old men; ers; In all youthful sports and pastimes, With his mittens, Minjekahwun, In all manly arts and labors. With his moccasins enchanted. Swift of foot was Hiawatha; Warning said the old Nokomis, He could shoot an arrow from him, "Go not forth, O Hiawatha! And run forward with such fleetness, To the kingdom of the West-Wind, That the arrow fell behind him. To the realms of Mudjekeewis, Strong of arm was Hiawatha; Lest he harm you with his magic, He could shoot ten arrows upward, Lest he kill you with his cunning!" Shoot them with such strength and But the fearless Hiawatha swiftness, Heeded not her woman's warning; That the tenth had left the bow-string Forth he strode into the forest, Ere the first to earth had fallen! At each stride a mile he measured; He had mittens, Minjekahwun, Lurid seemed the sky above him, Magic mittens made of deer-skin; Lurid seemed the earth beneath him, When upon his hands he wore them, Hot and close the air around him, He could smite the rocks asunder, Filled with smoke and fiery vapors, He could grind them into powder. As of burning woods and prairies, He had moccasins enchanted, For his heart was hot within him, Magic moccasins of deer-skin; Like a living coal his heart was. When he bound them round his ankles, . So he journeyed westward, westward, When upon his feet he tied them, Left the fleetest deer behind him, At each stride a mile he measured! Left the antelope and bison; 22 Much he questioned old Nokomis Crossed the rushing Esconawbaw24, Of his father Mudjekeewis23; Crossed the mighty Mississippi, Learned from her the fatal secret Passed the Mountains of the Prairie, Of the beauty of his mother, Passed the land of Crows and Foxes, Of the falsehood of his father; Passed the dwellings of the Blackfeet, And his heart was hot within him, Came unto the Rocky Mountains, Like a living coal his heart was. To the kingdom of the West-Wind, Then he said to old Nokomis, Where upon the gusty summits "I will go to Mudjekeewis, Sat the ancient Mudjekeewis, See how fares it with my father, Ruler of the winds of heaven. At the doorways of the West-Wind, Filled with awe was Hiawatha At the portals of the Sunset!" At the aspect of his father. From his lodge went Hiawatha, On the air about him wildly Dressed for travel, armed for hunting; Tossed and streamed his cloudy Dressed in deer-skin shirt and leggings, tresses, Richly wrought with quills and wamGleamed like drifting snow his tresses; pum; Glared like Ishkoodah, the comet, On his head his eagle-feathers, Like the star with fiery tresses. Round his waist his belt of wampum, Filled with joy was Mudjekeewis In his hand his bow of ash-wood, When he looked on Hiawatha, 22 23

His grandmother West Wind

24

The Escanoba – the river which empties into Lake Michigan.

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Saw his youth rise up before him In the face of Hiawatha, Saw the beauty of Wenonah1 From the grave rise up before him. "Welcome!" said he, "Hiawatha, To the kingdom of the West-Wind! Long have I been waiting for you! Youth is lovely, age is lonely, Youth is fiery, age is frosty; You bring back the days departed, You bring back my youth of passion, And the beautiful Wenonah!" Many days they talked together, Questioned, listened, waited, answered; Much the mighty Mudjekeewis Boasted of his ancient prowess, Of his perilous adventures, His indomitable courage, His invulnerable body. Patiently sat Hiawatha, Listening to his father's boasting; With a smile he sat and listened, Uttered neither threat nor menace, Neither word nor look betrayed him, But his heart was hot within him, Like a living coal his heart was. Then he said, "O Mudjekeewis, Is there nothing that can harm you? Nothing that you are afraid of?" And the mighty Mudjekeewis, Grand and gracious in his boasting, Answered, saying, "There is nothing, Nothing but the black rock yonder, Nothing but the fatal Wawbeek!" And he looked at Hiawatha With a wise look and benignant, With a countenance paternal, Looked with pride upon the beauty Of his tall and graceful figure, Saying, "O my Hiawatha! Is there anything can harm you? Anything you are afraid of?" But the wary Hiawatha Paused awhile, as if uncertain, Held his peace, as if resolving, And then answered, "There is nothing, Nothing but the bulrush yonder, Nothing but the great Apukwa!"

And as Mudjekeewis, rising, Stretched his hand to pluck the bulrush, Hiawatha cried in terror, Cried in well-dissembled terror, "Kago! kago!25 do not touch it!" "Ah, kaween!"26 said Mudjekeewis. "No, indeed, I will not touch it!" Then they talked of other matters; First of Hiawatha's brothers, First of Wabun, of the East-Wind, Of the South-Wind, Shawondasee, Of the North, Kabibonokka; Then of Hiawatha's mother, Of the beautiful Wenonah, Of her birth upon the meadow, Of her death, as old Nokomis Has remembered and related. And he cried, "O Mudjekeewis, It was you who killed Wenonah, Took her young life and her beauty, Broke the Lily of the Prairie, Trampled it beneath your footsteps; You confess it! you confess it!" And the mighty Mudjekeewis Tossed his gray hairs to the WestWind, Bowed his hoary head in anguish, With a silent nod assented. Then up started Hiawatha, And with threatening look and gesture Laid his hand upon the black rock, On the fatal Wawbeek laid it. With his mittens, Minjekahwun, Rent the jutting crag asunder, Smote and crashed it into fragments, Hurled them madly at his father, The remorseful Mudjekeewis, For his heart was hot within him, Like a living coal his heart was. But the ruler of the West-Wind Blew the fragments backward from him, With the breathing of his nostrils, With the tempest of his anger, Blew them back at his assailant; Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa, Dragged it with its roots and fibres From the margin of the meadow, From its ooze, the giant bulrush; 25 26

Do not. No, indeed

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Long and loud laughed Hiawatha! Then began the deadly conflict, Hand to hand among the mountains; From his eyrie screamed the eagle, The Keneu, the great War-Eagle, Sat upon the crags around them, Wheeling flapped his wings above them. Like a tall tree in the tempest Bent and lashed the giant bulrush; And in masses huge and heavy Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek; Till the earth shook with the tumult And confusion of the battle, And the air was full of shoutings, And the thunder of the mountains, Starting, answered, "Baim-wawa!"27 Back retreated Mudjekeewis, Rushing westward o'er the mountains, Stumbling westward down the mountains, Three whole days retreated fighting, Still pursued by Hiawatha To the doorways of the West-Wind, To the portals of the Sunset, To the earth's remotest border, Where into the empty spaces Sinks the sun, as a flamingo Drops into her nest at nightfall, In the melancholy marshes. "Hold!" at length cried Mudjekeewis, "Hold, my son, my Hiawatha! 'Tis impossible to kill me, For you cannot kill the immortal. I have put you to this trial, But to know and prove your courage; Now receive the prize of valor! "Go back to your home and people, Live among them, toil among them, Cleanse the earth from all that harms it, Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers, Slay all monsters, and magicians, All the Wendigoes, the giants, All the serpents, the Kenabeeks, As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa, Slew the Great Bear of the mountains. "And at last when Death draws near you, 27

The sound of thunder

When the awful eyes of Pauguk,28 Glare upon you in the darkness, I will share my kingdom with you. Ruler shall you be thenceforward Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin, Of the home-wind, the Keewaydin.” Thus was fought that famous battle In the dreadful days of Shah-shah29, In the days long since departed, In the kingdom of the West-Wind. Still the hunter sees its traces Scattered far o'er hill and valley; Sees the giant bulrush growing By the ponds and water-courses, Sees the masses of the Wawbeek Lying still in every valley. Homeward now went Hiawatha; Pleasant was the landscape round him, Pleasant was the air above him, For the bitterness of anger Had departed wholly from him, From his brain the thought of vengeance, From his heart the burning fever. Only once his pace he slackened, Only once he paused or halted, Paused to purchase heads of arrows Of the ancient Arrow-maker, In the land of the Dacotahs, Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, Laugh and leap into the valley. There the ancient Arrow-maker Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, Smoothed and sharpened at the edges, Hard and polished, keen and costly. With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter, Wayward as the Minnehaha30, With her moods of shade and sunshine, Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate, Feet as rapid as the river, Tresses flowing like the water, And as musical a laughter; And he named her from the river, 28

Death Long ago 30 Laughing Water, a water-fall on a stream running into the Mississippi. 29

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From the water-fall he named her, Minnehaha, Laughing Water. Was it then for heads of arrows, Arrow-heads of chalcedony, Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, That my Hiawatha halted In the lands of the Dacotahs? Was it not to see the maiden, See the face of Laughing Water, Peeping from behind the curtain, Hear the rustling of her garments From behind the waving curtain, As one sees the Minnehaha Gleaming, glancing through the branches,

As one hears the Laughing Water From behind its screen of branches? Who shall say what thoughts and visions Fill the fiery brains of young men? Who shall say what dreams of beauty Filled the heart of Hiawatha? All he told to old Nokomis, When he reached the lodge at sunset, Was the meeting with his father, Was his fight with Mudjekeewis; Not a word he said of arrows, Not a word of Laughing Water!

Questions for self control: 1. What traits of an epic poem does The Song possess? 2. Is it reminiscent of some European epics or myths? 3. What artistic devises are used in the poem?

THE ABOLITION LITERATURE At the begging of the 19th century when the movement for the abolition of slavery had begun to spread, more and more writers and poets started writing in defense of the slaves, exposing the horrors of slavery and demanding its abolition. Longfellow was one of its powerful predecessors. The abolition literature was very pathetic in style. It expressed a desperate state of mind. In a way it was a missing link between Romanticism and critical Realism in American literature – these authors mostly used romantic style and imagery, but at the same time they lay the foundation of the American social novel. HARRIET BEECHER-STOWE 1811-1896 Main works: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1865) Text to read and discuss: From Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Chapter XI. In which property gets into an improper state of mind.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN CHAPTER XI, IN WHICH PROPERTY GETS INTO AN IMPROPER STATE OF MIND It was late in a drizzly afternoon that a traveller alighted at the door of a small country hotel, in the village of N-, in Kentucky. In the bar-room he found assembled quite a miscellaneous company, whom stress of weather had driven to harbor, and the place presented the usual scenery of such reunions. Great, tall, raw-boned Ken-

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tuckians, attired in hunting-shirts, and trailing their loose joints over a vast extent of territory, with the easy lounge peculiar to the race, - rifles stacked away in the corner, shot-pouches, game-bags, hunting-dogs, and little Negroes, all rolled together in the corners, - were the characteristic features in the picture. At each end of the fireplace sat a long-legged gentleman, with his chair tipped back, his hat on his head, and the heels of his muddy boots reposing sublimely on the mantelpiece, - a position, we will inform our readers, decidedly favorable to the turn of reflection incident to western taverns, where travellers exhibit a decided preference for this particular mode of elevating their understandings. Mine host, who stood behind the bar, like most of his countrymen, was great of stature, good-natured, and loose-jointed, with an enormous shock of hair on his head, and a great tall hat on the top of that. In fact, everybody in the room bore on his head this characteristic emblem of man's sovereignty; whether it were felt hat, palm-leaf, greasy beaver, or fine new chapeau, there it reposed with true republican independence. In truth, it appeared to be the characteristic mark of every individual. Some wore them tipped rakishly to one side - these were your men of humor, jolly, free-and-easy dogs; some had them jammed independently down over their noses - these were your hard characters, thorough men, who, when they wore their hats, wanted to wear them, and to wear them just as they had a mind to; there were those who had them set far over back wide-awake men, who wanted a clear prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in fact, were quite a Shakespearean study. Divers Negroes, in very free-and-easy pantaloons, and with no redundancy in the shirt line, were scuttling about, hither and thither, without bringing to pass any very particular results, except expressing a generic willingness to turn over everything in creation generally for the benefit of Mas'r and his guests. Add to this picture a jolly, crackling, rollicking fire, going rejoicingly up a great wide chimney, - the outer door and every window being set wide open, and the calico window-curtain flopping and snapping in a good stiff breeze of damp raw air, - and you have an idea of the jollities of a Kentucky tavern. Your Kentuckian of the present day is a good illustration of the doctrine of transmitted instincts and peculiarities. His fathers were mighty hunters, - men who lived in the woods, and slept under the free, open heavens, with the stars to hold their candles; and their descendant to this day always acts as if the house were his camp, - wears his hat at all hours, tumbles himself about, and puts his heels on the tops of chairs or mantelpieces, just as his father rolled on the greensward, and put his upon trees and logs, - keeps all the windows and doors open, winter and summer, that he may get air enough for his great lungs, - calls everybody "stranger", with nonchalant bonhomie, and is altogether the frankest, easiest, most jovial creature living. Into such an assembly of the free and easy our traveller entered. He was a short, thick-set man, carefully dressed, with a round, good-natured countenance, and something rather fussy and particular in his appearance. He was very careful of his valise and umbrella, bringing them in with his own hands, and resisting, pertinaciously, all offers from the various servants to relieve him of them. He looked round the bar-room with rather an anxious air, and, retreating with, his valuables to the warmest corner, disposed them under his chair, sat down, and looked rather apprehensively up at the worthy whose heels illustrated the end of the mantelpiece, who

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was spitting from right to left, with a courage and energy rather alarming to gentlemen of weak nerves and particular habits. "I say, stranger, how are ye?" said the aforesaid gentleman, firing an honorary salute of tobacco-juice in the direction of the new arrival. "Well, I reckon," was the reply of the other, as he dodged, with some alarm, the threatening honor. "Any news?" said the respondent, taking out a strip of tobacco and a large hunting-knife from his pocket "Not that I know of," said the man. "Chaw?" said the first speaker, handing the old gentleman a bit of his tobacco, with a decidedly brotherly air. "No, thank ye - it don't agree with me," said the little man, edging off. "Don't, eh?" said the other, easily, and stowing away the morsel in his own mouth, in order to keep up the supply of tobacco-juice, for the general benefit of society. The old gentleman uniformly gave a little start whenever his long-sided brother fired in his direction; and this being observed by his companion, he very goodnaturedly turned his artillery to another quarter, and proceeded to storm one of the fire-irons with a degree of military talenl fully sufficient to take a city. "What's that?" said the old gentleman, observing some of the company formed in a group around a large handbill. "Nigger advertised?" said one of the company, briefly. Mr. Wilson, for that was the old gentleman's name, rose up, and, after carefully adjusting his valise and umbrella, proceeded deliberately to take out his spectacles and fix them on his nose; and, this operation being performed, read as follows: "Ran away from the subscriber, my mulatto boy, George. Said George six feet in height, a very light mulatto, brown curly hair; is very intelligent, speaks handsomely, can read and write; will probably try to pass for a white man; is deeply scarred on his back and shoulders; has been branded in his right hand with a letter H. "I will give hundred dollars for him alive, and the same sum for satisfactory proof that he has been killed." The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to end, in a low voice, as if he were studying it. The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire-iron, as before related, now took down his cumbrous length, and rearing aloft his tall form, walked up to the advertisement, and very deliberately spit a full discharge of tobacco-juice on it. "There's my mind upon that!" said he, briefly, and sat down again. "Why, now, stranger, what's that for?" said mine host. "I'd do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if he was here," said the long man, coolly resuming his old employment of cutting tobacco. "Any man that owns a boy like that, and can't find any better way o 'treating on him, deserves to lose him. Such papers as these is a shame to Kentucky; that's my mind right out, if anybody wants to know!" "Well, now, that's a fact," said mine host, as he made an entry in his book. [...] "I think you're altogether right, friend," said Mr. Wilson; "and this boy described here is a fine fellow - no mistake about that. He worked for me some half-dozen years in my bagging factory, and he was my best hand, sir. He is an ingenious fellow, too; he invented a machine for the cleaning of hemp - a really valuable affair; it's gone into use in several factories. His master holds the patent of it."

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"I'll warrant ye," said the drover, "holds it and makes money out of it, and then turns round and brands the boy in his right hand. If I had a fair chance, I'd mark him, I reckon, so that he'd carry it one while." "These yer knowin' boys is allers31 aggravatin' and sarcy," said a coarse-looking fellow, from the other side of the room; "that's why they gets cut up and marked so. If they behaved themselves, they wouldn't" "That is to say, the Lord made 'em men, and it's a hard squeeze getting 'em down into beasts," said the drover, dryly. "Bright niggers isn't no kind of 'vantage to their masters," continued the other, well intrenched, in a coarse, unconscious obtuseness, from the contempt of his opponent; "what's the use o' talents and them things, if you can't get the use on 'em yourself? Why, all the use they make on't is to get round you. I've had one or two of these fellers, and I jest sold 'em down river. I knew I'd got to lose 'em, first or last, if I didn't." "Better send orders up to the Lord, to make you a set, and leave out their souls entirely," said the drover. Here the conversation was interrupted by the approach of a small one-horse buggy to the inn. It had a genteel appearance, and a well-dressed gentlemanly man sat on the seat, with a colored servant driving. The whole party examined the new-comer with the interest with which a set of loafers on a rainy day usually examine every new-comer. He was very tall, with a dark, Spanish complexion, fine, expressive black eyes, and close-curling hair, also of a glossy blackness. His well-formed aquiline nose, straight thin lips, and the admirable contour of his finely-formed limbs, impressed the whole company instantly with the idea of something uncommon. He walked easily in among the company and with a nod indicated to his waiter where to place his trunk, bowed to the company, and, with his hat in his hand, walked up leisurely to the bar, and gave in his name as Henry Butler, Oaklands, Shelby County. Turning, with an indifferent air, he sauntered up to the advertisement, and read it over. "Jim," he said to his man, "seems to me we met a boy something like this, up at Bernan's, didn't we?" "Yes, Mas'r," said Jim, "only I an't sure about the hand." "Well, I didn't look, of course," said the stranger, with a careless yawn. Then, walking up to the landlord, he desired him to furnish him with a private apartment, as he had some writing to do immediately. The landlord was all obsequious, and a relay of about seven Negroes, old and young, male and female, little and big, were soon whizzing about, like a covey of partridges, bustling, hurrying, treading on each other's toes, and tumbling over each other, in their zeal to get Mas'r's room ready, while he seated himself easily on a chair in the middle of the room, and entered into conversation with the man who sat next to him. The manufacturer, Mr. Wilson, from the time of the entrance of the stranger, had regarded him with an air of disturbed and uneasy curiosity. He seemed to himself to have met and been acquainted with him somewhere, but he could not recollect. Every few moments, when the man spoke, or moved, or smiled, he would start and fix his eyes on him, and then suddenly withdraw them, as the bright, dark eyes met his with such unconcerned coolness. At last, a sudden recollection seemed to

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Are always

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flash upon him, for he stared at the stranger with such an air of blank amazement and alarm, that he walked up to him. "Mr. Wilson, I think," said he, in a tone of recognition, and extending his hand. "I beg your, pardon, I didn't recollect you before. I, see you remember me, - Mr. Butler, of Oaklands, Shelby County." "Ye - yes - yes, sir," said Mr. Wilson, like one speaking in a dream. Just then a Negro boy entered, and announced that Mas'r's room was ready. "Jim, see to the trunks," said the gentleman, negligently; then addressing himself to Mr. Wilson, he added - "I should like to have a few moments' conversation with you on business, in my room, if you please." Mr. Wilson followed him, as one who walks in his sleep; and they proceeded to a large upper chamber, where a new-made fire was crackling and various servants flying about, putting finishing touches to the arrangements. When all was done, and the servants departed, the young man deliberately locked the door, and putting the key in his pocket, faced about, and folding his arms on his bosom, looked Mr. Wilson full in the face. "George!" said Mr. Wilson. "Yes, George," said the young man. "I couldn't have thought it!" "I am pretty well disguised, I fancy," said the young man, with a smile. "A little walnut bark has made my yellow skin a genteel brown, and I've dyed my hair black; so you see I don't answer to the advertisement at all." "O George! but this is a dangerous game you are playing. I could not have advised you to it." "I can do it on my own responsibility," said George, with the same proud smile. We remark, en passant, that George was, by his father's side, of white descent. His mother was one of those unfortunates of her race, marked out by personal beauty to be the slave of the passions of her possessor, and the mother of children, who may never know a father. From one of the proudest families in Kentucky he had inherited a set of fine European features, and a high, indomitable spirit. From his mother he had received only a slight mulatto tinge, amply compensated by its accompanying rich, dark eye. A slight change in the tint of the skin and the color of his hair had metamorphosed him into the Spanish-looking fellow he then appeared; and as gracefulness of movement and gentlemanly manners had always been perfectly natural to him, he found no difficulty in playing the bold part he had adopted - that of a gentleman travelling with his domestic. Mr. Wilson, a good-natured but extremely fidgety and cautious old gentleman, ambled up and down the room, appearing, as John Bunyan32 hath it, "much tumbled up, and down in his mind", and divided between his wish to help George, and a certain confused notion of maintaining law and order; so, as he shambled about, he delivered himself as follows: "Well, George, I s'pose you're running away - leaving your lawful master, George - (I don't wonder at it) - at the same time, I'm sorry, George, - yes, decidedly I think I must say that, George, - it's my duty to tell you so." "Why are you sorry, sir?" said George, calmly. "Why, to see you, as it were, setting yourself in opposition to the laws of your country." 32

Джон Беньян 91628-88), английский священник и писатель, оказавший влияние на идеологию пуритан.

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"My country!" said George, with a strong and bitter emphasis; "what country have I, but the grave, - and I wish to God that I was laid there!" "Why, George, no- no- it won't do; this way of talking is wicked -unscriptural, George, you've got a hard master - in fact, he is - well he conducts himself reprehensibly - I can't pretend to defend him. But you know how the angel commanded Hagar to return to her mistress, and submit herself under her hand; and the apostle sent back Onesimus to his master." "Don't quote Bible at me in that way, Mr. Wilson," said George, with a flashing eye, "don't! for my wife is a Christian, and I mean to be, if ever I get to where I can; but to quote Bible to a fellow in my circumstances, is enough to make him give it up altogether. I appeal to God Almighty; - I'm willing to go with the case to Him, and ask Him if I do wrong to seek my freedom." "These feelings are quite natural, George," said the good-natured man, blowing his nose. "Yes, they're natural, but it is my duty not to encourage 'em in you. Yes, my boy, I'm sorry for you, now; it's a bad case - very bad; but the apostle says 'Let every one abide in the condition in which he is called.' We must all submit to the indications of Providence, George, - don't you see?" George stood with his head drawn back, his arms folded tightly over his broad breast, and a bitter smile curling his lips. "I wonder, Mr. Wilson, if the Indians should come and take you a prisoner away from your wife and children, and want to keep you all your life hoeing corn for them, if you'd think it your duty to abide in the condition in which you were called. I rather think that you'd think the first stray horse you could find an indication of Providence shouldn't you?" The little old gentleman stared with both eyes at this illustration of the case; but, though not much of a reasoner, he had the sense in which some logicians on this particular subject do not excel, - that of saying nothing, where nothing could be said. So, as he stood carefully stroking his umbrella, and folding and patting down all the creases in it, he proceeded on with his exhortations in a general way. "You see, George, you know, now, I always have stood your friend; and whatever I've said, I've said for your good. Now, here, it seems to me, you're running an awful risk. You can't hope to carry it out. If you're taken, it will be worse with you than ever; they'll only abuse you, and half kill you, and sell you down river." "Mr. Wilson, I know all this," said George. "I do run a risk, but-" he threw open his overcoat, and showed two pistols and a bowie-knife. "There!" he said, "I'm ready for 'em! Down south I never will go. No! if it comes to that, I can earn myself at least six feet of free soil, - the first and last I shall ever own in Kentucky!" "Why, George, this state of mind is awful; it's getting really desperate, George. I'm concerned. Going to break the laws of your country!" "My country again! Mr. Wilson, you have a country; but what country have I, or any one like me, born of slave mothers? What laws are there for us? We don't make them, - we don't consent to them, - we have nothing to do with them; all they do for us is to crush us, and keep us down. Haven't I heard your Fourth-of-July speeches? Don't you tell us all, once a year, that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed? Can't a fellow think, that hears such things? Can't he put this and that together, and see what it comes to?" Mr. Wilson's mind was one of those that may not unaptly be represented by a bale of cotton, - downy, soft, benevolently fuzzy and confused. He really pitied George with all his heart, and had a sort of dim and cloudy perception of the style of

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feeling that agitated him; but he deemed it his duty to go on talking good to him with infinite pertinacity. "George, this is bad. I must tell you, you know, as a friend, you'd better not be meddling with such notions; they are bad, George, very bad, for boys in your condition, - very;" and Mr. Wilson sat down to a table, and began nervously chewing the handle of his umbrella. "See here, now, Mr. Wilson," said George, coming up and sitting himself determinately down in front of him; "look at me, now. Don't I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my face, - look at my hands, - look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly; "why am I not a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father - one of your Kentucky gentlemen - who didn't think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriffs sale, with her seven children. They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place." "Well, then?" "My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She was a pious, good girl, - a member of the Baptist Church, - and as handsome as my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good manners. At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near me. I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a trader's gang, to be sent to market in Orleans, - sent there for nothing else but that, - and that's the last I know of her. Well, I grew up, -long years and years, - no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding, starving. Why, sir, I've been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for. No, sir; it was for my mother and my sisters. - It was because I hadn't a friend to love me on earth. I never knew what peace or comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to me till I came to work in your factory. Mr. Wilson, you treated me well; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for it. Then, sir, I found my wife; you've seen her, - you know how beautiful she is. When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is beautiful. But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him, nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, any more than I have any father. But

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I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone, to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!" This speech, delivered partly while sitting at the table, and partly walking up and down the room, - delivered with tears, and flashing eyes, and despairing gestures, was altogether too much for the good-natured old body to whom it was addressed, who had pulled out a great yellow silk ^pocket-handkerchief, and was mopping up his face with great energy. "Blast 'em all!" he suddenly broke out. "Haven't I always said so -the infernal old cusses! I hope I ain't swearing, now. Well! go ahead, George, go ahead; but be careful, my boy; don't shoot anybody, George, unless - well - you'd better not shoot, I reckon; at least, I wouldn't hit anybody, you know. Where is your wife, George?" he added, as nervously rose, and began walking the room. "Gone, sir, gone, with her child in her arms, the Lord only knows where, - gone after the north star; and when we ever meet, or whether we meet at all in this world, no creature can tell." "Is it possible! astonishing! from such a kind family?" "Kind families get in debt, and the laws of our country allow them to sell the child out of its mother's bosom to pay its master's debts," said George, bitterly. "Well, well," said the honest old man, fumbling in his pocket. "I s'pose, perhaps, I ain't following my judgment, - hang it, I won't follow my judgment!" he added, suddenly; "so here, George," and, taking out a roll of bills from his pocket-book, he offered them to George. "No, my kind, good sir!" said George. "You've done a great deal for me, and this might get you into trouble, I have money enough, I hope, to take me as far as I need it." "No, but you must, George. Money is a great help everywhere; - can't have too much, if you get it honestly. Take it, - do take it, now, - do, my boy!" "On condition, sir, that I may repay it at some future time, I will," said George, taking up the money. "And now, George, how long are you going to travel in this way? - not long or far, I hope. It's well carried on, but too bold. And this black fellow, - who is he?" "A true fellow, who went to Canada more than a year ago. He heard, after he got there, that his master was so angry at him for going off that he had whipped his poor old mother; and he has come all the way back to comfort her, and get a chance to get her away." "Has ge got her?" "Not yet; he has been hanging about the place, and found no chance yet. Meanwhile, he is going with me as far as Ohio, to put me among friends that helped him, and then he will come back after her." "Dangerous, very dangerous!" said the old man. George drew himself up, and smiled disdainfully. The old gentleman eyed him from head to foot, with a sort of innocent wonder. "George, something has brought you out wonderfully. You hold up your head, and speak and move like another man," said Mr. Wilson. "Because I'm a freeman!" said George, proudly. "Yes, sir; I've said Mas'r for the last time to any man. I'm free!" "Take care! You are not sure, - you may be taken."

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"All men are free and equal in the grave, if it comes to that, Mr. Wilson," said George. "I'm perfectly dumfounded with your boldness!" said Mr. Wilson, -"to come right here to the nearest tavern!" "Mr. Wilson, it is so hold, and this tavern is so near, that they will never think of it; they will look for me on ahead, and you yourself wouldn't know me. Jim's master don't live in this county; he isn't known in these parts. Besides, he is given up; nobody is looking after him, and nobody will take me up from the advertisement, I think." "But the mark in your hand?" George drew off his glove, and showed a newly-healed scar in his hand. "That is a parting proof of Mr. Harris' regard," he said, scornfully. "A fortnight ago, he took it into his head to give it to me, because he said he believed I should try to get away one of these days. Looks interesting, doesn't it?" he said, drawing his glove on again. "I declare, my very blood runs cold when I think of it, - your condition and your risks!" said Mr. Wilson. "Mine has run cold a good many years, Mr. Wilson; at present, it's about up to the boiling point," said George. "Well, my good sir," continued George, after a few moments' silence, "I saw you knew me; I thought I'd just have this talk with you, lest your surprised looks should bring me out I leave early to-morrow morning, before daylight; by to-morrow night I hope to sleep safe in Ohio. I shall travel by daylight, stop at the best hotels, go to the dinner-tables with the lords of the land. So, good-bye, sir; if you hear that I'm taken, you may know that I'm dead!" George stood up like a rock, and put out his hand with the air of a prince. The friendly little old man shook it heartily, and after a little shower of caution, he took his umbrella, and fumbled his way out of the room. George stood thoughtfully looking at the door, as the old man closed it. A thought seemed to flash across his mind. He hastily stepped, to it, and opening it, said, "Mr. Wilson, one word more." The old gentleman entered again, and George, as before, locked the door, and then stood for a few moments looking on the floor, irresolutely. At last, raising his head with a sudden effort "Mr. Wilson, you have shown yourself a Christian in your treatment of me, -1 want to ask one last deed of Christian kindness of you." "Well, George?" "Well, sir, - what you said was true. I am running a dreadful risk. There isn't on earth, a living soul to care if I die," he added, drawing his breath hard, and speaking with a great effort, - "I shall be kicked out and buried like a dog, and nobody'll think of it a day after, - only my poor wife! Poor soul! she'll mourn and grieve; and if you'd only contrive, Mr. Wilson, to send this little pin to her. She gave it to me for a Christmas present, poor child! Give it to her, and tell her I loved her to the last Will you? Will you?" he added, earnestly. "Yes, certainly - poor fellow!" said the old gentleman, taking the pin, with watery eyes, and a melancholy quiver in his voice. "Tell her one thing," said George, "it's my last wish, if she can get to Canada, to go there. No matter how kind her mistress is, - no matter how much she loves her home; beg her not to go back, - for slavery always ends in misery. Tell her to bring up

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our boy a free man, and then he won't suffer as I have. Tell her this, Mr. Wilson, will you?" "Yes, George, I'll tell her; but I trust you won't die, take heart, -you're a brave fellow. Trust in the Lord, George. I wish in my heart you were safe through, though, that's what I do." "Is there a God to trust in?" said George, in such a tone of bitter despair as arrested the old gentleman's words." "O, I've seen things all my life that have made me feel that there can't be a God. You Christians don't know how these things look to us. There's a God for you, but is there any for us?" [...] Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Who were abolitionists and what were their means of protest? What does the author suggest by showing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ slave owners? What aspects of the novel are revealed in the chapter? What is the irony of the situation?

WALT WHITMAN 1819-1892 Main works: Leaves of Grass (1855-1892) Democratic Vistas (1871) Autobiographia (1892) Texts to read and discuss From preface to Leaves of Grass From Song of the Open Road Pioneers! O Pioneers!

LEAVES OF GRASS FROM PREFACE TO LEAVES OF GRASS [...] The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night. Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details magnificently moving in vast masses. Here is the hospitality which forever indicates heroes. ...Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves. Here the performance disdaining the trivial unapproached in the tremendous audacity of its crowds and groupings and the push of its perspective spreads with crampless and flowing breadth and showers its prolific and splendid extravagance. One sees it must indeed own the riches of the summer and winter, and need never be bankrupt while corn grows from the ground or the orchards drop apples or the bays contain fish or men beget children upon women. Other states indicate themselves in their deputies ... but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors ... but always most in the common people. Their manners speech dress friendships - the freshness and candor of their physiognomy - the picturesque looseness of their carriage ... their deathless attachment to freedom - their aversion to any-

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thing indecorous or soft or mean - the practical acknowledgment of the citizens of one state by the citizens of all other states - the fierceness of their roused resentment - their curiosity and welcome of novelty - their self-esteem and wonderful sympathy their susceptibility to a slight - the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors the fluency of their speech - their delight in music, the sure symptom of manly tenderness and native elegance of soul ... their good temper an openhandedness - the terrible significance of their elections - the President's taking off his hat to them not they to him - these too are unrhymed poetry. It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it. The largeness of nature or the nation were monstrous without a corresponding largeness and generosity of the spirit of the citizen. Not mature nor swarming states nor streets and steamships nor prosperous business nor farms nor capital nor learning may suffice for the ideal of man ... nor suffice the poet. No reminiscences may suffice either. A live nation can always cut a deep mark and can have the best authority the cheapest... namely from its own soul. This is the sum of the profitable uses of individuals or states and of present action and grandeur and of the subjects of poets. [...] Of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall. Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity. Nothing out of its place is good and nothing in its place is bad. He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land ... he supplies what wants supplying and checks what wants checking. If peace is the routine out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building vast and populous cities, encouraging agriculture and the arts and commerce -lighting the study of man, the soul, immortality - federal, state or municipal government, marriage, health, free trade, intertravel by land and sea ... nothing too close, nothing too far off ... the stars not too far off. In war he is the most deadly force of the war. Who recruits him recruits horse and foot ... he fetches parks of artillery the best that engineer ever knew. If the time becomes slothful and heavy he knows how to arouse it ... he can make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat of custom or obedience or legislation he never stagnates. Obedience does not master him, he masters it. High up out of reach he stands turning a concentrated light ... he turns the pivot with his finger ... he baffles the swiftest runners as he stands and easily overtakes and envelops them. The time straying toward infidelity and confections and persiflage he withholds by his steady faith ... he spreads out his dishes ... he offers the sweet firm-fibred meat that grows men and women. His brain is the ultimate brain. He is no arguer... he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. As he sees the farthest he has the most faith. His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things. In the talk on the soul and eternity and God off of his equal plane he is silent. He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement ... he sees eternity in men and women ... he does not see men and women as dreams or dots. Faith is the antiseptic of the soul ... it pervades the common people and preserves them ... they never give up believing and expecting and trusting. There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius. The poet sees for a certainty how one not a great artist may be just as sacred and perfect as the greatest artist. ...The power to destroy or remold is freely used by

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him but never the power of attack. What is past is past. If he does not expose superior models and prove himself by every step he takes he is not what is wanted. The presence of the greatest poet conquers ... not parleying or struggling any prepared attempts. Now he has passed that way see after him! there is not left any vestige of despair or misanthropy or cunning or exclusiveness or the ignominy of a nativity or color or delusion of hell or the necessity of hell ... and no man thenceforward shall be degraded for ignorance or weakness or sin. The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into any thing that was before thought small it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer ... he is individual ... he is complete in himself ... the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus ... he does not stop for any regulations ... he is the president of regulation. What the eyesight does to the rest he does to the rest. Who knows the curious mystery of the eyesight? The other senses corroborate themselves, but this is removed from any proof but its own and foreruns the identities of the spiritual world. A single glance of it mocks all the investigations of man and all the instruments and books of the earth and all reasoning. What is marvelous? what is unlikely? what is impossible or baseless or vague? after you have once just opened the space of a peach pit and given audience to far and near and to the sunset and had all things enter with electric swiftness softly and duly without confusion or jostling or jam. The land and sea, the animals fishes and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests mountains and rivers, are not small themes ... but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects ... they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls. Men and women perceive the beauty well enough ... probably as well as he. The passionate tenacity of hunters, woodmen, early risers, cultivators of gardens and orchards and fields, the love of healthy women for the manly form, seafaring persons, drivers of horses, the passion for light and the open air, all is an old varied sign of the unfailing perception of beauty and of a residence of the poetic in outdoor people. They can never be assisted by poets to perceive ... some may but they never can. The poetic quality is not marshalled in rhyme or uniformity or abstract addresses to things nor in melancholy complaints or good precepts, but is the life o these and much else and is in the soul. The profit of rhyme is that it drops seeds of a sweeter and more luxuriant rhyme, and of uniformity that it conveys itself into its own roots in the ground out of sight. The rhyme and uniformity of perfect poems show the free growth of metrical laws and bud from them as unerringly and loosely as lilacs or roses on a bush, and take shapes as compact as the shapes of chestnuts and oranges and melons and pears, and shed the perfume impalpable to form. The fluency and ornaments of the finest poems or music or orations or recitations are not independent but dependent. All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain. If the greatnesses are in conjunction in a man or woman it is enough ... the fact will prevail through the universe ... but the gaggery and gilt of 3 million years will not prevail. Who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is lost. [...] The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready plowed and manured ... others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches... and shall master all attachment. [...] Without effort and without exposing in the least how it is done the greatest poet brings the spirit of any or all events and passions and scenes and persons some more and some less to bear on your individual character as you hear or read. To do

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this well is to complete with the laws that pursue and follow time. What is the purpose must surely be there and the clue of it must be there ... and the faintest indication is the indication of the best and then becomes the clearest indication. Past and present and future are not disjoined but joined. The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has been and is. He drags the dead out of their coffins and stands them again on their feet... he says to the past. Rise and walk before me that I may realize you. He learns the lesson ... he places himself where the future becomes present. The greatest poet does not only dazzle his rays over character and scenes and passions ... he finally ascends and finishes all ... he exhibits the pinnacles that no man can tell what they are for or what is beyond ... he glows a moment on the extremes! verge. He is most wonderful in his last half-hidden smile or frown ... by that flash of the moment of parting the one that sees it shall be encouraged or terrified afterwards for many years. The greatest poet does not moralize or make applications of morals ... he knows the soul. The soul has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging any lessons but its own. But it has sympathy as measureless as its pride and the one balances the other and neither can stretch too far while it stretches in company with the other. The inmost secrets of art sleep with the twain. The greatest poet has lain close betwixt both and they are vital in his style and thoughts. The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity ... nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths and give all subjects their articulations are powers neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved it you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations and times. You shall not contemplate the flight of the graygull over the bay or the mettlesome action of the blood horse or the tall leaning of sunflowers on their stalk or the appearance of the sun journeying through heaven or the appearance of the moon afterward with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The greatest poet has less a marked style is more the channel of thoughts and things without increase or diminution and is the free channel of himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate o sooth I will have purposes as health or heat or snow has and be regardless of observation. What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me. The old red blood and stainless gentility of great poets will be proved by their unconstraint. A heroic person walks at his ease through and out of that custom or precedent or authority that suits him not. Of the traits of the brotherhood of writers savants musicians inventors and artists nothing is finer than silent defiance advancing from new free forms. In the need of poems philosophy politics mechanism science behavior, the craft of art, an appropriate native grand opera, shipcraft, or any craft, he is greatest forever and forever who contributes the greatest original practical example. The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one. [...]

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The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for encouraging competitors ... They shall be kosmos ... without monopoly or secrecy ... glad to pass any thing to any one ... hungry for equals night and day. They shall not be careful of riches and privilege ... they shall be riches and privilege ... they shall perceive who the most affluent man is. The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no class of persons nor one or two out of the strata of interests nor love most nor truth most nor the soul most nor the body most ... and not be for the eastern states more than the western or the northern states more than the southern. [...] There will soon be no more priests. Their work is done. They may wait awhile ... perhaps a generation or two ... dropping off by degrees. A superior breed shall take their place ... the gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place. A new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest. The churches built under their umbrage shall be the churches of men and women. Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all events and things. They shall find their inspiration in real objects today, symptoms of the past and future. ...They shall not deign to defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul. They shall arise in America and be responded to form the remainder of the earth. [...] SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good fortune - I myself am good fortune; Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Strong and content, I travel the open road. The earth - that is sufficient; I do not want the constellations any nearer; I know they are very well where they are; I know they suffice for those who belong to them. (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens; I carry them, men and women,-I carry them with me wherever I go; I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them; I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.) 2 You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here; I believe that much unseen is also here. Here the profound lesson of reception, neither preference or denial; The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas'd, the illiterate person, are not denied; The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar's tramp, the drunkard's stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, The escaped youth, the rich person's carriage, the fop, the eloping couple, The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town, They pass - I also pass - anything passes - none can be interdicted; None but are accepted - none but are dear to me.

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3 You air that serves me with breath to speak! You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape! You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! I think you are latent with unseen existences - you are so dear to me. You flagg's walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships! You rows of houses! you window-pierced facades! you roofs! You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! You doors and ascending steps! you arches! You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings! From all that has been near you, I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me; From the living and the dead I think you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. 4 The earth expanding right hand and left hand, The picture alive, every part in its best light, The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted, The cheerful voice of the public road - the gay fresh sentiment of the road. O highway I travel! O public road! do you say to me, Do not leave me? Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost? Do you say, I am already prepared -1 am well-beaten and undenied -adhere to me? O public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you - yet I love you; You express me better than I can express myself; You shall be more to me than my poem. I think heroic deeds were all conceiv'd in the open air, and all great poems also; I think I could stop here myself, and do miracles; (My judgments, thoughts, I henceforth try by the open air, the road;) I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me; I think whoever I see must be happy. From this hour, freedom! From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute, Listening to others, and considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great draughts of space; The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south, are mine. I am larger, better than 1 thought; I did not know I held so mush goodness. All seems beautiful to me; I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.

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I will recruit for myself and you as I go; I will scatter myself among men and women as I go; I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them; Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me. [1856] PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! 1 Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers! 2 For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! 3 O you youths, western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers! 4 Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers! 5 All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers! 6 We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers! 7 We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers! 8 Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers! 9 From Nebraska, from Arkansas,

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Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd; All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers! 10 O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult - I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers! 11 Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all), Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stem, impassive, weapon'd mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers! 12 See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers! 13 On and on, the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill'd, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers! 14 O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd, Pioneers! O pioneers! 15 All the pulses of the world, Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat; Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers! 16 Life's involv'd and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves! Pioneers! O pioneers! 17 All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers! 18 I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers! 19

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Lo! the darting bowling orb! Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets, All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers! 20 These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers! 21 O you daughters of the west! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers! 22 Minstrels latent on the prairies! (Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep - you have done your work;) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers! 23 Not for delectations sweet; Mot the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious; Mot the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers! 24 Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors? Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers! 25 Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O Pioneers! 26 Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the day-break call - hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; Swift! to the head of the army! - swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers! [1865] Questions for self control: What is the message of the preface? What aspects of Whitman’s poetry connect him with Transcendentalism? What are his innovations in poetry? Enlarge on the on the image of the Open Road What is his attitude towards pioneers, how does he treat this theme in his poem? What was his optimism based on?

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CRITICAL REALISM 1861-1863 - the years of the Civil War Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865), was one of the truly great men of all time. He led the United States during the Civil War (1861-1865), which was the greatest crisis in U.S. history. Lincoln helped end slavery in the nation and helped keep the American Union from splitting apart during the war. Lincoln thus believed that he proved to the world that democracy can be a lasting form of government. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, second inaugural address, and many of his other speeches and writings are classic statements of democratic beliefs and goals. Lincoln, a Republican, was the first member of his party to become President. Lincoln was the first U.S. President to be assassinated. The Northern States won the war, slavery was abolished and blacks were officially granted equal rights with whites. It also marked the beginning of rapid development of capitalism in the U.S.A. Mark Twain commented on this process: “ The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured”. All this resulted in the appearance and development of socially oriented literature. MARK TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) 1835-1910 Main works: The Innocents Abroad (1869) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) The Prince and the Pauper (1882) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) Texts to read and discuss: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country; from: The Innocents Abroad

JIM SMILEY AND HIS JUMPING FROG Mr. A. Ward, Dear Sir: – Well, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and I inquired after your friend Leonidas W. Smiley, as you requested me to do, and I hereunto append the result. If you can get any information out of it you are cordially welcome to it. 1 have a lurking suspicion that your Leonidas W.Smiley is a myth - that you never knew such a personage, and that you only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was your design, Mr. Ward, it will gratify you to know that it succeeded. I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the little old dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of

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mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley – Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley – a young minister of the gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him. Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair – and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the quiet, gently-flowing key to which lie turned the initial sentence, lie never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm – but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that so far from his imagining tliat there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once: There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49 – or maybe it was the spring of '50 – I don't recollect exactly, some how, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side, and if lie couldn't he'd change sides – any way that suited the other man would suit him – any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still, he was lucky – uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solitry thing mentioned but what that feller'd offer to bet on it – and take any side you please, as I was just telling you: if there was a horse race, you'd find him flush or you find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first – or if there was a camp-meeting he would be there reglar to bet on parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man; if he even see a straddlebug start to go any wheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up he would toller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him – he would bet on anything – the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick, once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in and Smiley asked him how she was, and he said she was considerable better – thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy – and coming on so smart that with the blessing of Providence she'd get well yet – and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway." Thish-yer Smiley had a mare – the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that – and lie used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and

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spraddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose–and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down. And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he warn't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a different dog – his underjaw'd begin to stick out like the for'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson – which was the name of the pup – Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else – and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up – and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog just by the joint of his hind legs and freeze to it – not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always came out winner on that pup till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he came to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a look as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece, and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius – I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'on, and the way it turned out. Well, this-yer Smiley had rat-terriers and chicken cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day and took him home and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little hunch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut – see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything – and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'1 Webster down here on this floor – Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog – and sing out, "Flies! Dan'l, flies," and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd done any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair-and-square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his

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strong suit, you understand, and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and ben everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever they see. Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller – a stranger in the camp, he was– come across him with his box, and says: "What might it be that you've got in the box?" And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't – it's only just a frog." And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm – so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?" "Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "He's good enough for one thing I should judge – he can out-jump any frog in Calaveras county." The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley and says, very deliberate, "Well – I don't see no points about that frog that's any better'n any other frog." "Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'ein; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county." And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad, like, "Well – I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog – but if I had a frog I'd bet you." And then Smiley says, ""I hat's all right – that's all right – if you'll hold my box a minute I'll go and get you a frog;" and so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait. So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot – filled him pretty near up to his chin – and set him on the floor. Smiley he went out to the swamp and slopped around in the mild for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog and fetched him in and give him to this feller and says: "Now if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "one–two–three–jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders – so – like a Frenchman, but it wasn't no use – he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course. THE INNOCENTS ABROAD Chapter 26 What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a mail's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are walking where none others have walked, that you are beholding what human eye has not seen before, that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To give birth to an idea – to discover a great thought – an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain plow bad gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. To be the first – that is the idea. To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else – these are the things that confer a pleasure compared

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with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Morse, with his first message, brought by his servant, the lightning; Fulton, in that long-drawn century of suspense, when he placed his band upon the throttle valve and lo, the steamboat moved; Jenner, when his patient with the cow's virus in his blood walked through the smallpox hospitals unscathed; Howe, when the idea shot through his brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the eye had been bored through the wrong end of the needle; the nameless lord of art who laid down his chisel in some old age that is forgotten now and gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when he commanded the sun, riding in the zenith, to print the landscape upon his insignificant silvered plate, and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta's shrouds, when he swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed abroad upon an unknown world! These are the men who have really lived – who have actually comprehended what pleasure is – who have crowded long lifetimes of ecstasy into a single moment. What is there in Rome for me to see that others have not seen before me? What is there for me to touch that others have not touched? What is there for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall thrill me before it pass to others? What can I discover? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. One charm of travel dies here. But if I were only a Roman! If, added to my own, I could be gifted with modern Roman sloth, modern Roman superstition, and modern Roman boundlessness of ignorance, what bewildering worlds of unsuspected wonders I would discover! Ah, if I were only a habitant of the Campagna five-and-twenty miles from Rome! Then I would travel. I would go to America and see and learn and return to the Campagna and stand before my countrymen an illustrious discoverer. I would say: "I saw there a country which has no overshadowing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I saw a government, which never was protected by foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required to carry on the government itself. I saw common men and common women who could read; I even saw small children of common country people reading from books; if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they could write also. In the cities I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of chalk and water, but never once saw goats driven through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania Avenue or their Montgomery Street and milked at the doors of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the houses of even the commonest people. Some of the houses are not of stone nor yet of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will take fire and burn sometimes – actually burn entirely down and not leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my deathbed. And as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I swear that they have a thing which they call a fire engine, which vomits forth great streams of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. You would think one engine would be sufficient, but some great cities have a hundred; they keep men hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing but put out fires. For a certain sum of money other men will insure that your house shall not burn down; and if it burns they will pay you for it. There are hundreds and thousands of schools and anybody may go and learn to be wise, like a priest. In that singular country if a rich man dies a sinner, he is damned; he cannot buy salvation with money for masses. There is really not much use in being rich there. Not much use as-far as the other world is concerned, but much, very much use, as concerns this; because there, if a man be rich he is very greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a governor, a general, a senator, no matter how ignorant an ass he is – just as in our beloved Italy the nobles hold all the great places, even though sometimes they are born noble

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idiots. There, if a man be rich they give him costly presents, they ask him to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated beverages; but if he be poor and in debt, they require him to do that which they term to 'settle.' The women put on a different dress almost every day; the dress is usually fine, but absurd in shape; the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a hundred years; and did I but covet to be called an extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed even oftener. Hair does not grow upon the American women's heads; it is made for them by cunning workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled into scandalous and ungodly forms. Some persons wear eyes of glass which they see through with facility perhaps, else they would not use them; and in the mouths of some are teeth made by the sacrilegious hand of man. The dress of the men is laughably grotesque. They carry no musket in ordinary life, nor no long-pointed pole; they wear no wide green-lined cloak; they wear no peaked black felt hat, no leathern gaiters reaching to the knee, no goatskin breeches with the hair side out, no hobnailed shoes, no prodigious spurs. They wear a conical hat termed a 'nail-kag'; a coat of saddest black; a shirt which shows dirt so easily that it has to be changed every month, and is very troublesome; things called pantaloons, which are held up by shoulder straps, and on their feet they wear boots which are ridiculous in pattern and can stand no wear. Yet dressed in this fantastic garb, these people laughed at my costume. In that country, books are so common that it is really no curiosity to see one. Newspapers also. They have a great machine which prints such things by thousands every hour. "I saw common men there–men who were neither priests nor princes – who yet absolutely owned the land they tilled; It was not rented from the Church nor from the nobles. I am ready to take my oath of this. In that country you might fall from a thirdstory window three several times, and not mash either a soldier or a priest. The scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities you will see a dozen civilians for every soldier, and as many for every priest or preacher. Jews there are treated, just like human beings, instead of dogs. They can work at any business they please; they can sell brand-new goods if they want to; they can keep drugstores; they can practice medicine among Christians; they can even shake hands with Christians if they choose; they can associate with them just the same as one human being does with another human being; they don't have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns; they can live in any part of a town they like best; it is said they even have the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves, though I doubt that, myself; they never have had to run races naked through the public streets, against jackasses to please the people in carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very day in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public street and express his opinion of the government if the government don't suit him! Ah, it is wonderful. The common people there know a great deal; they even have the effrontery to complain if they are not properly governed, and to take hold and help conduct the government themselves, if they had laws like ours, which give one dollar of every three a crop produces to the government for taxes, they would have that law altered; instead of paying thirty-three dollars in taxes out of every one hundred they receive, they complain if they have to pay seven. They are curious people. They do not know when they are well off. Mendicant priests do not prowl among them with baskets begging for the Church and eating up their substance. One hardly ever sees a minister of the gospel going around there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for subsistence. In that country the preachers are not like our mendicant orders of friars –

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they have two or three suits of clothing, and they wash sometimes. In that land are mountains far higher than the Alban Mountains; the vast Roman Campagna, a hundred miles long and full forty broad, is really small compared to the United Slates of America; the Tiber, that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its mighty course almost two hundred miles, and which a lad can scarcely threw a stone across at Rome, is not so long nor yet so wide as the American Mississippi – nor yet the Ohio nor even the Hudson. In America the people are absolutely wiser and know mush more than their grandfathers did. They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet with a three-cornered block of wood that merely scratches the top of the ground. We do that because our fathers did three thousand years ago, I suppose. But those people have no holy reverence for their ancestors. They plow with a plow that is a sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts into the earth full five inches. And this is not all. They cut their grain with a horrid machine that mows down whole fields in a day. If I dared, I would say that sometimes they use a blasphemous plow that works by fire and vapor and tears up an acre of ground in a single hour – but – but – I see by your looks that you do not believe the things I am telling you. Alas, my character is ruined, and I am a branded speaker of untruths!" Of course we have been to the monster Church of St. Peter frequently. I knew its dimensions. I knew it was a prodigious structure. I knew it was just about the length of the Capitol at Washington say seven hundred and thirty feet. I knew it was three hundred and sixty-four feet wide, and consequently wider than the Capitol. I knew that the cross on the top of the dome of the church was four hundred and thirtyeight feet above the ground, and therefore about a hundred or maybe a hundred and twenty-five feet higher than the dome of the Capitol. Thus I had one gauge. I wished to come as near forming a correct idea of how it was going to look as possible; I had a curiosity to see how much I would err. I erred considerably. St. Peter's did not look nearly so large as the Capitol, and certainly not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the outside. When we reached the door and stood fairly within the church, it was impossible to comprehend that it was a very large building. I had to cipher a comprehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for some more similes. St. Peter's is bulky. Its height and size would represent two of the Washington Capitol set one on top of the other – if the Capitol were wider; or two blocks or two blocks and a half of ordinary buildings set one on top of the other. St. Peter's was that large, but it could and would not look so. The trouble was that everything in it and about it was on such a scale of uniform vastness that there were no contrasts to judge by – none but the people and I had not noticed them. They were insects. The statues of children holding vases of holy water were immense, according to the tables of figures, but so was everything else around them. The mosaic pictures in the dome were huge, and were made of thousands and thousands of cubes of glass as large as the end of my little finger, but those pictures looked smooth, and gaudy of color, and in good proportion to the dome. Evidently they would not answer to measure by. Away down toward the far end of the church (I thought it was really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward that it was in the center, under the dome) stood the thing they call the baldachino – a great bronze pyramidal framework like that which upholds a mosquito bar. It only looked like a considerably magnified bedstead – nothing more. Yet I knew it was a good deal more than half as high as Niagara Falls. It was overshadowed by a dome so mighty that its own height was snubbed. The four great square piers or pillars that stand equidistant from each other in the church and support the roof, I could not work up to their real dimensions by any method of comparison. I knew that the

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faces of each were about the width of a very large dwelling house front (fifty or sixty feet) and that they were twice as high as an ordinary three-story dwelling, but still they looked small. I tried all the different ways I could think of to compel myself to understand how large St. Peter's was, but with small success. The mosaic portrait of an Apostle who was writing with a pen six feet long seemed only an ordinary Apostle. But the people attracted my attention after a while. To stand in the door of St. Peter's and look at men down toward its further extremity, two blocks away, has a diminishing effect on them; surrounded by the prodigious pictures and statues, and lost in the vast spaces, they look very much smaller than they would if they stood two blocks away in the open air. I "averaged" a man as he passed me and watched him as he drifted far down by the baldachino and beyond – watched him dwindle to an insignificant schoolboy, and then, in the midst of the silent throng of human pygmies gliding about him, I lost him. The church had lately been decorated, on the occasion of a great ceremony in honor of St. Peter, and men were engaged now in removing the flowers and gilt paper from the walls and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great heights, the men swung themselves down from balustrades and the capitals of pilasters by ropes to do this work. The upper gallery, which encircles the inner sweep of the dome, is two hundred and forty feet above the floor of the church – very few steeples in America could reach up to it. Visitors always go up there to look down into the church because one gets the best idea of some of the heights and distances from that point. While we stood on the floor one of the workmen swung loose from that gallery at the end of a long rope. I had not supposed before that a man could look so much like a spider. He was insignificant in size, and his rope seemed only a thread. Seeing that he took up so little space, I could believe the story then that ten thousand troops went to St. Peter's once to hear mass, and the Commanding officer came afterward and, not finding them, supposed they had not yet arrived. But they were in the church, nevertheless – they were in one of the transepts. Nearly fifty thousand persons assembled in St. Peter's to hear the publishing of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It is estimated that the floor of the church affords standing room for – for a large number of people; I have forgotten the exact figures. But it is no matter – it is near enough. They have twelve small pillars in St. Peter's, which came from Solomon's Temple. They have also – which was far more interesting to me – a piece of the true Cross, and some nails, and a part of the crown of thorns. Of course we ascended to the summit of the dome, and of course we also went up into the gilt copper ball which is above it. There was room there for a dozen persons, with a little crowding, and it was as close and hot as an oven. Some of those people who are so fond of writing their names in prominent places had been there before us – a million or two, I should think. From the dome of St. Peter's one can see every notable object in Rome, from the Castle of St. Angelo to the Coliseum. He can discern the seven hills upon which Rome is built. He can see the Tiber, and the locality of the bridge which Horatius kept "in the brave days of old" when Lars Porsena attempted to cross it with his invading host. He can see the spot where the Horatius and the Curatii fought their famous battle. He can see the broad green Campagna, stretching away toward the mountains, with its scattered arches and broken aqueducts of the olden time, so picturesque in their gray ruin, and so daintily festooned with vines. He can see the Alban Mountains, the Apennines, the Sabine Hills, and the blue Mediterranean. He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. About his feet is spread the remnant of a city that once had a population of four million souls; and among its

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massed edifices stand the ruins of temples, columns, and triumphal arches that knew the Caesars and the noonday of Roman splendor; and close by them, in unimpaired strength, is a drain of arched and heavy masonry that belonged to that older city which stood here before Romulus and Remus were born or Rome thought of. The Appian Way is here yet, and looking much as it did, perhaps, when the triumphal processions of the emperors moved over it in other days bringing fettered princes from the confines of the earth. We cannot see the long array of chariots and mail-clad men laden with the spoils of conquest, but we can imagine the pageant, after a fashion. We look out upon many objects of interest from the dome of St. Peter's; and last of all, almost at our feet, our eyes rest upon the building, which was once the Inquisition. How times changed between the older ages and the new! Some seventeen or eighteen centuries ago the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder and turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as well. It was to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But when the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways by no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition and pointed to the Blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him – first by twisting their thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers – redhot ones, because they are the most comfortable in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little; and finally by roasting them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more. I prefer not to describe St. Peter's. It has been done before. The ashes of Peter, the disciple of the Saviour, repose in a crypt under the baldachino. We stood reverently in that place; so did we also in the Mamertine Prison, where he was confined, where he converted the soldiers, and where tradition says he caused a spring of water to flow in order that he might baptize them. But when they showed us the print of Peter's face in the hard stone of the prison wall and said he made that by falling up against it, we doubted. And when, also, the monk at the Church of San Sebastian showed us a paving stone with two great footprints in it and said that Peter's feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such things do not impress one. The monk said that angels came and liberated Peter from prison by night, and he started away from Rome by the Appian Way. The Saviour met him and told him to go back, which he did. Peter left those footprints in the stone upon which he stood at the time. It was not stated how it was ever discovered whose footprints they were, seeing the Interview occurred secretly and at night. The print of the face in the prison was that of a man of common size; the footprints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. The discrepancy confirmed our unbelief. We necessarily visited the Forum, where Caesar was assassinated, and also, the Tarpeian Rock. We saw the Dying Gladiator at the Capitol, and I think that even we appreciated that wonder of art, as much perhaps as we did that fearful story wrought in marble in the Vatican – the Laocoon. And then the Coliseum.

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Everybody knows the picture of the Coliseum; everybody recognizes at once that "looped and windowed" bandbox with a side bitten out. Being rather isolated, it shows to better advantage than any other of the monuments of ancient Rome. Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose pagan altars uphold the cross now, and whose Venus, tricked out in consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty as a Virgin Mary today, is built about with shabby houses and its stateliness sadly marred. But the monarch of all European ruins, the Coliseum, maintains that reserve and that royal seclusion which is proper to majesty. Weeds and flowers spring from its massy arches and its circling seats, and vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An impressive silence broods over the monstrous structure where such multitudes of men and women were wont to assemble in other days. The butterflies have taken the places of the queens of fashion and beauty of eighteen centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred seat of the emperor. More vividly than all the written histories, the Coliseum tells the story of Rome's grandeur and Rome's decay. It is the worthiest type of both that exists. Moving about the Rome of today, we might find it hard to believe in her old magnificence and her millions of population; but with this stubborn evidence before us that she was obliged to have a theater with sitting room for eighty thousand persons and standing room for twenty thousand more, to accommodate such of her citizens as required amusement, we find belief less difficult. The Coliseum is over one thousand six hundred feet long, seven hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and sixty-five high. Its shape is oval. In America we make convicts useful at the same time that we punish them for their crimes. We farm them out and compel them to earn money for the State by making barrels and building roads. Thus we combine business with retribution, and all things are lovely. But in ancient Rome they combined religious duty with pleasure. Since it was necessary that the new sect called Christians should be exterminated, the people judged it wise to make this work profitable to the State at the same time, and entertaining to the public. In addition to the gladiatorial combats and other shows, they sometimes threw members of the bated sect into the arena of the Coliseum and turned wild beasts in upon them. It is estimated that seventy thousand Christians suffered martyrdom in this place. This has made the Coliseum holy ground in the eyes of the followers of the Saviour. And well it might; for if the chain that bound a saint and the footprints a saint has left upon a stone he chanced to stand upon be holy, surely the spot where a man gave up his life for his faith is holy. Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum was the theater of Rome and Rome was mistress of the world. Splendid pageants were exhibited here, in presence of the emperor, the great ministers of State, the nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of smaller consequence. Gladiators fought with gladiators and at times with warrior prisoners from many distant land. It was the theatre of Rome – of the world – and the man of fashion who could not let fall in a casual and unintentional manner something about "my private box at the Coliseum" could not move in the first circles. When the clothing-store merchant wished to consume the corner grocery man with envy, he bought secured seals in the front row and let the thing be known. When the irresistible dry-goods clerk wished to blight and destroy, according to his native instinct, he got himself up regardless of expense and took some other fellow's young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the affront by cramming her with ice cream between the acts or by approaching the cage and stirring up the martyrs with his whalebone cane for her edification. The Roman swell was in his true element only when he stood up against a pillar and fingered his moustache unconscious of the ladies; when he viewed the bloody combats through an opera glass two inches long;

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when he excited the envy of provincials by criticisms which showed that he had been to the Coliseum many and many a time and was long ago over the novelty of it; when he turned away with a yawn at last and said: "He a star! Handles his sword like an apprentice brigand! He'll do for the country maybe, but he don't answer for the metropolis!" Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit at the Saturday matinee, and happy the Roman street boy who ate his peanuts and guyed the gladiators from the dizzy gallery. For me was reserved the high honor of discovering among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the only playbill of that establishment now extant. There was a suggestive smell of mint drops about it still, a corner of it had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, in choice Latin, these words were written in a delicate female hand: Meet me on the Tarpeian Rock tomorrow evening, dear, at sharp seven. Mother will be absent on a visit to her friends in the Sabine Hills. Claudia. Ah, where is that lucky youth today, and where the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust and ashes these seventeen hundred years! Thus reads the bill: ROMAN COLISEUM UNPARALLELED ATTRACTIONI NEW PROPERTIES! NEW LIONS! NEW GLADIATORS! Engagement of the renowned MARCUS MARCELLUS VALERIAN! FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY! The management beg leave to offer to the public an entertainment surpassing in magnificence anything that has heretofore been attempted on any stage. No expense has been spared to make the opening season one which shall be worthy the generous patronage which the management feel sure will crown their efforts. The management beg leave to state that they have succeeded in securing the services of a GALAXY OF TALENT! such as has not been beheld in Rome before. The performance will commence this evening with a GRAND BROADSWORD COMBAT! between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the Camp of Verus. This will be followed by a grand moral BATTLE-AX ENGAGEMENT! between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him) and two gigantic savages from Britain. After which the renowned Valerian (if he survives) will fight with the broadsword LEFT-HANDED! against six sophomores and a freshman from the Gladiatorial College! A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the finest talent of the empire will take part. After which the celebrated Infant Prodigy, known as "THE YOUNG ACHILLES," will engage four tiger whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon than his little spear! The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant

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GENERAL SLAUGHTER! in which thirteen African lions and twenty-two barbarian prisoners will war with each other until all are exterminated. BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN Dress Circle One Dollar; Children and Servants half price. An efficient police force will be on hand to preserve order and keep the wild beasts from leaping the railings and discommoding the audience. Doors open at 7; performance begins at 8. Positively No Free List Diodorus Job Press It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was also so fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the arena a stained and mutilated copy of the Roman Daily Battle-Ax, containing a critique upon this very performance. It comes to hand too late by many centuries to rank as news, and therefore I translate and publish it simply to show how very little the general style and phraseology of dramatic criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged their slow length along since the carriers laid tills one damp and fresh before their Roman patrons: The Opening Season. Coliseum. Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon metropolitan boards of the young tragedian who has of late been winning such golden opinions in the amphitheaters of the provinces. Some sixty thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the streets were almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the house would have been full. His august Majesty, the Emperor Aurelius occupied the imperial box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many illustrious nobles and generals of the empire graced the occasion with their presence, and not the least among them was the young patrician lieutenant whose laurels, won in the ranks of the “Thundering Legion”, are still so green upon his brow. The cheer, which greeted his entrance was heard beyond the Tiber! The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and the comfort of the Coliseum. The new cushions are a great improvement upon the hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. The present management deserve well of the public. They have restored to the Coliseum the gilding, the rich upholstery, and the uniform magnificence which old Coliseum frequenters tell us Rome was so proud of fifty years ago. The opening scene last night – the broadsword combat between two young amateurs and a famous Parthian gladiator who was sent here a prisoner – was very fine. The elder of the two young gentlemen handled his weapon with a grace that marked the possession of extraordinary talent. His feint of thrusting, followed instantly by a happily delivered blow which unhelmeted the Parthian, was received with hearty applause. He was not thoroughly up in the backhanded stroke, but it was very gratifying to his numerous friends to know that, in time, practice would have overcome this defect. However, he was killed. His sisters, who were present, expressed considerable regret. His mother left the Coliseum. The other youth maintained the contest with such spirit as to call forth enthusiastic bursts of applause. When at last he fell a corpse, his aged mother ran screaming, with hair disheveled and tears streaming from her eyes, and swooned away just as her hands were clutching at the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by the police. Under the circumstances, the woman's conduct was pardonable, perhaps, but we suggest that such exhibitions interfere with the decorum which should be preserved during the performances, and are highly improper in the presence of the Emperor. The Parthian pris-

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oner fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he was fighting for both life and liberty. His wife and children were there to nerve his arm with their love, and to remind him of the old home he should see again if he conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped her children to her breast and wept for joy. But it was only a transient happiness. The captive staggered toward her and she saw that the liberty he had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto death. Thus the first act closed in a manner which was entirely satisfactory. The manager was called before the curtain and returned his thanks for the honor done him, in a speech which was replete with wit and humor, and closed by hoping that his humble efforts to afford cheerful and instructive entertainment would continue to meet with the approbation of the Roman public. The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applause and the simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus Marcellus Valerian (stage name – his real name is Smith) is a splendid specimen of physical development and an artist of rare merit. His management of the battle-ax is wonderful. His gaiety and his playfulness are irresistible in his comic parts, and yet they are inferior to his sublime conceptions in the grave realm of tragedy. When his ax was describing fiery circles about the heads of the bewildered barbarians, in exact time with his springing body and his prancing legs, the audience gave way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter; but when the back of his weapon broke, the skull of one and almost in the same instant its edge clove the other's body in twain, the howl of enthusiastic applause that shook the building was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage that he was a muster of the noblest department of his profession. If he has a fault (and we are sorry to even intimate that he has), it is that of glancing at the audience in the midst of the most exciting moments of the performance, as if seeking admiration. The pausing in a fight to bow when bouquets are thrown to him is also in bad taste. In the great left-handed combat he appeared to be looking at the audience half the time instead of carving his adversaries; and when he had slain all the sophomores and was dallying with the freshman, he stooped and snatched a bouquet as it fell, and offered it to his adversary at a time when a blow was descending which promised favorably to be his death warrant. Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we make no doubt, but it ill suits the dignity of the metropolis. We trust our young friend will take these remarks in good part, for we mean them solely for his benefit. All who know us are aware that although we are at times justly severe upon tigers and martyrs, we never intentionally offend gladiators. The Infant Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his four tiger whelps with ease, and with no other hurt than the loss of a portion of his scalp. The General Slaughter was rendered with a faithfulness to details which reflects the highest credit upon the late participants in it. Upon the whole, last night's performances shed honor not only upon the management but upon the city that encourages and sustains such wholesome and instructive entertainments. We would simply suggest that the practice of vulgar young boys in the gallery of shying peanuts and paper pellets at the tigers, and saying "Hiyi!" and manifesting approbation or dissatisfaction by such observations as "Bully for the lion!" "Go it, Gladdy!" "Boots!" "Speech!" "Take a walk round the block!" and so on, are extremely reprehensible when the Emperor is present, and ought to be stopped by the police. Several times last night, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the bodies, the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, "Supe! Supe!" and also, "Oh, what a coat!" and "Why don't you pad them shanks?" and

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made use of various other remarks expressive of derision. These things are very annoying to the audience. A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon on which occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The regular performance will continue every night till further notice. Material change of program every evening. Benefit of Valerian, Tuesday, 29th, if he lives. I have been a dramatic critic myself, in my time, and I was often surprised to notice how much more I knew about Hamlet than Forrest did; and it gratifies me to observe now how much better my brethren of. Ancient times knew how a broadsword battle ought to be fought than the gladiators. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

What is the plot structure and narrative method in The Jumping Frog? What is the importance of the narrator? How does the story reflect national peculiarities? What is the main principle Innocents Abroad are based on? What is the main artistic device to create humorous effect used by the author? How is Twain’s optimism revealed in the chapters? Give examples.

AMBROSE BIERCE 1842-1914 Main works: The Fiend’s Delight (1873) In the Midst of Life (1892) Can Such Things Be? (1893) Fantastic Fables (1899) The Devil’s Dictionary (1906) Write It Right (1909) Text to read and discuss: A Horseman in the Sky

A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY I One sunny afternoon in the autumn of the year 1861 a soldier lay in a clump of laurel by the side of a road in western Virginia. He lay at full length upon his stomach, his feet resting upon the toes, his head upon the left forearm. His extended right hand loosely grasped his rifle. But for the somewhat methodical disposition of his limbs and a slight rhythmic movement of the cartridge box at the back of his belt he might have been thought to be dead. He was asleep at his post of duty. But if detected he would be dead shortly after-ward, death being the just and legal penalty of his crime. The clump of laurel in which the criminal lay was in the angle of a road which after ascending southward a steep acclivity to that point turned sharply to the west, running along the summit for perhaps one hundred yards. There it turned southward again and went zigzagging downward through the forest. At the salient of that second angle was a large flat rock, jutting out northward, overlooking the deep valley from which the road ascended. The rock capped a high cliff; a stone dropped from its outer edge would have fallen sheer downward one thousand feet to the tops of the pines. The angle where the soldier lay was on another spur of the same cliff. Had he been awake he would have commanded a view, not only of the short arm of the road

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and the jutting rock, but of the entire profile of the cliff below it. It might well have made him giddy to look. The country was wooded everywhere except at the bottom of the valley to the northward, where there was a small natural meadow, through which flowed a stream scarcely visible from the valley's rim. This open ground looked hardly larger than an ordinary dooryard, but was really several acres in extent. Its green was more vivid than that of the enclosing forest. Away beyond it rose a line of giant cliffs similar to those upon which we are supposed to stand in our survey of the savage scene, and through which the road had somehow made its climb to the summit. The configuration of the valley, indeed, was such that from this point of observation it seemed entirely shut in, and one could but have wondered how the road which found a way out of it had found a way into it, and whence came and whither went the waters of the stream that parted the meadow more than a thousand feet below. No country is so wild and difficult but men will make it a theater of war; concealed in the forest at the bottom of that military rat-trap, in which half a hundred men in possession of the exists might have starved an army to submission, lay five regiments of Federal infantry. They had marched all the previous day and night, and were resting. At nightfall they would take to the road again, climb to the place where their unfaithful sentinel now slept, and descending the other slope of the ridge fall upon a camp of the enemy at about midnight. Their hope was to surprise it, for the road led to the rear of it. In case of failure, their position would be perilous in the extreme; and fail they surely would should accident or vigilance apprise the enemy of the movement. II The sleeping sentinel in the clump of laurel was a young Virginian named Carter Druse. He was the son of wealthy parents, an only child, and had known such ease and cultivation and high living as wealth and taste were able to command in the mountain country of western Virginia. His home was but a few miles from where he now lay. One morning he had risen from the breakfast table and said, quietly but gravely, "Father, a Union regiment has arrived at Grafton. I am going to join it." The father lifted his leonine head, looked at the son a moment in silence, and replied, "Well, go, sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which you are a traitor, must get on without you. Should we both live to the end of the war, we will speak further of the matter. Your mother, as the physician has informed you, is in a most critical condition; at the best she cannot be with us longer than a few weeks, but that time is precious. It would be better not to disturb her." So Carter Druse, bowing reverently to his father, who returned the salute with a stately courtesy that masked a breaking heart, left the home of his childhood to go soldiering. By conscience and courage, by deeds of devotion and daring, he soon commended himself to his fellows and his officers; and it was to these qualities and to some knowledge of the country that he owed his selection for his present perilous duty at the extreme outpost. Nevertheless, fatigue had been stronger than resolution, and he had fallen asleep. What good or bad angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall say? Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness—whispered into the ear of his spirit the mysterious awakening word which no human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled. He quietly raised his forehead from his

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arm and looked between the masking stems of the laurels, instinctively closing his right hand about the stock of his rifle. His first feeling was a keen artistic delight. On a colossal pedestal, the cliff — motionless at the extreme edge of the capping rock and sharply outlined against the sky — was an equestrian statue of impressive dignity. The figure of the man sat the figure of the horse, straight and soldierly, but with the repose of a Grecian god carved in the marble -which limits the suggestion of activity. The gray costume harmonized with its aerial background; the metal of accouterment and caparison was softened and subdued by the shadow; the animal's skin had no points of highlight. A carbine strikingly foreshortened lay across the pommel of the saddle, kept in place by the right hand grasping it at the "grip"; the left hand, holding the bridle rein, was invisible. In silhouette against the sky the profile of the horse was cut with the sharpness of a cameo; it looked across the heights of air to the confronting cliffs beyond. The face of the rider, turned slightly away, showed only an outline of temple and beard; he was looking downward to the bottom of the valley. Magnified by its lift against the sky and by the soldier's testifying sense of the formidableness of a near enemy, the group appeared of heroic, almost colossal, size. For an instant Druse had a strange, half-defined feeling that he had slept to the end of the war and was looking upon a noble work of art reared upon that eminence to commemorate the deeds of a heroic past of which he had been an inglorious part. The feeling was dispelled by a slight movement of the group: the horse, without moving its feet, had drawn its body slightly backward from the verge; the man remained immobile as before. Broad awake and keenly alive to the significance of the situation, Druse now brought the butt of his rifle against his cheek by cautiously pushing the barrel forward through the bushes, cocked the piece, and glancing through the sights covered a vital spot of the horseman's breast. A touch upon the trigger and all would have been well with Carter Druse. At that instant the horseman turned his head and looked in the direction of his concealed foeman — seemed to look into his very face, into his eyes, into his brave, compassionate heart. Is it then so terrible to kill an enemy in war — an enemy who has surprised a secret vital to the safety of one's self and comrades — an enemy more formidable for his knowledge than all his army for its numbers? Carter Druse grew pale; he shook in every limb, turned faint, and saw the statuesque group before him as black figures, rising, falling, moving unsteadily in arcs of circles in a fiery sky. His hand fell away from his weapon, his head slowly dropped until his face rested on the leaves in which he lay. This courageous gentleman and hardy soldier was near swooning from intensity of emotion. It was not for long; in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush — without warning, without a moment's spiritual preparation, with never so much as an unspoken prayer, he must be sent to his account. But no — there is a hope; he may have discovered nothing — perhaps he is but admiring the sublimity of the landscape. If permitted, he may turn and ride carelessly away in the direction whence he came. Surely it will be possible to judge at the instant of his withdrawing whether he knows. It may well be that his fixity of attention — Druse turned his head and looked through the deeps of air downward, as from the surface to the bottom of a translucent sea. He saw creeping across the green meadow a sinuous line of figures of men and

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horses — some foolish commander was permitting the soldiers of his escort to water their beasts in the open, in plain view from a dozen summits! Druse withdrew his eyes from the valley and fixed them again upon the group of man and horse in the sky, and again it was through the sights of his rifle. ' But this time his aim was at the horse. In his memory, as if they were a divine mandate, rang the words of his father at their parting: "Whatever may occur, do what you conceive to be your duty." He was calm now. His teeth were firmly but not rigidly closed; his nerves were as tranquil as a sleeping babe's — not a tremor affected any muscle of his body; his breathing, until suspended in the act of taking aim, was regular and slow. Duty had conquered; the spirit had said to the body: "Peace, be still." He fired. III An officer of the Federal force, who in a spirit of adventure or in quest of knowledge had left the hidden bivouac in the valley, and with aimless feet had made his way to the lower edge of a small open space near the foot of the cliff, was considering what he had to gain by pushing his exploration further. At a distance of a quartermile before him, but apparently at a stone's throw, rose from its fringe of pines the gigantic face of rock, towering to so great a height above him that it made him giddy to look up to where its edge cut a sharp, rugged line against the sky. It presented a clean, vertical profile against a background of blue sky to a point half the way down, and of distant hills, hardly less blue, thence to the tops of the trees at its base. Lifting his eyes to the dizzy altitude of its summit the officer saw an astonishing sight — a man on horseback riding down into the valley through the air! Straight upright sat the rider, in military fashion, with a firm seat in the saddle, a strong clutch upon the rein to hold his charger from too impetuous a plunge. From his bare head his long hair streamed upward, waving like a plume. His hands were concealed in the cloud of the horse's lifted mane. The animal's body was as level as if every hoof-stroke encountered the resistant earth. Its motions were those of a wild gallop, but even as the officer looked they ceased, with all the legs thrown sharply forward as in the act of alighting from a leap. But this was a flight! Filled with amazement and terror by this apparition of a horseman in the sky — half believing himself the chosen scribe of some new Apocalypse, the officer was overcome by the intensity of his emotions; his legs failed him and he fell. Almost at the same instant he heard a crashing sound in the trees — a sound that died without an echo — and all was still. The officer rose to his feet, trembling. The familiar sensation of an abraded shin recalled his dazed faculties. Pulling himself together he ran rapidly obliquely away from the cliff to a point distant from its foot; thereabout he expected to find his man; and thereabout he naturally failed. In the fleeting instant of his vision his imagination had been so wrought upon by the apparent grace and ease and intention of the marvelous performance that it did not occur to him that the line of march of aerial cavalry is directly downward, and that he could find the objects of his search at the very foot of the cliff. A half-hour later he returned to camp. This officer was a wise man; he knew better than to tell an incredible truth. He said nothing of what he had seen. But when the commander asked him if in his scout he had learned anything of advantage to the expedition he answered: "Yes, sir. There is no road leading down into this valley from the southward." The commander, knowing better, smiled.

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IV After firing his shot, Private Carter Druse reloaded his rifle and resumed his watch. Ten minutes had hardly passed when a Federal sergeant crept cautiously to him on hands and knees. Druse neither turned his head nor looked at him, but lay without motion or sign of recognition. "Did you fire?" the sergeant whispered. "Yes." "At what?" "A horse. It was standing on yonder rock — pretty far out. You see it is no longer there. It went over the cliff." The man's face was white, but he showed no other sign of emotion. Having answered, he turned away his eyes and said no more. The sergeant did not understand. "See here, Druse," he said, after a moment's silence, "it's no use making a mystery. I order you to report. Was there anybody on the horse?" "Yes." "Well?" "My father." The sergeant rose to his feet and walked away. "Good God!" he said. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How is the atmosphere was the story created? What are the means of psychological portrayal? What is Bierce’s approach to war? What traditions of American literature can be traced in the story?

HENRY JAMES 1843-1916 Main works: Roderic Hudson (1875) Daisy Miller (1878) Washington Square (1880) The Portrait of s Lady (1881) The Bostonians (1886) The Tragic Muse (1890) The Wings of the Dove (1902) The Golden Bowl (1904) Text to read and discuss: Daisy Miller

DAISY MILLER At the little town of Vevey, in Switzerland, there is a particularly comfortable hotel. There are, indeed, many hotels; foe the entertainment of tourists is the business of the place, which, as many travellers will remember, is seated upon the edge of a remarkably blue lake - a lake that it behoves every tourist to visit. The shore of the lake presents an unbroken array of establishments of this order, of every category, from the ‘grand hotel’ of the newest fashion, with a chalk-white front, a hundred balconies, and a dozen flags flying from its roof to the little Swiss pension of an elder day, with its name inscribed in German-looking lettering upon a pink or yellow wall,

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and an awkward summer-house in the angle of the garden. One of the hotels at Vevey, however, is famous, even classical, being distinguished from many of its upstart neighbours by an air both of luxury and of maturity. In this region, in the month of June, American travellers are extremely numerous; it may be said, indeed, that Vevey assumes at this period some of the characteristics of an American wateringplace. There are sights and sounds which evoke a vision, an echo of Newport and Saratoga. There is a flitting hither and thither of “stylish” young girls, a rustling of muslin flounces, a rattle of dance-music in the morning hours, a sound of highpitched voices at all rimes. You receive an impression of these things at the excellent inn of the ‘Trois Couronnes’, and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to Congress Hall. But at the ‘Trois Couronnes’ it must be added, there are Other features that are much at variance with these suggestions: neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation; Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish boys walking about, held by the hand, with their governors: a view of the snowy crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque towers of the Casle of Chillon. I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago, sat in the garden of the ‘Trois Couronnes’, looking about him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned. It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming. He had come from Geneva the day before, by the little steamer, to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel - Geneva having been for a long time his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache - his aunt had almost always a headache - and now she was shut up in her room, smelling camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about. He was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva, ‘studying’. When his enemies spoke of him they said - but, after all, he had no enemies: he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked. What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons spoke of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so much time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a lady who lived there - a foreign lady - a person older than himself. Very few Americans - indeed I think none - had ever seen this lady, about whom there were some singular stories. But Winterbourne had an old attachment for the little metropolis of Calvinism; he had been put to school there as a boy, and he had afterwards gone to college there - circumstances which had led to his forming a great many youthful friendships. Many of these he had kept, and they were a source of great satisfaction to him. After knocking at his aunt’s door and learning that she was indisposed, he had taken a walk about the town, and then he had come in to his breakfast. He had now finished his breakfast; but he was drinking a small cup of coffee, which had been served to him on a little table in the garden by one of the waiters who looked like an attache. At last he finished his coffee and lit a cigarette. Presently a small boy came walking along the path - an urchin of nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp little features. He was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything that he approached - the flower-beds, the garden-benches, the trains of the ladies’ dresses. In front of Winterbourne he paused, looking at him with a pair of bright, penetrating little eyes. ‘Will you give me a lump of sugar?’ he asked, in a sharp, hard little voice - a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.

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Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him, on which his coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar remained. ‘Yes, you may take one’, he answered; ‘but I don’t think sugar is good for little boys.’ This little boy stepped forward and carefully selected three of the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of his knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another place. He poked his alpenstock, lance-fashion, into Winterbourne’s bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. ‘Oh, blazes; it’s har-r-d!’ he exclaimed, pronouncing the adjective in a peculiar manner. Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he night have the honour of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. ‘Take care you don’t hurt your teeth’, he said paternally. ‘I haven’t got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one came out right afterwards. She said she’d slap me if any more came out. I can’t help it. It’s this old Europe. It’s the climate that makes them come out. In America they didn’t come out. It’s these hotels.’ Winterbourne was much amused. ‘If you eat three lumps of sugar, your mother will certainly slap you’, he said. ‘She’s got to give me some candy, then’, rejoined his young interlocutor. ‘I can’t get any candy here - any American candy. American candy’s the best candy.’ ‘And are American little boys the best little boys?’ asked Winterbourne. ‘I don’t know. I’m an American boy’, said the child. ‘I see you are one of the best!’ laughed Winterbourne. ‘Are you an American man?’ pursued this Vivacious infant. And then, on Winterbourne’s affirmative reply - ‘American men are the best’, he declared. His companion thanked him for the compliment; and the child, who had now got astride of his alpenstock, stood looking about him, while he attacked a second lump of sugar. Winterbourne wondered if he himself had been like this in his infancy, for he had been brought to Europe at about this age. ‘Here comes my sister!’ cried the child, in a moment. ‘She’s an American girl.’ Winterbourne looked along the path and saw a beautiful young lady advancing. ‘American girls are the best girls’, he said, cheerfully, to his young companion. ‘My sister ain’t the best!’ the child declared. ‘She’s always blowing at me.’ ‘I imagine that is your fault, not hers,’ said Winterbourne. The young lady meanwhile had drawn near. She was dressed in white muslin, with a hundred frills and flounces, and knots of pale-coloured ribbon. She was bare-headed; but she balanced in her hand a large parasol, with a deep border of embroidery; and she was strikingly, admirably pretty. ‘How pretty they are!’ thought Winterbourne, straightening himself in his seat, as if he were prepared to rise. The young lady paused in front of his bench, near the parapet of the garden, which overlooked the lake. The little boy had now converted his alpenstock into a vaulting-pole, by the aid of which he was springing about in the gravel, and kicking it up not a little. ‘Randolph,’ said the young lady, ‘what are you doing?’ ‘I’m going up the Alps,’ replied Randolph. ‘This is the way!’ And he gave another little jump, scattering the pebbles about Winterbourne’s ears. That’s the way they come down,’ said Winterbourne. ‘He’s an American man!’ cried Randolph, in his little hard voice. The young lady gave no heed to this announcement, but looked straight at her brother. ‘Well. I guess you had better be quiet.’ she simply observed.

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It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He got up and stepped slowly towards the young girl, throwing away his cigarette. ‘This little boy and I have made acquaintance,’ he said, with great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely-occurring conditions: but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these? - a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne’s observation, simply glanced at him; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the opposite mountains. He wondered whether he had gone too far; but he decided that he must advance further, rather than retreat. While he was thinking of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little boy again. ‘1 should like to know where you got that pole,’ she said. ‘I bought it!’ responded Randolph. ‘You don’t mean to say you’re going to take it to Italy.’ ‘Yes. I am going to take it to Italy!’ the child declared. The young girl glanced over the front of her dress, and smoothed out a knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. ‘Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere,’ she said, after a moment. ‘Are you going to Italy?’ Winterbourne inquired, in a tone of great respect. The young lady glanced at him again. ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. And she said nothing more. ‘Are you - a - going over the Simplon?’ Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose it’s some mountain. Randolph, what mountain are we going over?’ ‘Going where?’ the child demanded. To Italy.’ Winterbourne explained. ‘I don’t know.’ said Randolph. ‘I don’t want to go to Italy. I want to go to America.’ ‘Oh, Italy is a beautiful place!’ rejoined the young man. ‘Can you get candy there?’ Randolph loudly inquired. ‘I hope not,’ said his sister. ‘I guess you have had enough candy, and mother thinks so too.’ ‘I haven’t had any for ever so long - for a hundred weeks!’ cried the boy, still jumping about. The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons again; and Winterbourne presently risked an observation upon the beauty of the view. He was ceasing to be embarrassed, for he had begun to perceive that she was not in the least embarrassed herself. There had not been the slightest alteration in her charming complexion; she was evidently neither offended nor fluttered. If she looked another way when he spoke to her, and seemed not particularly to hear him, this was simply her habit, her manner. Yet, as he talked a little more, and pointed out some of the objects of interest in the view, with which she appeared quite unacquainted, she gradually gave him more of the benefit of her glance; and then he saw that this glance was perfectly direct and unshrinking. It was not, however, what would have been called an immodest glance, for the young girl’s eyes were singularly honest and fresh. They were wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywoman’s various features - her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and analysing it; and as regards this young lady’s face

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he made several observations. It was not at all insipid, but it was not exactly expressive; and though it was eminently delicate Winterbourne mentally accused it - very forgivingly - of a want of finish. He thought it very possible that Master Randolph’s sister was a coquette; he was sure she had a spirit of her own; but in her bright, sweet, superficial little visage there was no mockery, no irony. Before long it became obvious that she was much disposed towards conversation. She told him that they were going to Rome for the winter - she and her mother and Randolph. She asked him if he was a ‘real American;’ she wouldn’t have taken him for one; he seemed more like a German - this was said after a little hesitation, especially when he spoke. Winterbourne, laughing, answered that he had met Germans who spoke like Americans; but that he had not, so far as he remembered, met an American who spoke like a German. Then he asked her if she would not be more comfortable in sitting upon the bench which he had just quitted. She answered that she liked standing up and walking about; but she presently sat down. She told him she was from New York State - ‘if you know where that is.’ Winterbourne learned more about her by catching hold of her small, slippery brother and - making him stand a few minutes by his side. Tell me your name, my boy,’ he said. ‘Randolph C. Miller,’ said the boy, sharply. ‘And I’ll tell you her name;’ and he levelled his alpenstock at his sister. ‘You had better wait till you are asked!’ said this young lady, calmly. ‘I should like very much to know your name,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Her name is Daisy Miller!’ cried the child. ‘But that isn’t her real name: that isn’t her name on her cards.’ ‘It’s a pity you haven’t got one of my cards!’ said Miss Miller. ‘Her real name is Annie P. Miller,’ the boy went on. ‘Ask him his name,’ said his sister, indicating Winterbourne. But on this point Randolph seemed perfectly indifferent; he continued to supply information with regard to his own family. ‘My father’s name is Ezra B. Miller,’ he announced. ‘My father ain’t in Europe; my father’s in a better place than Europe.’ Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial rewards. But Randolph immediately added, ‘My father’s in Schenectady. He’s got a big business. My father’s rich, you bet.’ ‘Well!’ ejaculated Miss Miller, lowering her parasol and looking at the embroidered border. Winterbourne presently released the child, who departed, dragging his alpenstock along the path. ‘He doesn’t like Europe’ said the young girl. ‘He wants to go back.’ ‘To Schenectady, you mean?’ ‘Yes; he wants to go right home. He hasn’t got any boys here. There is one boy here, but he always goes round with a teacher; they won’t let him play.’ ‘And your brother hasn’t any teacher?’ Winterbourne inquired. ‘Mother thought of getting him one, to travel round with us. There was a lady told her of a very good teacher; an American lady - perhaps you know her - Mrs. Sanders. I think she came from Boston. She told her of this teacher, and we thought of getting him to travel round with us. But Randolph said he didn’t want a teacher travelling round with us. He said he wouldn’t have lessons when he was in the cars. And we are in the cars about half the time. There was an English lady we met in the cars - I think her name was Miss Featherstone; perhaps you know her. She wanted to know why I didn’t give Randolph lessons - give him ‘instruction,’ she called it. I guess he could give me more instruction than I could give him. He’s very smart.’

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‘Yes,’ said Winterbourne, ‘he seems very smart.’ ‘Mother’s going to get a teacher for him as soon as we get to Italy. Can you get good teachers in Italy?’ ‘Very good, I should think,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Or else she’s going to find some school. He ought to learn some more. He’s only nine. He’s going to college.’ And in this way Miss Miller continued to converse upon the affairs of her family, and upon other topics. She sat there with her extremely pretty hands, ornamented with very brilliant rings, folded in her lap, and with her pretty eyes now resting upon those of Winterbourne, now wandering over the garden, the people who passed by, and the beautiful view. She talked to Winterbourne as if she had known him for a long time. He found it very pleasant. It was many years since he had heard a young girl talk so much. It might have been said of this unknown young lady, who had come and sat down beside him upon a bench, that she chattered. She was very quiet, she sat in a charming tranquil attitude; but her lips and her eyes were constantly moving. She had a soft, slender, agreeable voice, and her tone was decidedly sociable. She gave Winterbourne a history of her movements and intentions, and those of her mother and brother, in Europe, and enumerated, in particular, the various hotels at which they had stopped. ‘That English lady in the cars.’ she said - ‘Miss Featherstone - asked me if we didn’t all live in hotels in America. I told her I had never been in so many hotels in my life as since I came to Europe. I have never seen so many - it’s nothing but hotels.’ But Miss Miller did not make this remark with a querulous accent; she appeared to be in the best humour with everything. She declared that the hotels were very good, when once you got used to their ways, and that Europe was perfectly sweet. She was not disappointed not a bit. Perhaps it was because she had heard so much about it before. She had ever so many intimate friends that had been there ever so many times. And then she had had ever so many dresses and things from Paris. Whenever she put on a Paris dress she felt as if she were in Europe. ‘It was a kind of a wishing-cap.’ said Winterbourne. ‘Yes.’ said Miss Miller, without examining this analogy; ‘it always made me wish I was here. But I needn’t have done that for dresses. I am sure they send all the pretty ones to America: you see the most frightful things here. The only thing I don’t like.’ she proceeded, ‘is the society. There isn’t any society; or, if there is, I don’t know where it keeps itself. Do you? I suppose there is some society somewhere, but I haven’t seen anything of it. I’m very fond of society, and I have always had a great deal of it. I don’t mean only in Schenectady, but in New York. I used to go to New York every winter. In New York I had lots of society. Last winter I had seventeen dinners given me; and three of them were by gentlemen,’ added Daisy Miller. ‘I have more friends in New York than in Schenectady - more gentlemen friends; and more young lady friends too,’ she resumed in a moment. She paused again for an instant; she was looking at Winterbourne with all her prettiness in her lively eyes and in her light, slightly monotonous smile. ‘I have always had,’ she said, ‘a great deal of gentlemen’s society.’ Poor Winterbourne was amused, perplexed, and decidedly charmed. He had never yet heard a young girl express herself in just this fashion; never, at least, save in cases where to say such things seemed a kind of demonstrative evidence of a certain laxity of deportment. And yet was he to accuse Miss Daisy Miller of actual or potential inconduite, as they said at Geneva? He felt that he had lived at Geneva so long that he had lost a good deal; he had become dishabituated to the American tone. Never, indeed, since he had grown old enough to appreciate things, had he en-

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countered a young American girl of so pronounced a type as this. Certainly she was very charming; but how deucedly sociable! Was she simply a pretty girl from New York State - were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentlemen’s society? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? Winterbourne had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him. Miss Daisy Miller looked extremely innocent. Some people had told him that, after all, American girls were exceedingly innocent; and others had told him that, after all, they were not. He was inclined to think Miss Daisy Miller was a flirt - a pretty American flirt. He had never, as yet, had any relations with young ladies of this category. He had known, here in Europe, two or three women - persons older than Miss Daisy Miller, and provide or respectability’s sake, with husbands - who were great coquettes - dangerous, terrible women, with whom one’s relation were liable to take a serious turn. But this young girl was not a coquette in that sense; she was very unsophisticated; she was only a pretty American flirt. Winterbourne was almost grateful for having found the formula that applied to Miss Daisy Miller. He leaned back in his seat; he remarked to himself that she had the most charming nose he had ever seen, he wondered what were the regular conditions and limitations of one’s intercourse with a pretty American flirt. It presently became apparent that he was on the way to learn. ‘Have you been to that old castle?’ asked the young girl, pointing with her parasol to the far-gleaming walls of the Chateau de Chillon. 'Yes, formerly, more than once.' said Winterbourne, 'You too. I suppose, have seen it?' 'No: we haven't been there. I want to go there dreadfully. Of course I mean to go there. I wouldn't go away from here without having seen that old castle.' "It's a very pretty excursion.' said Winterbourne, 'and very easy to make. You can drive, you know, or you can go by the little steamer.' 'You can go in the cars.' said Miss Miller. "Yes; you can go in the cars.' Winterbourne assented. "Our courier says they take you right up to the castle,' the young girl continued. "We were going last week: but my mother gave out. She suffers dreadfully from dyspepsia. She said she couldn't go. Randolph wouldn't go either; he says he doesn't think much of old castles. But I guess we'll go this week, if we can get Randolph.' 'Your brother is not interested in ancient monuments?' Winterbourne inquired, smiling. 'He says he don't care much about old castles. He's only nine. He wants to stay at the hotel. Mother's afraid to leave him alone, and the courier won't stay with him; so we haven't been to many places. But it will be too bad if we don't go up there.' And Miss Miller pointed again at the Chateau de Chillon. 'I should think it might be arranged,' said Winterbourne. "Couldn't you get some one to stay - for the afternoon -with Randolph?* Miss Miller looked at him a moment; and then, very placidly - 'I wish you would stay with him!' she said. Winterbourne hesitated a moment. 'I would much rather go to Chillon with you.' "With me?' asked the young girl, with the same placidity. She didn't rise, blushing, as a young girl at Geneva would have done: and yet Winterbourne, conscious that he had been very bold, thought it possible she was offended. 'With your mother,' he answered very respectfully. But it seemed that both his audacity and his respect were lost upon Miss Daisy Miller. ‘I guess my mother won’t go, after all.’ she said. ‘She don’t like to ride round in

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the afternoon. But did you really mean what you said just now; that you would like to go up there?’ ‘Most earnestly,’ Winterbourne declared. Then we may arrange it. If mother will stay with Randolph. I guess Eugenio will.’ ‘Eugenio?’ the young man inquired. ‘Eugenio’s our courier. He doesn’t like to stay with Randolph; he’s the most fastidious man I ever saw. But he’s a splendid courier. I guess he’ll stay at home with Randolph if mother does, and then we can go to the castle.’ Winterbourne reflected for an instant as lucidly as possible - ‘we’ could only mean Miss Daisy Miller and himself. This programme seemed almost too agreeable for credence; he felt as if he ought to kiss the young lady’s hand. Possibly he would have done so - and quite spoiled the project; but at this moment another person presumably Eugenio - appeared. A tall, handsome man, with superb whiskers, wearing a velvet morning-coat and a brilliant watch-chain, approached Miss Miller, looking sharply at her companion. ‘Oh. Eugenio!’ said Miss Miller, with the friendliest accent. Eugenio had looked at Winterbourne from head to foot; he now bowed gravely to the young lady. ‘I have the honour to inform mademoiselle that luncheon is upon the table.’ Miss Miller slowly rose. ‘See here, Eugenio,’ she said. I’m going to that old castle, anyway.’ ‘To the Chateau de Chillon, mademoiselle?’ the courier inquired. ‘Mademoiselle has made arrangements?’ he added, in a tone which struck Winterbourne as very impertinent. Eugenio’s tone apparently threw, even to Miss Miller’s own apprehension, a slightly ironical light upon the young girl’s situation. She turned to Winterbourne. blushing a little - a very little. ‘You won’t back out?’ she said. ‘I shall not be happy till we go!’ he protested. ‘And you are staying in this hotel?’ she went on. ‘And you are really an American?’ The courier stood looking at Winterbourne offensively. The young man, at least, thought his manner of looking an offence to Miss Miller; it conveyed an imputation that she ‘picked up’ acquaintances. ‘I shall have the honour of presenting to you a person who will tell you all about me.’ he said smiling, and referring to his aunt. ‘Oh, well, we’ll go some day,’ said Miss Miller. And she gave him a smile and turned away. She put up her parasol and walked back to the inn beside Eugenio. Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess. 2 He had, however, engaged to do more than proved feasible, in promising to present his aunt, Mrs. Costello, to Miss Daisy Miller. As soon as the former lady had got better of her headache he waited upon her in her apartment; and. after the proper inquiries in regard to her health, he asked her if she had observed, in the hotel, an American family - a mamma, a daughter, and a little boy. ‘And a courier?’ said Mrs. Costello. ‘Oh, yes, I have observed them. Seen them - heard them - and kept out of their way.’ Mrs. Costello was a widow with a fortune; a person of much distinction, who frequently intimated that, if she were not so dreadfully liable to sick-headaches, she would probably have left a deeper impress upon her time. She had a long pale face, a high nose, and a great deal of very striking white hair, which she wore in large puffs and rouleaux over the top of her head. She

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had two sons married in New York, and another who was now in Europe. This young man was amusing himself at Homburg, and. though he was on his travels, was rarely perceived to visit any particular city at the moment selected by his mother for her own appearance there. Her nephew, who had come up to Vevey expressly to see her, was therefore more attentive than those who, as she said, were nearer to her. He had imbibed at Geneva the idea that one must always be attentive to one’s aunt. Mrs. Costello had not seen him for many years, and she was greatly pleased with him, manifesting her approbation by initiating him into many of the secrets of that social sway which, as she gave him to understand, she exerted in the American capital. She admitted that she was very exclusive; but if he were acquainted with New York, he would see that one had to be. And her picture of the minutely hierarchical constitution of the society of that city, which she presented to him in many different lights, was, to Winterbourne’s imagination, almost oppressively striking. He immediately perceived, from her tone, that Miss Daisy Miller’s place in the social scale was low. ‘I am afraid you don’t approve of them.’ he said. They are very common.’ Mrs. Costello declared. ‘They are the sort of Americans that one does one’s duty by not - not accepting.’ ‘Ah, you don’t accept them?’ said the young man. ‘I can’t, my dear Frederick. I would if I could, but I can’t.’ ‘The young girl is very pretty,’ said Winterbourne, in a moment. ‘Of course she’s pretty. But she is very common.’ ‘I see what you mean, of course.’ said Winterbourne, after another pause. ‘She has that charming look that they all have,’ his aunt resumed. ‘I can’t think where they pick it up; and she dresses in perfection - no, you don’t know how well she dresses. I can’t think where they get their taste.’ ‘But, my dear aunt, she is not, after all, a Comanche savage.’ ‘She is a young lady,’ said Mrs. Costello, ‘who has an intimacy with her mamma’s courier.’ ‘An intimacy with the courier?’ the young man demanded. ‘Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier like a familiar friend - like a gentleman. I shouldn’t wonder if he dines with them. Very likely they have never seen a man with such good manners, such fine clothes, so like gentleman. He probably corresponds to the young lady’s ideas of a Count. He sits with them in the garden, in the evening. I think he smokes.’ Winterbourne listened with interest to these disclosures; they helped him to make up his mind about Miss Daisy. Evidently she was rather wild. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am not a courier, and yet she was very charming to me.’ ‘You had better have said at first.’ said Mrs. Costello, with dignity, ‘that you had made her acquaintance.’ ‘We simply met in the garden, and we talked a bit.’ Tout bonnement! And pray what did you say?’ ‘I said I should take the liberty of introducing her to my admirable aunt.’ ‘I am much obliged to you.’ ‘It was to guarantee my respectability,’ said Winterbourne. ‘And pray who is to guarantee hers?’ ‘Ah, you are cruel!’ said the young man. ‘She’s a very nice girl.’ ‘You don’t say that as if you believed it.’ Mrs. Costello observed. ‘She is completely uncultivated,’ Winterbourne went on. ‘But she is wonderfully pretty, and, in short, she is very nice. To prove that I believe it, I am going to take her to the Chateau de Chillon.’

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‘You two are going off there together? I should say it proved just the contrary. How long had you known her, may I ask, when this interesting project was formed? You haven’t been twenty-four hours in the house.’ ‘I had known her half-an-hour!’ said Winterbourne, smiling. ‘Dear me!’ cried Mrs. Costello. ‘What a dreadful girl!’ Her nephew was silent for some moments. ‘You really think, then,’ he began, earnestly, and with a desire for trustworthy information - ‘you really think that –‘ but he paused again. ‘Think what, sir?’ said his aunt. ‘That she is the sort of young lady who expects a man - sooner or later - to carry her off?’ ‘I haven’t the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do. But I really think that you had better not meddle with little American girls that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long out of the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake. You are too innocent.’ ‘My dear aunt, I am not so innocent.’ said Winterbourne, smiling and curling his moustache. ‘You are too guilty, then!’ Winterbourne continued to curl his moustache, meditatively. ‘You won’t let the poor girl know you then?’ he asked at last. ‘Is it literally true that she is going to the Chateau de Chillon with you?’ ‘I think that she fully intends it.’ ‘Then, my dear Frederick,’ said Mrs Costello, ‘I must decline the honour of her acquaintance. I am an old woman, but I am not too old - thank Heaven - to be shocked!‘ ‘But don’t they all do these things - the young girls in America?’ Winterbourne inquired. Mrs. Costello stared a moment. ‘I should like to see my granddaughters do them!’ she declared, grimly. This seemed to throw some light upon the matter, for Winterbourne remembered to have heard that his pretty cousins in New York were ‘tremendous flirts.’ If, therefore, Miss Daisy Miller exceeded the liberal license allowed to these young ladies, it was probable that anything might be expected of her. Winterbourne was impatient to see her again, and he was vexed with himself that, by instinct, he should not appreciate her justly. Though he was impatient to see her, he hardly knew what he should say to her about his aunt’s refusal to become acquainted with her; but he discovered, promptly enough; that with Miss Daisy Miller there was no great need of walking on tiptoe. He found her that evening in the garden, wandering about in the warm starlight, like an indolent sylph, and swinging to and fro the largest fan he had ever beheld. It was ten o’clock. He had dined with his aunt, had been sitting with her since dinner, and had just taken leave of her till the morrow. Miss Daisy Miller seemed very glad to see him; she declared it was the longest evening she had ever passed. ‘Have you been all alone?’ he asked. ‘I have been walking round with mother. But mother gets tired walking round,’ she answered. ‘Has she gone to bed?’ ‘No; she doesn’t like to go to bed.’ said the young girl. ‘She doesn’t sleep - not three hours. She says she doesn’t know how she lives. She’s dreadfully nervous. I

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guess she sleeps more than she thinks. She’s gone somewhere after Randolph: she wants to try to get him to go to bed. He doesn’t like to go to bed.’ ‘Let us hope she will persuade him,’ observed Winterbourne. ‘She will talk to him all she can; but he doesn’t like her to talk to him,’ said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. ‘She’s going to try to get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn’t afraid of Eugenio. Eugenio’s a splendid courier, but he can’t make much impression on Randolph! I don’t believe he’ll go to bed before eleven.’ It appeared that Randolph’s vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother. ‘I have been looking round for that lady you want to introduce me to,’ his companion resumed. ‘She’s your aunt.’ Then, on Winterbourne’s admitting the fact, and expressing some curiosity as to how she had learned it, she said she had heard all about Mrs. Costello from the chambermaid. She was very quiet and very comme il faut’; she wore white puffs; she spoke to no one, and she never dined at the table d’hote. Every two days she had a headache. ‘I think that’s a lovely description, headache and all!’ said Miss Daisy, chattering along in her thin, gay voice. ‘I want to know her ever so much. I know just what your aunt would be; I know I should like her. She would be very exclusive. I like a lady to be exclusive; I’m dying to be exclusive myself. Well, we are exclusive, mother and I. We don’t speak to every one - or they don’t speak to us. I suppose it’s about the same thing. Any way, I shall be ever so glad to know your aunt.’ Winterbourne was embarrassed. ‘She would be most happy,’ he said; ‘but I am afraid those headaches will interfere.’ The young girl looked at him through the dusk. ‘But I suppose she doesn’t have a headache every day’ she said, sympathetically. Winterbourne was silent a moment. ‘She tells me she does,’ he answered at last - not knowing what to say. Miss Daisy Miller stopped and stood looking at him. Her prettiness was still visible in the darkness; she was opening and closing her enormous fan. ‘She doesn’t want to know me!’ she said, suddenly. ‘Why don’t you say so? You needn’t be afraid. I’m not afraid!’ And she gave a little laugh. Winterbourne fancied there was a tremor in her voice; he was touched, shocked, mortified by it. ‘My dear young lady,’ he protested, ‘she knows no one. It’s her wretched health.’ The young girl walked on a few steps, laughing still. ‘You needn’t be afraid,’ she repeated. ‘Why should she want to know me?’ Then she paused again; she was close to the parapet of the garden, and in front of he was the starlit lake. There was a vague sheen upon its surface and in the distance were dimly-seen mountain forms. Daisy Miller looked out upon the mysterious prospect, and then she gave another little laugh. ‘Gracious! she is exclusive!‘ she said. Winterbourne wondered whether she was seriously wounded, and for a moment almost wished that her sense of injury might be such as to make it becoming in him to attempt to reassure and comfort her. He had a pleasant sense that she would be very approachable for consolatory purposes. He felt then, for the instant, quite ready to sacrifice his aunt, conversationally; to admit that she was a proud, rude woman, and to declare that they needn’t mind her. But before he had time to commit himself to this perilous mixture of gallantry and impiety, the young lady, resuming her walk, gave a exclamation in quite another tone. ‘Well; here’s mother! I guess she hasn’t got Randolph to go to bed.’ The figure of a lady appeared, at a distance, very indistinct in the darkness, and advancing with a slow and wavering movement. Suddenly it seemed to pause.

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‘Are you sure it is your mother? Can you distinguish her in this thick dusk?’ Winterbourne asked. ‘Well!’ cried Miss Daisy Miller, with a laugh. ‘I guess I know my own mother. And when she has got on my shawl, too! She is always wearing my things.’ The lady in question, ceasing to advance, hovered vaguely about the spot at which she had checked her steps. ‘I am afraid your mother doesn’t see you.’ said Winterbourne. ‘Or perhaps.’ he added - thinking, with Miss Miller, the joke permissible - ‘perhaps she feels guilty about your shawl.’ ‘Oh, it’s a fearful old thing!’ the young girl replied, serenely. ‘I told her she could wear it. She won’t come here, because she sees you.’ ‘Ah, then,’ said Winterbourne, ‘I had better leave you.’ ‘0h no; come on!’ urged Miss Daisy Miller. ‘I’m afraid your mother doesn’t approve of my walking with you.’ Miss Miller gave him a serious glance. ‘It isn’t for me; it’s for you - that is, it’s for her. Well; I don’t know who it’s for! But mother doesn’t like any of my gentlemen friends. She’s right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I do introduce them - almost always. If I didn’t introduce my gentlemen friends to mother,’ the young girl added, in her little soft, flat monotone, ‘I shouldn’t think I was natural.’ To introduce me,’ said Winterbourne, ‘you must know my name.’ And he proceeded to pronounce it. ‘Oh dear; I can’t say all that!’ said his companion, with a laugh. But by this time they had come up to Mrs. Miller, who, as they drew near, walked to the parapet of the garden and leaned upon it, looking intently at the lake and turning her back upon them. ‘Mother!’ said the young girl. in a tone of decision. Upon this the elder lady turned round. ‘Mr. Winterbourne,’ said Miss Daisy Miller, introducing the young man very frankly and prettily. ‘Common,’ she was, as Mrs. Costello had pronounced her; yet it was a wonder to Winterbourne that, with her commonness, she had a singularly delicate grace. Her mother was a small, spare, light person, with a wandering eye, a very exiguous nose, and a large forehead, decorated with a certain amount of thin, muchfrizzled hair. Like her daughter, Mrs. Miller was dressed with extreme elegance; she had enormous diamonds in her ears. So far as Winterbourne could observe, she gave him no greeting - she certainly was not looking at him. Daisy was near her, pulling her shawl straight. ‘What are you doing, poking around here?’ this young lady inquired; but by no means with that harshness of accent which her choice of words may imply. ‘I don’t know,’ said her mother, turning towards the lake again. ‘I shouldn’t think you’d want that shawl! ‘ Daisy exclaimed. ‘Well - I do!’ her mother answered, with a little laugh. ‘Did you get Randolph to go to bed?’ asked the young girl. ‘No; I couldn’t induce him.’ said Mrs. Miller, very gently. ‘He wants to talk to the waiter. He likes to talk to that waiter.’ ‘I was telling Mr. Winterbourne,’ the young girl went on; and to the young man’s ear her tone might have indicated that she had been uttering his name all her life. ‘Oh, yes!’ said Winterbourne; ‘I have the pleasure of knowing your son.’ Randolph’s mamma was silent; she turned her attention to the lake. But at last she spoke. ‘Well. I don’t see how he lives!’ ‘Anyhow, it isn’t so bad as it was at Dover,’ said Daisy Miller.

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‘And what occurred at Dover?’ Winterbourne asked. ‘He wouldn’t go to bed at all. I guess he sat up all night - in the public parlour. He wasn’t in bed at twelve o’clock: I know that.’ ‘It was half-past twelve,’ declared Mr. Miller, with mild emphasis. ‘Does he sleep much during the day?’ Winterbourne demanded. ‘I guess he doesn’t sleep much.’ Daisy rejoined. ‘I wish he would!’ said her mother. ‘It seems as if he couldn’t.’ ‘I think he’s real tiresome,’ Daisy pursued. Then, for some moments, there was silence. ‘Well, Daisy Miller,’ said the elder lady, presently. ‘I shouldn’t think you’d want to talk against your own brother!’ ‘Well, he is tiresome, mother,’ said Daisy, quite without the asperity of a retort. ‘He’s only nine,’ urged Mrs. Miller. ‘Well, he wouldn’t go to that castle,’ said the young girl. ‘I’m going there with Mr. Winterbourne.’ To this announcement, very placidly made. Daisy’s mamma offered no response. Winterbourne took for granted that she deeply disapproved of the projected excursion; but he said to himself that she was a simple, easily-managed person, and that a few deferential protestations would take the edge from her displeasure. ‘Yes.’ he began; ‘your daughter has kindly allowed me the honour of being her guide.’ Mrs. Miller’s wandering eyes attached themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. ‘I presume you will go in the cars,’ said her mother. ‘Yes; or in the boat,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Well, of course, I don’t know,’ Mrs. Miller rejoined. ‘I have never been to that castle.’ ‘It’s a pity you shouldn’t go,’ said Winterbourne, beginning to feel reassured as to her opposition. And yet he was quite prepared to find that, as a matter of course, she meant to accompany her daughter. ‘We’ve been thinking ever so much about going,’ she pursued; ‘but it seems as if we couldn’t. Of course Daisy - she wants to go round. But there’s a lady here - I don’t know her name - she says she shouldn’t chink we’d want to go to see castles here: she should think we’d want to wait till we got to Italy. It seems as if there would be so many there.’ continued Mrs. Miller, with an air of increasing confidence. ‘Of course, we only want to see the principal ones. We visited several in England,’ she presently added. ‘Ah, yes! in England there are beautiful castles,’ said Winterbourne. ‘But Chillon, here, is very well worth seeing.’ ‘Well, if Daisy feels up to it - .’ said Mrs. Miller, in a tone impregnated with a sense of the magnitude of the enterprise. ‘It seems as if there was nothing she wouldn’t undertake.’ ‘Oh, I think she’ll enjoy it!’ Winterbourne declared. And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalising. ‘You are not disposed, madam,’ he inquired, ‘to undertake it yourself?’ Daisy’s mother looked at him, an instant, askance, and then walked forward in silence. Then - ‘I guess she had better go alone.’ she said, simply. Winterbourne observed to himself that this was a very different type of maternity from that of the vigilant matrons who massed themselves in the forefront of social intercourse in the dark old city at the other end of the lake. But his meditations were

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interrupted by hearing his name very distinctly pronounced by Mrs. Miller’s unprotected daughter. ‘Mr. Winterbourne!’ murmured Daisy. ‘Mademoiselle!’ said the young man. Don’t you want to take me out in a boat?’ ‘At present?’ he asked. ‘Of course!’ said Daisy. ‘Well, Annie Miller!’ exclaimed her mother. ‘I beg you, madam, to let her go,’ said Winterbourne ardently; for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding through the summer starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh and beautiful young girl. ‘I shouldn’t think she’d want to,’ said her mother. ‘I should think she’d rather go indoors.’ ‘I’m sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me.’ Daisy declared, ’He’s so awfully devoted!’ ‘I will row you over to Chillon, in the starlight.’ ‘I don’t believe it!’ said Daisy. ‘Well!’ ejaculated the elder lady again. ‘You haven’t spoken to me for half-an-hour,’ her daughter went on. ‘I have been having some very pleasant conversation with your mother,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Well; I want you to take me out in a boat!’ Daisy repeated. They had all stopped, and she had turned round and was looking at Winterbourne. Her face wore a charming smile, her pretty eyes were gleaming, she was swinging her great fan about. No, it’s impossible to be prettier than that, thought Winterbourne. There are half-a-dozen boats moored at that landing-place.’ he said, pointing to certain steps which descended from the garden to the lake. ‘If you will do me the honour to accept my arm, we will go and select one of them.’ Daisy stood there smiling; she threw back her head and gave a little light laugh. ‘I like a gentleman to be formal!’ she declared. ‘I assure you it’s a formal offer.’ ‘I was bound I would make you say something,’ Daisy went on. ‘You see it’s not very difficult,’ said Winterbourne. ‘But I am afraid you are chaffing me.’ ‘I think not, sir,’ remarked Mrs Miller, very gently. Do, then, let me give you a row.’ he said to the young girl. ‘It’s quite lovely, the way you say that!’ cried Daisy. ‘It will be still more lovely to do it.’ ‘Yes, it would be lovely!’ said Daisy. But she made no movement to accompany him; she only stood there laughing. ‘I should think you had better find out what time it is,’ interposed her mother. ‘It is eleven o’clock, madam.’ said a voice, with a foreign accent, out of the neighbouring darkness; and Winterbourne, turning, perceived the florid personage who was in attendance upon the two ladies. He had apparently just approached. ‘Oh, Eugenio,’ said Daisy, ‘I am going out in a boat!’ Eugenio bowed. ‘At eleven o’clock, mademoiselle?’ ‘I am going with Mr. Winterbourne. This very minute.’ ‘Do tell her she can’t,’ said Mrs. Miller to the courier. ‘I think you had better not go out in a boat, mademoiselle,’ Eugenio declared.

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Winterbourne wished to Heaven this pretty girl were not so familiar with her courier; but he said nothing. ‘I suppose you don’t think it’s proper!’ Daisy exclaimed. ‘Eugenic doesn’t think anything’s proper.’ ‘I am at your service,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Does mademoiselle propose to go alone?’ asked Eugenio of Mrs. Miller. ‘0h, no; with this gentleman!’ answered Daisy’s mamma. The courier looked for a moment at Winterbourne – the latter thought he was smiling - and then, solemnly, with a bow. ‘As mademoiselle pleases!’ he said. ‘Oh. I hoped you would make a fuss!’ said Daisy. ‘I don’t care to go now.’ ‘I myself shall make a fuss if you don’t go.’ said Winterbourne. That’s all I want - a little fuss!’ And the young girl began to laugh again. ‘Mr Randolph has gone to bed!’ the courier announced frigidly. ‘Oh. Daisy; now we can go!’ said Mrs Miller. Daisy turned away from Winterbourne, looking at him, smiling and fanning herself. ‘Good night.’ she said; ‘I hope you are disappointed, or disgusted, or something!’ He looked at her, taking the hand she offered him. ‘I am puzzled.’ he answered. ‘Well; I hope it won’t keep you awake!’ she said, very smartly; and under the escort of the privileged Eugenio, the two ladies passed towards the house. Winterbourne stood looking after them; he was indeed puzzled. He lingered beside the lake for a quarter of an hour turning over the mystery of the young girl’s sudden familiarities and caprices. But the only very definite conclusion he came to was that he should enjoy deucedly ‘going off’ with her somewhere. Two days afterwards he went off with her to the Castle of Chillon. He waited for her in the large hall of the hotel, where the couriers, the servants, the foreign tourists were lounging about and staring. It was not the place he would have chosen, but she had appointed it. She came tripping downstairs, buttoning her long gloves, squeezing her folded parasol against her pretty figure, dressed in the perfection of a soberly elegant travelling-costume. Winterbourne was a man of imagination and, as our ancestors used to say, of sensibility; as he looked at her dress and. on the great staircase, her little rapid, confiding steps, he felt as if there were something romantic going forward. He could have believed he was going to elope with her. He passed out with her among all the idle people that were assembled there; they were all looking at her very hard; she had begun to chatter as soon as she joined him. Winterbourne’s preference had been that; they should be conveyed to Chillon in a carriage; but she expressed a lively wish to go in the little steamer; she declared that she had a passion for steamboats. There was always such a lovely breeze upon the water, and you saw such lots of people. The sail was not long, but Winterbourne’s companion found time to say a great many things. To the young man himself their little excursion was so much of an escapade - an adventure - that, even allowing for her habitual sense of freedom, he had some expectation of seeing her regard it in the same way. But it must be confessed that, in this particular, he was disappointed. Daisy Miller was extremely animated, she was in charming spirits; but she was apparently not at all excited; she was not fluttered; she avoided neither his eyes nor those of any one else; she blushed neither when she looked at him nor when she saw that people were looking at her. People continued to look at her a great deal, and Winterbourne took much satisfaction in his pretty companion’s distinguished air. He had been a little afraid that she would talk loud, laugh overmuch, and even, perhaps, desire to move about the boat a good deal. Bur he quite forgot his fears; he sat smiling, with his eyes upon her face, while, without moving from her place, she delivered herself of a great number of original reflections. It was the

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most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea that she was ‘common’; but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective cast; but every now and then it took a subjective turn. ‘What on earth are you so grave about?’ she suddenly demanded, fixing her agreeable eyes upon Winterbourne’s. ‘Am I grave?’ he asked. ‘I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear.’ ‘You look as if you were taking me to a funeral. If that’s a grin, your ears are very near together.’ ‘Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?’ ‘Pray do, and I’ll carry round your hat. It will pay the expenses of our journey.’ ‘I never was better pleased in my life’ murmured Winterbourne. She looked at him a moment, and t en burst into a little laugh. ‘I like to make you say those things! You’re a queer mixture!’ In the castle, after they had landed, he subjective element decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her about the place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities, and that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon her. They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about without other companionship an that of the custodian; and Winterbourne arranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried - that they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian interpreted the bargain generously - Winterbourne, on his side, had been generous - and ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Miller’s observations were not remarkable for logical consistency; for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne sudden questions about himself - his family, his previous history his tastes, his habits, his intentions - and for supplying information upon corresponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and indeed the most favourable, account. ‘Well: I hope you know enough!’ she said to her companion, after he had told her the history of the unhappy Bonivard. ‘I never saw a man that knew so much’ The history of Bonivard had evidently, as they say, gone into one ear and out of the other. But Daisy went on to say that she wished Winterbourne would travel with them and ‘go round’ with them; they might know something, in that case. ‘Don’t you want to come and teach Randolph?’ she asked. Winterbourne said that nothing could possibly please him so much; but that he had unfortunately other occupations. ‘Other occupations? I don’t believe it!’ said Miss Daisy. ‘What do you mean? You are not in business.’ The young man admitted that he was not in business; but he had engagements which, even within a day or two, would force him to go back to Geneva. ‘Oh. Bother!’ she said, ‘I don’t believe it!’ and she began to talk about something else. But a few moments later, when he was pointing out to her the pretty design of an antique fireplace, she broke out irrelevantly, ‘You don’t mean to say you are going back to Geneva?’ ‘It is a melancholy fact that I shall have to return to Geneva to-morrow.’ ‘Well, Mr. Winterbourne,’ said Daisy; ‘I think you’re horrid!’ ‘Oh, don’t say such dreadful things 1’ said Winterbourne - ‘just at the last.’

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‘The last!’ cried the young girl; ‘I call it the first. I have half a mind to leave you here and go straight back to the hotel alone.’ And for the next ten minutes she did nothing but call him horrid. Poor Winterbourne was fairly bewildered; no young lady had as yet done him the honour to be so agitated by the announcement of his movements. His companion, after this, ceased to pay any attention to the curiosities of Chillon or the beauties of the lake; she opened fire upon the mysterious charmer in Geneva, whom she appeared to have instantly taken it for granted that he was hurrying back to see. How did Miss Daisy Miller know that there was a charmer in Geneva? Winterbourne, who denied the existence of such a person, was quite unable to discover; and he was divided between amazement at the rapidity of her induction and amusement at the frankness of her persiflage. She seemed to him, in all this, an extraordinary mixture of innocence and crudity. ‘Does she never allow you more than three days at a time?’ asked Daisy, ironically. ‘Doesn’t she give you a vacation in summer? There’s no one so hard worked but they can get leave to go off somewhere at this season. I suppose, if you stay another day, she’ll come after you in the boat. Do wait over till Friday, and I will go down to the landing to see her arrive!’ Winterbourne began to think he had been wrong to feel disappointed in the temper in which the young lady had embarked. If he had missed the personal accent, he personal accent was now making its appearance. It sounded very distinctly, at last, in her telling him she would stop ‘teasing’ him if he would promise her solemnly to come down t’ Rome in the winter. Thai’s not a difficult promise to make,’ said Winterbourne. ‘My aunt has taken an apartment in Rome for the winter, and has already asked me to come and see her.’ ‘I don’t want you to come for your aunt.’ said Daisy; ‘I want you to come for me.’ And this was the only allusion that the young man was ever to hear her make to his invidious kinswoman. He declared that, at any rate, he would certainly come. After this Daisy stopped teasing. Winterbourne took a carriage, and they drove back to Vevey in the dusk; the young girl was very quiet. In the evening Winterbourne mentioned to Mrs. Costello that he had spent the afternoon at Chillon, with Miss Daisy Miller. ‘The Americans - of the courier?’ asked this lady. ‘Ah, happily,’ said Winterbourne, ‘the courier stayed at home.’ ‘She went with you all alone?’ ‘All alone.’ Mrs. Costello sniffed a little at her smelling-bottle. ‘And that.’ she exclaimed, ‘is the young person you wanted me to know!’ 3 Winterbourne, who had returned to Geneva the day after his excursion to Chillon, went to Rome towards the end of January. His aunt had been established there for several weeks, and he had received a couple of letters from her. ‘Those people you were so devoted to last summer at Vevey have fumed up here, courier and all.’ she wrote. They seem-to have made several acquaintances, but the courier continues to be the most intime. The young lady, however, is also very intimate with some third-rate Italians, with whom she rackets about in a way that makes much talk. Bring me that pretty novel of Cherbuliez’s - ‘Paule Mere’ - and don’t come later than the 23rd.’ In the natural course of events, Winterbourne, on arriving in Rome, would presently have ascertained Mrs. Miller’s address at the American banker’s and have gone

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to pay his compliments to Miss Daisy. ‘After what happened at Vevey I certainly think I may call upon them,’ he said to Mrs. Costello. ‘If. after what happens - at Vevey and everywhere - you desire to keep up the acquaintance, you are very welcome. Of course a man may know every one. Men are welcome to the privilege!’ ‘Pray what is it that happens - here, for instance?’ Winterbourne demanded. ‘The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to what happens farther, you must apply elsewhere for information. She has picked up half-a-dozen of the regular Roman fortunehunters, and she takes them about to people’s houses. When she comes to a party she brings with her a gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful moustache.’ ‘And where is the mother?’ ‘I haven’t the least idea. They are very dreadful people.’ Winterbourne meditated a moment. ‘They are very ignorant - very innocent only. Depend upon it they are not bad.’ ‘They are hopelessly vulgar,’ said Mrs. Costello. ‘Whether or no being hopelessly vulgar is being "bad" is a question for the metaphysicians. They are bad enough to dislike, at any rate; and for this short life that is quite enough.' The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half-a-dozen wonderful moustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightaway to see her. He had perhaps not definitely, flattered himself that he had made an ineffaceable impression upon her heart, but he was annoyed at hearing of a state of affairs so little in harmony with an image that had lately flitted in and out of his own meditations; the image of a very pretty girl looking out of an old Roman window and asking herself urgently when Mr. Winterbourne would arrive. If, however, he determined to wait a little before reminding Miss Miller of his claims to her consideration, he went very soon to call upon two or three other friends. One of these friends was an American lady who had spent several winters at Geneva, where she had placed her children at school. She was a very accomplished woman and she lived in the Via Gregoriana. Winterbourne found her in a little crimson drawing-room, on a third floor; the room was filled with southern sunshine. He had not been there ten minutes when the servant came in, announcing "Madame Mila!’ This announcement was presently followed by the entrance of little Randolph Miller, who stopped in the middle of the room and stood staring at Winterbourne. An instant later his pretty sister crossed the threshold; and then; after a considerable interval, Mrs. Miller slowly advanced. 'I know you!' said Randolph. 'I'm sure you know a great many things,' exclaimed Winterbourne, taking him by the hand. ‘How is your education coming on?' Daisy was exchanging greetings very prettily with her hostess; but when she heard Winterbourne's voice she quickly turned her head. 'Well, I declare!' she said. 'I told you I should come, you know,' Winterbourne rejoined, smiling. 'Well - I didn't believe it,' said Miss Daisy. 'I am much obliged to you," laughed the young man. 'You might have come to see me!' said Daisy. 'I arrived only yesterday." 'I don't believe that!' the young girl declared. Winterbourne turned with a protesting smile to her mother: but this lady evaded his glance, and seating herself, fixed her eyes upon her son. 'We've got a bigger place than this,' said Randolph. 'It's all gold on the walls.'

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Mrs. Miller turned uneasily in her chair. 'I told you if I were to bring you, you would say something!' she murmured. 'I told you!' Randolph exclaimed. 'I tell you, sir!' he added jocosely, giving Winterbourne a thump on the knee. "It is bigger, too!' Daisy had entered upon a lively conversation with her hostess: Winterbourne judged it becoming to address a few words to her mother. 'I hope you have been well since we parted at Vevey.' he said. Mrs. Miller now certainly looked at him - at his chin. "Not very well, sir,' she answered. 'She's got the dyspepsia,' said Randolph. 'I've got it too. Father's got it. I've got it worst!' This announcement, instead of embarrassing Mrs. Miller, seemed to relieve her. 'I suffer from the liver.' she said. 'I think it's this climate; it's less bracing than Schenectady, especially in the winter season. I don't know whether you know we reside at Schenectady. I was saying to Daisy that I certainly hadn't found any one like Dr Davis, and I didn't believe I should. Oh, at Schenectady, he stands first; they think everything of him. He has so much to do, and yet there was nothing he wouldn't do for me. He said he never saw anything like my dyspepsia, but he was bound to cure it. I'm sure there was nothing he wouldn't try. He was just going to try something new when we came off. Mr. Miller wanted Daisy to see Europe for herself. But I wrote to Mr. Miller that it seems as if I couldn't get on without Dr Davis. At Schenectady he stands at the very top: and there's a great deal of sickness there, too. It affects my sleep.' Winterbourne had a good deal of pathological gossip with Dr Davis's patient, during which Daisy chattered unremittingly to her own companion. The young man asked Mrs. Miller how she was pleased with Rome. ‘Well, I must say I am disappointed.’ she answered. ‘We had heard so much about it; I suppose we had heard too much. But we couldn’t help that. We had been led to expect something different.’ ‘Ah, wait a little, and you will become very fond of it,’ said Winterbourne. ‘I hate it worse and worse every day!’ cried Randolph. ‘You are like the infant Hannibal,’ said Winterbourne. ‘No, I ain’t!’ Randolph declared, at a venture. ‘You are not much like an infant,’ said his mother. ‘But we have seen places,’ she resumed, ‘that I should put a long way before Rome.’ And in reply to Winterbourne’s interrogation, There’s Zurich.’ she observed; ‘I think Zurich is lovely; and we hadn’t heard half so much about it.’ The best place we’ve seen is the City of Richmond’ said Randolph. ‘He means the ship.’ his mother explained. ‘We crossed in that ship. Randolph had a good time on the City of Richmond.’ ‘It’s the best place I’ve seen,’ the child repeated. ‘Only it was turned the wrong way.’ ‘Well, we’ve got to rum the right way some time,’ said Mrs. Miller, with a little laugh. Winterbourne expressed the hope that her daughter at least found some gratification in Rome. and she declared that Daisy was quite carried away. ‘It’s on account of the society - the society’s splendid. She goes round everywhere; she has made a great number of acquaintances. Of course she goes round more than I- do. I must say they have been very sociable; they have taken her right in. And then she knows a great many gentlemen. Oh, she thinks there’s nothing like Rome. Of course, it’s a great deal pleasanter for a young lady if she knows plenty of gentlemen.’

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By this time Daisy had turned her attention again to Winterbourne. ‘I’ve been telling Mrs. Walker how mean you were!’ the young girl announced. ‘And what is the evidence you have offered?’ asked Winterbourne, rather annoyed at Miss Miller’s want of appreciation of the zeal of an admirer who on his way down to Rome had stopped neither at Bologna nor at Florence, simply because of a certain sentimental impatience. He remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American women - the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom - were at once the most exacting in the world and the least endowed with a sense of indebtedness. ‘Why, you were awfully mean at Vevey,’ said Daisy. ‘You wouldn’t do anything. You wouldn’t stay there when I asked you.’ ‘My dearest young lady,’ cried Winterbourne, with eloquence, ‘have I come all the way to Rome to encounter your reproaches?’ ‘Just hear him say that!’ said Daisy to her hostess, giving a twist to a bow on this lady’s dress. ‘Did you ever hear anything so quaint?’ ‘So quaint, my dear?’ murmured Mrs. Walker, in the tone of a partisan of Winterbourne. ‘Well. I don’t know.’ said Daisy, fingering Mrs. Walker’s ribbons. ‘Mrs. Walker, I want to tell you something.’ ‘Mother,’ interposed Randolph, with his rough ends to his words. ‘I tell you you’ve got to go. Eugenio’ll raise something!’ ‘I’m not afraid of Eugenio,’ said Daisy, with a toss of her head. ‘Look here, Mrs Walker.’ she went on, ‘you know I’m coming to your party.’ ‘I am delighted to hear it.’ ‘I’ve got a lovely dress.’ ‘I am very sure of that.’ ‘But I want to ask a favour - permission to bring a friend.’ ‘I shall be happy to see any of your friends.’ said Mrs. Walker, fuming with a smile to Mrs Miller. ‘Oh. they are not my friends,’ answered Daisy’s mamma, smiling shyly, in her own fashion. ‘I never spoke to them!’ ‘It’s an intimate friend of mine - Mr. Giovanelli.’ said Daisy, without a tremor in her clear little voice or a shadow on her brilliant little face. Mrs. Walker was silent a moment, she gave a rapid glance at Winterbourne. ‘I shall be glad to see Mr Giovanelli,’ she then said. ‘He’s an Italian,’ Daisy pursued, with the prettiest serenity. ‘He’s a great friend of mine - he’s the handsomest man in the world - except Mr. Winterbourne! He knows plenty of Italians, but he wants to know some Americans. He thinks ever so much of Americans. He’s tremendously clever. He’s perfectly lovely!’ It was settled chat this brilliant personage should be brought to Mrs. Walker’s party, and then Mrs. Miller prepared to take her leave. ‘I guess we’ll go back to the hotel,’ she said. ‘You may go back to the hotel, mother, but I’m going to take a walk,’ said Daisy. ‘She’s going to walk with Mr. Giovanelli.’ Randolph proclaimed. ‘I am going to the Pincio.’ said Daisy, smiling. ‘Alone, my dear - at this hour?’ Mrs. Walker asked. The afternoon was drawing to a close - it was the hour for the throng of carriages and of contemplative pedestrians. ‘I don’t think it’s safe, my dear,’ said Mrs. Walker. ‘Neither do I,’ subjoined Mrs. Miller. ‘You’ll get the fever as sure as you live. Remember what Dr Davis told you!’

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‘Give her some medicine before she goes,’ said Randolph. The company had risen to its feet; Daisy, still showing her ‘pretty teeth, bent over and kissed her hostess. ‘Mrs. Walker, you are too perfect,’ she said. ‘I’m not going alone; I am going to meet a friend.’ ‘Your friend won’t keep you from getting the fever.’ Mrs. Miller observed. ‘Is it Mr. Giovanelli?’ asked the hostess. Winterbourne was watching the young girl: at this question his attention quickened. She stood there smiling and smoothing her bonnet-ribbons; she glanced at Winterbourne. Then, while she glanced and smiled, she answered without a shade of hesitation. ‘Mr. Giovanelli - the beautiful Giovanelli.’ ‘My dear young friend,’ said Mrs. Walker, taking her hand, pleadingly, ‘don’t walk off to the Pincio at this hour to meet a beautiful Italian.’ ‘Well, he speaks English,’ said Mrs. Miller. ‘Gracious me!’ Daisy exclaimed, ‘I don’t want to do anything improper. There’s an easy way to settle it.’ She continued to glance at Winterbourne. ‘The Pincio is only a hundred yards distant, and if Mr. Winterbourne were as polite as he pretends he would offer to walk with me!’ Winterbourne’s politeness hastened to affirm itself, and the young girl gave him gracious leave to accompany her. They passed down-stairs before her mother, and at the door Winterbourne perceived Mrs. Miller’s carriage drawn up, with the ornamental courier whose acquaintance he had made at Vevey seated within. ‘Good-bye, Eugenio!’ cried Daisy. I’m going to take a walk.’ The distance from the Via Gregoriana to the beautiful garden at the other end of the Pindan Hill is, in fact, rapidly traversed. As the day was splendid, however, and the concourse of vehicles, walkers, and loungers numerous, the young Americans found their progress much delayed. The fact was highly agreeable to Winterbourne, in spite of his consciousness of his singular situation. The slow-moving, idly-gazing Roman crowd bestowed much attention upon the extremely pretty young foreign lady who was passing through it upon his arm; and he wondered what on earth had been in Daisy’s mind when she proposed to expose herself, unattended to its appreciation. His own mission, to her sense, apparently, was to consign her to the hands of Mr. Giovanelli; but Winterbourne, at once annoyed and gratified, resolved that he would do no such thing. ‘Why haven’t you been to see me?’ asked Daisy. ‘You can’t get out of that.’ ‘I have had the honour of telling you that I have only just stepped out of the train.’ ‘You must have stayed in the train a good while after it stopped!’ cried the young girl, with her little laugh. ‘I suppose you were asleep. You have had time to go to see Mrs. Walker.’ ‘I knew Mrs. Walker - ‘ Winterbourne began to explain. ‘I knew where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That’s just as good. So you ought to have come.’ She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle about her own affairs. ‘We’ve got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they’re the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter - if we don’t die of the fever; and I guess we’ll stay then. It’s a great deal nicer than I thought; I thought it would be fearfully quiet; I was sure it would be awfully poky. I was sure we should be going round all the time with one of those dreadful old men that explain about the pictures and things. But we only had about a week of that, and now I’m enjoying myself. I know ever so many people, and they are all so charming. The society’s extremely select. There are all kinds - English, and Germans, and Italians. I think I like the English best. I like their style of conversa-

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tion. But there are some lovely Americans. I never saw anything so hospitable. There’s something or other every day. There’s not much dancing; but I must say I never thought dancing was everything. I was always fond of conversation. I guess I shall have plenty at Mrs. Walker’s - her rooms are so small.’ When they had passed the gate of the Pincian Gardens. Miss Miller began to wonder where Mr. Giovanelli might be. ‘We had better go straight to that place in front,’ she said, ‘where you look at the view.’ ‘I certainly shall not help you to find him,’ Winterbourne declared. ‘Then I shall find him without you,’ said Miss Daisy. ‘You certainly won’t leave me!’ cried Winterbourne. She burst into her little laugh. ‘Are you afraid you’ll get lost or run over? But there’s Giovanelli, leaning against that tree. He’s staring at the women in the carriages: did you ever see anything so cool?’ Winterbourne perceived at some distance a little man standing with folded arms, nursing his cane. He had a handsome face, an artfully poised hat, a glass in one eye and a nosegay in his button-hole. Winterbourne looked at him a moment and then said, ‘Do you mean to speak to that man?’ ‘Do I mean to speak to him? Why, you don’t suppose I mean to communicate by signs?’ ‘Pray understand, then,’ said Winterbourne, ‘that I intend to remain with you.’ Daisy stopped and looked at him, without a sign of troubled consciousness in her face; with nothing but the presence of her charming eyes and her happy dimples. ‘Well, she’s a cool one!’ thought the young man. ‘I don’t like the way you say that,’ said Daisy. ‘It’s too imperious.’ ‘I beg your pardon if I say it wrong. The main point is to give you an idea of my meaning.’ The young girl looked at him more gravely, but with eyes that were prettier than ever. ‘I have never allowed a gentleman to dictate to me, or to interfere with anything I do.’ ‘I think you have made a mistake,’ said Winterbourne. ‘You should sometimes listen to a gentleman - the right one?’ Daisy began to laugh again. ‘I do nothing but listen to gentlemen!’ she exclaimed. ‘Tell me if Mr. Giovanelli is the right one.’ The gentleman with the nosegay in his bosom had now perceived our two friends, and was approaching the young girl with obsequious rapidity. He bowed to Winterbourne as well as to the tatter’s companion; he had a brilliant smile, an intelligent eye; Winterbourne thought him not a bad-looking fellow. But he nevertheless said to Daisy - ‘No, he’s not the right one.’ Daisy evidently had a natural talent for performing introductions; she mentioned the name of each of her companions to the other. She strolled along with one of them on each side of her; Mr. Giovanelli, who spoke English very cleverly - Winterbourne afterwards learned that he had practised the idiom upon a great many American heiresses -addressed her a great deal of very polite nonsense; he was extremely urbane, and the young American, who said nothing, reflected upon that profundity of Italian cleverness which enables people to appear more gracious in proportion as they are more acutely disappointed. Giovanelli, of course, had counted upon something more intimate; he had not bargained for a party of three. But he kept his temper in a manner which suggested far-stretching intentions. Winterbourne flattered himself that he had taken his measure. ‘He is not a gentleman,’ said the young American; ‘he is only a clever imitation of one. He is a music-master, or a penny-a-liner, or a thirdrate artist. Damn his good looks!’ Mr Giovanelli had certainly a very pretty face; but

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Winrcrbourne felt a superior indignation at his own lovely fellow-countrywoman’s not knowing the difference between a spurious gentleman and a real one. Giovanelli chattered and jested and made himself wonderfully agreeable. It was true that if he was an imitation the imitation was very skilful. ‘Nevertheless,’ Winterbourne said to himself, ‘a nice girl ought to know!’ And then he came back to the question whether this was in fact a nice girl. Would a nice girl - even allowing for her being a little American flirt - make a rendezvous with a presumably low-lived foreigner? The rendezvous in this case, indeed, had been in broad daylight, and in the most crowded comer of Rome; but was it not impossible to regard the choice of these circumstances as a proof of extreme cynicism? Singular though it may seem. Winterbourne was vexed that the young girl, in joining her amoroso, should not appear more impatient of his own company, and he was vexed because of his inclination. It was impossible to regard her as a perfectly well-conducted young lady; she was wanting in a certain indispensable delicacy. It would therefore simplify matters greatly to be able to treat her as the object of one of those sentiments which are called by romancers ‘lawless passions.’ That she should seem to wish to get rid of him would help him to think more lightly of her, and to be able to think more lightly of her would make her much less perplexing. But Daisy, on this occasion, continued to present herself as an inscrutable combination of audacity and innocence. She had been walking some quarter of an hour, attended by her two cavaliers, and responding in a tone of very childish gaiety, as it seemed to Winterbourne, to the pretty speeches of Mr. Giovanelli, when a carriage that had detached itself from the revolving train drew up beside the path. At the same moment Winterbourne perceived that his friend Mrs Walker - the lady whose house he had lately left - was seated in the vehicle and was beckoning to him. Leaving Miss Miller’s side he hastened to obey her summons. Mrs. Walker was flushed; she wore an excited air. ‘It is really too dreadful,’ she said. ‘That girl must not do this sort of thing. She must not walk here with you two men. Fifty people have noticed her.’ Winterbourne raised his eyebrows: ‘I think it’s a pity to make too much fuss about it.’ ‘It’s a pity to let the girl ruin herself!’ ‘She is very innocent,’ said Winterbourne. ‘She’s very crazy!’ cried Mrs. Walker. ‘Did you ever see anything so imbecile as her mother? After you had all left me, just now, I could not sit still for thinking of it. It seemed too pitiful, not even to attempt to save her. I ordered the carriage and put on my bonnet, and came here as quickly as possible. Thank heaven I have found you!‘ ‘What do you propose to do with us?’ asked Winterbourne, smiling. To ask her to get in. to drive her about here for half-an-hour, so that the world may see she is not running absolutely wild, and then to take her safely home.’ ‘I don’t think it’s a very happy thought,’ said Winterbourne; ‘but you can try.’ Mrs. Walker tried. The young man went in pursuit of Miss Miller, who had simply nodded and smiled at his interlocutrix in the carriage and had gone her way with her own companion. Daisy, on learning that Mrs. Walker wished to speak to her, retraced her steps with a perfect good grace and with Mr. Giovanelli at her side. She declared that she was delighted to have a chance to present this gentleman to Mrs. Walker. She immediately achieved the introduction, and declared that she had never in her life seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Walker’s carriage-rug. ‘I am glad you admire it,’ said this lady, smiling sweetly. ‘Will you get in and let me put it over you?’

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‘Oh, no, thank you,’ said Daisy. ‘I shall admire it much more as I see you driving round with it.’ ‘Do get in and drive with me,’ said Mrs. Walker. ‘That would be charming, but it’s so enchanting just as I am!’ and Daisy gave a brilliant glance at the gentlemen on either side of her. ‘It may be enchanting, dear child, but it is not the custom here.’ urged Mrs Walker, leaning forward in her victoria with her hands devoutly clasped. ‘Well, it ought to be, then!’ said Daisy. ‘If I didn’t walk I should expire.’ ‘You should walk with your mother, dear.’ cried the lady from Geneva, losing patience. ‘With my mother dear!’ exclaimed the young girl. Winterbourne saw that she scented interference. ‘My mother never walked ten steps in her life. And then, you know.’ she added with a laugh. ‘I am more than five years old.’ ‘You are old enough to be more reasonable. You are old enough, dear Miss Miller, to be talked about.’ Daisy looked at Mrs. Walker, smiling intensely. ‘Talked about? What do you mean?’ ‘Come into my carriage and I will tell you.’ Daisy turned her quickened glance again from one of the gentlemen beside her to the other. Mr. Giovanelli was bowing to and fro, rubbing down his gloves and laughing very agreeably; Winterbourne thought it a most unpleasant scene. ‘I don’t think I want to know what you mean,’ said Daisy presently. ‘I don’t think I should like it.’ Winterbourne wished that Mrs. Walker would tuck in her carriage-rug and drive away; but this lady did not enjoy being defied, as she afterwards told him. ‘Should you prefer being thought a very reckless girl?’ she demanded. ‘Gracious me!’ exclaimed Daisy. She looked again at Mr. Giovanelli, then she fumed to Winterbourne. There was a little pink flush in her cheek; she was tremendously pretty. ‘Does Mr Winterbourne think.’ she asked slowly, smiling, throwing back her head and glancing at him from head to foot, ‘that - to save my reputation - I ought to get into the carriage?’ Winterbourne coloured; for an instant he hesitated greatly. It seemed so strange to hear her speak that way of her ‘reputation.’ But he himself, in fact, must speak in accordance with gallantry. The finest gallantry, here, was simply to tell her the truth; and the truth, for Winterbourne, as the few indications I have been able to give have made him known to the reader, was that Daisy Miller should take Mrs. Walker’s advice. He looked at her exquisite prettiness; and then he said very gently, ‘I think you should get into the carriage.’ Daisy gave a violent laugh. ‘I never heard anything so stiff! If this is improper, Mrs. Walker.’ she pursued, ‘then I am all improper, and you must give me up. Goodbye; I hope you’ll have a lovely ride!’ and, with Mr Giovanelli, who made a triumphantly obsequious salute, she turned away. Mrs. Walker sat looking after her. and there were tears in Mrs. Walker’s eyes. ‘Get in here, sir,’ she said to Winterbourne indicating the place beside her. The young man answered that he felt bound to accompany Miss Miller; whereupon Mrs. Walker declared that if he refused her this favour she would never speak to him again. She was evidently in earnest. Winterbourne overtook Daisy and her companion, and. offering the young girl his hand, told her that Mrs. Walker had made an imperious claim upon his society. He expected that in answer she would say something rather free, something to commit herself still farther to that ‘recklessness’ from which Mrs. Walker had so charitably endeavoured to dissuade her. But she only shook his hand hardly

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looking at him, while Mr Giovanelli bade him farewell with a too emphatic flourish of the hat. Winterbourne was not in the best possible humour as he took his seat in Mrs. Walker’s victoria. ‘That was not clever of you.’ he said candidly, while the vehicle mingled again with the throng of carriages. ‘In such a case,’ his companion answered, ‘I don’t wish to be clever. I wish to be earnest!’ ‘Well, your earnestness has only offended her and put her off; ‘It has happened very well,’ said Mrs. Walker. ‘If she is so perfectly determined to compromise herself, the sooner one knows it the better; one can act accordingly.’ ‘I suspect she meant no harm,’ Winterbourne rejoined. ‘So I thought a month ago. But she has been going too far.’ ‘What has she been doing?’ ‘Everything that is not done here. Flirting with any man she could pick up: sitting in corners with mysterious Italians: dancing all the evening with the same partners; receiving visits at eleven o’clock at night. Her mother goes away when visitors come.’ ‘But her brother,’ said Winterbourne, laughing, ‘sits up till midnight.’ ‘He must be edified by what he sees. I’m told that at their hotel everyone is talking about her, and that a smile goes round among the servants when a gentleman comes and asks for Miss Miller.’ The servants be hanged!’ said Winterbourne angrily. ‘The poor girl’s only fault,’ he presently added is that she is very uncultivated.’ ‘She is naturally indelicate.’ Mrs Walker declared. Take that example this morning. How long had you known her at Vevey?’ ‘A couple of days.’ ‘Fancy, then, her making it a personal matter that you should have left the place!’ Winterbourne was silent for some moments; then he said, ‘I suspect, Mrs. Walker, that you and I have lived too long at Geneva!’ And he added a request that she should inform him with what particular design she had made him enter her carriage. ‘I wished to beg you to cease your relations with Miss Miller - not to flirt with her - to give her no farther opportunity to expose herself - to let her alone, in short.’ ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ said Winterbourne. ‘I like her extremely.’ ‘All the more reason that you shouldn’t help her to make a scandal.’ ‘There shall be nothing scandalous in my attentions to her.’ ‘There certainly will be in the way she takes them. But I have said what I had on my conscience.’ Mrs. Walker pursued. ‘If you wish to rejoin the young lady I will put you down. Here, by-the-way, you have a chance.’ The carriage was traversing the part of the Pincian Garden which overhangs the wall of Rome and overlooks the beautiful Villa Borghese. It is bordered by a large parapet, near which there are several seats. One of the seats, at a distance, was occupied by a gentleman and a lady, towards whom Mrs. Walker gave a toss of her head. At the same moment these persons rose and walked towards the parapet. Winterbourne had asked the coachman to stop; he now descended from the carriage. His companion looked at him a moment in silence; then, while he raised his hat, she drove majestically away. Winterbourne stood there; he had turned his eyes towards Daisy and her cavalier. They evidently saw no one; they were too deeply occupied with each other. When they reached the low garden-wall they stood a moment looking off at the great flat-topped pine-clusters of the Villa Borghese; then Giovanelli

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seated himself familiarly upon the broad ledge of the wall. The western sun in the opposite sky sent out a brilliant shaft through a couple of cloud-bars; whereupon Daisy’s companion took her parasol out of her hands and opened it. She came a little nearer and he held the parasol over her; then, still holding it. he let it rest upon her shoulder, so that both of their heads were hidden from Winterbourne. This young man lingered a moment, then he began to walk. But he walked - not towards the couple with the parasol; towards the residence of his aunt, Mrs. Costello. 4 He flattered himself on the following day that there was no smiling among the servants when he, at least, asked for Mrs. Miller at her hotel. This lady and her daughter, however, were not at home; and on the next day after, repeating his visit. Winterbourne again had the misfortune not to find them. Mrs. Walker’s party took place on the evening of the third day, and in spite of the frigidity of his last interview with the hostess Winterbourne was among the guests. Mrs. Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad, make a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society; and she had on this occasion collected several specimens of her diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, as it were as text-books. When Winterbourne arrived Daisy Miller was not there; but in a few moments he saw her mother come in alone, very shyly and ruefully. Mrs. Miller’s hair, above her exposedlooking temples, was more frizzled than ever. As she approached Mrs. Walker. Winterbourne also drew near. ‘You see I’ve come all alone,’ said poor Mrs. Miller. ‘I’m so frightened; I don’t know what to do; it’s the first time I’ve ever been to a party alone - especially in this country. I wanted to bring Randolph or Eugenio, or some one, but Daisy just pushed me off by myself. I ain’t used to going round alone.’ ‘And does not your daughter intend to favour us with her society?’ demanded Mrs. Walker, impressively. ‘Well. Daisy’s all dressed.’ said Mrs. Miller, with that accent of the dispassionate, if not of the philosophic, historian with which she always recorded the current incidents of her daughter’s career. ‘She got dressed on purpose before dinner. But she’s got a friend of hers there; that gentleman - the Italian - that she wanted to bring. They’ve got going at the piano; it seems as if they couldn’t leave off. Mr. Giovanelli sings splendidly. But I guess they’ll come before very long,’ concluded Mrs. Miller hopefully. ‘I’m sorry she should come - in that way,’ said Mrs. Walker. ‘Well. I told her that there was no use in her getting dressed before dinner if she was going to wait three hours.’ responded Daisy’s mamma. ‘I didn’t see the use of her putting on such a dress as that to sit around with Mr. Giovanelli.’ ‘This is most horrible!’ said Mrs. Walker, turning away and addressing herself to Winterbourne. ‘Elle s’affiche. It’s her revenge for my having ventured to remonstrate with her. When she comes I shall not speak to her.’ Daisy came after eleven o’clock, but she was not on such an occasion, a young lady to wait to be spoken to. She rustled forward in radiant loveliness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bouquet and attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Every one stopped talking, and fumed and looked at her. She came straight to Mrs. Walker. ‘I’m afraid you thought I never was coming, so I sent mother off to tell you. I wanted to make Mr. Giovanelli practise some things before he came: you know he sings beautifully, and I want you to ask him to sing. This is Mr. Giovanelli; you know I introduced him to you; he’s got the most lovely voice and he knows the most charming set of

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songs. I made him go over them this evening, on purpose; we had the greatest time at the hotel.’ Of all this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, brightest audibleness, looking now at her hostess and now round the room, while she gave a series of little pats, round her shoulders, to the edges of her dress. ‘Is there any one I know?’ she asked. ‘I think every one knows you!’ said Mrs. Walker pregnantly, and she gave a very cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli. This gentleman bore himself gallantly. He smiled and bowed and showed his white teeth, he curled his moustaches and rolled his eyes and performed all the proper functions of a handsome Italian at an evening party. He sang very prettily, half-a-dozen songs, though Mrs. Walker afterwards declared that she had been quite unable to find out who asked him. It was apparently not Daisy who had given him his orders. Daisy sat at a distance from the piano, and though she had publicly, as it were professed a high admiration for his singing, talked, not inaudibly, while it was going on. ‘It’s a pity these rooms are so small; we can’t dance,’ she said to Winterbourne, as if she had seen him five minutes before. ‘I am not sorry we can’t dance,’ Winterbourne answered: ‘I don’t dance.’ ‘Of course you don’t dance; you’re too stiff,’ said Miss Daisy. ‘I hope you enjoyed your drive with Mrs. Walker.’ ‘No, I didn’t enjoy it; I preferred walking with you.’ ‘We paired off that was much better ‘ said Daisy. ‘But did you ever hear anything so cool as M’ Walker’s wanting me to get into her carriage and drop poor Mr. Giovanelli; and under the pretext that it was proper? People have different ideas! It would have been most unkind; he had been talking about that walk for ten days.’ ‘He should not have talked about it at all,’ said Winterbourne; ‘he would never have proposed to a young lady of this country to walk about the streets with him.’ ‘About the streets?’ cried Daisy, with her pretty stare. ‘Where then would he have proposed to her to walk? The Pincio is not the streets, either; and I, thank goodness, am not a young lady of this country. The young ladies of this country have a dreadfully poky time of it, so far as I can learn; I don’t see why I should change my habits, for them.’ ‘I am afraid your habits are those of flirt,’ said Winterbourne gravely. ‘Of course they are.’ she cried, giving ‘ m her little smiling stare again. ‘I’m a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not? But I suppose you will tell me now that I am not a nice girl.’ ‘You’re a very nice girl, but I wish you would flirt with me, and me only.’ said Winterbourne. ‘Ah! thank you, thank you very much; you are the last man I should think of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you, you are too stiff.’ ‘You say that too often.’ said Winterbourne. Daisy gave a delighted laugh. ‘If I could have the sweet hope of making you angry, I would say again.’ ‘Don’t do that; when I am angry I’m stiffer than ever. But if you won’t flirt with me, do cease at least to flirt with your friend at the piano; they don’t understand that sort of thing here.’ ‘I thought they understood nothing else!’ exclaimed Daisy. ‘Not in young unmarried women.’ ‘It seems to me much more proper in young unmarried women than in old married ones.’ Daisy declared.

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‘Well,’ said Winterbourne, ‘when you deal with natives you must go by the custom of the place. Flirting is a purely American custom; it doesn’t exist here. So when you show yourself in public with Mr. Giovanelli and without your mother - ‘ ‘Gracious! Poor mother!’ interposed Daisy. ‘Though you may be flirting, Mr. Giovanelli is not; he means something else.’ ‘He isn’t preaching, at any rate,’ said Daisy with vivacity. ‘And if you want very much to know, we are neither of us flirting; we are too good friends for that; we are very intimate friends.’ ‘Ah!’ rejoined Winterbourne, ‘if you are in love with each other it is another affair.’ She had allowed him up to this point to talk so frankly that he had no expectation of shocking her by this ejaculation; but she immediately got up, blushing visibly, and leaving him to exclaim mentally that little American flirts were the queerest creatures in the world. ‘Mr. Giovanelli, at least,’ she said, giving her interlocutor a single glance, ‘never says such very disagreeable things to me.’ Winterbourne was bewildered; he stood staring. Mr. Giovanelli had finished singing; he left the piano and came over to Daisy. ‘Won’t you come into the other room and have some tea?’ he asked, bending before her with his decorative smile. Daisy turned to Winterbourne, beginning to smile again. He was still more perplexed, for this inconsequent smile made nothing clear, though it seemed to prove, indeed, that she had a sweetness and softness that reverted instinctively to the pardon of offences. ‘It has never occurred to Mr. Winterbourne to offer me any tea.’ she said, with her little tormenting manner. ‘I have offered you advice.’ Winterbourne rejoined. ‘I prefer weak teal’ cried Daisy, and she went off with the brilliant Giovanelli. She sat with him in the adjoining room, in the embrasure of the window, for the rest of the evening. There was an interesting performance at the piano, but neither of these young people gave heed to it. When Daisy came to take leave of Mrs. Walker, this lady conscientiously repaired the weakness of which she had been guilty at the moment of the young girl’s arrival. She turned her back straight upon Miss Miller and left her to depart with what grace she might. Winterbourne was standing near the door: he saw it all. Daisy turned very pale and looked at her mother, but Mrs. Miller was humbly unconscious of any violation of the usual social forms. She appeared, indeed, to have felt an incongruous impulse to draw attention to her own striking observance of them. ‘Good night, Mrs. Walker’ she said; ‘we’ve had a beautiful evening. You see if I let Daisy come to parties without me, I don’t want her to go away without me.’ Daisy turned away, looking with a pale, grave face at the circle near the door; Winterbourne saw that, for the first moment, she was too much shocked and puzzled even for indignation. He on his side was greatly touched. That was very cruel,’ he said to Mrs. Walker. ‘She never enters my drawingroom again,’ replied his hostess. Since Winterbourne was not to meet her in Mrs. Walker’s drawing-room, he went as often as possible to Mrs. Miller’s hotel. The ladies were rarely at home, but when he found them the devoted Giovanelli was always present. Very often the polished little Roman was in the drawing-room with Daisy alone. Mrs. Miller being apparently constantly of the opinion that discretion is the better part of surveillance. Winterbourne noted, at first with surprise, that Daisy on these occasions was never embarrassed or annoyed by his own entrance; but he very presently began to feel that she had no more surprises for him; the unexpected in her behaviour was the only thing to expect. She showed no displeasure at her tete-a-tete with Giovanelli be-

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ing interrupted; she could chatter as freshly and freely with two gentlemen as with one; there was always in her conversation, the same odd mixture of audacity and puerility. Winterbourne remarked to himself that if she was seriously interested in Giovanelli it was very singular that she should not take more trouble to preserve the sanctity of their interviews, and he liked her the more for her innocent-looking indifference and her apparently inexhaustible good humour. He could hardly have said why, but she seemed to him a girl who would never be jealous. At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive smile on the reader’s part, I may affirm that with regard to the women who had hitherto interested him it very often seemed to Winterbourne among the possibilities that, given certain contingencies, he should be afraid - literally afraid - of these ladies. He had a pleasant sense that he should never be afraid of Daisy Miller. It must be added that this sentiment was not altogether flattering to Daisy: it was part of his conviction, or rather of his apprehension, that she would prove a very light young person. But she was evidently very much interested in Giovanelli. . She looked at him whenever he spoke; she was perpetually telling him to do this and to do that; she was constantly ‘chaffing’ and abusing him. She appeared completely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to displease her at Mrs Walker’s little party. One Sunday afternoon, having gone to St Peter’s with his aunt. Winterbourne perceived Daisy strolling about the great church in company with the inevitable Giovanelli. Presently he pointed out the young girl and her cavalier to Mrs. Costello. This lady looked at them a moment through her eyeglass, and then she said: ‘That’s what makes you so pensive in these days, eh?’ ‘I had not the least idea I was pensive.’ said the young man. ‘You are very much pre-occupied, you are thinking of something.’ ‘And what is it,’ he asked, ‘that you accuse me of thinking of?’ ‘Of that young lady’s - Miss Baker’s Miss Chandler’s -what’s her name? - Miss Miller’s intrigue with that little barber’s block.’ Do you call it an intrigue.’ Winterbourne asked - ‘an affair that goes on with such peculiar publicity?’ ‘That’s their folly,’ said Mrs. Costello, ‘It‘s not their merit.’ ‘No,’ rejoined Winterbourne, with something of that pensiveness to which his aunt had alluded, ‘I don’t believe that there is anything to be called an intrigue.’ ‘I have heard a dozen people speak of it; they say she is quite carried away by him.’ ‘They are certainly very intimate,’ said Winterbourne. Mrs. Costello inspected the young couple again with her optical instrument. ‘He is very handsome. One easily sees how it is. She thinks him the most elegant man in the world, the finest gentleman. She has never seen anything like him; he is better even than the courier. It was the courier probably who introduced him, and if he succeeds in marrying the young lady, the courier will come in for a magnificent commission.’ ‘I don’t believe she thinks of marrying him.’ said Winterbourne, ‘and I don’t believe he hopes to marry her.’ ‘You may be very sure she thinks of nothing. She goes on from day to day, from hour to hour is they did in the Golden Age. I can imagine nothing more vulgar. And at the same time.’ added Mrs. Costello, ‘depend upon it that she may tell you any moment that she is ‘engaged.’ ‘I think that is more than Giovanelli expects,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Who is Giovanelli?’

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‘The little Italian. I have asked questions about him and learned something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I believe he is in a small way a cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn’t move in what are called e first circles. I think it is really not absolutely impossible that the courier introduced him. He is evidently immensely charmed with Miss Miller. If she thinks him the finest gentleman in the world, he, on his side, has never found himself in personal contact with such splendour, such opulence, such expensiveness, as this young lady’s. And then she must seem to him wonderfully pretty and interesting. I rather doubt whether he dreams of marrying her. That must appear to him too impossible a piece of luck. He has nothing but his handsome face to offer, and there is a substantial Mr. Miller in that mysterious land of dollars. Giovanelli knows that he hasn’t a title to offer. If he were only a count or a marchese! He must wonder at his luck at the way they have taken him up.’ ‘He accounts for it by his handsome face. and thinks Miss Miller a young lady qui se passe ses fantaisies!’ said Mrs. Costello. ‘It is very true,’ Winterbourne pursued, ‘that Daisy and her mamma have not yet risen to that stage of - what shall I call it? - of culture, at which the idea of catching a count or a marchese begins. I believe that they are intellectually incapable of that conception.’ ‘Ah! but the cavaliere can’t believe it,’ said Mrs. Costello. Of the observation excited by Daisy’s ‘intrigue,’ Winterbourne gathered that day at St Peter’s sufficient evidence. A dozen of the American colonists in Rome came to talk with Mrs. Costello, who sat on a little portable stool at the base of one of the great pilasters. The vesper-service was going forward in splendid chants and organtones in the adjacent choir, and meanwhile, between Mrs. Costello and her friends, there was a great deal said about poor little Miss Miller’s going really ‘too far.’ Winterbourne was not pleased with what he heard; but when coming out upon the great steps of the church, he saw Daisy, who had emerged before him, get into an open cab with her accomplice and roll away through the cynical streets of Rome, he could not deny to himself that she was going very far indeed. He felt sorry for her not exactly that he believed that she had completely lost her head but because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder. He made an attempt after this to give a hint to Mrs. Miller. He met one day in the Corso a friend - a tourist like himself - who had just come out of the Doria Palace, where he had been walking through the beautiful gallery. His friend talked for a moment about the superb portrait of Innocent X. by Velasquez, which hangs in one of the cabinets of the palace, and then said. ‘And in the same cabinet, by-the-way, I had the pleasure of contemplating a picture of a different kind - that pretty American girl whom you pointed out to me last week.’ In answer to Winterbourne’s inquiries, his friend narrated that the pretty American girl prettier than ever - was seated with a companion in the secluded nook in which the great papal portrait is enshrined. ‘Who was her companion?’ asked Winterbourne. ‘A little Italian with a bouquet in his button-hole. The girl is delightfully pretty, but I thought I understood from you the other day that she was a young lady du meilleur monde.’ ‘So she is!’ answered Winterbourne; and having assured himself that his informant had seen Daisy and her companion but five minutes before, he jumped into a cab and went to call on Mrs. Miller. She was at home; but she apologised to him for receiving him in Daisy’s absence.

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‘She’s gone out somewhere with Mr. Giovanelli.’ said Mrs. Miller. ‘She’s always going round with Mr. Giovanelli.’ ‘I have noticed that they are very intimate,’ Winterbourne observed. ‘Oh! it seems as if they couldn’t live without each other!’ said Mrs. Miller. ‘Well, he’s a real gentleman, anyhow. I keep telling Daisy she’s engaged!’ ‘And what does Daisy say?’ ‘Oh, she says she isn’t engaged. But she might as well be!’ this impartial parent resumed. ‘She goes on as if she was. But I’ve made Mr. Giovanelli promise to tell me, if she doesn’t. I should want to write to Mr. Miller about it - shouldn’t you?’ Winterbourne replied that he certainly should; and the state of mind of Daisy’s mamma struck him as so unprecedented in the annals of parental vigilance that he gave up as utterly irrelevant the attempt to place her upon her guard. After this Daisy was never at home, and Winterbourne ceased to meet her at the houses of their common acquaintance, because, as he perceived, these shrewd people had quite made up their minds that she was going too far. They ceased to invite her, and they intimated that they desired to express to observant Europeans the great truth that, though Miss Daisy Miller was a young American lady, her behaviour was not representative - was regarded by her compatriots as abnormal. Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon her ostracism or even to have perceived it. Then at other moments he believed that she carried about in her elegant and irresponsible little organism a defiant, passionate, perfectly observant consciousness of the impression she produced. He asked himself whether Daisy’s defiance came from the consciousness of innocence or from her being, essentially, a young person of the reckless class. It must be admitted that holding oneself to a belief in Daisy’s ‘innocence’ came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter of fine-spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was angry at finding himself reduced to chopping logic about this young lady; he was vexed at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her eccentricities were generic, national, and how far they were personal. From either view of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late. She was ‘carried away’ by Mr. Giovanelli. A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered her in that beautiful abode of flowering desolation known as the Palace of the Caesars. The early Roman spring had filled the air with bloom and perfume, and the rugged surface of the Palatine was muffled with tender verdure. Daisy was strolling along the top of one of those great mounds of ruin that are embanked with mossy marble and paved with monumental inscriptions. It seemed to him that Rome had never been so lovely as just then. He stood looking off at the enchanting harmony of line and colour that remotely encircles the city, inhaling the softly humid odours and feeling the freshness of the year and the antiquity of the place reaffirm themselves in mysterious interfusion. It seemed to him also that Daisy had never looked so pretty: but this had been an observation of his whenever he met her. Giovanelli was at her side, and Giovanelli, too, wore an aspect of even unwonted brilliancy. ‘Well,’ said Daisy. ‘I should think you would be lonesome!’ ‘Lonesome?’ asked Winterbourne. ‘You are always going round by yourself. Can’t you get any one to walk with you?’ ‘I am not so fortunate,’ said Winterbourne, ‘as your companion.’

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Giovanelli, from the first, had treated Winterbourne with distinguished politeness; he listened with a deferential air to his remarks; he laughed, punctiliously, at his pleasantries; he seemed disposed to testify to his belief that Winterbourne was a superior young man. He carried himself in no degree like a jealous wooer; he had obviously a great deal of tact; he had no objection to your expecting a little humility of him. It even seemed to Winterbourne at times that Giovanelli would find a certain mental relief in being able to have a private understanding with him - to say to him, as an intelligent man, that, bless you, he knew how extraordinary was this young lady, and didn’t flatter himself with delusive - or at least coo delusive - hopes of matrimony and dollars. On this occasion he strolled away from his companion to pluck a sprig of almond blossom, which he carefully arranged in his buttonhole. ‘I know why you say that,’ said Daisy, watching Giovanelli. ‘Because you think I go round too much with him!’ And she nodded at her attendant. ‘Every one thinks so - if you care to know,’ said Winterbourne. ‘Of course I care to know!’ Daisy exclaimed seriously. ‘But I don’t believe it. They are only pretending to be shocked. They don’t really care a straw what I do. Besides, I don’t go round so much’ ‘I think you will find they do care. They will show it - disagreeably.’ Daisy looked at him a moment. ‘How - disagreeably?’ ‘Haven’t you noticed anything?’ Winterbourne asked. ‘I have noticed you. But I noticed you were as stiff as an umbrella the first time I saw you.’ ‘You will find I am not so stiff as several others,’ said Winterbourne, smiling. ‘How shall I find it?’ ‘By going to see the others.’ ‘What will they do to me?’ ‘They will give you the cold shoulder. Do you know what that means?’ Daisy was looking at him intently; she began to colour. ‘Do you mean as Mrs. Walker did the other night?’ ‘Exactly!’ said Winterbourne. She looked away at Giovanelli, who was decorating himself with his almondblossom. Then looking back at Winterbourne - ‘I shouldn’t think you would let people be so unkind!’ she said. ‘How can I help it?’ he asked. ‘I should think you would say something.’ ‘I do say something;’ and he paused a moment. ‘I say that your mother tells me that she believes you are engaged.’ ‘Well, she does,’ said Daisy very simply. Winterbourne began to laugh. ‘And does Randolph believe it?’ he asked. ‘I guess Randolph doesn’t believe anything.’ said Daisy. Randolph’s scepticism excited Winterbourne to further hilarity, and he observed that Giovanelli was coming back to them. Daisy, observing it too, addressed herself again to her countryman. ‘Since you have mentioned it,’ she said, ‘I am engaged.’ ... Winterbourne looked at her: he had stopped laughing. ‘You don’t believe it!’ she added. He was silent a moment: and then, ‘Yes. I believe it!’ he said. ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ she answered. ‘Well, then - I am not!’ The young girl and her cicerone were on their way to the gate of the enclosure, so that Winterbourne, who had but lately entered, presently took leave of them. A week afterwards he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satis-

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faction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely-lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud-curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o’clock). Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum, it occurred to him, as a lover of the picturesque, that the interior, in the pale moonshine, would be well worth a glance. He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches, near which, as he observed, an open carriage - one of the little Roman street-cabs - was stationed. Then he passed in among the cavernous shadows of the great structure, and emerged upon the clear and silent arena. The place had never seemed to him more impressive. One-half of the gigantic circus was in deep shade; the other was sleeping in the luminous dusk. As he stood there he began to murmur Byron’s famous lines, out of ‘Manfred;’ but before he had finished his quotation he remembered that if nocturnal meditations in the Colosseum are recommended by the poets. they are deprecated by the doctors. The historic atmosphere was there, certainly; but the historic atmosphere, scientifically considered, was no better than a villainous miasma. Winterbourne walked to the middle of the arena, to take a more general glance, intending thereafter to make a hasty retreat. The great cross in the centre was covered with shadow; it was only as he drew near it chat he made it out distinctly. Then he saw that two persons were stationed upon the low steps which formed its base. One of these was a woman, seated; her companion was standing in front of her. Presently the sound of the woman’s voice came to him distinctly in the warm night-air. ‘Well, he looks at us as one of the old lions or tigers may have looked at the Christian martyrs!’ These were the words he heard, in the familiar accent of Miss Daisy Miller. ‘Let us hope he is not very hungry.’ responded the ingenious Giovanelli. ‘He will have to take me first; you will serve for dessert!’ Winterbourne stopped, with a sort of horror: and. it must be added, with a sort of relief. It was as if a sudden illumination had been flashed upon the ambiguity of Daisy’s behaviour and the riddle had become easy to read. She was a young lady whom a gentleman need no longer be at pains to respect. He stood there looking at her - looking at her companion, and not reflecting that though he saw them vaguely, he himself must have been more brightly visible. He felt angry with himself that he had bothered so much about the right way of regarding Miss Daisy Miller. Then, as he was going to advance again, he checked himself; not from the fear that he was doing her injustice, but from a sense of the danger of appearing unbecomingly exhilarated by this sudden revulsion from cautious criticism. He turned away towards the entrance of the place; but as he did so he heard Daisy speak again. ‘Why, it was Mr. Winterbourne! He saw me - and he cuts me!’ What a clever little reprobate she was, and how smartly she played an injured innocence! But he wouldn’t cue her. Winterbourne came forward again, and went towards the great cross. Daisy had got up; Giovanelli lifted his hat. Winterbourne had now begun to think simply of the craziness, from a sanitary point of view, of a delicate young girl lounging away the evening in this nest of malaria. What if she were a clever little reprobate? That was no reason for her dying of the perniciosa. ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked, almost brutally. . Daisy, lovely in the flattering moonlight, looked at him a moment. Then - ‘All the evening.’ she answered gently.... ‘I never saw anything so pretty.’

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‘I am afraid,’ said Winterbourne, ‘that you will not think Roman fever very pretty. This is the way people catch it. I wonder.’ he added, turning to Giovanelli. ‘that you, a native Roman, should countenance such a terrible indiscretion.’ •Ah.’ said the handsome native, ‘for myself. I am not afraid.’ ‘Neither am I - for you! I am spiking for this young lady.’ Giovanelli lifted his well-shaped eyebrows and showed his brilliant teeth. But he took Winterbourne’s rebuke with docility. ‘I told the Signorina it was a grave indiscretion; but when was the Signorina ever prudent?’ ‘I never was sick, and I don’t mean to be!’ the Signorina declared. ‘I don’t look like much. but I’m healthy! I was bound to see the Colosseum by moonlight; I shouldn’t have wanted to go home without that; and we have had the most’ beautiful time, haven’t we, Mr. Giovanelli? If there has been any danger, Eugenio can give me some pills. He has got some splendid pills.’ ‘I should advise you.’ said Winterbourne. ‘to drive home as fast as possible and take one!’ ‘What you say is very wise.’ Giovanelli rejoined. ‘I will go and make sure the carriage is at hand. And he went forward rapidly. Daisy followed with Winterbourne. He kept looking at her; she seemed not in the least embarrassed. Winterbourne said nothing; Daisy chattered about the beauty of the place. ‘Well, I have seen the Colosseum by moonlight!’ she exclaimed. That’s one good thing.’ Then, noticing Winterbourne’s silence, she asked him why he didn’t speak. He made no answer; he only began to laugh. They passed under one of the dark archways; Giovanelli was in front with the carriage. Here Daisy stopped a moment, looking at the young American. ‘Did you believe I was engaged the other day?’ she asked. ‘It doesn’t matter what I believe the other day.’ Said Winterbourne, still laughing. ‘Well, what do you believe now?’ ‘I believe that it makes very little difference whether you are engaged or not!’ He felt the young girl’s pretty eyes fixed upon him through the thick gloom of the archway; she was apparently going to answer. But Giovanelli hurried her forward. ‘Quick, quick,’ he said; ‘if we get in by midnight we are quite safe.’ Daisy took her seat in the carriage, and the fortunate Italian placed himself beside her. ‘Don’t forget Eugenio’s pills !’ said Winterbourne, as he lifted his hat. ‘I don’t care,’ said Daisy, in a little strange tone, ‘whether I have Roman fever or not!’ Upon this the cab-driver cracked his whip, and they rolled away over the desultory patches of the antique pavement. Winterbourne - to do him justice, as it were - mentioned to no one that he had encountered Miss Miller, at midnight, in the Colosseum with a gentleman; but nevertheless, a couple of days later, the fact of her having been there under these circumstances was known to every member of the little American circle, and commented accordingly. Winterbourne reflected that they had of course known it at the hotel, and that, after Daisy’s return, there had been an exchange of jokes between the porter and the cab-driver. But the young man was conscious at the same moment that it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him that the little American flirt should be ‘talked about’ by low-minded menials. These people, a day or two later, had serious information to give: the little American flirt was alarmingly ill. Winterbourne, when the rumour came to him, immediately went to the hotel for more news. He found that two or three charitable friends had preceded him, and that they were being entertained in Mrs. Miller’s salon by Randolph.

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‘It’s going round at night,’ said Randolph - ‘that’s what made her sick. She’s always going round at night. I shouldn’t think she’d want to - it’s so plaguey dark. You can’t see anything here at night, except when there’s a moon. In America there’s always a moon!’ Mrs. Miller was invisible; she was now, at least, giving her daughter the advantage of her society. It was evident that Daisy was dangerously ill. Winterbourne went often to ask for news of her, and once he saw Mrs. Miller, who, though deeply alarmed, was – rather to his surprise – perfectly composed, and, as it appeared, a most efficient and judicious nurse. She talked a good deal about Dr Davis, but Winterbourne paid her the compliment of saying to himself that she was not, after all, such a monstrous goose. Daisy spoke of you the other day.’ she said to him. ‘Half the time she doesn’t know what she’s saying, but that time I think she did. She gave me a message; she told me to tell you. She told me to tell you that she never was engaged to that handsome Italian. I am sure I am very glad: Mr. Giovanelli hasn’t been near us since she was taken ill. I thought he was so much of a gentleman; but I don’t call that very polite!’ A lady told me that he was afraid I was angry with him for taking Daisy round at night. Well, so I am; but I suppose he knows I’m a lady. I would scorn to scold him. Any way, she says she’s not engaged. I don’t know why she wanted you to know; but she said to me three times - ‘Mind you tell Mr. Winterbourne.’ And then she told me to ask if you remembered the time you went to that castle, in Switzerland. But I said I wouldn’t give any such messages as that. Only, if she is not engaged, I’m sure I’m glad to know it.’ But, as Winterbourne had said, it mattered very little. A week after this the poor girl died; it had been a terrible case of the fever. Daisy’s grave was in the little Protestant cemetery, in an angle of the wall of imperial Rome, beneath the cypresses and the thick spring-flowers. Winterbourne stood there beside it, with a number of other mourners; a number larger than the scandal excited by the young lady’s career would have led you to expect. Near him stood Giovanelli, who came nearer still before Winterbourne turned away. Giovanelli was very pale; on this occasion he had no flower in his button-hole; he seemed to wish to say something. At last he said. ‘She was the most beautiful young lady I ever saw and the most amiable.’ And then he added in a moment, ‘And she was the most innocent.’ Winterbourne looked at him and presently repeated his words. ‘And the most innocent?’ ‘The most innocent!’ Winterbourne felt sore and angry. ‘Why the devil,’ he asked, ‘did you take her to that fatal place?’ Mr. Giovanelli’s urbanity was apparently imperturbable. He looked on the ground a moment, and then he said, ‘For myself, I had no fear; and she wanted to go.’ ‘That was no reason!’ Winterbourne declared. The subtle Roman again dropped his eyes. ‘If she had lived, I should have got nothing. She would never have married me. I am sure.’ ‘She would never have married you?’ ‘For a moment I hoped so. But no. I am sure.’ Winterbourne listened to him; he stood staring at the raw protuberance among the April daisies. When he turned away again Mr. Giovanelli, with his light slow step, had retired. Winterbourne almost immediately left Rome; but the following summer he again met his aunt, Mrs. Costello, at Vevey. Mrs. Costello was fond of Vevey. In the interval

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Winterbourne had often thought of Daisy Miller and her mystifying manners. One day he spoke of her to his aunt - said it was on his conscience that he had done her injustice. ‘I am sure I don’t know,’ said Mrs. Costello. ‘How did your injustice affect her?’ ‘She sent me a message before her death which I didn’t understand at the time. But I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one’s esteem.’ ‘Is that a modest way.’ asked Mrs. Costello, ‘of saying that she would have reciprocated one’s affection?’ Winterbourne offered no answer to this question: but he presently said, ‘You were right in that remark that you made last summer. I was booked to make a mistake. I have lived too long in foreign parts.’ Nevertheless, he went back to live at Geneva, whence there continue to come the most contradictory accounts of his motives of sojourn: a report that he is ‘studying’ hard - an intimation that he is much interested in a very clever foreign lady. 1878 Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What is Henry James’ connection to feminism? What features of national character are reflected in the story? What means of psychological analysis does the author resort to? What is the conflict of the story? How does it develop?

JACK LONDON 1876-1916 Main works: The Son of the Wolf (1900) The God of His Fathers (1901) The Children of the Frost (1902) The Call of the Wild (1903) The People of the Abyss (1903) The Sea Wolf (1904) White Fang (1906) Love of Life and Other Stories (1907) Martin Eden (1909) Smoke Bellew (1912) Text to read and discuss: The White Silence

THE WHITE SILENCE "Carmen won't last more than a couple of days." Mason spat out a chunk of ice and surveyed the poor animal ruefully, then put her foot in his mouth and proceeded to bite out the ice, which clustered cruelly between the toes. "I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth a rap," he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. "They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here; he's –" Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the white teeth missing Mason's throat.

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"Ye will, will ye?" A shrewd clout behind the ear with the butt of the dog whip stretched the animal in the snow, quivering • softly, a yellow slaver dripping from its fangs. "As I was saying, just look at Shookum here – he's got the spirit. Bet ye he eats Carmen before the week's out." "I'll bank another proposition against that," replied Malemute Kid, reversing the frozen bread placed before the fire to thaw. "We'll eat Shookum before the trip is over. What d'ye say, Ruth?" The Indian woman settled the coffee with a piece of ice, glanced from Malemute Kid to her husband, then at the dogs, but vouchsafed no reply. It was such a palpable truism that none was necessary. Two hundred miles of unbroken trail in prospect, with a scant six days' grub for themselves and none for the dogs, could admit no other alternative. The two men and the woman, grouped about the fire and began their meager meal. The dogs lay in their harnesses, for it was a midday halt, and watched each mouthful enviously. "No more lunches after today," said Malemute Kid. "And we've got to keep a close eye on the dogs, they're getting vicious. They'd just as soon pull a fellow down as not, if they get a chance." "And I was president of an Epworth33 once, and taught in the Sunday school." Having irrelevantly delivered himself of this, Mason fell into a dreamy contemplation of his steaming moccasins, but was aroused by Ruth filling his cup. "Thank God, we've' got slathers of tea! I've seen it growing, down in Tennessee. What wouldn't I give for a hot corn pone just now! Never mind, Ruth; you won't starve much longer, nor wear moccasins either." The woman threw off her gloom at this, and in her eyes welled up a great love for her white lord – the first white man she had ever seen – the first man whom she had known to treat a woman as something better than a mere animal or beast of burden. "Yes, Ruth," continued her husband, having recourse to the macaronic jargon in which it was alone possible for them to understand each other; "wait till we clean up and pull for the Outside.34 We'll take the White Man's canoe and go to the Salt Water35. Yes, bad water, rough water – great mountains dance up and down all the time. And so big, so far, so far away – you travel ten sleep36, twenty sleep, forty sleep" – he graphically enumerated the days on his fingers – "all the time water, bad water. Then you come to great village, plenty people, just the same mosquitoes next summer. Wigwams oh, so high – ten, twenty pines. Hi-yu Shookum!" He paused impotently, cast an appealing glance at Malemute Kid, then laboriously placed the twenty pines, end on end, by sign language. Malemute Kid smiled with cheery cynicism; but Ruth's . eyes were wide with wonder, and with pleasure; for she half believed he was joking, and such condescension pleased her poor woman's heart. "And then you step into a – a box, and pouf! up you go." He tossed his empty cup in the air by way of illustration and, as he deftly caught it, cried: "And biff! down you come. Oh, great medicine men! You go Fort Yukon, I go Arctic City – twenty – five sleep – big string, all the time – I catch him string – I say, 'Hello, Ruth! How are ye?' – and you say, 'Is that my good husband?' – and I say, 'Yes' – and you say, 'No can bake good bread, no more soda' – then I say, 'Look in cache, under flour; good33

Methodist denomination The civilized world in the South 35 The ocean 36 Ten nights 34

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by.' You look and catch plenty soda. All the time you Fort Yukon, me Arctic City. Hiyu medicine man!" Ruth smiled so ingenuously at the fairy story that both men I burst into laughter. A row among the dogs cut short the wonders of the Outside, and by the time the snarling combatants were separated, she had lashed the sleds and all was ready for the trail. "Mush! Baldy! Hi! Mush on!" Mason worked his whip smartly and, as the dogs whined low in the traces, broke out the sled with the gee pole. Ruth followed with the second team, leaving Malemute Kid, who had helped her start, to bring up the rear. Strong man, brute that he was, capable of felling an ox at a blow, he could not bear to beat the poor animals, but humored them as a dog driver rarely does – nay, almost wept with them in their misery. "Come, mush on there, you poor sore-footed brutes!" he murmured, after several ineffectual attempts to start the load. But his I patience was at last rewarded, and though whimpering with pain, they hastened to join their fellows. No more conversation; the toil of the trail will not permit such extravagance. And of all deadening labors, that of the Northland trail is the worst. Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price of silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee. Then up, straight up, the deviation of a fraction of an inch being a certain precursor of disaster, the snowshoe must be lifted till the surface is cleared; then forward, down, and the other foot is raised perpendicularly for the matter of half a yard. He who tries this for the first time, if haply he avoids bringing his shoes in dangerous propinquity and measures not his length on the treacherous footing, will give up exhausted at the end of a hundred yards; he who can keep out of the way of the dogs for a whole day may well crawl into his sleeping bag with a clear conscience and a pride which passeth all understanding; and he who travels twenty sleeps on the Long Trail is a man whom the gods may envy. The afternoon wore on, and, with the awe born of the White Silence, the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Nature has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his finity – the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm, the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artillery – but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases, the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the sound of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity, realizes that his is a maggot's life, nothing more. Strange thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things strives for utterance. And the fear of death, of God, of the universe, comes over him – the hope of the Resurrection and the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the imprisoned essence – it is then, if ever, man walks alone with God. So wore the day away. The river took a great bend, and Mason headed his team for the cutoff across the narrow neck of land. But the dogs balked at the high bank. Again and again, though Ruth and Malemute Kid were shoving on the sled, they slipped back. Then came the concerted effort. The miserable creatures, weak from hunger, exerted their last strength. Up – up – the sled poised on the top of the bank; but the leader swung the string of dogs behind him to the right, fouling Mason's snowshoes. The result was grievous. Mason was whipped off his feet; one of the

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dogs fell in the traces; and the sled toppled back, dragging everything to the bottom again. Slash! the whip fell among the dogs savagely, especially upon the one which had fallen. "Don't, Mason," entreated Malemute Kid; "the poor devil's on its last legs. Wait and we'll put my team on." Mason deliberately withheld the whip till the last word had fallen, then out flashed the long lash, completely curling about the offending creature's body Carmen – for it was Carmen – cowered in the snow, cried piteously, then rolled over on her side. It was a tragic moment, a pitiful incident of the trail – a dying dog, two comrades in anger. Ruth glanced solicitously from man to man. But Malemute Kid restrained himself, though. there was a world of reproach in his eyes, and, bending over the dog, cut the traces. No word was spoken. The teams were doublespanned, and the difficulty overcome; the sleds were under way again, the dying dog dragging herself along in the rear. As long as an animal can travel, it is not shot, and this last chance is accorded it – the crawling into camp, if it can, in the hope of a moose being killed. Already penitent for his angry action, but too stubborn to make amends, Mason toiled on at the head of the cavalcade, little dreaming that danger hovered in the air. The timber clustered thick in the sheltered bottom, and through this they threaded their way. Fifty feet or more from the trail towered a lofty pine. For generations it had stood there, and for generations destiny had had this one end in view – perhaps the same had been decreed of Mason. He stooped to fasten the loosened thong of his moccasin. The sleds came to a halt, and the dogs lay down in the snow without a whimper. The stillness was weird; not a breath rustled the frost-encrusted forest; the cold and silence of outer space had chilled the heart and smote the trembling lips of nature. A sigh pulsed through the air – they did not seem to actually hear it, but rather felt it, like the premonition of movement in a motionless void. Then the great tree, burdened with its weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life. He heard the warning crash and attempted to spring up but, almost erect, caught the blow squarely on the shoulder. The sudden danger, the quick death - how often had Malemute Kid faced it! The pine needles were still quivering as he gave his commands and sprang into action. Nor did the Indian girl faint or raise her voice in idle wailing, as might many of her white sisters. At his order, she threw her weight on the end of a quickly extemporized handspike, easing the pressure and listening to her husband's groans, while Malemute Kid attacked the tree with his axe. The steel rang merrily as it bit into the frozen trunk, each stroke being accompanied by a forced, audible respiration, the "Huh!" "Huh!" of the woodsman. At last the Kid laid the pitiable thing that was once a man in the snow. But worse than his comrade's pain was the dumb anguish in the woman's face, the blended look of hopeful, hopeless query. Little was said; those of the Northland are early taught the futility of words and the inestimable value of deeds. With the temperature at sixty-five below zero, a man cannot lie many minutes in the snow and live. So the sled lashings were cut, and the sufferer, rolled in furs, laid on a couch of boughs. Before him roared a fire, built of the very wood, which wrought the mishap. Behind and partially over him was stretched the primitive fly – a piece of canvas, which caught the radiating heat and threw it back and down upon him – a trick which men may know who study physics at the fount. And men who have shared their bed with death know when the call is sounded. Mason was terribly crushed. The most cursory examination revealed it. His right arm,

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leg, and back were broken; his limbs were paralyzed from the hips; and the likelihood of internal injuries was large. An occasional moan was his only sign of life. No hope; nothing to be done. The pitiless night crept slowly by – Ruth's portion, the despairing stoicism of her race, and Malemute Kid adding new lines to his face of bronze. In fact, Mason suffered least of all, for he spent his time in eastern Tennessee, in the Great Smoky Mountains, living over the scenes of his childhood. And most pathetic was the melody of his long-forgotten Southern vernacular, as he raved of swimming holes and coon hunts and watermelon raids. It was as Greek to Ruth, but the Kid understood and felt – felt as only one can feel who has been shut out for years from all that civilization means. Morning brought consciousness to the stricken man, and Malemute Kid bent closer to catch his whispers. "You remember when we foregathered on the Tanana, four years come next ice run? I didn't care so much for her then. It was more like she was pretty, and there was a smack of excitement about it, I think. But d'ye know, I've come to think a heap of her. She's been a good wife to me, always at my shoulder in the pinch. And when it comes to trading, you know there isn't her equal. D'ye recollect the time she shot the Moose-horn Rapids to pull you and me off that rock, the bullets whipping the water like hailstones? – and the time of the famine at Nuklukyeto? – or when she raced the ice run to bring the news? Yes, she's been a good wife to me, better'n that other one. Didn't know I'd been there? Never told you, eh? Well, I tried it once, down in the States. That's why I'm here. Been raised together, too. I came away to give her a chance for divorce. She got it. "But that's got nothing to do with Ruth. I had thought of cleaning up and pulling for the Outside next year–her and I – but it's too late. Don't send her back to her people, Kid. It's beastly hard for a woman to go back. Think of it! – nearly four years on our bacon and beans and flour and dried fruit, and then to go back to her fish and caribou. It's not good for her to have tried our ways, to come to know they're better'n her people's, and then return to them. Take care of her, Kid – why don't you? – but no, you always fought shy of them – and you never told me why you came to this country. Be kind to her, and send her back to the States as soon as you can. But fix it so as she can come back – liable to get homesick, you know. "And the youngster – it's drawn us closer, Kid. I only hope it is a boy. Think of it! – flesh of my flesh, Kid. He mustn't stop in this country. And if it's a girl, why, she can't. Sell my furs; they'll fetch at least five thousand, and I've got as much more with the company. And handle my interests with yours. I think that bench claim will show up. See that he gets a good schooling; and, Kid, above all, don't let him come back. This country was not made for white men. "I'm a gone man, Kid. Three or four sleeps at the best. You've got to go on. You must go on! Remember, it's my wife, it's my boy – 0 God! I hope it's a boy! You can't stay by me – and I charge you, a dying man, to pull on." "Give me three days," pleaded Malemute Kid. "You may change for the better; something may turn up " "No." "Just three days." "You must pull on." "Two days." "It's my wife and my boy, Kid. You would not ask it." "One day." "No, no! I charge –"

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"Only one day. We can shave it through on the grub, and I might knock over a moose." "No – all right; one day, but not a minute more. And, Kid, don't – don't leave me to face it alone. Just a shot, one pull on the trigger. You understand. Think of it! Think of it! Flesh of my flesh, and I'll never live to see him! "Send Ruth here. I want to say good-by and tell her that she must think of the boy and not wait till I'm dead. She might refuse to go with you if I didn't. Good-by, old man; good-by. "Kid! I say – a – sink a hole above the pup, next to the slide. I panned out forty cents on my shovel there." "And, Kid!" he stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying man's surrender of his pride. "I'm sorry – for – you know – Carmen." Leaving the girl crying softly over her man, Malemute Kid slipped into his parka and snowshoes, tucked his rifle under his arm, and crept away into the forest. He was no tyro in the stern sorrows of the Northland, but never had he faced so stiff a problem as this. In the abstract, it was a plain, mathematical proposition– three possible lives as against one doomed one. But now he hesitated. For five years, shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of their comradeship. So close was the tie that he had often been conscious of a vague jealousy of Ruth, from the first time she had come between. And now it must be severed by his own hand. Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose, all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, light-handed, heavy-hearted. An uproar from the dogs and shrill cries from Ruth hastened him. Bursting into the camp, he saw the girl in the midst of the snarling pack, laying about her with an axe. The dogs had broken the iron rule of their masters and were rushing the grub. He joined the issue with his rifle reversed, and the hoary game of natural selection was played out with all the ruthlessness of its - primeval environment. Rifle and axe went up and down, hit or missed with monotonous regularity; lithe bodies flashed, with wild eyes and dripping fangs; and man and beast fought for supremacy to the bitterest conclusion. Then the beaten brutes crept to the edge of the firelight, licking their wounds, voicing their misery to the stars. The whole stock of dried salmon had been devoured, and perhaps five pounds of flour remained to tide them over two-hundred miles of wilderness. Ruth returned to her husband, while Malemute Kid cut up the warm body of one of the dogs, the skull of which had been crushed by the axe. Every portion was carefully put away, save the hide and offal, which were cast to-his fellows of the moment before. Morning brought fresh trouble. The animals were turning on each other. Carmen, who still clung to her slender thread of life, was downed by the pack. The lash fell among them unheeded. They cringed and cried under the blows, but refused to scatter till the last wretched bit had disappeared – bones, hide, hair, everything. Malemute Kid went about his work, listening to Mason, who was back in Tennessee, delivering tangled discourses and wild exhortations to his brethren of other days. Taking advantage of neighboring pines, he worked rapidly, and Ruth watched him make a cache similar to those sometimes used by hunters to preserve their meat from the wolverines and dogs. One after the other, he bent the tops of two small pines toward each other and nearly to 'the ground, making them fast with thongs of

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moosehide. Then he beat the dogs into submission and harnessed them to two of the sleds, loading the same with everything but the furs, which enveloped Mason. These he wrapped and lashed tightly about him, fastening either end of the ropes to the bent pines. A single stroke of his hunting knife would release them and send the body high in the air. Ruth had received her husband's last wishes and made no struggle. Poor girl, she had learned the lesson of obedience well. From a child, she had bowed, and seen all women bow, to the-lords of creation, and it did not seem in the nature of things for woman to resist. The Kid permitted her one outburst of grief, as she kissed her husband – her own people had no such custom – then led her to the foremost sled and helped her into her snowshoes. Blindly, instinctively, she took the gee pole and whip, and "mushed" the dogs out on the trail. Then he returned to Mason, who had fallen into a coma, and long after she was out of sight crouched by the fire, waiting, hoping, praying for his comrade to die. It is not pleasant to be alone with painful thoughts in the White Silence. The silence of gloom is merciful, shrouding one as with protection and breathing a thousand intangible sympathies; but the bright White Silence, clear and cold, under steely skies, is pitiless. An hour passed – two hours – but the man would not die. At high noon the sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw a suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back. Malemute Kid roused and dragged himself to his comrade's side. He cast one glance about him. The White Silence seemed to sneer, and a great fear came upon him. There was a sharp report; Mason swung into his aerial sepulchre, and Malemute Kid lashed the dogs into a wild gallop as he fled across the snow. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How is nature presented in the story? What is its role in the story? What is its main conflict? What aspects of London’s artistic method are revealed in the story?

AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XXth CENTURY The development of American literature in the XXth century was first and foremost determined by the historical and political situation both in the world at large and in the country itself. Thus World War I brought into being the literature of lost generation; the economic crisis and the Great Depression were reflected in the socially engaged literature of the roaring thirties; World War II and the Cold War that followed with its McCarthy’s witch hunting aroused the protest of the Beat Generation writers – beatniks. As a result American literature became much more diverse and heterogeneous, also in color and gender than it used to be in the XIXth century. New trends that sprang up in European literature already at the turn of the century – such as Naturalism and Modernism – found its reflection in American literature as well. It also underwent the influence of such widely spread philosophic theories as Nietzsche’ philosophy and existentialism. By and large it became more integrated into the world literary process than before, though still retaining its national peculiarity.

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THEODORE DREISER 1971-1945 Main works: Sister Carrie (1900) Jennie Gerhardt (1911) Trilogy of Desire – The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), The Stoic (publ. in 1947) The Genius (1915) An American Tragedy (1945) Texts to read and discuss: From An American Tragedy: Book II, chapters XXIV, XLIV, and XLV

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY Here is a story of an ordinary young man, Clyde Griffiths, raised by street evangelist parents in Kansas City. Clyde goes to Lycurgus, a town in New York State, and is offered a job in his uncle's factory. His uncle, Samuel Griffiths, is a prosperous collar manufacturer. Clyde attempts to achieve wealth and success by his charm and the standard of his uncle's family. His affections are transferred from Roberta Alden, a stumper in his department, to Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a well-to-do business man. She becomes the key to Clyde's ambitions. But Roberta expects a baby. Clyde is anxious to find some means of freeing himself. The American press suggests him the idea of a murder. The title of the novel reveals the author's appraisal of what is described in it. The principal criterion of man's significance in bourgeois society is a certain sum of money on his bank account. Success and prosperity achieved regardless of the cost becomes the meaning of life. Here lies the tragedy of Clyde and other common Americans. CHAPTER XXIV The effect of this so casual contact was really disrupting in more senses than one. For now in spite of his comfort in and satisfaction with Roberta, once more and in this positive and to him entrancing way, was posed the whole question of his social possibilities here. And that strangely enough by the one girl of this upper level who had most materialized and magnified for him the meaning of that upper level itself. The beautiful Sondra Finchley! Her lovely face, smart clothes, gay and superior demeanor! If only at the time he had first encountered her he had managed to interest her. Or could now. The fact that his relations with Roberta were what they were now was not of sufficient import or weight to offset the temperamental or imaginative pull of such a girl as Sondra and all that she represented. Just to think the Wimblinger Finchley Electric Sweeper Company was one of the largest manufacturing concerns here. Its tall walls and stacks made a part of the striking skyline across the Mohawk. And the Finchley residence in Wykeagy Avenue, near that of the Griffiths, was one of the most impressive among that distinguished row of houses which had come with the latest and most discriminating architectural taste here–Italian Renaissance–cream hued marble and Dutchess County Sandstone combined. And the Finchleys were among the most discussed of families here. Ah, to know this perfect girl more intimately! To be looked upon by her with favor, – made, by reason of that favor, a part of that fine world to which she belonged. Was he not a Griffiths – as good looking as Gilbert Griffiths any day? And as attrac-

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tive if he only had as much money – or a part of it even. To be able to dress in the Gilbert Griffiths' fashion; to ride around in one of the handsome cars he sported! Then, you bet, a girl like this would be delighted to notice him, – mayhap, who knows, even fall in love with him. Analschar and the tray of glasses. But now, as he gloomily thought, he could only hope, hope, hope. The devil! He would not go around to Roberta's this evening. He would trump up some excuse – tell her in the morning that he had been called upon by his uncle or cousin to do some work. He could not and would not go, feeling as he did just now. So much for the effect of wealth, beauty, the peculiar social state to which he most aspired, on a temperament that was as fluid and unstable as water. [...] CHAPTER XLIV [...] But now once more in Lycurgus and back in his room after just explaining to Roberta, as he had, he once more encountered on his writing desk, the identical paper containing the item concerning the tragedy at Pass Lake. And in spite of himself, his eye once more followed nervously and yet unwaveringly to the last word all the suggestive and provocative details. The uncomplicated and apparently easy way in which the lost couple had first arrived at the boathouse; the commonplace and entirely unsuspicious way in which they had hired a boat and set forth for a row; the manner in which they had disappeared to the north end; and then the upturned boat, the floating oars and hats near the shore. He stood reading in the still strong evening light. Outside the windows were the dark boughs of the fir tree of which he had thought the preceding day and which now suggested all those firs and pines about the shores of Big Bittern. But, good God! What was he thinking of anyhow? He, Clyde Griffiths! The nephew of Samuel Griffiths! What was "getting into" him? Murder! That's what it was. This terrible item – this devil's accident or machination that was constantly putting it before him! A most horrible crime, and one for which they electrocuted people if they were caught. Besides, he could not murder anybody – not Roberta, anyhow. Oh, no! Surely not after all that had been between them. And yet – this other world! – Sondra – which he was certain to lose now unless he acted in some way – His hands shook, his eyelids twitched – then his hair at the roots tingled and over his body ran chill nervous titillations in waves. Murder! Or upsetting a boat at any rate in deep water, which of course might happen anywhere, and by accident, as at Pass Lake. And Roberta could not swim. He knew that. But she might save herself at that – scream – cling to the boat – and then – if there were any to hear – and she told afterwards! An icy perspiration now sprang to his forehead; his lips trembled and suddenly his throat felt parched and dry. To prevent a thing like that he would have to – to – but no – he was not like that. He could not do a thing like that – hit any one – a girl – Roberta – and when drowning or struggling. Oh, no, no – no such thing as that! Impossible. He took his straw hat and went out, almost before any one heard him think, as he would have phrased it to himself, such horrible, terrible thoughts. He could not and would not think them from now on. He was no such person. And yet – and yet – these thoughts. The solution – if he wanted one. The way to stay here – not leave – marry Sondra – be rid of Roberta and all – all – for the price of a little courage or daring. But no! He walked and walked – away from Lycurgus – out on a road to the southeast which passed through a poor and decidedly unfrequented rural section, and so left him alone to think – or, as he felt, not to be heard in his thinking.

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Day was fading into dark. Lamps were beginning to glow in the cottages here and there. Trees in groups in fields or along the road were beginning to blur or smokily blend. And although it was warm – the air lifeless and lethargic – he walked fast, thinking, and perspiring as he did so, as though he were seeking to outwalk and outthink or divert some inner self that preferred to be still and think. That gloomy, lonely lake up there! That island to the south! Who would see? Who could hear? That station at Gun Lodge with a bus running to it at this season of the year. (Ah, he remembered that, did he? The deuce?) A terrible thing, to remember a thing like that in connection with such a thought as this? But if he were going to think of such a thing as this at all, he had better think well – he could tell himself that – or stop thinking about it now – once and forever – forever. But Sondra! Roberta! If ever he were caught – electrocuted! And yet the actual misery of his present state. The difficulty! The danger of losing Sondra. And yet, murder – He wiped his hot and wet face, and paused and gazed at a group of trees across a field which somehow reminded him of the trees of... well... he didn't like this road. It was getting too dark out here. He had better turn and go back. But that road at the south and leading to Three Mile Bay and Greys Lake – if one chose to go that way – to Sharon and the Cranston Lodge – whither he would be going afterwards if he did go that way. God! Big Bittern – the trees along there after dark would be like that – blurred and gloomy. It would have to be toward evening, of course. No one would think of trying to... well... in the morning, when there was so much light. Only a fool would do that. But at night, toward dusk, as it was now, or a little later. But, damn it, he would not listen to such thoughts. Yet no one would be likely to see him or Roberta either – would they– there? It would be so easy to go to a place like Big Bittern – for an alleged wedding trip – would it not – over the Fourth, say – or after the fourth or fifth, when there would be fewer people. And to register as some one else – not himself – so that he could never be traced that way. And then, again, it would be so easy to get back to Sharon and the Cranstons' by midnight, or the morning of the next day, maybe, and then, once there, he could pretend also that he had come north on that early morning train that arrived about ten o'clock. And then... Confound it – why should his mind keep dwelling on this idea? Was he actually planning to do a thing like this? But he was not? He could not be! He, Clyde Griffiths, could not be serious about a thing like this. That was not possible. He could not be. Of course! It was all too impossible, too wicked, to imagine that he, Clyde Griffiths, could bring himself to execute a deed like that. And yet... And forthwith an uncanny feeling of wretchedness and insufficiency for so dark a crime insisted on thrusting itself forward. He decided to retrace his steps toward Lycurgus, where .at least he could be among people. CHAPTER XLV There are moments when in connection with the sensitively imaginative or morbidly anachronistic – the mentality assailed and the same not of any great strength and the problem confronting it of sufficient force and complexity – the reason not actually toppling from its throne, still totters or is warped or shaken – the mind befuddled to the extent that for the time being, at least, unreason or disorder and mistaken or erroneous counsel would appear to hold against all else. In such instances the will and the courage confronted by some great difficulty which it can neither master nor

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endure, appears in some to recede in precipitate flight, leaving only panic and temporary unreason in its wake. And in this instance, the mind of Clyde might well have been compared to a small and routed army in full flight before a major one, yet at various times in its precipitate departure, pausing for a moment to meditate on some way of escaping complete destruction and in the coincident panic of such a state, resorting to the weirdest and most haphazard of schemes of escaping from an impending and yet wholly unescapable fate. The strained and bedeviled look in his eyes at moments – the manner in which, from moment to moment and hour to hour, he went over and over his hitherto poorly balanced actions and thoughts but with no smallest door of escape anywhere. And yet again at moments the solution suggested by the item in The Times-Union again thrusting itself forward, psychogenetically, born of his own turbulent, eager and disappointed seeking. And hence persisting. Indeed, it was now as though from the depths of some lower or higher world never before guessed or plumbed by him... a region otherwhere than in life or death and peopled by creatures otherwise than himself ... there had now suddenly appeared, as the genii at the accidental rubbing of Aladdin's lamp – as the efrit emerging as smoke from the mystic jar in the net of the fisherman – the very substance of some leering and diabolic wish or wisdom concealed in his own nature, and that now abhorrent and yet compelling, leering and yet intriguing, friendly and yet cruel, offered him a choice between an evil which threatened to destroy him (and against his deepest opposition) and a second evil which, however it might disgust or sear or terrify, still provided for freedom and success and love. Indeed the center or mentating section of his brain at this time might well have been compared to a sealed and silent hall in which alone and undisturbed, and that in spite of himself, he now sat thinking on the mystic or evil and terrifying desires or advice of some darker or primordial and unregenerate nature of his own, and without the power to drive the same forth or himself to decamp, and yet also without the courage to act upon anything. For now the genii of his darkest and weakest side was speaking. And it said: "And would you escape from the demands of Roberta that but now and unto this hour have appeared unescapable to you? Behold! I bring you a way. It is the way of the lake – Pass Lake. This item that you have read – do you think it was placed in your hands for nothing? Remember Big Bittern, the deep, blue-black water, the island to the south, the lone road to Three Mile Bay? How suitable to your needs! A rowboat or a canoe upset in such a lake and Roberta would pass forever from your life. She cannot swim! The lake – the lake – that you have seen – that I have shown you – is it not ideal for the purpose? So removed and so little frequented and yet comparatively near – but a hundred miles from here. And how easy for you and Roberta to go there–not directly but indirectly – on this purely imaginative marriage-trip that you have already agreed to. And all that you need do now is to change your name – and hers – or let her keep her own and you use yours. You have never permitted her to speak of you and this relationship, and she never has. You have written her but formal notes. And now if you should meet her somewhere as you have already agreed to, and without any one seeing you, you might travel with her, as in the past to Fonda, to Big Bittern – or some point near there." "But there is no hotel at Big Bittern," at once corrected Clyde. "A mere shack that entertains but few people and that not very well." "All the better. The less people are likely to be there."

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"But we might be seen on the train going up together. I would be identified as having been with her." "Were you seen at Fonda, Gloversville, Little Falls? Have you not ridden in separate cars or seats before and could you not do so now? Is it not presumably to be a secret marriage? Then why not a secret honeymoon?" "True enough – true enough.” "And once you have arranged for that and arrive at Big Bittern or some lake like it – there are so many there – how easy to row out on such a lake? No questions. No registry under your -own name or hers. A boat rented for an hour or half-day or day. You saw the island far to the south on that lone lake. Is it not beautiful? It is well worth seeing. Why should you not go there on such a pleasure trip before marriage? Would she not be happy so to do – as weary and distressed as she is now – an outing – a rest before the ordeal of the new life? Is not that sensible-plausible? And neither of you will ever return presumably. You will both be drowned, will you not? Who is to see? A guide or two–the man who rents you the boat–the innkeeper once, as you go. But how are they to know who you are? Or who she is? And you heard the depth of the water." "But I do not want to kill her. I do not want to kill her. I do not want to injure her in any way. If she will but let me go and she go her own way, I will be so glad and so happy never to see her more." "But she will not let you go or go her way unless you accompany her. And if you go yours, it will be without Sondra and all that she represents, as well as all this pleasant life here – your standing with your uncle, his friends, their cars, the dances, visits to the lodges on the lakes. And what then? A small job! Small pay! Another such period of wandering as followed that accident at Kansas City. Never another chance like this anywhere. Do you prefer that?" "But might there not be some accident here, destroying all my dreams – my future – as there was in Kansas City?" "An accident, to be sure – but not the same. In this instance the plan is in your hands. You can arrange it all as you will. And how easy! So many boats upsetting every summer – the occupants of them drowning, because in most cases they cannot swim. And will it ever be known whether the man who was with Roberta Alden on Big Bittern could swim? And of all deaths, drowning is the easiest – no noise – no outcry – perhaps the accidental blow of an oar – the side of a boat. And then silence! Freedom – a body that no one may ever find. Or if found and identified, will it not be easy, if you but trouble to plan, to make it appear that you were elsewhere, visiting at one of the other lakes before you decided to go -to Twelfth Lake. What is wrong with it? Where is the flaw?" "But assuming that I should upset the boat and that she should not drown, then what? Should cling to it, cry out, be saved and relate afterward that... But no, I cannot do that – will not do it. I will not hit her. That would be too terrible... too vile." "But a little blow – any little blow under such circumstances would be sufficient to confuse and complete her undoing. Sad, yes, but she has an opportunity to go her own way, has she not? And she will not, nor let you go yours. Well, then, is this so terribly unfair? And do not forget that afterwards there is Sondra – the beautiful – a home with her in Lycurgus – wealth, a high position such as elsewhere you may never obtain again – never – never. Love and happiness – the equal of any one here – superior even to your cousin Gilbert." The voice ceased temporarily, trailing off into shadow, – silence, dreams.

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And Clyde, contemplating all that had been said, was still unconvinced. Darker fears or better impulses supplanted the counsel of the voice in the great hall. But presently thinking of Sondra and all that she represented, and then of Roberta, the dark personality would as suddenly and swiftly return and with amplified suavity and subtlety. "Ah, still thinking on the matter. And you have not found a way out and you will not. I have truly pointed out to you and in all helpfulness the only way – the only way – It is a long lake. And would it not be easy in rowing about to eventually find some secluded spot – some invisible nook near that south shore where the water is deep? And from there how easy to walk through the woods to Three Mile Bay and Upper Greys Lake? And from there to the Cranstons'? There is a boat from there, as you know. Pah – how cowardly – how lacking in courage to win the thing that above all things you desire – beauty – wealth – position – the solution of your every material and spiritual desire. And with poverty, commonplace, hard and poor work as the alternative to all this." "But you must choose – choose! And then act. You must? You must! You must!" Thus the voice in parting, echoing from some remote part of the enormous chamber. […] Questions for self control: 1. What dominates in Clyde’s reflections about Sondra? 2. How does the author reveal the psychological state of the character, his internal conflict? 3. What is the function of the newspaper article? 4. What features of Clyde’s character can be traced in the chapters?

ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1899-1962 Main works: In Our Time (1925) The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) (1926 A farewell to Arms (1929) To Have and Have not (1937) For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) The Old Man and the Sea (1952) Texts to read and discuss Cat in the Rain; from A Farewell to Arms; from The Old Man and the Sea

CAT IN THE RAIN There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden. In the good weather there was always an artist with his easel. Artists liked the way the palms grew and the bright colors of the hotels facing the gardens and the sea. Italians came from a long way off to look up at the war monument. It was made of bronze and glistened in the rain. It was raining. The rain dripped from the palm trees. Water stood in pools on the gravel paths. The sea broke in a long line in the rain and

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slipped back down the beach to come up and break again in a long line in the rain. The motor cars were gone from the square by the war monument. Across the square in the doorway of the cafe a waiter stood looking out at the empty square The American wife stood at the window looking out. Outside right under their window a cat was crouched under one of the dripping green tables. The cat was trying to make herself so compact that she would not be dripped on. "I'm going down and get that kitty," the American wife said. "I'll do it," her husband offered from the bed. "No, I'll get it. The poor kitty out trying to keep dry under a table." The husband went on reading, lying propped up with the two pillows at the foot of the bed. "Don't get wet," he said. The wife went downstairs and the hotel owner stood up and bowed to her as she passed the office. His desk was at the far end of the office. He was an old man and very tall. "Il piove37," the wife said. She liked the hotelkeeper. "Si, si, Signora, brutto tempo38. It's very bad weather." He stood behind his desk in the far end of the dim room. The wife liked him. She liked the deadly serious way he received any complaints. She liked his dignity. She liked the way he wanted to serve her. She liked the way he felt about being a hotel-keeper. She liked his old, heavy face and big hands. Liking him she opened the door and looked out. It was raining harder. A man in a rubber cape was crossing the empty square to the cafe. The cat would be around to the right. Perhaps she could go along under the eaves. As she stood in the doorway an umbrella opened behind her. It was the maid who looked after their room. "You must not get wet," she smiled, speaking Italian. Of course, the hotel-keeper had sent her. With the maid holding the umbrella over her, she walked along the gravel path until she was under their window. The table was there, washed bright green in the rain, but the cat was gone. She was suddenly disappointed. The maid looked up at her. "Ha perduto qualque cosa, Signora?" "There was a cat," said the American girl. "A cat?" "Si, il gatto." "A cat?" the maid laughed. "A cat in the rain?" "Yes," she said, "under the table." Then, "Oh, I wanted it so much. I wanted a kitty." When she talked English the maid's face tightened. "Come, Signora," she said. "We must get back inside. You will be wet." "I suppose so," said the American girl. They went hack along the gravel path and passed in the door. The maid stayed outside to close the umbrella. As the American girl passed the office, the padrone bowed from his desk. Something felt very small and tight inside the girl. The padrone made her feel very small and at the same time really important. She had a momentary feeling of being of supreme importance. She went on up the stairs. She opened the door of the room. George was on the bed, reading. "Did you get the cat?" he asked, putting the book down. "It was gone." "Wonder where it went to," he said, resting his eyes from reading. She sat down on the bed. "I wanted it so much," she said. "I don't know why I wanted it so much. I wanted that poor kitty. It isn't any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain." George was reading again. She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass. She studied her profile, first one side and then the other. Then she studied the back of her head and her neck. "Don't you think it would be a good idea if I let my hair grow out?" she asked, looking at her profile again. George looked up and saw the back of her neck, clipped close like a boy's. "I like it the way it is." "I get so tired of it," she said. "I get so tired of looking like a boy." George shifted his position in the bed. He hadn't looked away from her since she started to speak. "You look pretty darn nice," he said. She laid the mirror down 37 38

miserable bad weather

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on the dresser and went over to the window and looked out. It was getting dark. "I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel," she said. "I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her." "Yeah?" George said from the bed. "And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes." "Oh, shut up and get something to read," George said. He was reading again. His wife was looking out of the window. It was quite dark now and still raining in the palm trees. "Anyway, I want a cat," she said, "I want a cat. I want a cat now. If I can't have long hair or any fun, I can have a cat." George was not listening. He was reading his book. His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square. Someone knocked at the door. "Avanti," George said. He looked up from his book. In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body. "Excuse me," she said, "the padrone asked me to bring this for the Signora." Questions for self- control 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

How does the story reflect Hemingway’s iceberg principle? what is the role of the exposition? what is the peculiarity of the dialogue? what artistic details create implications? what is the conflict of the story and where does it reach its climax?

A FAREWELL TO ARMS CHAPTER I In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves. The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming. Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men, and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the, fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain- The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed

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mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child. There were small gray motor cars that passed going very fast; usually there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could 'not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things went very badly. At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army. CHAPTERXLI I sat down on the chair in front of a table where there were nurses' reports hung on clips at the side and looked out of the window. I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the window. So that was it. The baby was dead. That was why the doctor looked so tired. But why had they acted the way they did in the room with him? They supposed he would come around and start breathing probably. I had no religion but I knew he ought to have been baptized. But what if he never breathed at all. He hadn't. He had never been alive. Except in Catherine. I'd felt him kick there often enough. But I hadn't for a week. Maybe he was choked all the time. Poor little kid. I wished the hell I'd been choked like that. No I didn't. Still there would not be all this dying to go through. Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you. Once in camp I put a log on top of the fire and it was full of ants. As it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the centre where I lie fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out, their bodies burnt and, flattened, and went off -not knowing where they were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire. I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants. Questions for self-control 1.

What are the main themes of A Farewell to Arms, how are they reflected in the ti-

2. 3. 4.

What is the role of the opening paragraph? How much is achieved by the first-person narrative? What is the message of the internal monologue presented in the extract?

tle?

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5. What does the notion lost generation imply and how is it reflected in the selected extracts?

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA The story is about an old Cuban fisherman, Santiago, who goes out-fishing alone in a small skiff. After a long period of fruitless fishing the old man manages to catch an enormous marline. He struggles with the fish and finally kills it. But soon it is attacked by sharks after which nothing is left, but a bare skeleton. However, the old man does not consider himself defeated.

[...] Never have I had such a strong fish nor one who acted so strangely. Perhaps he is too wise to jump. He could ruin me by jumping or by a wild rush. But perhaps he has been hooked many times before and he knows that this is how he should make his fight. He cannot know that it is only one man against him, nor that it is an old man. But what a great fish he is and what he will bring in the market if the flesh is good. He took the bait like a male and he pulls like a male and his fight has no panic in it. I wonder if he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am? [...] The line rose slowly and steadily and then the surface of the ocean bulged ahead of the boat and the fish came out. He came out unendingly and water poured from his sides. He was bright in the sun and his head and back were dark purple and in the sun the stripes on his sides showed wide and a light lavender. His sword was as long as a baseball bat and tapered like a rapier and he rose his full length from the water and then re-entered it, smoothly, like a diver and the old man saw the great scythe-blade of his tail go under and the line commenced to race out. "He is two feet longer than the skiff," the old man said. The line was going out fast but steadily and the fish was not panicked. The old man was trying with both hands to keep the line just inside of breaking strength. He knew that if he could not slow the fish with a steady pressure the fish could take out all the line and break it. He is a great fish and I must convince him, he thought. I must never let him learn his strength nor what he could do if he made his run. If I were him I would put in everything now and go until something broke. But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able. The old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more than a thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of land, he was fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of, and his left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws of an eagle. It will uncramp though, he thought. Surely it will uncramp to help my right hand. There are three things that are brothers: the fish and my two hands. It must uncramp. It is unworthy of it to be cramped. The fish had slowed again and was going at his usual pace. I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence. He settled comfortably against the wood and took his suffering as it came and the fish swam steadily and the boat moved slowly through the dark water. There was a small sea rising with the wind coming up from the east and at noon the old man's left hand was uncramped.

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"Bad news for you, fish," he said and shifted the line over the sacks that covered his shoulders. He was comfortable but suffering, although he did not admit the suffering at all. [...] The sun was rising for the third time since he had put to sea when the fish started to circle. He could not see by the slant of the line that the fish was circling. It was too early for that. He just felt a faint slackening of the pressure of the line and he commenced to pull on it gently with his right hand. It tightened, as always, but just when he reached the point where it would break, line began to come in. He slipped his shoulders and head from under the line and began to pull in line steadily and gently. He used both of his hands in a swinging motion and tried to do the pulling as much as he could with his body and his legs. His old legs and shoulders pivoted with the swinging of the pulling. "It is a very big circle," he said. "But he is circling." Then the line would not come in any more and he held it until he saw the drops jumping from it in the sun. Then it started out and the old man knelt down and let it go grudgingly back into the dark water. "He is making the far part of his circle now," he said. I must hold all I can, he thought. The strain will shorten his circle each time. Perhaps in an hour I will see him. Now I must convince him and then I must kill him. But the fish kept on circling slowly and the old man was wet with sweat and tired deep into his bones two hours later. But the circles were much shorter now and from the way the line slanted he could tell the fish had risen steadily while he swam. For an hour the old man had been seeing black spots before his eyes and the sweat salted his eyes and salted the cut over his eye and on his forehead. He was not afraid of the black spots. They were normal at the tension that he was pulling on the line. Twice, though, he had felt faint and dizzy and that had worried him. "I could not fail myself and die on a fish like this," he said. "Now that I have him coming so beautifully, God help me endure. I'll say a. hundred Our Fathers and a hundred Hail Marys. But I cannot say them now." Consider them said, he thought. I'll say them later. Just then he felt a sudden banging and jerking on the line he held with his two hands. It was sharp and hard-feeling and heavy. He is hitting the wire leader with his spear, he thought. That was bound to come. He had to do that. It may make him jump though and I would rather he stayed circling now. The jumps were necessary for him to take air. But after that each one can widen the opening of the hook wound and he can throw the hook. "Don't jump, fish," he said. "Don't jump." The fish hit the wire several times more and each time he shook his head the old man gave up a little line. I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad. After a while the fish stopped beating at the wire and started circling slowly again. The old man was gaining line steadily now. But he felt faint again. He lifted some sea water with his left hand and put it on his head. Then he put more on and rubbed the back of his neck. "I have no cramps," he said. "He'll be up soon and I can last. You have to last. Don't even speak of it." He kneeled against the bow and, for a moment, slipped the line over his back again. I'll rest now while he goes out on the circle and then stand up and work on him when he comes in, he decided.

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It was a great temptation to rest in the bow and let the fish make one circle by himself without recovering any line. But when the strain showed the fish had turned to come toward the boat, the old man rose to his feet and started the pivoting and the weaving pulling that brought in all the line he gained. I'm tireder than I have ever been, he thought, and now the trade wind is rising. But that will be good to take him in with. I need that badly. "I'll rest on the next turn as he goes out," he said. "I feel much better. Then' in two or three turns more I will have him."[...] [...] It was an hour before the first shark hit him. The shark was not an accident. He had come up from deep down in the water as the dark cloud of blood had settled and dispersed in the mile-deep sea. He had come up so fast and absolutely without caution that he broke the surface of the blue water and was in the sun. Then he fell back into the sea and picked up the scent and started swimming on the course the skiff and the fish had taken. [...] When the old man saw him coming he knew that this was a shark that had no fear at all and would do exactly what he wished. He prepared the harpoon and made the rope fast while he watched the shark come on. The rope was short as it lacked what he had cut away to lash the fish. The old man's head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but he had little hope. It was too good to last, he thought. He took one look at the great fish as he watched the shark close in. It might as well have been a dream, he thought. I cannot keep him from hitting me but maybe I can get him. Dentuso, he thought. Bad luck to your mother. The shark closed fast astern and when he hit the fish the old man saw his mouth open and his strange eyes and the clicking chop of the teeth as he drove forward in the meat just above the tail. The shark's head was out of water and his back was coming out and the old man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down on to the shark's head at a spot where the line between his eyes intersected with the line that ran straight back from his nose. There were no such lines. There was only the heavy sharp blue head and the big eyes and the clicking, thrusting all-swallowing jaws. But that was the location of the brain and the old man hit it. He hit it with his blood-mashed hands driving a good harpoon with all his strength. He hit it without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy. The shark swung over and the old man saw his eye was not alive and then he swung over once again, wrapping himself in two loops of the rope. The old man knew that he was dead but the shark would not accept it. Then, on his back, with his tail lashing and his jaws clicking, the shark ploughed over the water as a speed-boat does. The water was white where his tail beat it and three-quarters of his body was clear above the water when the rope came taut, shivered, and then snapped. The shark lay quietly for a little while on the surface and the old man watched him. Then he went down very slowly. "He took about forty pounds," the old man said aloud. He took my harpoon too and all the rope, he thought, and now my fish bleeds again and there will be others. He did not like to look at the fish any more since he had been mutilated. When the fish had been hit it was as though he himself were hit. But I killed the shark that hit my fish, he thought. And he was the biggest dentuso that I have ever seen. And God knows that I have seen big ones. It was too good to last, he thought. I wish it had been a dream now and that I had never hooked the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers.

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"But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." [...] 1. What themes and conflicts connect The Old Man and the Sea with Hemingway’s previous works? 2. What is the general message of the story?

JOHN STEINBECK 1902-1968 Main works: Tortilla Flat (1935) Of Mice and Men (1937) The Grapes of Wrath (1939) Cannery Row (1945) The Pearl (1948) The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) Text to read and discuss: From The Winter of our Discontent: chapters I; XXI and XXII

THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT Modern America's decline and moral and social corruption are illustrated by the experiences of the hero of the book - Ethan Allen Hawley, the descendent of an old New England family, formerly prosperous. In Ethan's time nothing is left of its wealth but the house where the family lives. Ethan is an educated man of high integrity. The reduced financial circumstances force him to work as a salesman in the shop of an Italian emigrant, Marullo. Ethan, who resents his social decline, is tempted to restore his fortune. The only means to achieve it are vile, contrary to his convictions, but he yields to the temptation and succeeds in gaining wealth and position by cheating his best friend and betraying his employer. At the very moment when Ethan seems to have entirely forgotten his honest principles he suffers a moral revulsion when he sees that his own son falls victim to the same lust for acquisition by dishonest means. Ethan Hawley understands that to save his children he must cut short his evil influence upon them. He makes up his mind to commit suicide but changes his mind at the very last moment. The extract presents one of the opening scenes which introduces Ethan Hawley, poor but honest, and his employer Marullo at the moment when Marullo teaches his salesman "to do business." After Ethan has refused to listen to the insistent advice of Marullo to cheat the customers he confronts another temptation. A certain Mr. Briggers, agent for a wholesale firm, offers Hawley a bribe if he agrees to order goods from his firm instead of the one Marullo deals with. Chapter I At ten o'clock everything changed. The big glass doors of the bank folded open and a river of people dipped in for money and brought the money to Marullo's, and took away the fancy foods Easter calls for. Ethan was busy as a water skater until the sixth hour struck. The angry firebell from its cupola on the town hall clanged the sixth hour. The customers drifted away with their bags of baked meats. Ethan brought in the fruit stands and closed the front doors and then for no reason except that a darkness fell

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on the world аnd on him, he pulled down the thick green shades and the darkness fell on the store. Only the neon in the cold counter glared a ghostly blue. Behind the counter he cut four fat slices of rye bread and buttered them liberally. He slid open the cold doors and picked out two slices of processed Swiss cheese and three slices of ham. "Lettuce and cheese," he said, "Lettuce and cheese. When a man marries he lives in the trees." He mortared the top slices of bread with mayonnaise from a jar, pressed the lids down on the sandwiches, and trimmed the bits of lettuce and ham fat from the edges. Now a carton of milk and a square of waxed paper for wrapping. He was folding the ends of the paper neatly when a key rattled in the front door and Marullo came in, wide as a bear and sackchested so that his arms seemed short and stood out from his body. His hat was on the back of his head so that his stiff iron-gray bangs showed like a cap. Marullo's eyes were wet and sly and sleepy, but the gold caps on his front teeth shone in the light from the cold counter. Two top buttons of his pants| were open, showing his heavy gray underwear. He hooked little fat thumbs in the roll of his pants under his stomach and blinked in the half-darkness. "Morning, Mr. Marullo. I guess it's afternoon." "Hi, kid. You shut up good and quick." "Whole town's shut. I thought you'd be at mass." "No mass today. Only day in the year with no mass." "That so? I didn't know that. Anything I can do for you?" The short fat arms stretched and rocked back and forth on the elbows. "My arms hurt, kid. Arthritis. ... Gets worse." "Nothing you can do?" "I do everything - hot pads, shark oil, pills - still hurts. All nice and shut up. Maybe we can have a talk, eh, kid" His teeth flashed. "Anything wrong?" "Wrong? What's wrong?" "Well, if you'll wait a minute, I'll just take these sandwiches to the bank. Mr. Morphy asked for them." "You're a smart kid. You give service. That's good." Ethan went through the storeroom, crossed the alley, and knocked on the back door of the bank. He passed the milk and sandwiches in to Joey. "Thanks. You didn't need to." "It's service. Marullo told me." "Keep a couple of Cokes cold, will you? I got dry zeros in my mouth." When Ethan returned, he found Marullo peering into a garbage can. "Where do you want to talk, Mr. Marullo?" "Start here, kid." He picked cauliflower leaves from the can. "You cutting off too much." "Just to make them neat." "Cauliflower is by weight. You throwing money in the garbage. I know a smart Greek fella owns maybe twenty restaurants. He says the big secret is watch the garbage cans. What you throw out, you don't sell. He's a smart fella." "Yes, Mr. Marullo." Ethan moved restlessly toward the front of the store with Marullo behind him bending his elbows back and forth. "You sprinkling good the vegetables like I said?" "Sure." The boss lifted a head of lettuce. "Feels dry." "Well, hell, Marullo. I don't want to waterlog them - they're one-third water now."

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"Makes them look crisp, nice and fresh. You think I don't know? I start with one pushcart - just one. I know. You got to learn the tricks, kid, or you go broke. Meat, now - you paying too much." "Well, we advertise Grade A beef." "А, В, С - who knows? It's on the card, ain't it? Now, we going to have a nice talk. We got dead wood on our bills. Anybody don't pay by the fifteenth - off the books." "We can't do that. Some of these people have been trading here for twenty years." "Listen, kid. Chain stores won't let John D. Rockefeller charge a nickel." "Yes, but these people are good for it, most of them." "What's 'good for it'? It ties up money. Chain stores buy carloads. We can't do that. You got to learn, kid. Sure - nice people! Money is nice too. You got too much meat scraps in the box." "That was fat and crust." "Okay if you weigh before you trim. You got to look after number one. You don't look after number one, whose'll do it? You got to learn, kid." The gold teeth did not glitter now, for the lips were tight little traps. Anger splashed up in Ethan before he knew it and he was surprised. "I'm not a chiseler, Marullo." "Who's a chiseler? That's good business, and good business is the only kind of business that stays in business. You think Mr. Baker is giving away free samples, kid?" Ethan's top blew off with a bang. "You listen to me," he shouted. "Hawleys have been living here since the middle seventeen hundreds. You're a foreigner. You wouldn't know about that. We've been getting along with our neighbors and being decent all that time. If you think you can barge in from Sicily and change that, you're wrong. If you want my job, you can have it - right here, right now. And don't call me kid or I'll punch you in the nose - " All Marullo's teeth gleamed now. "Okay, okay. Don't get mad. I just try to do you a good turn." "Don't call me kid. My family's been here two hundred years." In his own ears it sounded childish, and his rage petered out. "I don't talk very good English. You think Marullo is guinea, name, wop name, dago name. My genitori, my name, is maybe two, three thousand years old. Marullus is from Rome, Valerius Maximus tells about it. What's two hundred years?" "You don't come from here." "Two hundred years ago you don't neither." Now Ethan, his rage all leaked away, saw something that makes a man doubtful of the constancy of the realities outside himself. He saw the immigrant, guinea, fruit-peddler change under his eyes, saw the dome of forehead, the strong beak nose, deep-set fierce and fearless eyes, saw the head supported on pillared muscles, saw pride so deep and sure that it could play at humility. It was the shocking discovery that makes a man wonder: If I've missed this, what else have I failed to see? "You don't have to talk dago talk," he said softly. "Good business. I teach you business. Sixty-eight years I got. Wife she's died. Arthritis! I hurt. I try to show you business. Maybe you don't learn. Most people they don't learn. Go broke." "You don't have to rub it in because I went broke."

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"No. You got wrong. I'm try to learn you good business so you don't go broke no more." "Fat chance. I haven't got a business." "You're still a kid." Ethan said, "You look here, Marullo. I practically run this store for you. I keep the books, bank the money, order the supplies. Keep customers. They come back. Isn't that good business?" "Sure - you learned something. You're not no kid no more. You get mad when I call you kid. What I'm going to call you? I call everybody kid." "Try using my name." "Don't sound friendly. Kid is friendly." "It's not dignified." "Dignified is not friendly." Ethan laughed. "If you're a clerk in a guinea store, you've got to have dignity for your wife, for your kids. You understand?" "Is a fake." "Course it is. If I had any real dignity, I wouldn't think about it. I nearly forgot something my old father told me not long before he died. He said the threshold of insult is in direct relation to intelligence and security. He said the words 'son of a bitch' are only an insult to a man who isn't quite sure of his mother, but how would you go about insulting Albert Einstein? He was alive then. So you go right on calling me kid if you want to." "You see, kid? More friendly." "All right then. What were you going to tell me about business that I'm not doing?" "Business is money. Money is not friendly. Kid, maybe you too friendly - too nice. Money is not nice. Money got no friends but more money." "That's nonsense, Marullo. I know plenty of nice, friendly, honorable businessmen." "When not doing business, kid, yes. You going to find out. When you find out is too late. You keep store nice, kid, but if it's your store you maybe go friendly broke. I'm teaching true lesson like school. Good-by, kid." Marullo flexed his arms and went quickly out the front door and snapped it after him, and Ethan felt darkness on the world. A sharp metallic rapping came on the front door. Ethan pushed aside the curtain and called, "We're closed till three." "Let me in. I want to talk to you." The stranger came in - a spare man, a perpetually young man who had never been young, a smart dresser, hair gleaming thinly against his scalp, eyes merry and restless. "Sorry to bother you. Got to blow town. Wanted to see you alone. Thought the old man's never go." "Marullo?" "Yeah. I was across the street." Ethan glanced at the immaculate hands. On the third finger of the left hand he saw a big cat's eye set in a gold ring. The stranger saw the glance. "Not a stick-up" he said. "I met a friend of yours last night." "Yes?" "Mrs. Young-Hunt. Margie Young-Hunt."

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"Oh?" Ethan could feel the restless sniffing of the stranger's mind, searching for an opening, for a bond on which to build an association. "Nice kid. She gave you a big build-up. That's why I thought - My name's Biggers. I cover this territory for B. B. D. and D." "We buy from Waylands." "I know you do. That's why I'm here. Thought you might like to spread it out a little. We're new in this district. Building up fast. Have to make some concessions to get a foot in the door. It would pay you to take advantage of that." "You'd have to see Mr. Marullo about that. He's always had a deal with Waylands." The voice didn't lower but its tone became confidential. "You do the ordering?" "Well, yes. You see Marullo has arthritis, and besides he has other interests." "We could shave prices a little." "I guess Marullo's got them shaved as close as they'll shave. You'd better see him." 'That's what I didn't want to do. I want the man that does the ordering, and that's you." "I'm just a clerk." "You do the ordering, Mr. Hawley. I can cut you in for five per cent." "Marullo might go for a discount like that if the quality was the same." "You don't get it. I don't want Marullo. This five per cent would be in cash - no checks, no records, to trouble with the tax boys, just nice clean green cabbage from my hand to your hand and from your hand to your pocket." "Why can't Marullo get the discount?" "Price agreements." "All right. Suppose I took the five per cent and turned it over to Marullo?" "I guess you don't know them like I do. You turn it over to him, he'll wonder how much more you aren't turning over. That's perfectly natural." Ethan lowered his voice. "You want me to double-cross the man I work for?" "Who's double-crossed? He don't lose anything and you make a buck. Everybody's got a right to make a buck. Margie said you were a smart cookie." "It's a dark day, Ethan said. "No, it's not. You got the shades pulled down." The sniffing mind smelled danger - a mouse confused between the odor of trap wire and the aroma of cheese. "Tell you what," Biggers said, "you think about it. See if you can throw some business our way; I'll drop in to see you when I'm in the district. I make it every two weeks. Here's my card." Ethan's hand remained at his side. Biggers laid the card on top of the cold counter. "And here's a little memento we got out for new friends." From his side pocket he brought a billfold, a rich and beautiful affair of pin seal. He placed it beside the card on the white porcelain. "Nice little item. Place for your driver's license, lodge cards." Ethan did not reply. "I'll drop by in a couple of weeks," Biggers said. "You think about it. I'll sure be here. Got a date with Margie. There's quite a kid." With no reply, he said, "I'll let myself out. See you soon." Then suddenly he came close to Ethan. "Don't be a fool. Everybody does it," he said. "Everybody!" And he went rapidly out the door and closed it quietly after him.

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In the darkened silence Ethan could hear the low hum of the transformer for the neon light in the cold counter. He turned slowly to piled and tiered audience on the shelves. "I thought you were my friends! You didn't raise a hand for me. Fair-weather oysters, fair-weather pickles, fair-weather cake-mix. No more unimus for you. Wonder what Saint Francis would say if a dog bit him, or a bird crapped on him. Would he say, 'Thank you, Mr. Dog, grazie tanto, Signora Bird'?" He turned his head towards a rattling and a knocking and a pounding on the alley door, went quickly through the storeroom, muttering, "More customers than if we were open." Joey Morphy staggered in, clutching his throat. "For God's sake," he groaned. "Succor - or at least Pepsi-Cola, for I dieth of dryth. Why is it so dark in here? Are mine eyes failething too?" "Shades pulled down. Trying to discourage thirsty bankers." He led the way to the cold counter and dug out a frosted bottle, uncapped it, and reached for another. "Guess I'll have one too." Joey-boy leaned against the lighted glass and poured down half the bottle before he lowered it. "Hey!" he said. "Somebody's lost Fort Knox." He picked up the billfold. "That's a little gift from B. B. D. and D. drummer. He's trying to hustle some of our business." "Well, he ain't hustling peanuts. This here's quality, son. Got your initials on it, too, in gold." "It has?" "You mean you don't know?" "He just left a minute ago." Joey flipped open the folded leather and rustled the clear plastic identification envelopes. "You better start joining something," he said. He opened the back. "Now here's what I call real thoughtful." Between first and second fingers he extracted a new twenty-dollar bill. "I knew they were moving in but didn't know with tanks. That's a remembrance with remembering." "Was that in there?" "You think I planted it?" "Joey, I want to talk to you. The guy offered me five per cent of any business I throw their way." "Well, bully-bully! Prosperity at last. And it wasn't no idle promise. You should set up the Cokes. This is your day." "You don't mean I should take it - " "Why not, if they don't add it on the cost? Who loses?" "He said I shouldn't tell Marullo or he'd think I was getting more." "He would. What's the matter with you, Hawley? You nuts? I guess it's that light. You look green. Do I look green? You weren't thinking of turning it down?" "I had trouble enough not kicking him in the ass." "Oh! It's like that - you and the dinosaurs." "He said everybody does it." "Not everybody can get it. You're just one of the lucky ones." "It's not honest." "How not? Who gets hurt? Is it against the law?" "You mean you'd take it?" "Take it - I'd sit up and beg for it. In my business they got all the loopholes closed. Practically everything you can do in a bank is against the law - unless you're

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president. I don't get you. What are you hoggle-boggling about? If you were taking it away from Alfio lad, I'd say it wasn't quite straight - but you're not. You do them a favor, they do you a favor - a nice crisp green favor. Don't be crazy. You've got a wife and kids to think of. Raising kids ain't going to get any cheaper." "I wish you'd go away now." Joey Morphy put his unemptied bottle down hard on the counter. "Mr. Hawley no, Mr. Ethan Alien Hawley," he said coldly, "if you think I would do anything dishonest or suggest that you do - why you can go and screw yourself." Joey stalked toward the storeroom. "I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it. Honest to God I didn't, Joey. I just had a couple of shocks today and besides - this is a dreadful holiday - dreadful." Morphy paused. "How do you mean? Oh! yes, I know. Yes, I do know. You believe I know?" "And every year, ever since I was a kid, only it gets worse because - maybe because I know more what it means, I hear those lonely 'lama sabach thani' words." "I do know, Ethan, I do. It's nearly over - nearly over now, Ethan. Just forget I stomped out, will you?" And the iron firebell clanged - one single stroke. "It's over now," said Joey-boy. "It's all over - for a year." He drifted quietly out through the storeroom and eased the alley door shut. Ethan raised the shades and opened the store again, but there wasn't much trade - a few bottle-of-milk and loaf-of-bread kids, a small lamb chop and can of peas for Miss Borcher for her hot-plate supper. People were just not moving about in the street. During the half-hour before six o'clock, while Ethan was getting things ready to close up, not a soul came in. And he locked up and started away before he remembered the groceries for home - had to go back and assemble in two big bags and lock up over again. He had wanted to walk down to the bayside and watch the gray waves among the pilings of the dock and smell the sea water and speak to a seagull standing beak into the wind on a mooring float. He remembered a lady-poem written long ago by someone whipped to frenzy by the gliding spiral of a gull's flight. The poem began: "Oh! happy fowl what thrills thee so?" And the lady poet had never found out, probably didn't want to know. The heavy bags of groceries for the holidays discouraged the walk. Ethan moved wearily across the High Street and took his way slowly along Elm toward the old Hawley house. Chapter XXI The extract presented covers the very end of the novel and is written in the name of Ethan Hawley

I could see the Chrysler standing at the curb by the old Hawley house when I turned into Elm Street from the High, but it was more like a hearse than a freight car, black but not gleaming by reason of the droplets of rain and the greasy splash that rises from the highways. It carried frosted parking lights. It must have been very late. No lights shone from the sleeping houses on Elm Street. I was wet and I must somewhere have stepped in a puddle. My shoes made a juicy squidging sound as I walked. I saw a man in a chauffeur's cap through the musty windshield. I stopped beside the monster car and rapped with my knuckles on the glass and the window slid

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down with an electric whine. I felt the unnatural climate of air-conditioning on my face. "I'm Ethan Hawley. Are you looking for me?" I saw teeth in the dimness - gleaming teeth picked out by our street light. The door sprang open of itself and a lean, well-tailored man stepped out. "I'm Dunscombe, Brock and Schwin, television branch. I have to talk to you." He looked toward the driver. "Not here. Can we go inside?" "I guess so. I think everyone's asleep. If you talk quietly..." He followed me up our walk of flagstones set in the spongy lawn. The night light was burning in the hall. As we went in I put the narwhal stick in the elephant's foot. I turned on the reading light over my big sprung-bottomed chair. The house was quiet, but it seemed to me the wrong kind of quiet - a nervous quiet. I glanced up the stairwell at the bedrooms' doors above. "Must be important to come this late." "It is." I could see him now. His teeth were his ambassadors, unhelped by his weary but wary eyes. "We want to keep this private. It's been a bad year, as you well know. The bottom fell out the quiz scandals and then the payola39 fuss and the Congressional committees. We have to watch everything. It's a dangerous time." "I wish you'd tell me what you want." "You've read your boy's I Love America essay?" "No, I haven't." He wanted to surprise me. "He has. I don't know why we didn't catch it, but we didn't.” He held out a folded blue cover to me. "Read the underlining." I sank into my chair and opened it. It was either printed or typed by one of those new machines that looks like type, but it was marred with harsh black pencil lines down both margins. I Love America by Ethan Allen Hawley II "What is an individual man? An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass - a mere speck upon the surface of the universe; not a second in time compared to immeasurable, never-beginning and never-ending eternity, a drop of water in the great deep which evaporates and is borne off by the winds, a grain of sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung. Shall a being so small, so petty, so fleeting, so evanescent oppose itself to the onward march of a great nation which is to subsist for ages and ages to come, oppose itself to that long line of posterity which springing from our loins will endure during the existence of the world? Let us look to our country, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disinterested patriots, and save our country from all impending dangers. What are we - what is any man - worth who is not ready and willing to sacrifice himself for his country?" I riff led through the pages and saw the black marks everywhere. "Do you recognize it?" "No. It sounds familiar - sounds like maybe somewhere in the last century." "It is. It's Henry Clay40, delivered in 1850." 39

- bribe, especially for the promotion of a commercial product through the abuse of ones’ Henry Clay (1777-1852) – Southern statesman, prominent speaker to the House of Representatives 40

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"And the rest? All Clay?" "No - bits and pieces, some Daniel Webster, some Jefferson, and, God help me, a swatch from Lincoln's Second Inaugural. I don't know how that got past. I guess because there were thousands of them. Thank Christ we caught it in time..." "It doesn't sound like the prose style of a boy." "I don't know how it happened. And it might have gone through if we hadn't got the postcard." "Postcard?" "Picture postcard, picture of the Empire State Building." "Who sent it?" "Anonymous." "Where was it mailed from?" "New York." "Let me see it." "I't's under lock and key in case there's any trouble. You don't want to make trouble, do you?" "What is it you want?" "I want you to forget the whole thing. We'll just drop the whole thing and forget it - if you will." "It's not a thing easy to forget." "Hell, I mean just keep your lip buttoned - don't give us any trouble. It's been a bad year. Election year anybody will dig up anything." I closed the rich blue covers and handed it back to him. "I won't give you any trouble." His teeth showed like matched pearls. "I knew it. I told them. I looked you up. You have a good record - good family." "Will you go away now?" "You've got to know I understand how you feel." "Thank you. And I know how you feel. What you can cover up doesn't exist." "I don't want to go away leaving you angry. Public relations is my line. We could work something out. Scholarship or like that - something dignified." "Has sin gone on strike for a wage raise? No, just go away now - please!" "We'll work something out." "I'm sure you will." I let him out and sat down again and turned out the light and sat listening to my house. It thudded like a heart, and maybe it was my heart and a rustling old house. I thought to go to the cabinet and take the talisman in my hand - had stood up to get it. I heard a crunching sound and a whinny like a frightened colt, and quick steps in the hall and silence. My shoes squidged on the stairs. I went in to Ellen's room and switched on the light. She was balled up under a sheet, her head under her pillow. When I tried to lift the pillow she clung to it and I had to yank it away. A line of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. "I slipped in the bathroom." "I see. Are you badly hurt?" "I don't think so." "In other words, it's none of my business." "I didn't want him to go to jail." Alien was sitting on the edge of his bed, naked except for jockey shorts. His eyes - they made me think of a mouse in a corner, ready at last to fight a broom.

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"The stinking sneak!" "Did you hear it all?" "I heard what that stinking sneak did." "Did you hear what you did?" The driven mouse attacked. "Who cares? Everybody does it, It's the way the cooky crumbles." "You believe that?" "Don't you read the papers? Everybody right up to the top - just read the papers. You get to feeling holy, just read the papers. I bet you took some in your time, because they all do. I'm not going to take the rap for everybody. I don't care about anything. Except that stinking sneak." Mary awakens slowly, but she was awake. Perhaps she hadn't been asleep. She was in Ellen's room, sitting on the edge of the bed. The street light made her plain enough with shadows of leaves moving on her face. She was a rock, a great granite rock set in a tide race. It was true. She was tough as a boot, unmoving, unyielding, and safe. "Will you be coming to bed, Ethan?" So she had been listening too. "Not now, my darling dear." "Are you going out again?" "Yes - to walk." "You need your sleep. It's still raining. Do you have to go?" "Yes. There's a place. I have to go there." "Take your raincoat. You forgot it before." "Yes, my darling." I didn't kiss her then. I couldn't with the balled and covered figure beside her. But I touched her shoulder and I touched her face and she was tough as a boot. I went to the bathroom for a moment for a package of razor blades. I was in the hall, reaching in the closet for a raincoat as Mary wished, when I heard a scuffle and a scramble and a rush and Ellen flung herself at me, grunting and snuffling. She buried her bleeding nose against my breast and pinned my elbows down with encircling arms. And her whole little body shook. I took her by the forelock and pulled her head up under the hall night light. "Take me with you." "Silly, I can't. But if you'll come in the kitchen, I'll wash your face." "Take me with you. You're not coming back." "What do you mean, skookum? Of course I'm coming back. I'm always coming back. You go up to bed and rest. Then you'll feel better." "You won't take me?" "Where I'm going they wouldn't let you in. Do you want to stand outside in your nightgown?" "You can't." She grappled me again and her hands caressed and stroked my arms, my sides, dug her balled fists into my side pockets so that I was afraid she might find the razor blades. She was always a caressing girl, a stroking girl, and a surprising girl. Suddenly she released me and stood back with her head raised and her eyes level and without tears. I kissed her dirty little cheek and felt the dried blood against my mouth. And then I turned to the door. "Don't you want your stick?" "No, Ellen. Not tonight. Go to bed, darling. Go to bed."

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I ran away fast. I guess I ran away from her and from Mary. I could hear Mary coming down the stairs with measured steps. Chapter XXII The tide was on the rise. I waded into the warm bay water and clambered into the Place41. A slow ground swell moved in and out of the entrance, flowed through my trousers. The fat billfold in my hip pocket swelled against my hip and then grew thinner under my weight as it water-soaked. The summer sea was crowded with little jellyfish the size of gooseberries, dangling their tendrils and their nettle cells. As they washed in against my legs and belly I felt them sting like small bitter fires, and the slow wave breathed in and out of the Place. The rain was only a thin mist now and it accumulated all the stars and town lamps and spread them evenly - a dark, pewter-colored sheen. I could see the third rock, but from the Place it did not line up with the point over the sunken keel of the BelleAdair.42 A stronger wave lifted my legs and made them feel free and separate from me, and an eager wind sprang from nowhere and drove the mist like sheep. Then I could see a star - late rising, too late rising over the edge. Some kind of craft came chugging in, a craft with sail, by the slow, solemn sound of her engine. I saw her mast light over the toothy tumble of the breakwater but her red and green were below my range of sight. My skin blazed under the lances of the jellyfish. I heard an anchor plunge, and the mast light went out. Marullo's light still burned, and old Cap'n's light and Aunt Deborah's light43. It isn't true that there's a community of light, a bonfire of the world. Everyone carries his own, his lonely own. A rustling school of tiny feeding fish flicked along the shore. My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick. Inward I said, I want to go home - no not home, to the other sidе of home where the lights are given. It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. The world is full of dark derelicts. The better way - the Marullo of that old Rome would have known it - there comes a time for decent, honorable retirement, not dramatic, not punishment of self or family - just good-by, a warm bath and an opened vein, a warm sea and a razor blade. The ground swell on the rising tide whished into the Place and raised my legs and hips and swung them to the side and carried my wet folded raincoat out with it. I rolled on one hip and reached in my side pocket for my razor blades and I felt the lump. Then in wonder I remembered the caressing, stroking hands of the lightbearer. For a moment it resisted coming out of my wet pocket. Then in my hand it gathered every bit of light there was and seemed red - dark red. A surge of wave pushed me against the very back of the Place. And the tempo of the sea speeded up. I had to fight the water to get out, and I had to get out. I rolled and scrambled and splashed chest deep in the surf and the brisking waves pushed me against the old sea wall. 41

little vaulted passage on the edge of the old Harbour where Ethan came at the time of great experience. 42 Boat formerly belonging to the Hawleys 43 Hawley’s ancestors who, in his mind, accompany him to the place.

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I had to get back - had to return the talisman to its new owner. Else another light might go out. Questions for self control: 1. What do we learn about Ethan Hawley from the first chapter? 2. What traits of his character are revealed in it? 3. How does the exposition foreshadow the conflict of the novel? 4. What is achieved by the combination of different narrative methods? 5. What is the situation in Ethan’s family as reflected in chapter XXI, and what is its role in the general conflict of the novel? 6. How do you understand the denouement?

JEROME DAVID SALINGER B. 1919 Main works: The Catcher in the Rye (1951) Nine Stories (1961) Text to read and discuss: From The Catcher in the Rye: chapter I and XXII

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE Chapter I If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all — I'm not saying that — but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I mean that's all I told D.B. about, and he's my brother and all. He's in Hollywood. That isn't too far from this crumby place, and he comes over and visits me practically every weekend. He's going to drive me home when I go home next month maybe. He just got a Jaguar. One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour. It cost him damn near four thousand bucks. He's got a lot of dough, now. He didn't use to. He used to be just a regular writer, when he was home. He wrote this terrific book of short stories, “The Secret Goldfish”, in case you never heard of him. The best one in it was "The Secret Goldfish." It was about this little kid that wouldn't let anybody look at his goldfish because he'd bought it with his own money. It killed me. Now he's out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute. If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me. Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep. Pencey Prep is this school that's in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. You probably heard of it. You've probably seen the ads, anyway. They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the

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place. And underneath the guy on the horse's picture, it always says: "Since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men." Strictly for the birds. They don't do any damn more molding at Pencey than they do at any other school. And I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and clear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came to Pencey that way. Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win. I remember around three o'clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon. that was in the Revolutionary War and all. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You couldn't see the grandstand too hot, but you could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there, and scrawny and faggy on the Saxon Hall side, because the visiting team hardly ever brought many people with them. There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school, no matter how you looked at it. I like to be somewhere at least where you can see a few girls around once in a while, even if they're only scratching their arms or blowing their noses or even just giggling or something. Old Selma Thurmer — she was the headmaster's daughter — showed up at the games quite often, but she wasn't exactly the type that drove you mad with desire. She was a pretty nice girl, though. I sat next to her once in the bus from Agerstown and we sort of struck up a conversation. I liked her. She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was. The reason I was standing way up on Thomsen Hill, instead of down at the game, was because I'd just got back from New York with the fencing team. I was the goddam manager of the fencing team. Very big deal. We'd gone in to New York that morning for this fencing meet with McBurney School. Only, we didn't have the meet. I left all the foils and equipment and stuff on the goddam subway. It wasn't all my fault. I had to keep getting up to look at this map, so we'd know where to get off. So we got back to Pencey around two-thirty instead of around dinnertime. The whole team ostracized; me the whole way back on the train. It was pretty funny, in a way. The other reason I wasn't flown at the game was because I was on my way to say good-by to old Spencer, my history teacher. He had the grippe, and I figured I probably wouldn't see him again till Christmas vacation started. He wrote me this note saying he wanted to see me before I went home. He knew I wasn't coming back to Pencey. I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come back after Christmas vacation, on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself — especially around mid-terms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer — but I didn't do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. It has a very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does. Anyway, it was December and all, and it was cold as a witch's teat, especially on top of that stupid hill. I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week before that, somebody'd stolen my camel's-hair coat right out of my room, with

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my fur-lined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding. Anyway, I kept standing next to that crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasn't watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse. I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just before dinner and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around anyway. It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we didn't want to stop doing what we were doing. Finally we had to. This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of this window in the academic building and told us to go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner. If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff, I can get a good-by when I need one — at least, most of the time I can. As soon as I got it, I turned around and started running down the other side of the hill, toward old Spencer's house. He didn't live on the campus. He lived on Anthony Wayne Avenue. I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I'm quite a heavy smoker, for one thing — that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That's also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. I'm pretty healthy, though. Anyway, as soon as I got my breath back I ran across Route 204. It was icy as hell and I damn near fell down. I don't even know what I was running for—I guess I just felt like it. After I got across the road, I felt like I was sort of disappearing. It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road. Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer's house. I was really frozen. My ears were hurting and I could hardly move my fingers at all. "C'mon, c'mon," I said right out loud, almost, "somebody open the door." Finally old Mrs. Spencer opened it. They didn't have a maid or anything, and they always opened the door themselves. They didn't have too much dough. "Holden!" Mrs. Spencer said. "How lovely to see you! Come in, dear! Are you frozen to death?" I think she was glad to see me. She liked me. At least, I think she did. Boy, did I get in that house fast. "How are you, Mrs. Spencer?" I said. "How's Mr. Spencer?" "Let me take your coat, dear," she said. She didn't hear me ask her how Mr. Spencer was. She was sort of deaf. She hung up my coat in the hall closet, and I sort of brushed my hair back with my hand. I wear a crew cut quite frequently and I never have to comb it much. "How've you been, Mrs. Spencer?" I said again, only louder, so she'd hear me. "I've been just fine, Holden." She closed the closet door. "How have you been?" The way she asked me, I knew right away old Spencer'd told her I'd been kicked out.

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"Fine," I said. "How's Mr. Spencer? He over his grippe yet?" "Over it! Holden, he's behaving like a perfect—I don't know what ... He's in his room, dear. Go right in." Chapter 22 When I came back, she had the pillow off her head all right — I knew she would — but she still wouldn't look at me, even though she was laying on her back and all. When I came around the side of the bed and sat down again, she turned her crazy face the other way. She was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the fencing team at Pencey when I left all the goddam foils on the subway. "How's old Hazel Weatherfield?" I said. "You write any new stories about her? I got that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It's down at the station. It's very good." "Daddy'll kill you." Boy, she really gets something on her mind when she gets something on her mind. "No, he won't. The worst he'll do, he'll give me hell again, and then he'll send me to that goddam military school. That's all he'll do to me. And in the first place, I won't even be around. I'll be away. I'll be — I'll probably be in Colorado on this ranch." "Don't make me laugh. You can't even ride a horse." "Who can't? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about two minutes," I said. "Stop picking at that." She was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm. "Who gave you that haircut?" I asked her. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebody gave her. It was way too short. "None of your business," she said. She can be very snotty sometimes. She can be quite snotty. "I suppose you failed in every single subject again," she said — very snotty. It was sort of funny, too, in a way. She sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and she's only a little child. "No, I didn't," I said. "I passed English." Then, just for the hell of it, I gave her a pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way she was laying on her side. She has hardly any behind. I didn't do it hard, but she tried to hit my hand anyway, but she missed. Then all of a sudden, she said, "Oh, why did you do it?" She meant why did I get the ax again. It made me sort of sad, the way she said it. "Oh, God, Phoebe, don't ask me. I'm sick of everybody asking me that," I said. "A million reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies. And mean guys. You never saw so many mean guys in your life. For instance, if you were having a bull session in somebody's room, and somebody wanted to come in, nobody'd let them in if they were some dopey, pimply guy. Everybody was always locking their door 1 when somebody wanted to come in. And they had this goddam secret fraternity that I was too yellow not to join. There was this one pimply, boring guy, Robert Ackley, that wanted to get in. He kept trying to join, and they wouldn't let him. Just because he was boring and pimply. I don't even feel like talking about it. It was a stinking school. Take my word." Old Phoebe didn't say anything, but she was listening. I could tell by the back of her neck that she was listening. She always listens when you tell her something. And the funny part is she knows, half the time, what the hell you're talking about. She really does. I kept talking about old Pencey. I sort of felt like it.

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"Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too," I said. "There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer. His wife was always giving you hot chocolate and all that stuff, and they were really pretty nice. But you should've seen him when the headmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room. He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour. He was supposed to be incognito or-something. After a while, he'd be sitting back there and then he'd start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny jokes. Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like as if Thurmer was a goddam prince or something." "Don't swear so much." "It would've made you puke, I swear it would," I said. "Then, on Veterans' Day. They have this day, Veterans' Day, that all the jerks that graduated from Pencey around 1776 come back and walk all over the place, with their wives and children and everybody. You should've seen this one old guy that was about fifty. What he did was, he came in our room and knocked on the door and asked us if we'd mind if he used the bathroom. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor — I don't know why the hell he asked us. You know what he said? He said he wanted to see if his initials were still in one of the can doors. What he did, he carved his goddam stupid sad old initials in one of the can doors about ninety years ago, and he wanted to see if they were still there. So my roommate and I walked him down to the bathroom and all, and we had to stand there while he looked for his initials in all the can doors. He kept talking to us the whole time, telling us how when he was at Pencey they were the happiest days of his life, and giving us a lot of advice for the future and all. Boy, did he depress me! I don't mean he was a bad guy — he wasn't. But you don't have to be a bad guy to depress somebody — you can be a good guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony advice while you're looking for your initials in some can door — that's all you have to do. I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been all out of breath. He was all out of breath from just climbing up the stairs, and the whole time he was looking for his initials he kept breathing hard, with his nostrils all funny and sad, while he kept telling Stradlater and I to get all we could out of Pencey. God, Phoebe! I can't explain. I just didn't like anything that was happening at Pencey. I can't explain." Old Phoebe said something then, but I couldn't hear her. She had the side of her mouth right smack on the pillow, and I couldn't hear her. "What?" I said. "Take your mouth away. I can't hear you with your mouth that way." "You don't like anything that's happening." It made me even more depressed when she said that. "Yes I do. Yes I do. Sure I do. Don't say that. Why the hell do you say that?" "Because you don't. You don't like any schools. You don't like a million things. You don't." "I do! That's where you're wrong — that's exactly where you're wrong! Why the hell do you have to say that?" I said. Boy, was she depressing me. "Because you don't," she said. "Name one thing." "One thing? One thing I like?" I said. "Okay." The trouble was, I couldn't concentrate too hot. Sometimes it's hard to concentrate. "One thing I like a lot you mean?" I asked her. She didn't answer me, though. She was in a cockeyed position way the hell over the other side of the bed. She was about a thousand miles away. "C'mon, answer me," I said. "One thing I like a lot, or one thing I just like?" "You like a lot."

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"All right," I said. But the trouble was, I couldn't concentrate. About all I could think of were those two nuns that went around collecting dough in those beat-up old straw baskets. Especially the one with the glasses with those iron rims. And this boy I knew at Elkton Hills. There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn't take back something he said about I this very conceited boy, Phil Stabile. James Castle called him a very conceited guy, and one of Stabile's lousy friends went and squealed on him to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to James Castle's room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take back what he said, but he wouldn't do it. So they started in on him. I won't even tell you what they did to him — it's too repulsive — but he still wouldn't take it back, old James Castle. And you should've seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists about as big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window. I was in the shower and all, and even I could hear him land outside. But I just thought something fell out the window, a radio or a desk or something, not a boy or anything. Then I heard everybody running through the corridor and down the stairs, so I put on my bathrobe and I ran downstairs too, and there was old James Castle laying right on the stone steps and all. He was dead, and his teeth, and blood, were all over the place, and nobody would even go near him. He had on this turtleneck sweater I'd lent him. All they did with the guys that were in the room with him was expel them. They didn't even go to jail. That was about all I could think of, though. Those two nuns I saw at breakfast and this boy James Castle I knew at Elkton Hills. The funny part is, I hardly even knew James Castle, if you want to know the truth. He was one of these very quiet guys. He was in my math class, but he was way over on the other side of the room, and he hardly ever got up to recite or go to the blackboard or anything. Some guys in school hardly ever get up to recite or go to the blackboard. I think the only time I ever even had a conversation with him was that time he asked me if he could borrow this turtleneck sweater I had. I damn near dropped dead when he asked me, I was so surprised and all. I remember I was brushing my teeth, in the can, when he asked me. He said his cousin was coming up to take him for a drive and all. I didn't even know he knew I had a turtleneck sweater. All I knew about him was that his name was always right ahead of me at roll call. Cabel, R., Cabel, W., Castle, Caulfield — I can still remember it. If you want to know the truth, I almost didn't lend him my sweater. Just because I didn't know him too well. "What?" I said to old Phoebe. She said something to me, but I didn't hear her. "You can't even think of one thing." "Yes, I can. Yes, I can." "Well, do it, then." "I like Allie," I said. "And I like doing what I'm doing right now. Sitting here with you, and talking, and thinking about stuff, and — " "Allie's dead — You always say that! If somebody's dead and everything, and in Heaven, then it isn't really — " "I know he's dead! Don't you think I know that? I can still like him, though, can't I? Just because somebody's dead, you don't just stop liking them, for God's sake — especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that're alive and all." Old Phoebe didn't say anything. When she can't think of anything to say, she doesn't say a goddam word.

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"Anyway, I like it now," I said. "I mean r'ight now. Sitting here with you and just chewing the fat and horsing — " "That isn't anything really!" "It is so something really! Certainly it is! Why the hell-isn't it? People never think anything is anything really. I'm getting goddam sick of it." "Stop swearing. All right, name something else. Name something you'd like to be. Like a scientist. Or a lawyer or something." "I couldn't be a scientist. I'm no good in science." "Well, a lawyer — like Daddy and all." "Lawyers are all right, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me," I said. "I mean they're all right if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hotshot. And besides. Even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't." I'm not too sure old Phoebe knew what the hell I was talking about. I mean she's only a little child and all. But she was listening, at least. If somebody at least listens, it's not too bad. "Daddy's going to kill you. He's going to kill you," she said. I wasn't listening, though. I was thinking about something else — something crazy. "You know what I'd like to be?" I said. "You know what I'd like to be? I mean if I had my goddam choice?" "What? Stop swearing." "You know that song ‘If a body catch a body comin' through the rye’? I'd like — " "It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns." "I know it's a poem by Robert Burns." She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though. "I thought it was If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." Old Phoebe didn't say anything for a long time. Then, when she said something, all she said was, "Daddy's going to kill you." "I don't give a damn if he does," I said. I got up from the bed then, because what I wanted to do, I wanted to phone up this guy that was my English teacher at Elkton Hills, Mr. Antolini. He lived in New York now. He quit Elkton Hills. He took this job teaching English at N.Y.U. "I have to make a phone call," I told Phoebe. "I'll be right back. Don't go to sleep." I didn't want her to go to sleep while I was in the living room. I knew she wouldn't, but I said it anyway, just to make sure.

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While I was walking toward the door, old Phoebe said, "Holden!" and I turned around. She was sitting way up in bed. She looked so pretty. "I'm taking belching lessons from this girl, Phyllis Margulies," she said. "Listen." I listened, and I heard something, but it wasn't much. "Good," I said. Then I went out in the living room and called up this teacher I had, Mr. Antolini. Questions for self control: 1. method? 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

How are Holden’s character and the state of feelings reflected in the narrative What is his background? What is he frustrated by? What does he mean by the slang word phony? What are his relations with his sister Phoebe? What is the conflict of the novel? How do you understand the meaning of the title?

JACK KEROUAC 1922-1969 Main works: On the Road (1958) The Dharma Bums (1958) Lonesome Traveller (1960) Vanity of Duluoz. An Adventurous Education, 1935-1946. (1967) Text to read and discuss: From On the Road : part II, 8

ON THE ROAD The book records the road experience of a young writer, Sal Paradise, who is restlessly driving across America from New York to San Francisco, from Mexico to New Orleans, unable to explain what he is seeking. Bored by the "tedious intellectualness" of his friends and fascinated by the vigour and vitality of his new acquaintance, Dean Moriarty, Sal Paradise starts his life on the road. Together with Dean, "the perfect guy for the road", and at times with other companions, he tears through dozens of towns in a frantic search of "kicks" - keen sensations - which must furnish full enjoyment of life, far more desirable than getting and spending money. The bulk of the novel is an account of wild drives across America - hitchhiking, heavy drinking, buying and stealing cars, wrecking cars, picking up girls, starting love-affairs. Kerouac catches here the deliberate aimlessness of people who refuse to be hooked by conventional values.

Part Two Chapter 8 Dean Moriarty, his first wife Marylou and Sal Paradise are driving to California. The story is told by Sal Paradise.

What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

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We wheeled through the sultry old light of Algiers, back on the ferry, back toward the mud-splashed, crabbed old ships across the river, back on Canal, and out; on a two-lane highway to Baton Rouge in purple darkness; swung west there, crossed the Mississippi at a place called Port Alien. Port Alien - where the river's all rain and roses in a misty pin-point darkness and where we swung around a circular drive in yellow foglight and suddenly saw the great black body below a bridge and crossed eternity again. What is the Mississippi River? A washed clod in the rainy night, a soft plopping from drooping Missouri banks, a dissolving, a riding of the tide down the eternal waterbed, a contribution to brown foams, a voyaging past endless vales and trees and levees, down along, down along, by Memphis, Greenville, Eudora Vicksburg, Natchez, Port Alien, and Port Orleans and Port of the Deltas, by Potash, Venice, and the Night's Great Gulf, and out. With the radio on to a mystery program, and as I looked out the window and saw a sign that said USE COOPER'S PAINT and I said, "Okay, I will," we rolled across the hoodwink night of the Louisiana plains - Lawtell, Eunice, Kinder, and DeQuincy, western rickety towns becoming more bayou-like as we reached the Sabine. In Old Opelousas I went into a grocery store to buy bread and cheese while Dean saw to gas and oil. It was just a shack; I could hear the family eating supper in the back. I waited a minute; they went on talking. I took bread and cheese and slipped out the door. We had barely enough money to make Frisco. Meanwhile Dean took a carton of cigarettes from the gas station and we were stocked for the voyage - gas, oil, cigarettes, and food. Crooks don't know. He pointed the car straight down the road. Somewhere near Starks we saw a great red glow in the sky ahead; we wondered what it was; in a moment we were passing it. It was a fire beyond the trees; there were many cars parked on the highway. It must have been some kind of fishfry, and on the other hand it might have been anything. The country turned strange and dark near Deweyville. Suddenly we were in the swamps. "Man, do you imagine what it would be like if we found a jazz-point in these swamps, with great big black fellas moanin guitar blues and drinking snakejuice and makin signs at us?" "Yes!" There were mysteries around here. The car was going over a dirt road elevated off the swamps that dropped on both sides and drooped with vines. We passed an apparition; it was a Negro man in a white shirt walking along with his arms upspread to the inky firmament. He must have been praying or calling down a curse. We zoomed right by; I looked out the back window to see his white eyes. "Whoo!" said Dean. "Look out. We better not stop in this here country." At one point we got stuck at a crossroads and stopped the car anyway. Dean turned off the headlamps. We were surrounded by a great forest of viny trees in which we could almost hear the slither of a million copperheads. The only thing we could see was the red ampere button on the Hudson dashboard. Marylou squealed with fright. We began laughing maniac laughs to scare her. We were scared too. We wanted to get out of this mansion of the snake, this mireful drooping dark, and zoom on back to familiar American ground and cow-towns. There was a smell of oil and dead water in the air. This was a manuscript of the night we couldn't read. An owl hooted. We took a chance on one of the dirt roads, and pretty soon we were crossing the evil old Sabine River that is responsible for all these swamps. With amazement we saw great structures of light ahead of us. "Texas! It's Texas! Beaumont oil town!" Huge oil tanks and refineries loomed like cities in the oily fragrant air.

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"I'm glad we got out of there," said Marylou. "Let's play some more mystery programs now." We zoomed through Beaumont, over the Trinity River at Liberty, and straight for Houston. Now Dean got talking about his Houston days in 1947. "Hassel! That mad Hassel! I look for him everywhere I go and I never find him. He used to get up so hung-up in Texas here. We'd drive in with Bull for groceries and Hassel'd disappear. We'd have to go looking for him in every shooting gallery in town." We were entering Houston. "We had to look for him in this spade part of town most of the time. Man, he'd be blasting with every mad cat he could find. One night we lost him and took a hotel room. We were supposed to bring ice back to Jane because her food was rotting. It took us two days to find Hassel. I got hung-up myself - I gunned shopping women in the afternoon, right here, downtown, supermarkets" - we flashed by in the empty night - "and found a real gone dumb girl who was out of her mind and just wandering, trying to steal an orange. She was from Wyoming. Her beautiful body was matched only by her idiot mind. I found her babbling and took her back to the room. Bull was drunk trying to get this young Mexican kid drunk. Carlo was writing poetry on heroin. Hassel didn't show up till midnight at the jeep. We found him sleeping in the back seat. The ice was all melted. Hassel said he took about five sleeping pills. Man, if my memory could only serve me right the way my mind works I could tell you every detail of the things we did. Ah, but we know time. Everything takes care of itself. I could close my eyes and his old car would take care of itself." In the empty Houston streets of four o'clock in the morning a motorcycle kid suddenly roared through, all bespangled and bedecked with glittering buttons, visor, slick black jacket, a Texas poet of the night, girl gripped on his back like a papoose, hair flying, onward-going, singing, "Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas - and sometimes Kansas City - and sometimes old Antone, ah-haaaa!" They pinpointed out of sight. "Wow! Dig that gone gal on his belt! Let's all blow!" Dean tried to catch up with them. "Now wouldn't it be fine if we could all get together and have a real going goofbang44 together with everybody sweet and fine and agreeable, no hassles, no infant rise of protest or body woes misconceptalized or sumpin? Ah! but we know time." He bent to it and pushed the car. Beyond Houston his energies, great as they were, gave out and I drove. Rain began to fall just as I took the wheel. Now we were on the great Texas plain and, as Dean said, "You drive and drive and you're still in Texas tomorrow night." The rain lashed down. I drove through " a rickety little cowtown with a muddy main street and found myself in a dead end. "Hey, what do I do?" They were both asleep. I turned and crawled back through town. There wasn't a soul in sight and not a single light. Suddenly a horseman in a raincoat appeared in my headlamps. It was the sheriff. He had a ten-gallon hat, drooping in the torrent. "Which way to Austin?" He told me politely and I started off. Outside town I suddenly saw two headlamps flaring directly at me in the lashing rain. Whoops, I thought I was on the wrong side of the road; I eased right and found myself rolling in the mud; I rolled back to the road. Still the headlamps came straight for me. At the last moment I realized the other driver was on the wrong side of the road and didn't know it. I swerved at thirty into the mud; it was flat, no ditch, thank God. The offending car backed up in the downpour. Four sullen fieldworkers, snuck from their chores to brawl in drinking fields, all white shirts and dirty brown arms, sat looking at me dumbly in the night. The driver was as drunk as the lot. 44

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He said, "Which way t'Houston?" I pointed my thumb back. I was thunderstruck in the middle of the thought that they had done this on purpose just to ask directions, as a panhandler advances on you straight up the sidewalk to bar your way. They gazed ruefully at the floor of their car, where empty bottles rolled, and clanked away. I started the car; it was stuck in the mud a foot deep. I sighed in the rainy Texas wilderness. "Dean," I said. "wake up." "What?" "We're stuck in the mud." "What happened?" I told him. He swore up and down. We put on old shoes and sweaters and barged out of the car into the driving rain. I put my back on the rear fender and lifted and heaved; Dean stuck chains under the swishing wheels. In a minute we were covered with mud. We woke up Marylou to these horrors and made her gun the car while we pushed. The tormented Hudson heaved and heaved. Suddenly it jolted out and went skidding across the road. Marylou pulled it up just in time, and we got in. That was that - the work had taken thirty minutes and we were soaked and miserable. I fell asleep, all caked with mud; and in the morning when I woke up the mud was solidified and outside there was snow. We were near Fredericksburg, in the high plains. It was one of the worst winters in Texas and Western history, when cattle perished like flies in great blizzards and snow fell on San Francisco and LA. We were all miserable. We wished we were back in New Orleans with Ed Dunkel. Marylou was driving; Dean was sleeping. She drove with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching back to me in the back seat. She cooed promises about San Francisco. I slavered miserably over it. At ten I took the wheel - Dean was out for hours - and drove several hundred dreary miles across the bushy snows and ragged sage hills. Cowboys went by in baseball caps and earmuffs, looking for cows. Comfortable little homes with chimneys smoking appeared along the road at intervals. I wished we could go in for buttermilk and beans in front of the fireplace. At Sonora I again helped myself to free bread and cheese while the proprietor chatted with a big rancher on the other side of the store. Dean huzzahed when he heard it; he was hungry. We couldn't spend a cent on food. "Yass, yass," said Dean, watching the ranchers loping up and down Sonora main street, "every one of them is a bloody millionaire, thousand head of cattle, workhands, buildings, money in the bank. If I lived around here I'd go be an idjit in the sagebrush, I'd be jackrabbit, I'd lick up the branches, I'd look for pretty cow-girls - hee-hee-hee-hee! Damn! Bam!" He socked himself. "Yes! Right! Oh me!" We didn't know what he was talking about any more. He took the wheel and flew the rest of the way across the state of Texas, about five hundred miles, clear to El Paso, arriving at dusk and not stopping except once when he took all his clothes off, near Ozona, and ran yipping and leaping naked in the sage. Cars zoomed by and didn't see him. He scurried back to the car and drove on. "Now Sal, now Marylou, I want both of you to do as I'm doing, desemburden yourselves, of all that clothes - now what's the sense of clothes? now that's what I'm sayin - and sun your pretty bellies with me. Come on!" We were driving west into the sun; it fell through the windshield. "Open your belly as we drive into it." Marylou complied; unfuddyduddied45, so did I. We sat in the front seat, all three, Marylou took out cold cream and applied it to us for kicks. Every now and then a big truck zoomed by; the driver in high cab caught a glimpse of a golden beauty sitting naked with two 45

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naked men: you could see them swerve a moment as they vanished in our rear-view window. Great sage plains, snowless now, rolled on. Soon we were in the orangerocked Pecons Canyon country. Blue distances opened up in the sky. We got out of the car to examine an old Indian ruin. Dean did so stark naked. Marylou and I put on our overcoats. We wandered among the old stones, hooting and howling. Certain tourists caught sight of Dean naked in the plain but they could not believe their eyes and wobbled on. Dean and Marylou parked the car near Van Horn and I went to sleep. I woke up just as we were rolling down the tremendous Rio Grande Valley through Clint and Ysleta to El Paso. Marylou jumped to the back seat, I jumped to the front seat, and we rolled along. And he shot up the car, hunched over the wheel, and roared out of El Paso. "We'll just have to pick up hitchhikers. I'm positive we'll , find some. Hup! hup! here we go. Look out!" he yelled at a motorist, and swung around him, and dodged a truck and bounced over the city limits. Across the river were the jewel lights of Juarez and the sad dry land and the jewel stars of Chihuahua. Marylou was watching Dean as she had watched him clear across the country and back, out of the corner of her eye - with a sullen, sad air, as though she wanted to cut off his head and hide it in her closet, an envious and rueful love of him so amazingly himself, all raging and sniffy and crazy-waved, a smile of tender dotage but also sinister envy that frightened me about her, a love she knew would never bear fruit because when she looked at his hangjawed bony face with its male self-containment and absentmindedness she knew he was too mad. Dean was convinced Marylou was a whore; he confided in me that she was a pathological liar. But when she watched him like this it was love too; and when Dean noticed he always turned with his big false flirtatious smile, with the eyelashes fluttering and the teeth pearly white, while a moment ago he was only dreaming in his eternity. Then Marylou and I both laughed - and Dean gave no sign of discomfiture, just a goofy glad grin that said to us. Ain't we gettin our kicks anyway? And that was it. Outside El Paso, in the darkness, we saw a small huddled figure with thumb stuck out. It was our promised hitchhiker. We pulled up and backed to his side. "How much money you got, kid?" The kid had no money; he was about seventeen, pale, strange, with one undeveloped crippled hand and no suitcase. "Ain't he sweet said Dean, turning to me with a serious awe. "Come on in, fella, we'll take you out - " The kid saw his advantage. He said he had an aunt in Tulare, California, who owned a grocery store and as soon as we got there he'd have some money for us. Dean rolled on the floor laughing, it was so much like the kid in North Carolina. "Yes! Yes!" he yelled. "We've all got aunts; well, let's go, let's see the aunts and the uncles and the grocery stores all the way ALONG that road!" And we had a new passenger, and a fine little guy he turned out to be, too. He didn't say a word, he listened to us. After a minute of Dean's talk he was probably convinced he had joined a car of madmen. He said he was hitchhiking from Alabama to Oregon, where his home was. We asked him what he was doing in Alabama. "I went to visit my uncle; he said he'd have a job for me in a lumber mill. The job fell through, so I'm comin back home." "Goin home," said Dean, "goin home, yes, I know, we'll take you home, far as Frisco anyhow." But we didn't have any money. Then it occurred to me I could borrow five dollars from my old friend Hal Hingham in Tucson, Arizona. Immediately Dean said it was all settled and we were going to Tucson. And we did.

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We passed Las Cruces, New Mexico, in the night and arrived in Arizona at dawn. I woke up from a deep sleep to find everybody sleeping like lambs and the car parked God knows where, because I couldn't see out the steamy windows. I got out of the car. We were in the mountains: there was a heaven of sunrise, cool purple airs, red mountain sides, emerald pastures in valleys, dew, and transmuting clouds of gold; on the ground gopher holes, cactus, mesquite. It was time for me to drive on. I pushed Dean and the kid over and went down the mountain with the clutch in and the motor off to save gas. In this manner I rolled into Benson, Arizona. It occurred to me that I had a pocket watch Rocco had just given me for a birthday present, a fourdollar watch. At the gas station I asked the man if he knew a pawnshop in Benson. It was right next door to the station. I knocked, someone got up out of bed, and in a minute I had a dollar for the watch. It went into the tank. Now we had enough gas for Tucson. But suddenly a big pistol-packing trooper appeared, just as I was ready to pull out, and asked to see my driver's license. "The fella in the back seat has the license," I said. Dean and Marylou were sleeping together under the blanket. The cop told Dean to come out. Suddenly he whipped out his gun and yelled, "Keep your hands up!" "Offisah," I heard Dean say in the most unctious and ridiculous tones, "offisah, I was only buttoning my flah." Even the cop almost smiled. Dean came out, muddy, ragged, T-shirted, rubbing his belly, cursing, looking everywhere for his license and his car papers. The cop rummaged through our back trunk. All the papers were straight. "Only checking up," he said with a broad smile. "You can go on now. Benson ain't a bad town actually; you might enjoy it if you had breakfast here." "Yes yes yes," said Dean, paying absolutely no attention to him, and drove off. We all sighed with relief. The police are suspicious when gangs of youngsters come by in new cars without a cent in their pockets and have to pawn watches. "Oh, they're always interfering," said Dean, "but he was a much better cop than that rat in Virginia. They try to make headline arrests, they think every car going by is some big Chicago gang. They ain't got nothin else to do." We drove on to Tucson. Tucson is situated in beautiful mesquite riverbed country, overlooked by the snowy Catalina range. The city was one big construction job; the people transient, wild, ambitious, busy, gay; wash-lines, trailers; bustling downtown streets with banners; altogether very Californian. Fort Lowell Road, out where Hingham lived, wound along lovely riverbed trees in the flat desert. We saw Hingham himself brooding in the yard. He was a writer; he had come to Arizona to work on his book in peace. He was a tall, gangly, shy satirist who mumbled to you with his head turned away and always said funny things. His wife and baby were with him in the dobe house, a small one that his Indian stepfather had built. His mother lived across the yard in her own house. She was an excited American woman who loved pottery, beads, and books. Hingham had heard of Dean through letters from New York. We came down on him like a cloud, every one of us hungry, even Alfred, the crippled hitchhiker. Hingham was wearing an old sweater and smoking a pipe in the keen desert air. His mother came out and invited us into her kitchen to eat. We cooked noodles in a great pot. Then we all drove to a crossroads liquor store, where Hingham cashed a check for five dollars and handed me the money. There was a brief good-by. "It certainly was pleasant," said Hingham, looking away. Beyond some trees, across the sand, a great neon sign of a roadhouse glowed red. Hingham always went there for a beer when he was tired of writing. He

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was very lonely, he wanted to get back to New York. It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for? - sleep. But this foolish gang was bending onward. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Who were Beatniks ? How is their life-style reflected in the extract? What features of the main characters can be traced in the extract? What is the peculiarity of the style?

TRUMAN CAPOTE B.1924 Main works: A Tree of the Night (1949) Other Voices, Other Rooms (1949) The Grass Harp (1951) Breakfast at Tiffany (1958) In Cold Blood (1959) Text to read and discuss: From The Grass Harp

THE GRASS HARP The narrator of the story is Colin Fenwick, an orphan boy, who comes to stay with two old cousins of his father's, Verena and Dolly Talbo. Verena is authoritative, practical, Dolly is timid, gentle, sensitive. Dolly's friend, an old Negro woman Catherine, calls her "Dolly-Heart", while Verena for her is "That One". A conflict arises between Verena and Dolly, the reason for which is as follows: Dolly's hobby is the preparation of a remedy made of different herbs, which is said to cure the dropsy. Dolly sends it to sick people gratis. Verena makes up her mind to profit by it. She takes for her companion a certain Dr. Ritz, and together they try to persuade Dolly to start a company for the production of the medicine. Dolly refuses to take part in the commercial enterprise and together with Colin and Catherine flees to an old treehouse in the wood. It is a kind of raft which bridges the branches of two trees; it was built long ago by some boys. There Dolly, Catherine and Colin are joined by Judge Charlie Cool, who also belongs to those hostile to the conformity of provincial petty-bourgeois life. The fifth member of the group - Riley Henderson - is a young boy leading a wild life but good and honest of heart. It is he who, unwillingly, has betrayed the whereabouts of the fugitives and he comes to warn them that the inhabitants of the town intend to punish them for breaking the accepted rules of proper behaviour. At last it is Verena Talbo who comes up to the tree-house and persuades Dolly to return home. But the strain of the new experience of freedom has been too much for Dolly. She dies leaving this world as unobtrusively as she has lived in it. The extract presented describes the acquaintance of Dolly Talbo and Colin Fenwick with Verena's plan of organizing the production of dropsy cure.

During the years that I lived there, Dr Morris Ritz was the only person ever invited to dine at the house on Talbo Lane. So for many reasons it was an occasion. Catherine and Dolly did a spring cleaning; they beat rugs, brought china from the attic, had every room smelling of floorwax and lemon polish. There was to be fried

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chicken and ham, English peas, sweet potatoes, rolls, banana pudding, two kinds of cake and tutti-frutti ice cream from the drug-store. Sunday noon Verena came in to look at the table: with its sprawling centerpiece of peach-coloured roses and dense fancy stretches of silverware, it seemed set for a party of twenty; actually, there were only two places. Verena went ahead and set two more, and Dolly, seeing this, said weakly Well, it was all right if Colin wanted to eat at the table, but that she was going to stay in the kitchen with Catherine. Verena put her foot down: 'Don't fool with me, Dolly. This is important. Morris is coming here expressly to meet you. And what is more, I'd appreciate it if you'd hold up your head: it makes me dizzy, hanging like that.' Dolly was scared to death: she hid in her room, and long after our guest had arrived I had to be sent to fetch her. She was lying in the pink bed with a wet washrag on her forehead, and Catherine was sitting beside her. Catherine was all sleeked up, rouge on her cheeks like lollipops and her jaws jammed with more cotton than ever; she said, 'Honey, you ought to get up from there - you're going to ruin that pretty dress.' It was a calico dress Verena had brought from Chicago; Dolly sat up and smoothed it, then immediately lay down again: 'If Verena knew how sorry I am,' she said helplessly, and so I went and told Verena that Dolly was sick. Verena said she'd see about that, and marched off leaving me alone in the hall with Dr Morris Ritz. Oh he was a hateful thing. 'So you're sixteen,' he said, winking first one, then the other of his sassy46 eyes. 'And throwing it around, huh? Make the old lady take you next time she goes to Chicago. Plenty of good stuff there to throw it at.' He snapped his fingers and jiggled his razzle-dazzle, dagger-sharp shoes as though keeping time to some vaudeville tune: he might have been a tapdancer or a sodajerk, except that he was carrying a brief case, which suggested a more serious occupation. I wondered what kind of doctor he was supposed to be; indeed, was on the point of asking when Verena returned steering Dolly by the elbow. The shadows of the hall, the tapestried furniture failed to absorb her; without raising her eyes she lifted her hand, and Dr Ritz gripped it so ruggedly, pumped it so hard she went nearly off balance. 'Gee, Miss Talbo; am I honoured to meet you!' he said, and cranked his bow tie. We sat down to dinner, and Catherine came around with the chicken. She served Verena, then Dolly, and when the doctor's turn came he said, 'Tell you the truth, the only piece of chicken I care about is the brain: don't suppose you'd have that back in the kitchen, mammy?' Catherine looked so far down her nose she got almost cross-eyed; and with her tongue all mixed up in the cotton wadding she told him that, 'Dolly's took those brains on her plate.' 'These southern accents, Jesus,' he said, genuinely dismayed. 'She says I have the brains on my plate,' said Dolly, her cheeks as red as Catherine's rouge. 'But please let me pass them to you.' 'If you're sure you don't mind...' 'She doesn't mind a bit,' said Verena. 'She only eats sweet things anyway. Here, Dolly: have some banana pudding.' Presently Dr Ritz commenced a fit of sneezing. 'The flowers, those roses, old allergy...' 'Oh, dear,' said Dolly who, seeing an opportunity to escape into the kitchen, seized the bowl of roses: it slipped, crystal crashed, roses landed in gravy and gravy 46

Impudent, saucy

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landed on us all. 'You see,' she said, speaking to herself and with tears teetering in her eyes, 'You see, it's hopeless.' 'Nothing is hopeless, Dolly; sit down and finish your pudding.' Verena advised in a substantial, chin-up voice. 'Besides, we have a nice little surprise for you. Morris, show Dolly those lovely labels.' Murmuring 'No harm done,' Dr Ritz stopped rubbing gravy splotches off his sleeve, and went into the hall, returning with his brief case. His fingers buzzed through a sheaf of papers, then lighted on a large envelope which he passed down to Dolly. There were gum-stickers in the envelope, triangular labels with orange lettering: Gipsy Queen Cure: and a fuzzy picture of a woman wearing a bandana and gold earloops. 'First class, huh?' said Dr Ritz. 'Made in Chicago. A friend of mine drew the picture: real artist, that guy,' Dolly shuffled the labels with a puzzled, apprehensive expression until Verena asked: 'Aren't you pleased?' The labels twitched in Dolly's hands. I'm not sure I understand.' 'Of course you do,' said Verena, smiling thinly. 'It's obvious enough. I told Morris that old story of yours and he thought of this wonderful name.' 'Gipsy Queen Dropsy Cure: very catchy, that,' said the doctor. 'Look great in ads.' 'My medicine?' said Dolly, her eyes still lowered. 'But I don't need any labels, Verena. I wrote my own.' Dr.'Ritz snapped his fingers. 'Say, that's good! We can have labels printed like her own handwriting: personal see?' 'We've spent enough money already,' Verena told him briskly; and, turning to Dolly, said: 'Morris and I are going up to Washington this week to get a copyright on these labels and register a patent for the medicine - naming you as the inventor, naturally. Now the point is, Dolly, you must sit down and write out a complete formula for us.' Dolly's face loosened; and the labels scattered on the floor, skimmed. Leaning her hands on the table she pushed herself upward; slowly her features came together again, she lifted her head and looked blinkingly at Dr Ritz, at Verena. 'It won't do,' she said quietly. She moved to the door, put a hand on its handle. 'It won't do: because you haven' any right, Verena. Nor you, sir.' I helped Catherine clear the table: the ruined roses, the uncut cakes, the vegetables no one had touched. Verena and her guest had left the house together; from the kitchen window we watched them as they went toward town nodding and shaking their heads. Then we sliced the devil's-food cake and took it into Dolly's room. Hush now! hush now! she said when Catherine began lighting into That One. But it was as though the rebellious inner whispering had become a raucous voice, an opponent she must outshout: Hush now! hush now! until Catherine had to put her arms around Dolly and say hush, too. We got out a deck of Rook cards and spread them on the bed. Naturally Catherine had to go and remember it was Sunday; she said maybe we could risk another black mark in the Judgment Book, but there were too many beside her name already. After thinking it over, we told fortunes instead. Sometime around dusk Verena came home. We heard her footsteps in the hall; she opened the door without knocking, and Dolly, who was in the middle of my fortune, tightened her hold on my hand. Verena said: 'Colin, Catherine, we will excuse you.' Catherine wanted to follow me up the ladder into the attic, except she had on her fine clothes. So I went alone. There was a good knothole that looked straight

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down into the pink room; but Verena was standing directly under it, and all I could see was her hat, for she was still wearing the hat she'd put on when she left the house. It was a straw skimmer decorated with a cluster of celluloid fruit. 'Those are facts,' she was saying and the fruit shivered, shimmered in the blue dimness. 'Two thousand for the old factory, Bill Tatum and four carpenters working out there at eighty cents an hour, seven thousand dollars worth of machinery already ordered, not to mention what a specialist like Morris Ritz is costing. And why? All for you!' 'All for me;' and Dolly sounded sad and failing as the dusk. I saw her shadow as she moved from one part of the room to another. 'You are my own flesh, and I love you tenderly; in my heart I love you I could prove it now by giving you the only thing that has ever been mine: then you would have it all. Please, Verena,' she said, faltering 'let this one thing belong to me.' Verena switched on a light. 'You speak of giving,' and her voice was hard as the sudden bitter glare. 'All these years that I've worked like a fieldhand: what haven't I given you? This house, that...' 'You've given everything to me,' Dolly interrupted softly. 'And to Catherine and to Colin. Except, we've earned our way a bit: we've kept a nice home for you, haven't we?' 'Oh a fine home,' said Verena, whipping off her hat. Her face was full of blood. 'You and that gurgling fool. Has it not struck you that I never ask anyone into this house? And for a very simple reason: I'm ashamed to. Look what happened today.' I could hear the breath go out of Dolly. 'I'm sorry,' she said faintly. 'I am truly. I'd always thought there was a place for us here, that you needed us somehow. But it's going to be all right .now, Verena. We'll go away.' Verena sighed. 'Poor Dolly. Poor, poor thing. Wherever would you go?' The answer, a little while in coming, was fragile as the flight of a moth: 'I know a place.' Later, I waited in bed for Dolly to come and kiss me good night. My room, beyond the parlour in a faraway corner of the house, was the room where their father, Mr Uriah Talbo, had lived. In his mad old age, Verena had brought him here from the farm, and here he'd died, not knowing where he was. Though dead ten, fifteen years, the pee and tobacco old-man smell of him still saturated the mattress, the closet, and on a shelf in the closet was the one possession he'd carried away with him from the farm, a small yellow drum: as a lad my own age he'd marched in a Dixie regiment rattling this little yellow drum, and singing. Dolly said that when she was a girl she'd liked to wake up winter mornings and hear her father singing as he went about the house building fires; after he was old, after he'd died, she sometimes heard his songs in the field of Indian grass. Wind, Catherine said; and Dolly told her: But the wind is us - it gathers and remembers all our voices, then sends them talking and telling through the leaves and the fields - I've heard Papa clear as day. On such a night, now that it was September, the autumn winds would be curving through the taut red grass, releasing all the gone voices, and I wondered if he was singing among them, the old man in whose bed I lay falling asleep. Then I thought Dolly at last had come to kiss me good night, for I woke up sensing her near me in the room; but it was almost morning, beginning light was like a flowering foliage at the windows, and roosters ranted in distant yards. 'Shhh, Colin,' Dolly whispered, bending over me. She was wearing a woolen winter suit and a hat with a travelling veil that misted her face. 'I only wanted you to know where we are going.' 'To the tree-house?' I said, and thought I was talking in my sleep.

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Dolly nodded. 'Just for now. Until we know better what our plans will be.' She could see that I was frightened, and put her hand on my forehead. 'You and Catherine: but not me?' and I was jerking with a chill. 'You can't leave without me.' The town clock was tolling; she seemed to be waiting for it to finish before making up her mind. It struck five, and by the time the note had died away I had climbed out of bed and rushed into my clothes. There was nothing for Dolly to say except: 'Don't forget you comb.' Catherine met us in the yard; she was crooked over with the weight of a brimming oilcloth satchel; her eyes were swollen, she had been crying, and Dolly, oddly calm and certain of what she was doing, said it doesn't matter, Catherine - we can send for your goldfish once we find a place. Verena's closed quiet windows loomed above us; we moved cautiously past them and silently out the gate. A fox terrier barked at us; but there was no one on the street, and no one saw us pass through the town except a sleepless prisoner gazing from the jail. We reached the field of Indian grass at the same moment as the sun. Dolly's veil flared in the morning breeze, and a pair of pheasants, nesting in our path, swept before us, their metal wings swiping the cockscomb-scarlet grass. The China tree was a September bowl of green and greenish gold: Gonna fall, gonna bust our heads, Catherine said, as all around us the leaves shock down their dew. The following extract introduces Judge Charlie Cool and Riley Anderson who join the fugitives in their tree-house. He might have been put together from parts of the tree, for his nose was like a wooden peg, his legs were strong as old roots, and his eyebrows were thick, tough as strips of bark. Among the topmost branches were beards of silvery moss the colour of his centre-parted hair, and the cowhide sycamore leaves, sifting down from a neighbouring taller tree, were the colour of his cheeks. Despite his canny, tomcat eyes, the general impression his face made was that of someone shy and countrified. Ordinarily he was not the one to make a show of himself, Judge Charlie Cool; there were many who had taken advantage of his modesty to set themselves above him. Yet none of them could have claimed, as he could, to be a graduate of Harvard University or to have twice traveled in Europe. Still, there were those who were resentful and felt that he put on airs: wasn't he supposed to read a page of Greek every morning before breakfast? And what kind of man was it that would always have flowers in his buttonhole? If he wasn't stuck up, why, some people asked, had he gone all the way to Kentucky to find a wife instead of marrying one of our own women? I do not remember the Judge's wife; she died before I was old enough to be aware of her, therefore all that I repeat comes second-hand. So: the town never warmed up to Irene Cool, and apparently it was her own fault. Kentucky women are difficult to begin with, keyed-up, hellion-hearted, and Irene Cool, who was born a Todd in Bowling Green (Mary Todd, a second cousin once removed, had married Abraham Lincoln) let everyone around here know she thought them a backward, vulgar lot: she received none of the ladies of the town, but Miss Palmer, who did sewing for her, spread news of how she'd transformed the Judge's house into a place of taste and style with Oriental rugs and antique furnishings. She drove to and from Church in a Pierce-Arrow with all the windows rolled up, and in church itself she sat with a cologned handkerchief against her nose: the smell of God ain't good enough for Irene Cool. Moreover, she would not permit either of the local doctors to attend her family, this though she herself was a semi-invalid: a small backbone dislocation necessitated

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her sleeping on a bed of boards. There were crude jokes about the Judge getting full of splinters. Nevertheless, he fathered two sons, Todd and Charles Jr., both born in Kentucky where their mother had gone in order that they could claim to be natives of the bluegrass state. But those who tried to make out the Judge got the brunt of his wife's irritableness, that he was a miserable man, never had much of a case, and after she died even the hardest of their critics had to admit old Charlie must surely have loved his Irene. For during the last two years of her life, when she was very ill and fretful, he retired as circuit judge, then took her abroad to the places they had been on their honeymoon. She never came back; she is buried in Switzerland. Not so long ago Carrie Wells, a school-teacher here in town, went on a group tour to Europe; the only thing connecting our town with that continent are graves, the graves of soldier boys and Irene Cool; and Carrie, armed with a camera for snap-shots, set out to visit them all: though she stumbled about in a cloud-high cemetery one whole afternoon, she could not find the Judge's wife, and it is funny to think of Irene Cool, serenely there on a mountain-side still unwilling to receive. There was not much left for the Judge when he came back; politicians like Meiself Tallsap and his gang had come into power: those boys couldn't afford to have Charlie Cool sitting in the courthouse. It was sad to see the Judge, a fine-looking man dressed in narrowcut suits with a black silk band sewn around his sleeve and a Cherokee rose in his buttonhole, sad to see him with nothing to do except go to the post office or stop in at the bank. His sons worked in the bank, prissy-mouthed, prudent men who might have been twins, for they both were marshmallow-white, slump-shouldered, watery-eyed. Charles Jr., he was the one who had lost his hair while still in college, was vicepresident of the bank, and Todd, the younger son, was chief cashier. In no way did they resemble their father, except that they had married Kentucky women. These daughters-in-law had taken over the Judge's house and divided it into two apartments with separate entrances; there was an arrangement whereby the old man lived with first one son's family, then the other. No wonder he'd felt like taking a walk to the woods. 'Thank you, Miss Dolly,' he said, wiping his mouth with the back of the hand. 'That's the best drumstick I've had since I was a boy.' 'It's the least we can do, a drumstick; you were very brave.' There was in Dolly's voice an emotional, feminine tremor that struck me as unsuitable, not dignified; so, too, it must have seemed to Catherine: she gave Dolly a reprimanding glance. 'Won't you have something more, a piece of cake?' 'No Ma'm, thank you, I've had a sufficiency.' He unloosened from his vest a gold watch and chain, then lassoed the chain to a strong twig above his head; it hung like a Christmas ornament, and its feathery faded ticking might have been the heartbeat of a delicate thing, a firefly, a frog. 'If you can hear time passing it makes the day last longer. I've come to appreciate a long day.' He brushed back the fur of the squirrels, which lay curled in a corner as though they were only asleep. 'Right through the head: good shooting, son.' Of course I gave the credit to the proper party. 'Riley Henderson, was it?' said the Judge, and went on to say it was Riley who had let our whereabouts be known. 'Before that, they must have sent off a hundred dollars' worth of telegrams,' he told us, tickled at the thought. 'I guess it was the idea of all that money that made Verena take to her bed.' Scowling, Dolly said, 'It doesn't make a particle of sense, all of them behaving ugly that way. They seemed mad enough to kill us, though I can't see why, or what it

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has to do with Verena: she knew we were going away to leave her in peace, I told her, I even left a note. But if she's sick - is she, Judge? I've never known her to be.' 'Never a day,' said Catherine. 'Oh, she's upset all right,' the Judge said with a certain contentment. 'But Verena's not the woman to come down with anything an aspirin couldn't fix. I remember when she wanted to rearrange the cemetery, put up some kind of mausoleum to house herself and all you Talbos. One of the ladies around here came to me and said Judge, don't you think Verena Talbo is the most morbid person in town, contemplating such a big tomb for herself? and I said No, the only thing morbid was that she was willing to spend the money when not for an instant did she believe she was ever going to die.' 'I don't like to hear talk against my sister,' said Dolly curtly 'She's worked hard, she deserves to have things as she wants them.' It's our fault, someway we failed her, there was no place for us in her' house.' Subtly as the gold watch spun its sound of time, the afternoon curved toward twilight. Mist from the river, autumn haze, trailed moon-colours among the bronze, the blue trees, and a halo, an image of winter, ringed the paling sun. Still the Judge did not leave us: 'Two women and a boy? at the mercy of night? and Junius Candle, those fools up to God knows what? I'm sticking with you.' Surely, of the four of us, it was the Judge who had most found his place in the tree. It was a pleasure to watch him, all twinkly as a hare's nose, and feeling himself a man again, more than that, a protector. He skinned the squirrels with a jack-knife, wile in the dusk I gathered sticks and built under the tree a fire for the frying pan. Dolly opened the bottle of blackberry wine; she justified this by referring to a chill in the air. The squirrels turned out quite well, very tender, and the Judge said proudly that we should taste his fried catfish sometime. We sipped the wine in silence; a smell of leaves and smoke carrying from the cooling fire called up thoughts of other autumns, and we sighed, heard, like searoar, singings in the field of grass. A candle flickered in the mason jar, and gypsy moths, balanced, blowing about the flame, seemed to pilot its scarf of yellow among the black branches. There was, just then, not a footfall, but a nebulous sense of intrusion: it might have been nothing more than the moon coming out. Except there was no moon; nor stars. It was dark as the blackberry wine. 'I think there is someone - something down there' said Dolly, expressing what we all felt. The Judge lifted the candle. Night-crawlers slithered away from its lurching light, a snowy owl flew between the trees. 'Who goes there?' he challenged with the conviction of a soldier. 'Answer up, who goes there?' 'Me, Riley Henderson.' It was indeed. He separated from the shadows, and his upraised, grinning face looked warped, wicked in the candlelight. 'Just thought I'd see how you were getting on. Hope you're not sore at me: I wouldn't have told where you were, not if I'd known what it was all about.' 'Nobody blames you, son,' said the Judge, and I remembered it was he who had championed Riley's cause against his uncle Horace Holton: there was an understanding between them. 'We're enjoying a small taste of wine. I'm sure Miss Dolly would be pleased to have you join us.' Catherine complained there was no room; another ounce, and those old boards would give way. Still, we scrunched together to make a place for Riley, who had no sooner squeezed into it than Catherine grabbed a fistful of his hair. 'That's for today with you pointing your gun at us like I told you not to; and this,' she said, yanking

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again and speaking distinctively enough to be understood, pays you back for setting the Sheriff on us.' It seemed to me that Catherine was impertinent, but Riley grunted goodnaturedly, and said she might have better cause to be pulling somebody's hair before the night was over. For there was, he told us, excited feelings in the town, crowds like Saturday night; the Reverend and Mrs Buster especially were brewing trouble. Sheriff Candle, he said, had persuaded Verena to authorize a warrant for our arrest on the grounds that we had stolen property belonging to her. 'And Judge,' said Riley, his manner grave, perplexed, 'they've even got the idea they're going to arrest you. Disturbing the peace and obstructing justice, that's what I heard. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this - but outside the bank I ran into one of your boys, Todd. I asked him what he was going to do about it, about them arresting you, I mean: and he said Nothing, said they'd been expecting something of the kind, that you'd brought it on yourself.' Leaning, the Judge snuffed out the candle; it was as though an expression was occurring in his face which he did not want us to see. In the dark one of us was crying, after a moment we knew that it was Dolly, and the sound of her tears set off silent explosions of love that, running the full circle round, bound us each to the other. Softly, the Judge said: 'When they come we must be ready for them. Now everybody listen to me...' The following extract deals with the last moments of Dolly's freedom when Verena urges her to come back home. Dolly seemed to pose for inspection. She was as tall as Verena, as assured; nothing about her was incomplete or blurred. 'I've taken your advice: stopped hanging my head, I mean. You told me it made you dizzy. And not many days ago,' she continued, 'you told me that you were ashamed of me. Of Catherine. So much of our lives had been lived for you; it was painful to realize the waste that had been. Can you know what it is, such a feeling of waste?' Scarcely audible, Verena said, 'I do know,' and it was as if her eyes crossed, peered inward upon a stony vista. It was the expression I'd seen when, spying from the attic, I'd watched her late at night brooding over the Kodak pictures of Maudie Laura Murphy, Maudie Laura's husband and children. She swayed, she put a hand on my shoulder; except for that, I think she might have fallen. 'I imagined I would go to my dying day with the hurt of it. I won't. But it's no satisfaction, Verena, to say that I'm ashamed of you, too.' It was night now; frogs, sawing insects celebrated the slow-falling rain. We dimmed as though the wetness has snuffed the light of our faces. Verena sagged against me. 'I'm not well,' she said in a skeleton voice. 'I'm a sick woman, I am, Dolly.' Somewhat unconvinced, Dolly approached Verena, presently touched her, as though her fingers could sense the truth. 'Colin ' she said, 'Judge, please help me with her into the tree.' Verena protested that she couldn't go climbing trees; but once she got used to the idea she went up easily enough. The raftlike tree-house seemed to be floating over shrouded vapourish waters; it was dry there, however, for the mild rain had not penetrated the parasol of leaves. We drifted in a current of silence until Verena said, 'I have something to say, Dolly. I could say it more easily if we were alone.' The Judge crossed his arms. 'I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me, Miss Verena.' He was emphatic, though not belligerent. 'I have an interest in the outcome of what you might have to say.'

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'I doubt that: how so?' she said, recovering to a degree her exalted manner. He lighted a stub of candle, and our sudden shadows stooped over us like four eavesdroppers. 'I don't like talking in the dark,' he said. There was a purpose in the proud erectness of his posture: it was, I thought, to let Verena know she was dealing with a man, a fact too few men in her experience had enough believed to assert. She found it unforgivable. 'You don't remember, do you, Charlie Cool? Fifty years ago, more maybe. Some of you boys came blackberry stealing out at our place. My father caught your cousin Seth, and I caught you. It was quite a licking you got that day.' The Judge did remember; he blushed, smiled, said: 'You didn't fight fair, Verena.' 'I fought fair,' she told him dryly. 'But you're right - since neither of us like it, let's not talk in the dark. Frankly, Charlie, you're not a welcome sight to me. My sister couldn't have gone through such tommyrot if you hadn't been goading her on. So I'll thank you to leave us; it can be no further affair of yours.' 'But it is,' said Dolly. 'Because Judge Cool, Charlie...' she dwindled, appeared for the first time to question her boldness. 'Dolly means that I have asked her to marry me.' 'That,' Verena managed after some suspenseful seconds, 'is,' she said regarding her gloved hands, 'remarkable. Very. I wouldn't have credited either of you with so much imagination. Or is it that I am imagining? Quite likely I'm dreaming of myself in a wet tree on a thunderly night. Except I never have dreams, or perhaps I only forget them. This one I suggest we all forget.' 'I'll own up: I think it is a dream, Miss Verena. But a man who doesn't dream is like a man who doesn't sweat: he stores up a lot of poison.' She ignored him; her attention was with Dolly, Dolly's with her: they might have been alone together, two persons at far ends of a bleak room, mutes communicating in an eccentric sign-language, subtle shifting of the eye; and it was as though, then, Dolly gave an answer, one that sapped all colour from Verena's face. 'I see. You've accepted him, have you?' The rain had thickened, fish could have swum through the air; like a deepening scale of piano notes, it struck its blackest chord, and drummed into a downpour that, though it threatened, did not at once reach us: drippings leaked through the leaves, but the tree-house stayed a dry seed in a soaking plant. The Judge put a protective hand over the candle; he waited as anxiously as Verena for Dolly's reply. My impatience equalled theirs, yet I felt exiled from the scene, again a spy peering from the attic, and my sympathies, curiously, were nowhere; or rather, everywhere: a tenderness for all three ran together like raindrops, I could not separate them, they expanded into a human oneness. Dolly, too. She could not separate the Judge from Verena. At last, excruciatingly, 'I can't,' she cried, implying failures beyond calculation. 'I said I would know what was right. But it hasn't happened; I don't know: do other people? A choice, I thought: to have had a life made of my own decisions...' 'But we have had our lives,' said Verena. 'Yours has been nothing to despise, I don't think you've required more than you've had; I've envied you always. Come home, Dolly. Leave decisions to me: that, you see, has been my life.' 'Is it true, Charlie?' Dolly asked, as a child might ask where do falling stars fall? and: 'Have we had our lives?' 'We're not dead,' he told her; but it was as if, to the questioning child, he'd said stars fall into space: an irrefutable, still unsatisfactory answer. Dolly could not accept it: 'You don't have to be dead. At home, in the kitchen, there is a geranium that

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blooms over and over. Some plants, though, they bloom just the once, if at all, and nothing more happens to them. They live, but they've had their life.' 'Not you,' he said, and brought his face nearer hers, as though he meant their lips to touch, yet wavered, not daring it. Rain had tunnelled through the branches, it fell full weight; rivulets of it streamed off Dolly's hat, the veiling clung to her cheeks; with a flutter the candle failed. 'Not me.' Successive strokes of lightning throbbed like veins of fire, and Verena, illuminated in that sustained glare, was not anyone I knew; but some woman woebegone, wasted - with eyes once more drawn toward each other, their stare settled on an inner territory, a withered country; as the lightning lessened, as the hum of rain sealed us in its multiple sounds, she spoke, and her voice came so weakly from so very far, not expecting, it seemed, to be heard at all. 'Envied you, Dolly. Your pink room. I've only knocked at the doors of such rooms, not often - enough to know that now there is no one but you to let me in. Because little Morris, little Morris - help me, I loved him, I did. Not in a womanly way; it was, oh I admit it, that we were kindred spirits. We looked each other in the eye, we saw the same devil, we weren't afraid; it was merry. But he outsmarted me; I'd known he could, and hoped he wouldn't, and he did and now: it's too long to be alone, a lifetime. I walk through the house, nothing is mine: your pink room, your kitchen, the house is yours, and Catherine's too, I think. Only don't leave me, let me live with you. I'm feeling old, I want my sister.' The rain, adding its voice to Verena's, was between them, Dolly and the Judge, a transparent wall through which he could watch her losing substance, recede before him as earlier she had seemed to recede before me. More than that, it was as if the tree-house were dissolving. Lunging wind cast overboard the soggy wreckage of our Rook cards, our wrapping papers; animal crackers crumbled, the rain-filled mason jars spilled over like fountains; and Catherine's beautiful scrapquilt was ruined, a puddle. It was going: like the doomed houses rivers in flood float away; and it was as though the Judge were trapped there - waving to us as we, the survivors, stood ashore. For Dolly had said, 'Forgive me; I want my sister, too,' and the Judge could not reach her, not with his arms, not with his heart: Verena's claim was too final. Somewhere near midnight the rain slackened, halted; wind barreled about wringing out the trees. Singly, like delayed guests arriving at a dance, appearing stars pierced the sky. It was time to leave. We took nothing with us: left the quilt to rot, spoons to rust; and the tree-house, the woods we left to winter. Questions for self control: 1. 2. 3. 4.

.What is the meaning of the title? .What is the main conflict and how is it reflected in the extract? .What features of the main characters are revealed in it? Who is the narrator and what does it impart to the story?

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MAJOR AMERICAN VALUES In a society as large and diverse as the United States, few cultural values are shared by everyone. Over the centuries, people form throughout the world have entered the United States, producing a mosaic of cultural values. This contrasts with the greater cultural homogeneity of historically isolated societies such as Japan. Even so, the American way of life is guided by a number of values that most people recognize and that tend to persist over time. Sociologist Robin Williams suggests the following ten values are among the most central to our culture. 1. Equal opportunity. The American perception of fairness demands that everyone have the opportunity to get ahead, although, due to varying talents and efforts, people will not end up in the same situation. In other words, while not endorsing equality of condition, people in the United States do embrace equality of opportunity, by which everyone has a chance to obtain the good things in life. 2. Achievement and success. Our way of life encourages competition. In this way we, we like to think, each person receives what is deserved on the basis of personal merit. In the United States, to be successful makes one a more worthy person – a “winner”. 3. Activity and work. American heroes from Olympic figure skating star Kristi Yamaguchi to film’s famed archeologist Indiana Jones are “doers”, people who get the job done. Members of our society prefer action to reflection; through hard work we try to control events rather than passively accepting our fate. For this reason, many of us take a dim view of cultures that appear more easygoing or philosophical. 4. Material comfort. To be successful generally means making money and enjoying what it will buy. People in the United States may quip that “money won’t buy happiness”, but most diligently pursue wealth all the same. 5. Practicality and efficiency. Just as people in the United States value activity that earns money, so we praise solving problems with the least effort. “Building a better mousetrap” is a cultural goal, especially when it’s done in the most cost-effective way. 6. Progress. Americans have traditionally believed that the present is better than the past, and that the future will be better still. In the United States, advertising sparks sales with claims that “the very latest” is “the very best”. 7. Science. We often turn to scientists to solve problems, convinced that the work of scientific experts will improve our lives. We like to think of ourselves as rational people, which explains our cultural tendency (especially among men) to devalue emotions and intuition as sources of knowledge. 8. Democracy and free enterprise. Members of our society recognize various individual rights that cannot be overridden by government. Our political system is based on the ideal of free elections in which all adults express their opinions in selecting responsive leaders. Similarly, we believe that the U.S. economy meets the widely varied needs of selective, individual consumers. 9. Freedom. Closely related to democracy, freedom as a cultural value favors individual initiative over collective conformity. Although Americans acknowledge that everyone has responsibilities to others, we believe that individuals should be free to pursue personal goals without unreasonable interference from anyone else. 10. Racism and group superiority. Despite embracing the values of equality and freedom, people in the United States also link personal worth to social categories based on social class, race, ethnicity, and sex. Our society values males above females, whites above members of other races, and more privileged people above

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those who are disadvantaged. Although we often describe ourselves as a nation of equals, there is little doubt that some of us are “more equal than others.” As the listing above suggests, cultural values are sometimes inconsistent or even outright contradictory. At times, we find ourselves torn between the “me first” attitude of an individualistic, success-at-all-costs orientation and the opposing need to belong within some larger community. Similarly, the value that we place on equality of opportunity has long conflicted with our tendency to promote or degrade others because of their race, sex, or social background. Many of them were established by the Pilgrim Fathers and the Pioneers, and later claimed in official documents, such as The Declaration of Independence. The aforementioned values were at the background of the Great American Dream, which as Martin Luther King sadly concluded in his Christmas sermon in 1967, ‘turned into a nightmare’. Many of the ideals that constitute the American Dream transformed into their nightmarish opposites: the myth of individual success degenerated into the destructive rat race; the idea of progress came to justify the ruthless exploitation of natural resources; the inspiring vision of a chosen people turned into paranoid witch-hunts as well as the imperialist ideology of manifest destiny; the image of the melting-pot invoked to require ‘Americanization’ and to purge the land of ‘alien’ elements. This ambivalence of the American Dream and the major American values has been the main subject matter of the great American literature since the very days of its foundation up to nowadays.

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CONTENT HISTORIC BACKGROUND ………………………………………………………………… The Preamble ……………………………………………………………………………... A Declaration of Rights …………………………………………………………………... A Bill of Indictment ………………………………………………………………………... A Statement of Independence …………………………………………………………... Enlightenment …………………………………………………………………………….. ROMANTICISM ……………………………………………………………………………… WASHINGTON IRVING ……………………………………………………………………... The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow …………………………………………………………... JAMES FENIMORE COOPER ……..……………………………………………………… EDGAR ALLAN POE ………………………………………………………………………… The Philosophy Of Composition ………………………………………………………… RALF WALDO EMERSON …………………………………………………………………. HENRY DAVID THOREAU …………………………………………………………………. Walden …………………………………………………………………………………….. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ………………………………………………………………… Young Goodman Brown …………………………………………………………………. HERMAN MELVILLE ………………………………………………………………………… Moby Dick (Or The White Hale) …………………………………………………………. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ………………………………………………….. The Song Of Hiawatha …………………………………………………………………… THE ABOLITION LITERATURE …………………………………………………………… HARRIET BEECHER-STOWE …..………………………………………………………… Uncle Tom’s Cabin ………………………………………………………………………. WALT WHITMAN …………………………………………………………………………….. Leaves Of Grass …………………………………………………………………………. Song Of The Open Road ………………………………………………………………… Pioneers! O Pioneers! ……………………………………………………………………. CRITICAL REALISM ………………………………………………………………………… MARK TWAIN ………………………………………………………………………………… Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog ………………………………………………………. The Innocents Abroad ……………………………………………………………………. AMBROSE BIERCE …………………..…………………………………………………….. A Horseman In The Sky ………………………………………………………………….. HENRY JAMES ………………………………………………………………………………. Daisy Miller ………………………………………………………………………………… JACK LONDON ………………………………………………………………………………. The White Silence ………………………………………………………………………… AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE XXth CENTURY ……..…... THEODORE DREISER ……………………………………………………………………… An American Tragedy …………………………………………………………………….. ERNEST HEMINGWAY ……………………………………………………………………... Cat In The Rain ……………………………………………………………………………. A Farewell To Arms ………………………………………………………………………. The Old Man And The Sea ………………………………………………………………. JOHN STEINBECK ………………………………………………………………………….. The Winter Of Our Discontent ……………………………………………………………

3 3 3 4 4 5 6 6 6 24 24 24 26 26 27 40 40 48 49 61 62 65 65 65 74 74 78 80 83 83 83 86 96 96 100 100 135 135 141 142 142 147 147 149 151 154 154

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JEROME DAVID SALINGER ……………………………………………………………….. The Catcher In The Rye …………………………………………………………………. JACK KEROUAC ……………………….……………………………………………………. On The Road ………………………………………………………………………………. TRUMAN CAPOTE …………………………………………………………………………... The Grass Harp …………………………………………………………………………… MAJOR AMERICAN VALUES ……………………………………………………………...

165 165 172 172 178 178 188

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Шамина Вера Борисовна ХРЕСТОМАТИЯ ПО ИСТОРИИ АМЕРИКАНСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ (XIX – ПЕРВАЯ ПОЛОВИНА XX ВЕКА) Для студентов отделения романо-германской филологии Корректура составителя

Оригинал-макет подготовлен в лаборатории прикладной лингвистики филологического факультета Казанского государственного университета Подписано в печать 12.02.04. Бумага офсетная. Гарнитура ˝Arial˝. Формат 60х84 1/16. Печать офсетная. Печ. л. 16,3. Тираж 200 экз. Заказ 94. Лаборатория оперативной полиграфии УМУ КГУ 420045, Казань, ул. Кр. Позиция, 2а. Тел. 72-22-54.