The boy was small for his age

“Heck, all my old man’s friends in the biz talk worse stuff than shitload. So does my old man.” “Not when he knows you’re around.” [20] Fric cocked his head. “Are you calling my dad a hypocrite?” “If I ever call your dad such a thing, I’ll cut my tongue out.” “The evil wizard in this book would use it in a potion. One of his most difficult tasks is to find the tongue of an honest man.” “What makes you think I’m honest?” “Get real. You’ve got a triple shitload of honesty.” “What’re you going to do if Mrs. McBee hears you using words like that?” “She’s somewhere else.” “Oh, she is?” Ethan asked, suggesting that he knew something regarding Mrs. McBee’s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he’d been more discreet. Unable to repress a guilty expression, Fric sat up straight and surveyed the library. The boy was small for his age, and thin. At times, glimpsed from a distance as he walked along one of the vast halls or across a room scaled for kings and their entourages, he seemed almost wispy. “I think she has secret passages,” Fric whispered. “You know, pathways in the walls.” “Mrs. McBee?” The boy nodded. “We’ve lived here six years, but she’s been here forever.” Mrs. McBee and Mr. McBee—both in their middle fifties—had been employed by the previous owner of the property and had stayed on at the request of the Face. “It’s hard to picture Mrs. McBee skulking about in the walls,” said Ethan. “She’s not exactly a dastardly sort.” “But if she was dastardly,” Fric said hopefully, “things would be more interesting around here.” Unlike his father’s golden locks, which with a shake of the head always fell perfectly into place, Fric’s brown mop achieved perpetual disarray. Here was hair that foiled brushes and broke good combs.

had read at least three books in her life

When asked for his opinion of any book, the Face elicited the visitor’s judgment first, then agreed with it in such a charming fashion that he seemed both erudite and every bit a kindred spirit. As Ethan slid Lord Jim onto a shelf between two other Conrad titles, a small reedy voice behind him said, “Is there magic in it?” [19] Turning, he discovered ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim all but swallowed alive by one of the larger armchairs. According to Laura Moonves, Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning “elf-ruled” or “ruled by elves,” which had first been used to describe wise and clever actions, but had in time come to refer to those who acted wisely and cleverly. Aelfric. The boy’s mother—Fredericka “Freddie” Nielander—a supermodel who had married and divorced the Face all in one year, had read at least three books in her life. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In fact she had read them repeatedly. She had been prepared to name the boy Frodo. Fortunately, or not, one month before Freddie’s due date, her best girlfriend, an actress, had discovered the name Aelfric in the script for a cheesy fantasy film in which she had agreed to play a three-breasted Amazon alchemist. If Freddie’s friend had landed a supporting role in The Silence of the Lambs, Aelfric would probably now be Hannibal Manheim. The boy preferred to be called Fric, and no one but his mother insisted on using his full name. Fortunately, or not, she wasn’t around much to torture him with it. Reliable scuttlebutt had it that Freddie had not seen Fric in over seventeen months. Even the career of an aging supermodel could be demanding. “Is there magic in what?” Ethan asked. “That book you just put away.” “Magic of a sort, but probably not the kind of magic you mean.” “This one has a shitload of magic in it,” Fric said, displaying a paperback with dragons and wizards on the cover. “Is that advisable language for a wise and clever person?” Ethan asked.

held down a second job as a night janitor

The center of the ceiling featured a stained-glass dome thirty-two [18] feet in diameter. The deep colors of the glass—crimson, emerald, burnt yellow, sapphire—so completely filtered natural light even on a bright day that the books were at no risk of sustaining sun damage. Ethan’s Uncle Joe—who’d served as a surrogate dad when Ethan’s real father had been too drunk to handle the job—had been a truck driver for a regional bakery. He’d delivered breads and pastries to supermarkets and restaurants, six days a week, eight hours a day. Most of the time, Joe had held down a second job as a night janitor, three days a week. In his best five years put together, Uncle Joe hadn’t made enough to equal the cost of this stained-glass dome. When he’d first begun to earn a policeman’s pay, Ethan had felt rich. Compared to Joe, he had been raking in big dough. His total income from sixteen years with the LAPD wouldn’t have paid the cost of this one room. “Should’ve been a movie star,” he said as he entered the library to return Lord Jim to the shelf from which he’d gotten it. Every volume in the collection had been arranged in alphabetical order, by author. A third were bound in leather; the rest were regular editions. A significant number were rare, and valuable. The Face had read none of them. More than two-thirds of the collection had come with the house. At her employer’s instructions, once each month, Mrs. McBee purchased the most talked-about and critically acclaimed current novels and volumes of nonfiction, which were at once catalogued and added to the library. These new books were acquired for the sole purpose of display. They impressed houseguests, dinner guests, and other visitors with the breadth of Channing Manheim’s intellectual interests.

Anything seemed possible here

[17] More than twelve feet wide, paved with limestone tiles featured through most of the main floor of the house, this hall was graced by softly colored contemporary Persian carpets. High-quality French antiques—all from the Empire period, and including the late-Empire style called Biedermeier—furnished the long space: chairs, chests, a desk, a sideboard. Even with furniture to both sides, Ethan could have driven a car through the hall without grazing a single antique. He might have enjoyed driving a car through the hall if he would not have had to explain himself to Mrs. McBee afterward. During the invigorating hike to the library, he encountered two uniformed maids and a porter with whom he exchanged greetings. Because he occupied what Mrs. McBee defined as an executive position on the staff, he referred to these fellow workers by their first names, but they called him Mr. Truman. Prior to each new employee’s first day on the job, Mrs. McBee provided a ring-bound notebook titled Standards and Practices, which she herself had composed and assembled. Woe be to the benighted soul who did not memorize its contents and perform always according to its directions. The library floor was walnut, stained a dark warm reddish-brown. Here the Persian carpets were antiques that appreciated in value far faster than the blue-chip stocks of the country’s finest companies. Club chairs in comfortable seating arrangements alternated with mazes of mahogany shelves that held over thirty-six thousand volumes. Some of the books were shelved on a second level served by a six-foot-wide catwalk that could be reached by an open staircase with an elaborate gilded-iron railing. If you didn’t look up at the ceiling to help you define the true size of the enormous chamber, you might succumb to the illusion that it went on forever. Maybe it did. Anything seemed possible here.

after shrugging into a soft leather jacket

As the chief of security overseeing both the Face’s personal protection and the safeguarding of the estate, Ethan enjoyed many benefits, including free meals prepared by either Mr. Hachette, the household chef, or by Mr. Baptiste, the household cook. Mr. Baptiste lacked his boss’s training in the finest culinary schools; but no one with taste buds ever complained about any dish he put on the table. Meals could be taken in the large and comfortably furnished dayroom, where the staff not only ate but also did their household planning, spent their coffee breaks, and strategized all arrangements for the elaborate parties often held when the Face was in residence. Chef or cook would also prepare a plate of sandwiches or any other requested treat that Ethan might want to take back to his quarters. Of course, he could prepare meals in his apartment kitchen if he preferred. Mrs. McBee kept his fridge and pantry stocked according to shopping lists he presented to her, at no expense to him. Except for Monday and Thursday, when one of the maids changed the bedclothes—Mr. Manheim’s linens were cycled daily when he was in residence—Ethan had to make his own bed each morning. Life was hard. Now, after shrugging into a soft leather jacket, Ethan stepped out of his apartment into the ground-floor hallway of the west wing. He left his door unlocked as he would have done if he’d owned the entire house. He took with him a file that he’d made on the black-box case, an umbrella, and a leather-bound copy of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library.

This did not have to happen

The courtroom was still and silent. "What you will see in the days to come will be a pathetic game of finger-pointing, lying, and dodging blame. I have just given you the names and some of the faces of those responsible. Go after them, listen to their lies. This did not have to happen. This was not an unavoidable mistake. This was a willful disregard for the rights of Donte Drumm. May he rest in peace. Thank you." Before the onslaught of questions, Robbie stepped to the bar and took the hand of Roberta Drumm. She rose and walked stiffly to the podium, Robbie by her side. She pulled the microphone down a bit closer and said, "My name is Roberta Drumm. Donte was my son. I have little to say at this moment. My family is grieving. We are in shock. But I beg of you, I plead with the people of this town, to stop the violence. Stop the fires and the rock throwing, the fighting, the threats. Please stop it. It does no good. Yes, we are angry. Yes, we are wounded. But the violence serves no purpose. I call on my people to lay down your arms, to respect everyone, and to get off the streets. The violence does nothing but harm the honor of my son." Robbie led her back to her seat, then smiled at the crowd and said, "Now, does anyone have a question?" Chapter 35 Matthew Burns joined the Schroeder family for a late breakfast of pancakes and sausage. The boys ate quickly and returned to their video games. Dana made more coffee and began clearing the table. They discussed the press conference, Robbie's brilliant presentation of the case, and Roberta's poignant remarks. Matthew was curious about Slone, the fires and violence, but Keith had seen little of it. He had felt the tension, smelled the smoke, heard the police helicopter hovering overhead, but he had not seen much of the town. With fresh coffee, the three sat at the table and talked about Keith's improbable journey and the whereabouts of Travis Boyette. Keith, though, was growing weary of the details. He had other issues, and Matthew was prepared for the conversation. "So, Counselor, how much trouble could I be in?" Keith asked.

and the screen went blank

"Well, right now he's got a helluva lot more credibility than the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The murderer confesses, no one believes him, so he shows them exactly where he buried the body. Sounds pretty credible to me." Robbie paused and took a sip of water. "As for the governor, his office received a copy of the Boyette video at 3:11 Thursday afternoon. I don't know for sure whether the governor saw the video. We do know that at 4:30 he addressed a crowd of protesters and publicly denied a reprieve for Donte." The governor was watching. He was standing in his office in the Governor's Mansion, dressed for a golf game that would not be played, with Wayne on one side and Barry on the other. When Robbie paused, he demanded, "Is that true? Did we have the video at 3:11 p.m.?" Wayne lied first. "Don't know. So much stuff was happening. They were filing junk by the truckload." Barry told the second lie. "This is the first I've heard of it." "Did anyone see the video when it came in?" he asked, his irritation growing by the second. "Don't know, Boss, but we'll find out," Barry said. The governor stared at the television, his mind spinning, trying to grasp the severity of what he was hearing. Robbie was saying, "Even after denying clemency, the governor had the right to reconsider and stop the execution. He refused to do so." The governor hissed the word "Asshole," then yelled, "Get to the bottom of this, and now!" Carlos closed his laptop, and the screen went blank. Robbie flipped through his legal pad to make sure he'd said enough. He lowered his voice and in a grave tone said, "In closing, it is now obvious that we have finally done it. Those who study the death penalty, and those of us who fight it, have long feared the day when this would happen, when we would wake up to the horrible fact that we have executed an innocent man, and that it can be proven by clear and convincing evidence. Innocent men have been executed before, but the proof was not clear. With Donte, there is no doubt." A pause.

I'm not sure right now

The court noted that there was no physical evidence in the trial. The court seemed slightly bothered by the lies of the jailhouse snitch. It nibbled at the edges of Donte's confession but refused to criticize Judge Grale for allowing the jury to hear it. It commented on the use of the bloodhound testimony, saying perhaps it wasn't the 'best evidence' to use in such a serious trial. But all in all, the court saw nothing wrong. The vote was nine to affirm the conviction, zero to overturn it." Chief Justice Milton Prudlowe was watching. A frantic call from his law clerk had alerted him to the press conference, and he was with his wife in their small apartment in Austin, glued to CNN. If Texas had indeed executed an innocent man, he knew his court was in for an avalanche of scorching criticism. Mr. Flak seemed prepared to lead the attack. "Last Thursday," Robbie was saying, "at exactly 3:35 p.m., lawyers for Donte Drumm filed a petition for relief, and we included a video that we had just taken of Travis Boyette confessing to the rape and murder. This was two and a half hours before the execution. I assume the court considered this matter and was not impressed with the video, or the affidavit, because an hour later the court denied relief and refused to stop the execution. Again, the vote was nine to zero." On cue, Carlos flashed up the times and actions by the court. Robbie plowed ahead. "The court closes for business each day at 5:00 p.m., even when an execution is pending. Our final filing was the last-minute affidavit and recantation by Joey Gamble. In Austin, attorneys for Donte called the court clerk, a Mr. Emerson Pugh, and informed him that they were on their way with the petition. He said the court would close at 5:00. And he was right. When the attorneys arrived at the court at 5:07, the door was locked. The petition could not be filed." Prudlowe's wife glared at him and said, "I hope he's lying." Prudlowe wanted to assure her that of course this loudmouthed lawyer was lying, but he hesitated. Flak was too shrewd to make such damning statements in public without having the facts to back them up. "Milton, tell me this guy is lying." "Well, honey, I'm not sure right now." "You're not sure? Why would the court close if the lawyers were trying to file something?" "Well, uh, we--" "You're stuttering here, Milton, and that means you're struggling to tell me something that may or may not be entirely accurate. Did you see Boyette's video two hours before the execution?" "Yes, it was passed--" "Oh my God, Milton! Then why didn't you stop things for a few days. You're the chief justice, Milton; you can do anything you want. Executions are delayed all the time. Why not give it another thirty days, or a year for that matter?" "We thought it was bogus. The guy is a serial rapist with no credibility."

but nothing like this

He eventually moved away from the more tawdry aspects of the judge-prosecutor relationship and found his rhythm railing against the lack of evidence. Grale's face disappeared from the screen, and Koffee's was enlarged. No physical evidence, no dead body, only a trumped-up confession, a jailhouse snitch, a bloodhound, and a lying witness named Joey Gamble. Meanwhile, Travis Boyette was free, certainly not worried about getting caught, not by these clowns. Koffee had tried all night to conjure up a revised theory that would somehow link Donte Drumm and Travis Boyette, but fiction failed him. He felt lousy. His head ached from too much vodka, and his heart pounded as he tried to breathe under the crushing weight of a ruined career. He was finished, and that troubled him much more than the notion that he had helped kill an innocent young man. When he finished with the jailhouse snitch and the bloodhound, Robbie attacked Joey Gamble and his fraudulent testimony. With perfect timing, Carlos flashed up Gamble's affidavit, the one signed in Houston on Thursday, an hour before the execution. Highlighted were Joey's statements admitting he lied at trial and admitting he was the first to suggest that Donte Drumm was the killer. Joey Gamble was watching. He was at his mother's house in Slone. His father was away; his mother needed him. He had told her the truth, and the truth had not been well received. Now he was shocked to see and hear his transgressions broadcast in such a startling way. He had assumed that when he came clean, he would be subjected to some level of embarrassment, but nothing like this. "Joey Gamble lied repeatedly," Flak announced at full throttle, and Joey almost reached for the remote. "And now he admits it!" Joey's mother was upstairs in her bedroom, too upset to be around him. "You helped kill that boy," she had said more than once, not that Joey needed reminding. Robbie continued, "Moving on from the incompetent investigation, the travesty of a trial, and the wrongful conviction, I would like to now discuss the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This court heard Donte's first appeal in February 2001. The body of Nicole Yarber was still missing.

He was at the cabin by the lake

As a chief detective with sixteen years of experience, he earned $56,000 a year. He had three teenagers and a nine-year-old, a mortgage, two car payments, an IRA with around ten grand, and a savings account with $800. If fired, or retired, he might be entitled to a small pension, but he could not survive financially. And his days as a police officer would be over. "Drew Kerber is a rogue cop with a history of obtaining fake confessions," Robbie said loudly, and Kerber flinched. He was at his desk, in a small locked office, all alone. He had instructed his wife to keep the TVs off in the house, as if they could somehow hide this story from his kids. He cursed Flak, then watched with horror as the slimeball explained to the world exactly how he, Kerber, had obtained the confession. Kerber's life was over. He might handle the ending by himself. Robbie moved on to the trial. He introduced more characters--Paul Koffee and Judge Vivian Grale. Photos, please. On the large screen, Carlos projected them side by side, as if still attached, and Robbie assailed them for their relationship. He mocked the "brilliant decision to move the trial all the way to Paris, Texas, forty-nine miles from here." He drove home the point that he tried valiantly to keep the confession away from the jury, while Koffee fought just as hard to keep it in evidence. Judge Grale sided with the prosecution and "her lover, the Honorable Paul Koffee." Paul Koffee was watching, and seething. He was at the cabin by the lake, very much alone, watching the local station's "exclusive live coverage" of the Robbie Flak show, when he saw his face next to Vivian's. Flak was railing against the jury, as white as a Klan rally because Paul Koffee had systematically used his jury strikes to eliminate blacks, and, of course, his girlfriend up on the bench went along with it. "Texas-style justice," Robbie lamented, over and over.

both in courts and in offices

It was a bizarre and cumbersome procedure. The federal court for the Western District of Texas, housed a few blocks from the TCCA, adopted electronic filing in the mid-1990s. By the turn of the century, paper filings were rapidly becoming obsolete as technology marched on. In law, both in courts and in offices, the electronic file became far more popular than the paper file. At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, the Flak firm and the Defender Group lawyers were notified that the insanity claim was denied by the TCCA. The court did not believe Donte was mentally ill. This was expected. Minutes after this denial was received, the identical petition was filed electronically in the federal court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler. At 9:30 a.m., a Defender Group lawyer named Cicely Avis walked into the clerk's office at the TCCA with the latest filing by the lawyers for Donte Drumm. It was a claim of actual innocence based on the secretly recorded statements by Joey Gamble. Cicely routinely showed up with similar filings, and she and the clerk knew each other well. "What else is coming?" the clerk asked as he processed the petition. "I'm sure there will be something," Cicely said. "Usually is." The clerk finished his paperwork, handed a marked copy back to Cicely, and wished her a good day. Because of the obvious urgency of the matter, the clerk hand delivered a copy of the petition to the offices of all nine justices. Three happened to be in Austin. The other six were scattered around the state. The chief justice was a man by the name of Milton Prudlowe, a longtime member of the court who lived in Lubbock most of the year but kept a small apartment in Austin.

He wanted to make sure all was well

The family had learned years earlier that it was important to arrive at the Visitors' Room with a pocketful of coins. Vending machines lined the walls, and the guards delivered the food and drinks to the inmates during the visits. Donte had lost serious weight in prison, but he craved a certain cinnamon bun coated with thick frosting. While Roberta and Andrea handled the first round of the visit, Marvin bought two of the buns, with a soft drink, and Ruth took them to Donte. The junk food helped his mood. Cedric was reading a newspaper, not far from the attorney's room, when the warden popped in for a friendly hello. He wanted to make sure all was well, everything in his prison running smooth. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked as if he were running for office. He was trying hard to appear compassionate. Cedric stood up, thought for a second, and then got angry. "Are you kidding me? You're about to put my brother to death for something he didn't do, and you pop in here with some happy horseshit about wanting to help." "We're just doing our jobs, sir." Ruth was walking over. "No, you're not, unless your job allows you to kill innocent people. You wanna help, stop the damned execution." Marvin stepped between them and said, "Let's be cool here." The warden backed away and said something to Ruth. They had a serious conversation as the warden walked to the door. He soon left. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has sole jurisdiction over capital murder cases and is the court of last resort in Texas before an inmate hits the federal circuit. It has nine members, all elected, all required to run statewide. In 2007, it still clung to the archaic rule that all pleadings, petitions, appeals, documents, and such had to be filed as hard copies. Nothing online. Black ink on white paper, and tons of it. Each filing had to include twelve copies, one for each justice, and one for the clerk, one for the secretary, and one for the official file.

just close their eyes and wait for the poison

"I'm sorry, Momma, I'm gonna die angry. I can't help it. Some of these guys go peacefully, singing hymns, quoting scripture, begging for forgiveness. Dude last week said, 'Father, unto you I commend my spirit.' Some don't say a word, just close their eyes and wait for the poison. A few go out kicking. Todd Willingham died three years ago, always claimed to be innocent. They said he started a house fire that burned up his three little girls. Yet he was in the house and got burned too. He was a fighter. He cussed 'em in his final statement." "Don't do that, Donte." "I don't know what I'll do, Momma. Maybe nothing. Maybe I'll just lie there with my eyes closed and start counting, and when I get to a hundred, I'll just float away. But, Momma, you're not gonna be there." "We've had this conversation, Donte." "Well, now we're having it again. I don't want you to witness this." "I don't want to either, believe me. But I'll be there." "I'm gonna talk to Robbie." "I've already talked to him, Donte. He knows how I feel." Donte slowly withdrew his left hand from the glass, and Roberta did the same. She placed the phone on the counter and removed a sheet of paper from her pocket. No purses were allowed past the front desk. She unfolded the paper, picked up the phone, and said, "Donte, this is a list of the folks who've called or stopped by to ask about you. I promised them I would pass along their thoughts." He nodded and tried to smile. Roberta went through the names--neighbors, old friends from down the street, classmates, beloved church members, and a few distant relatives. Donte listened without a word, but seemed to drift away. Roberta went on and on, and with each name she added a brief commentary about the person or an anecdote. Andrea was next. The touching ritual was followed. She described the burning of the Baptist church, the tension in Slone, the fears that things would get worse. Donte seemed to like that--the thought of his people fighting back.

Though the touch was never completed

Donte was already in the attorney's booth when Roberta and Cedric entered. A guard could be seen through the window of a door behind him. As always, he placed the palm of his left hand flat on the Plexiglas, and Roberta did the same from the other side. Though the touch was never completed, it was a long, warm embrace in their minds. Donte had not touched his mother since the last day of his trial, in October 1999, when a guard allowed them a quick hug as he was being led from the courtroom. He held the phone with his right hand and said with a smile, "Hi, Momma. Thanks for coming. I love you." Their hands were still together, pressed against the glass. Roberta said, "And I love you right back, Donte. How are you today?" "The same. I've already had my shower and a shave. Everybody's real nice to me. Got fresh clothes on, a new pair of boxers. This is a lovely place. They get real nice around here right before they kill you." "You look great, Donte." "And so do you, Momma. You're as beautiful as always." During one of her first visits, Roberta had wept and had been unable to stop herself. Afterward, Donte wrote to her and explained how upsetting it was to see her so distraught. In the solitude of his cell, he wept for hours, but he couldn't bear to watch his mother do the same. He wanted her to visit him whenever possible, but the tears did more harm than good. There had been no more tears, not from Roberta, Andrea, Cedric, Marvin, or any other relative or friend. Roberta made this very clear with each visit. If you can't control yourself, get out of the room. "I talked to Robbie this morning," she said. "He has one or two more plans for the final appeals, plus the governor has not ruled on your request for a reprieve. So there's still hope, Donte." "There's no hope, Momma, so don't kid yourself." "We can't give up, Donte." "Why not? There's nothing we can do. When Texas wants to kill somebody, they're gonna do it. Killed one last week. Got another planned later this month. It's an assembly line around here, can't nobody stop it. You might get lucky and get a stay every now and then, happened to me two years ago, but sooner or later your time is up. They don't care about guilt or innocence, Momma, all they care about is showing the world how tough they are. Texas don't fool around. Don't mess with Texas. Ever heard that?" Softly she said, "I don't want you to be angry, Donte."

went home to get their guns

There were a lot of cuts and bruises that went unreported. Typical of such a melee, with so many taking part, it was not possible to determine who was causing trouble and who was trying to flee, so no arrests were made at the time. Many of the older boys, black and white, went home to get their guns. Roberta, Andrea, Cedric, and Marvin were cleared through the security desk at Polunsky's front building and led by a supervisor to the Visitors' Room, a process and a walk they had endured many times in the past seven years. And though they had always hated the prison and everything about it, they realized that it would soon be a part of their past. If it meant nothing else, Polunsky was where Donte lived. That would change in a matter of hours. There are two private rooms used by attorneys in the visiting area. They are slightly wider than the other booths used by visitors, and they are fully enclosed so no guard or prison official, or other inmate or lawyer, can eavesdrop. On his final day, a condemned man is allowed to see his family and friends in one of the attorney's rooms. The Plexiglas is still there, and all conversations are through black phones on each side of it. No touching. The Visitors' Room is a loud and busy place on weekends, but on weekdays there is little traffic. Wednesdays are set aside as "Media Days," and a man "with a date" is typically interviewed by a couple of reporters from the town where the murder took place. Donte had declined all requests for interviews. When the family entered the visiting area at 8:00 a.m., the only other person there was a female guard named Ruth. They knew her well. She was a thoughtful soul who liked Donte. Ruth welcomed them and said how sorry she was.

It seems to me one only has to look

"Oh, but I should like to see it!" said Adelaida; "and I don't know WHEN we shall ever go abroad. I've been two years looking out for a good subject for a picture. I've done all I know. 'The North and South I know by heart,' as our poet observes. Do help me to a subject, prince." "Oh, but I know nothing about painting. It seems to me one only has to look, and paint what one sees." "But I don't know HOW to see!" "Nonsense, what rubbish you talk!" the mother struck in. "Not know how to see! Open your eyes and look! If you can't see here, you won't see abroad either. Tell us what you saw yourself, prince!" "Yes, that's better," said Adelaida; "the prince learned to see abroad." "Oh, I hardly know! You see, I only went to restore my health. I don't know whether I learned to see, exactly. I was very happy, however, nearly all the time." "Happy! you can be happy?" cried Aglaya. "Then how can you say you did not learn to see? I should think you could teach us to see!" "Oh! DO teach us," laughed Adelaida. "Oh! I can't do that," said the prince, laughing too. "I lived almost all the while in one little Swiss village; what can I teach you? At first I was only just not absolutely dull; then my health began to improve--then every day became dearer and more precious to me, and the longer I stayed, the dearer became the time to me; so much so that I could not help observing it; but why this was so, it would be difficult to say." "So that you didn't care to go away anywhere else?" "Well, at first I did; I was restless; I didn't know however I should manage to support life--you know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a waterfall near us, such a lovely thin streak of water, like a thread but white and moving. It fell from a great height, but it looked quite low, and it was half a mile away, though it did not seem fifty paces. I loved to listen to it at night, but it was then that I became so restless.

I take your word for it

"Oh, that wretched donkey again, I see!" cried the lady. "I assure you, prince, I was not guilty of the least--" "Insinuation? Oh! I assure you, I take your word for it." And the prince continued laughing merrily. "I must say it's very nice of you to laugh. I see you really are a kind-hearted fellow," said Mrs. Epanchin. "I'm not always kind, though." "I am kind myself, and ALWAYS kind too, if you please!" she retorted, unexpectedly; "and that is my chief fault, for one ought not to be always kind. I am often angry with these girls and their father; but the worst of it is, I am always kindest when I am cross. I was very angry just before you came, and Aglaya there read me a lesson--thanks, Aglaya, dear--come and kiss me--there--that's enough" she added, as Aglaya came forward and kissed her lips and then her hand. "Now then, go on, prince. Perhaps you can think of something more exciting than about the donkey, eh?" "I must say, again, I can't understand how you can expect anyone to tell you stories straight away, so," said Adelaida. "I know I never could!" "Yes, but the prince can, because he is clever--cleverer than you are by ten or twenty times, if you like. There, that's so, prince; and seriously, let's drop the donkey now--what else did you see abroad, besides the donkey?" "Yes, but the prince told us about the donkey very cleverly, all the same," said Alexandra. "I have always been most interested to hear how people go mad and get well again, and that sort of thing. Especially when it happens suddenly." "Quite so, quite so!" cried Mrs. Epanchin, delighted. "I see you CAN be sensible now and then, Alexandra. You were speaking of Switzerland, prince?" "Yes. We came to Lucerne, and I was taken out in a boat. I felt how lovely it was, but the loveliness weighed upon me somehow or other, and made me feel melancholy." "Why?" asked Alexandra. "I don't know; I always feel like that when I look at the beauties of nature for the first time; but then, I was ill at that time, of course!"

and then I would recover myself again

"When they took me away from Russia, I remember I passed through many German towns and looked out of the windows, but did not trouble so much as to ask questions about them. This was after a long series of fits. I always used to fall into a sort of torpid condition after such a series, and lost my memory almost entirely; and though I was not altogether without reason at such times, yet I had no logical power of thought. This would continue for three or four days, and then I would recover myself again. I remember my melancholy was intolerable; I felt inclined to cry; I sat and wondered and wondered uncomfortably; the consciousness that everything was strange weighed terribly upon me; I could understand that it was all foreign and strange. I recollect I awoke from this state for the first time at Basle, one evening; the bray of a donkey aroused me, a donkey in the town market. I saw the donkey and was extremely pleased with it, and from that moment my head seemed to clear." "A donkey? How strange! Yet it is not strange. Anyone of us might fall in love with a donkey! It happened in mythological times," said Madame Epanchin, looking wrathfully at her daughters, who had begun to laugh. "Go on, prince." "Since that evening I have been specially fond of donkeys. I began to ask questions about them, for I had never seen one before; and I at once came to the conclusion that this must be one of the most useful of animals--strong, willing, patient, cheap; and, thanks to this donkey, I began to like the whole country I was travelling through; and my melancholy passed away." "All this is very strange and interesting," said Mrs. Epanchin. "Now let's leave the donkey and go on to other matters. What are you laughing at, Aglaya? and you too, Adelaida? The prince told us his experiences very cleverly; he saw the donkey himself, and what have you ever seen? YOU have never been abroad." "I have seen a donkey though, mamma!" said Aglaya. "And I've heard one!" said Adelaida. All three of the girls laughed out loud, and the prince laughed with them. "Well, it's too bad of you," said mamma. "You must forgive them, prince; they are good girls. I am very fond of them, though I often have to be scolding them; they are all as silly and mad as march hares." "Oh, why shouldn't they laugh?" said the prince. " I shouldn't have let the chance go by in their place, I know. But I stick up for the donkey, all the same; he's a patient, good-natured fellow." "Are you a patient man, prince? I ask out of curiosity," said Mrs. Epanchin. All laughed again.

I want to hear you relate something

In talking over the question of relationship it turned out that the prince was very well up in the matter and knew his pedigree off by heart. It was found that scarcely any connection existed between himself and Mrs. Epanchin, but the talk, and the opportunity of conversing about her family tree, gratified the latter exceedingly, and she rose from the table in great good humour. "Let's all go to my boudoir," she said, "and they shall bring some coffee in there. That's the room where we all assemble and busy ourselves as we like best," she explained. "Alexandra, my eldest, here, plays the piano, or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (but never finishes any); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I don't work too much, either. Here we are, now; sit down, prince, near the fire and talk to us. I want to hear you relate something. I wish to make sure of you first and then tell my old friend, Princess Bielokonski, about you. I wish you to know all the good people and to interest them. Now then, begin!" "Mamma, it's rather a strange order, that!" said Adelaida, who was fussing among her paints and paint-brushes at the easel. Aglaya and Alexandra had settled themselves with folded hands on a sofa, evidently meaning to be listeners. The prince felt that the general attention was concentrated upon himself. "I should refuse to say a word if I were ordered to tell a story like that!" observed Aglaya. "Why? what's there strange about it? He has a tongue. Why shouldn't he tell us something? I want to judge whether he is a good story-teller; anything you like, prince-how you liked Switzerland, what was your first impression, anything. You'll see, he'll begin directly and tell us all about it beautifully." "The impression was forcible--" the prince began. "There, you see, girls," said the impatient lady, "he has begun, you see." "Well, then, LET him talk, mamma," said Alexandra. "This prince is a great humbug and by no means an idiot," she whispered to Aglaya. "Oh, I saw that at once," replied the latter. "I don't think it at all nice of him to play a part. What does he wish to gain by it, I wonder?" "My first impression was a very strong one," repeated the prince.

are you accustomed to having one on

"Aglaya, make a note of 'Pafnute,' or we shall forget him. H'm! and where is this signature?" "I think it was left on the general's table." "Let it be sent for at once!" "Oh, I'll write you a new one in half a minute," said the prince, "if you like!" "Of course, mamma!" said Alexandra. "But let's have lunch now, we are all hungry!" "Yes; come along, prince," said the mother, "are you very hungry?" "Yes; I must say that I am pretty hungry, thanks very much." "H'm! I like to see that you know your manners; and you are by no means such a person as the general thought fit to describe you. Come along; you sit here, opposite to me," she continued, "I wish to be able to see your face. Alexandra, Adelaida, look after the prince! He doesn't seem so very ill, does he? I don't think he requires a napkin under his chin, after all; are you accustomed to having one on, prince?" "Formerly, when I was seven years old or so. I believe I wore one; but now I usually hold my napkin on my knee when I eat." "Of course, of course! And about your fits?" "Fits?" asked the prince, slightly surprised. "I very seldom have fits nowadays. I don't know how it may be here, though; they say the climate may be bad for me. " "He talks very well, you know!" said Mrs. Epanchin, who still continued to nod at each word the prince spoke. "I really did not expect it at all; in fact, I suppose it was all stuff and nonsense on the general's part, as usual. Eat away, prince, and tell me where you were born, and where you were brought up. I wish to know all about you, you interest me very much!" The prince expressed his thanks once more, and eating heartily the while, recommenced the narrative of his life in Switzerland, all of which we have heard before. Mrs. Epanchin became more and more pleased with her guest; the girls, too, listened with considerable attention.

yet he was usually up betimes

"It isn't the financial consideration," she began loftily--"alone," she added more honestly. "But to take in a total stranger--" Banneker leaned forward to her. "See here, Mrs. Brashear; there's nothing wrong about me. I don't get drunk. I don't smoke in bed. I'm decent of habit and I'm clean. I've got money enough to carry me. Couldn't you take me on my say-so? Look me over." Though it was delivered with entire gravity, the speech provoked a tired and struggling smile on the landlady's plain features. She looked. "Well?" he queried pleasantly. "What do you think? Will you take a chance?" That suppressed motherliness which, embodying the unformulated desire to look after and care for others, turns so many widows to taking lodgers, found voice in Mrs. Brashear's reply: "You've had a spell of sickness, haven't you?" "No," he said, a little sharply. "Where did you get that idea?" "Your eyes look hot." "I haven't been sleeping very well. That's all." "Too bad. You've had a loss, maybe," she ventured sympathetically. "A loss? No.... Yes. You might call it a loss. You'll take me, then?" "You can move in right away," said Mrs. Brashear recklessly. So the Brashear rooming-house took into its carefully guarded interior the young and unknown Mr. Banneker--who had not been sleeping well. Nor did he seem to be sleeping well in his new quarters, since his light was to be seen glowing out upon the quiet street until long after midnight; yet he was usually up betimes, often even before the moving spirit of the house, herself. A full week had he been there before his fellow lodgers, self-constituted into a Committee on Membership, took his case under consideration in full session upon the front steps. None had had speech with him, but it was known that he kept irregular hours. "What's his job: that's what I'd like to know," demanded in a tone of challenge, young Wickert, a man of the world who clerked in the decorative department of a near-by emporium.

At the moment of speaking

Had Banneker but known it, this was rather high. The Brashear rooming-house charged for its cleanliness, physical and moral. "Can I move in at once?" he inquired. "I don't know you nor anything about you, Mr. Banneker," she replied, but not until they had descended the stairs and were in the cool, dim parlor. At the moment of speaking, she raised a shade, as if to help in the determination. "Is that necessary? They didn't ask me when I registered at the hotel." Mrs. Brashear stared, then smiled. "A hotel is different. Where are you stopping?" "At the St. Denis." "A very nice place. Who directed you here?" "No one. I strolled around until I found a street I liked, and looked around until I found a house I liked. The card in the window--" "Of course. Well, Mr. Banneker, for the protection of the house I must have references." "References? You mean letters from people?" "Not necessarily. Just a name or two from whom I can make inquiries. You have friends, I suppose." "No." "Your family--" "I haven't any." "Then the people in the place where you work. What is your business, by the way?" "I expect to go on a newspaper." "Expect?" Mrs. Brashear stiffened in defense of the institution. "You have no place yet?" He answered not her question, but her doubt. "As far as that is concerned, I'll pay in advance."

he wrote in the note left with

The flame of the greedy stove licked up the memento, but not the memory. "You must not worry about me," he wrote in the note left with his successor for Miss Van Arsdale. "I shall be all right. I am going to succeed." Part 2 Chapter 1 Mrs. Brashear's rooming-house on Grove Street wore its air of respectability like a garment, clean and somber, in an environment of careful behavior. Greenwich Village, not having fully awakened to the commercial advantages of being a _locale_, had not yet stretched between itself and the rest of New York that gauzy and iridescent curtain of sprightly impropriety and sparkling intellectual naughtiness, since faded to a lather tawdry pattern. An early pioneer of the Villager type, emancipated of thought and speech, chancing upon No. 11 Grove, would have despised it for its lack of atmosphere and its patent conservatism. It did not go out into the highways and byways, seeking prospective lodgers. It folded its hands and waited placidly for them to come. When they came, it pondered them with care, catechized them tactfully, and either rejected them with courteous finality or admitted them on probation. Had it been given to self-exploitation, it could have boasted that never had it harbored a bug or a scandal within its doors. Now, on this filmy-soft April day it was nonplussed. A type new to its experience was applying for a room, and Mrs. Brashear, who was not only the proprietress, but, as it were, the familiar spirit and incarnation of the institution, sat peering near-sightedly and in some perturbation of soul at the phenomenon. He was young, which was against him, and of a winning directness of manner, which was in his favor, and extremely good to look at, which was potential of complications, and encased in clothing of an uncompromising cut and neutral pattern (to wit; No. 45 T 370, "an ideal style for a young business man of affairs; neat, impressive and dignified"), which was reassuring. "My name is Banneker," he had said, immediately the door was opened to him. "Can I get a room here?" "There is a room vacant," admitted the spirit of the house unwillingly. "I'd like to see it." As he spoke, he was mounting the stairs; she must, perforce, follow. On the third floor she passed him and led the way to a small, morosely papered front room, almost glaringly clean. "All right, if I can have a work-table in it and if it isn't too much," he said, after one comprehensive glance around. "The price is five dollars a week."

wondered how much that might imply

The woman, startled by the conviction in his tone, wondered how much that might imply. "She wrote me," said she presently. "That she was married?" "That she would be by the time the letter reached me." ("You will think me a fool," the girl had written impetuously, "and perhaps a cruel fool. But it is the wise thing, really. Del Eyre is so safe! He is safety itself for a girl like me. And I have discovered that I can't wholly trust myself.... Be gentle with him, and make him do something worth while.") "Ah!" said Ban. "But that--" "And I have the newspaper since with an account of the wedding.... Ban! Don't look like that!" "Like what?" said he stupidly. "You look like Pretty Willie as I saw him when he was working himself up for the killing." Pretty Willie was the soft-eyed young desperado who had cleaned out the Sick Coyote. "Oh, I'm not going to kill anybody," he said with a touch of grim amusement for her fears. "Not even myself." He rose and went to the door. "Do you mind, Miss Camilla?" he added appealingly. "You want me to leave you now?" He nodded. "I've got to think." "When would you leave, Ban, if you do go?" "I don't know." On the following morning he went, after a night spent in arranging, destroying, and burning. The last thing to go into the stove, 67 S 4230, was a lock of hair, once glossy, but now stiffened and stained a dull brown, which he had cut from the wound on Io's head that first, strange night of theirs, the stain of her blood that had beaten in her heart, and given life to the sure, sweet motion of her limbs, and flushed in her cheeks, and pulsed in the warm lips that she had pressed to his--Why could they not have died together on their dissolving island, with the night about them, and their last, failing sentience for each other!

If that was to be her farewell

Over and over he read it with increasing bewilderment, with increasing fear, with slow-developing comprehension. If that was to be her farewell ... but why! Io, the straightforward, the intrepid, the exponent of fair play and the rules of the game!... Had it been only a game? No; at least he knew better than that. What could it all mean? Why that medium for her message? Should he write and ask her? But what was there to ask or say, in the face of her silence? Besides, he had not even her address. Miss Camilla could doubtless give him that. But would she? How much did she understand? Why had she turned so unhelpful? Banneker sat with his problem half through a searing night; and the other half of the night he spent in writing. But not to Io. At noon Camilla Van Arsdale rode up to the station. "Are you ill, Ban?" was her greeting, as soon as she saw his face. "No, Miss Camilla. I'm going away." She nodded, confirming not so much what he said as a fulfilled suspicion of her own. "New York is a very big city," she said. "I haven't said that I was going to New York." "No; there is much you haven't said." "I haven't felt much like talking. Even to you." "Don't go, Ban." "I've got to. I've got to get away from here." "And your position with the railroad?" "I've resigned. It's all arranged." He pointed to the pile of letters, his night's work. "What are you going to do?" "How do I know! I beg your pardon, Miss Camilla. Write, I suppose." "Write here." "There's nothing to write about." The exile, who had spent her years weaving exquisite music from the rhythm of desert winds and the overtones of the forest silence, looked about her, over the long, yellow-gray stretches pricked out with hints of brightness, to the peaceful refuge of the pines, and again to the naked and impudent meanness of the town. Across to her ears, borne on the air heavy with rain still unshed, came the rollicking, ragging jangle of the piano at the Sick Coyote.

and beat her forehead as she saw what she had done

`You love me very, very much, Izz?' he suddenly asked. `I do - I have said I do! I loved you all the time we was at the dairy together!' `More than Tess?' She shook her head. `No,' she murmured, `not more than she.' `How's that?' `Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did!... . She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more.' Like the prophet on the top of Poor Izz Huett would fain have spoken perversely at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her rougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace. Clare was silent; his heart had risen at these straightforward words from such an unexpected unimpeachable quarter. In his throat was something as if a sob had solidified there. His ears repeated, `She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more!' `Forget our idle talk, Izz,' he said, turning the horse's head suddenly. `I don't know what I've been saying! I will now drive you back to where your lane branches off.' `So much for honesty towards 'ee! O - how can I bear it - how can I - how can I!' Izz Huett burst into wild tears, and beat her forehead as she saw what she had done. `Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an absent one? O, Izz, don't spoil it by regret!' She stilled herself by degrees. `Very well, sir. Perhaps I didn't know what I was saying, either, wh - when I agreed to go! I wish - what cannot be!' `Because I have a loving wife already.' `Yes, yes! You have.' They reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an hour earlier, and she hopped down. `Izz - please, please forget my momentary levity!' he cried. `It was so ill-considered, so ill-advised!' `Forget it? Never, never! O, it was no levity to me!'

Not when you had been there a bit

`How is that? Do you remember how neatly you used to turn 'twas down in Cupid's Gardens and "The Tailor's Breeches" at morning milking?' `Ah, yes! When you first came, sir, that was. Not when you had been there a bit.' `Why was that falling-off?' Her black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by way of answer. `Izz! - how weak of you - for such as I!' he said, and fell into reverie. `Then - suppose I had asked you to marry me?' `If you had I should have said "Yes", and you would have married a woman who loved 'ee!' `Really!' `Down to the ground!' she whispered vehemently. `O my God! did you never guess it till now!' By-and-by they reached a branch road to a village. `I must get down. I live out there,' said Izz abruptly, never having spoken since her avowal. Clare slowed the horse. He was incensed against his fate, bitterly disposed towards social ordinances; for they had cooped him up in a corner, out of which there was no legitimate pathway. Why not be revenged on society by shaping his future domesticities loosely, instead of kissing the pedagogic rod of convention in this ensnaring manner. `I am going to Brazil alone, Izz,' said he. `I have separated from my wife for personal, not voyaging, reasons. I may never live with her again. I may not be able to love you; but - will you go with me instead of her?' `You truly wish me to go?' `I do. I have been badly used enough to wish for relief. And you at least love me disinterestedly.' `Yes - I will go,' said Izz, after a pause. `You will? You know what it means, Izz?' `It means that I shall live with you for the time you are over there - that's good enough for me.' `Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now. But I ought to remind you that it will be wrong-doing in the eyes of civilization - Western civilization, that is to say.' `I don't mind that; no woman do when it comes to agony-point, and there's no other way!' `Then don't get down, but sit where you are.' He drove past the cross-roads, one mile, two miles, without showing any signs of affection.

I am staying out this way

`Mr Clare,' she said, `I've called to see you and Mrs Clare, and to inquire if ye be well. I thought you might be back here again.' This was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who had not yet guessed his; an honest girl who loved him - one who would have made as good, or nearly as good, a practical farmer's wife as Tess. `I am here alone,'he said; `we are not living here now.' Explaining why he had come, he asked, `which way are you going home, Izz?' `I have no home at Talbothays Dairy now, sir,' she said. `Why is that?' Izz looked down. `It was so dismal there that I left! I am staying out this way.' She pointed in a contrary direction, the direction in which he was journeying. `Well - are you going there now? I can take you if you wish for a lift.' Her olive complexion grew richer in hue. `Thank 'ee, Mr Clare,' she said. He soon found the farmer, and settled the account for his rent and the few other items which had to be considered by reason of the sudden abandonment of the lodgings. On Clare's return to his horse and gig Izz jumped up beside him. `I am going to leave England, Izz,' he said, as they drove on. `Going to Brazil.' `And do Mrs Clare like the notion of such a journey?' she asked. `She is not going at present - say for a year or so. I am going out to reconnoitre - to see what life there is like.' They sped along eastward for some considerable distance, Izz making no observation. `How are the others?' he inquired. `How is Retty?' `She was in a sort of nervous state when I zid her last; and so thin and hollow-cheeked that 'a do seem in a decline. Nobody will ever fall in love wi' her any more,' said Izz absently. `And Marian?' Izz lowered her voice. `Marian drinks.' `Indeed!' `Yes. The dairyman has got rid of her.' `And you!' `I don't drink, and I ain't in a decline. But - I am no great things at singing afore breakfast now!'

and the leaves and berries were wrinkled

With the local banker he deposited the jewels till happier days should arise. He also paid into the bank thirty pounds - to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might require; and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to inform her of what he had done. This amount, with the sum he had already placed in her hands - about fifty pounds - he hoped would be amply sufficient for her wants just at present, particularly as in an emergency she had been directed to apply to his father. He deemed it best not to put his parents into communication with her by informing them of her address; and, being unaware of what had really happened to estrange the two, neither his father nor his mother suggested that he should do so. During the day he left the parsonage, for what he had to complete he wished to get done quickly. As the last duty before leaving this part of England it was necessary for him to call at the Wellbridge farmhouse, in which he had spent with Tess the first three days of their marriage, the trifle of rent having to be paid, the key given up of the rooms they had occupied, and two or three small articles fetched away that they had left behind. It was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown upon his life had stretched its gloom over him. Yet when he had unlocked the door of the sitting-room and looked into it, the memory which returned first upon him was that of their happy arrival on a similar afternoon, the first fresh sense of sharing a habitation conjointly, the first meal together, the chatting by the fire with joined hands. The farmer and his wife were in the fields at the moment of his visit, and Clare was in the rooms alone for some time. Inwardly swollen with a renewal of sentiments that he had not quite reckoned with, he went upstairs to her chamber, which had never been his. The bed was smooth as she had made it with her own hands on the morning of leaving. The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed it. Having been there three or four weeks it was turning colour, and the leaves and berries were wrinkled. Angel took it down and crushed it into the grate. Standing there he for the first time doubted whether his course in this conjuncture had been a wise, much less a generous, one. But had he not been cruelly blinded? In the incoherent multitude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside wet-eyed. `O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I would have forgiven you! `he mourned. Hearing a footstep below he rose and went to the top of the stairs. At the bottom of the flight he saw a woman standing, and on her turning up her face recognized the pale, dark-eyed Izz Huett.

a cloister implies a monk

At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil, notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm labourers who had emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months. After breakfast Clare went into the little town to wind up such trifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from the local bank all the money he possessed. On his way back he encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she seemed to be a sort of emanation. She was carrying an armful of Bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which produced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her - an enviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism. She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what an excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be. `Yes; it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt,' he replied. `But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of existence. Perhaps a cloister would be preferable.' `A cloister! O, Angel Clare!' `Well?' `Why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman Catholicism.' `And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, Angel Clare.' `I glory in my Protestantism!' she said severely. Then Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the demoniacal moods in which a man does despite to his true principles, called her close to him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas he could think of. His momentary laughter at the horror which appeared on her fair face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety for his welfare. `Dear Mercy,'he said, `you must forgive me. I think I am going crazy!' She thought that he was; and thus the interview ended, and Clare re-entered the Vicarage.

was an elegant lady whom I had never seen

My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass bound stock over the chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine. `Well,' said I, not desirous of more conversation, `shall I go up to Miss Havisham?' `Burn me, if I know!' he retorted, first stretching himself and then shaking himself; `my orders ends here, young master. I give this here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till you meet somebody.' `I am expected, I believe?' `Burn me twice over, if I can say!' said he. Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket: who appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason of me. `Oh!' said she. `You, is it, Mr Pip?' `It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr Pocket and family are all well.' `Are they any wiser?' said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; `they had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew!You know your way, sir?' Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old way at the door of Miss Havisham's room. `Pip's rap,' I heard her say, immediately; `come in, Pip.' She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe that had never been worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant lady whom I had never seen. `Come in, Pip,' Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round or up; `come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I were a queen, eh? - Well?' She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a grimly playful manner, `Well?' `I heard, Miss Havisham,' said I, rather at a loss, `that you were so kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.' `Well?' The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, in all things winning admiration had made such wonderful advance, that I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the inaccessibility that came about her!

One day is so like another here

I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. `Yes!' said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards the house. `Here I am!' `How did you come here?' `I come her,' he retorted, `on my legs. I had my box brought alongside me in a barrow.' `Are you here for good?' `I ain't her for harm, young master, I suppose?' I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my legs and arms, to my face. `Then you have left the forge?' I said. `Do this look like a forge?' replied Orlick, sending his glance all round him with an air of injury. `Now, do it look like it?' I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge? `One day is so like another here,' he replied, `that I don't know without casting it up. However, I come her some time since you left.' `I could have told you that, Orlick.' `Ah!' said he, drily. `But then you've got to be a scholar.' By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one just within the side door, with a little window in it looking on the court-yard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on the wall, to which he now added the gatekey; and his patchwork-covered bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly confined and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse: while he, looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up - as indeed he was. `I never saw this room before,' I remarked; `but there used to be no Porter here.' `No,' said he; `not till it got about that there was no protection on the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to the as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering. - That's loaded, that is.'

admit the sunshine into the dark rooms

I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my fortunes. BETIMES in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's side of town - which was not Joe's side; I could go there to-morrow - thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures of her plans for me. She had adopted Estella, she has as good as adopted me, and it could not fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, set the clocks a going and the cold hearths a blazing, tear down the cobwebs, destroy the vermin - in short, do all the shining deeds of the young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a fixed purpose, because it is the clue by which I am to be followed into my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection. I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I heard the side door open, and steps come across the court-yard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its rusty hinges. Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober grey dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of porter at Miss Havisham's door. `Orlick!' `Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come in. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.'

they went their way with the coach

They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say. After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and so differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could have known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a dread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my feet; I had but to turn a hinge to get it out: I threw it down before me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for them at the slime-washed stairs, - again heard the gruff `Give way, you!' like and order to dogs - again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on the black water. I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of a painful of disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident that it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a few minutes of the terror of childhood. The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As soon as he had apologized for the remissness of his memory, he asked me if he should send Boots for Mr Pumblechook? `No,' said I, `certainly not.' The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and took the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local newspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this paragraph: Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this neighbourhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet not universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!) that the youth's earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a highly-respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises are situate within a hundred miles of the High-street. It is not wholly irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thoughtcontracted brow of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. VERB. SAP.

I woke in a fright and took the question up again

`Good-bye, Handel!' Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip. It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict's breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and searching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more breathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in doing it; and I was conscious of growing high-shoulderd on one side, in my shrinking endeavours to fend him off. The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, and how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I were going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the question up again. But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although I could recognize nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that blew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against the wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. They very first words I heard them interchange as I became conscious were the words of my own thought, `Two One Pound notes.' `How did he get 'em?' said he convict I had never seen. `How should I know?' returned the other. `He had 'em stowed away somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.' `I wish,' said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, `that I had 'em here.' `Two one pound notes, or friends?' `Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever had, for one, and think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says - ?' `So he says,' resumed the convict I had recognized - `it was all said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the Dockyard - "You're a going to be discharged?" Yes, I was. Would I find out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.' `More fool you,' growled the other. `I'd have spent 'em on a Man, in wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed nothing of you?' `Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.' `And was that - Honour! - the only time you worked out, in this part of the country?' `The only time.' `What might have been your opinion of the place?' `A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank.'

Our own library is too well known to me

I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at the Park; and there are others of more modern production, which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want." Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this; though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining now at work in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and virtuous self-control. Her smile, however, changed to a sigh when she remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of Marianne, and ruin, at least for a time, this fair prospect of busy tranquillity. Willing therefore to delay the evil hour,she resolved to wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she appointed it. But the resolution was made only to be broken. Marianne had been two or three days at home before the weather was fine enough for an invalid like herself to venture out. But at last a soft, genial morning appeared, such as might tempt the daughter's wishes and the mother's confidence; and Marianne, leaning on Elinor's arm, was authorised to walk as long as she could without fatigue, in the lane before the house. The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an exercise hitherto untried since her illness required; and they had advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the hill, the important behind, when pausing with her eyes turned towards it, Marianne calmly said,"There, exactly there," pointing with one hand, "on that projecting mound, there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby." Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added,"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the spot! Shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?" hesitatingly it was said. "Or will it be wrong? I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought to do." Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.

that she had been crying

As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection, she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity, and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common sittingroom, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be connected. She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness; and though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without the atonement of a smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte. She went to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some of their favourite duets, and bearing on its outward leaf her own name in his hand-writing. That would not do. She shook her head, put the music aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained of feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again; declaring, however, with firmness, as she did so, that she should in future practice much. The next morning produced no abatement in these happy symptoms. On the contrary, with a mind and body alike strengthened by rest she looked and spoke with more genuine spirit, anticipating the pleasure of Margaret's return, and talking of the dear family party which would then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the only happiness worth a wish. "When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength," said she, "we will take long walks together every day. We will walk to the farm at the edge of the down, and see how the children go on; we will walk to Sir John's new plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland; and we will often go the old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its foundations as far as we are told they once reached. I know we shall be happy.

by their united request

At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her daughter's wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On her measures depended those of her two friends: Mrs. Jennings could not quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs. Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself, engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the course of a few weeks. The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his solitary way to Delaford. The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey on both without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous affection, the most solicitous care, could do to render her comfortable, was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor, the observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had seen her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result, as she trusted, of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerfulness.

she will be within an easy distance of me

Her daughter could not quite agree with her; but her dissent was not heard, and therefore gave no offence. "At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me," added Mrs. Dashwood, "even if I remain at Barton; and in all probabilityfor I hear it is a large village- indeed there certainly must be some small house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our present situation." Poor Elinor!- here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!- but her spirit was stubborn. "His fortune too!- for at my time of life, you know, every body cares about that;- and though I neither know, nor desire to know, what it really is, I am sure it must be a good one." Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person; and Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to her friend, and yet, in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby. Chapter 46 MARIANNE'S illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her own particular request, for she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching her mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her. His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was such as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more than his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to others; and she soon discovered, in his melancholy eye and varying complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness; and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation. Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to very different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel's behaviour but what arose from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the actions and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that something more than gratitude already dawned.

I could not then talk of hope to

To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons, he has been long and intimately known: they equally love and respect him; and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem him, that if Marianne can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to think our connection the greatest blessing to us in the world. What answer did you give him? Did you allow him to hope?" "Oh, my love! I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself. Marianne might, at that moment, be dying. But he did not ask for hope, or encouragement. His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible effusion to a soothing friend, not an application to a parent. Yet, after a time, I did say, for, at first, I was quite overcome, that if she lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every encouragement in my power. Time, a very little time, I tell him, will do every thing; Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a man as Willoughby. His own merits must soon secure it." "To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made him equally sanguine." "No. He thinks Marianne's affection too deeply rooted for any change in it under a great length of time; and even supposing her heart again free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her. There, however, he is quite mistaken. His age is only so much beyond hers as to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed; and his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make your sister happy. And his person, his manners, too, are all in his favour. My partiality does not blind me: he certainly is not so handsome as Willoughby; but, at the same time, there is something much more pleasing in his countenance. There was always a something, if you remember, in Willoughby's eyes at times, which I did not like." Elinor could not remember it; but her mother, without waiting for her assent, continued: "And his manners, the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to me than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to be more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their genuine attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity, is much more accordant with her real disposition than the liveliness, often artificial, and often ill-timed of the other. I am very sure myself, that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as he has proved himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with him as she will be with Colonel Brandon." She paused.

There was a gasp and a thump behind him

The fragment of coral, a tiny crinkle of pink like a sugar rosebud from a cake, rolled across the mat. How small, thought Winston, how small it always was! There was a gasp and a thump behind him, and he received a violent kick on the ankle which nearly flung him off his balance. One of the men had smashed his fist into Julia's solar plexus, doubling her up like a pocket ruler. She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for breath. Winston dared not turn his head even by a millimetre, but sometimes her livid, gasping face came within the angle of his vision. Even in his terror it was as though he could feel the pain in his own body, the deadly pain which nevertheless was less urgent than the struggle to get back her breath. He knew what it was like; the terrible, agonizing pain which was there all the while but could not be suffered yet, because before all else it was necessary to be able to breathe. Then two of the men hoisted her up by knees and shoulders, and carried her out of the room like a sack. Winston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with the eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that was the last he saw of her. He stood dead still. No one had hit him yet. Thoughts which came of their own accord but seemed totally uninteresting began to flit through his mind. He wondered whether they had got Mr Charrington. He wondered what they had done to the woman in the yard. He noticed that he badly wanted to urinate, and felt a faint surprise, because he had done so only two or three hours ago. He noticed that the clock on the mantelpiece said nine, meaning twenty-one. But the light seemed too strong. Would not the light be fading at twenty-one hours on an August evening? He wondered whether after all he and Julia had mistaken the time -- had slept the clock round and thought it was twenty-thirty when really it was nought eight-thirty on the following morning. But he did not pursue the thought further. It was not interesting. There was another, lighter step in the passage. Mr Charrington came into the room. The demeanour of the black-uniformed men suddenly became more subdued. Something had also changed in Mr Charrington's appearance. His eye fell on the fragments of the glass paperweight. 'Pick up those pieces,' he said sharply. A man stooped to obey. The cockney accent had disappeared; Winston suddenly realized whose voice it was that he had heard a few moments ago on the telescreen. Mr Charrington was still wearing his old velvet jacket, but his hair, which had been almost white, had turned black. Also he was not wearing his spectacles. He gave Winston a single sharp glance, as though verifying his identity, and then paid no more attention to him.

disobey the iron voice from the wall

'It was behind the picture,' said the voice. 'Remain exactly where you are. Make no movement until you are ordered.' It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do nothing except stand gazing into one another's eyes. To run for life, to get out of the house before it was too late -- no such thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice from the wall. There was a snap as though a catch had been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it. 'Now they can see us,' said Julia. 'Now we can see you,' said the voice. 'Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another.' They were not touching, but it seemed to him that he could feel Julia's body shaking. Or perhaps it was merely the shaking of his own. He could just stop his teeth from chattering, but his knees were beyond his control. There was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and outside. The yard seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across the stones. The woman's singing had stopped abruptly. There was a long, rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard, and then a confusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain. 'The house is surrounded,' said Winston. 'The house is surrounded,' said the voice. He heard Julia snap her teeth together. 'I suppose we may as well say good-bye,' she said. 'You may as well say good-bye,' said the voice. And then another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in; 'And by the way, while we are on the subject, "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head"!' Something crashed on to the bed behind Winston's back. The head of a ladder had been thrust through the window and had burst in the frame. Someone was climbing through the window. There was a stampede of boots up the stairs. The room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with iron-shod boots on their feet and truncheons in their hands. Winston was not trembling any longer. Even his eyes he barely moved. One thing alone mattered; to keep still, to keep still and not give them an excuse to hit you! A man with a smooth prizefighter's jowl in which the mouth was only a slit paused opposite him balancing his truncheon meditatively between thumb and forefinger. Winston met his eyes. The feeling of nakedness, with one's hands behind one's head and one's face and body all exposed, was almost unbearable. The man protruded the tip of a white tongue, licked the place where his lips should have been, and then passed on. There was another crash. Someone had picked up the glass paperweight from the table and smashed it to pieces on the hearth-stone.

and yet almost exactly the same

At the end of it she was still singing. The mystical reverence that he felt for her was somehow mixed up with the aspect of the pale, cloudless sky, stretching away behind the chimney-pots into interminable distance. It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same -- everywhere, all over the world, hundreds of thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same -- people who had never learned to think but who were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world. If there was hope, it lay in the proles! Without having read to the end of the book, he knew that that must be Goldstein's final message. The future belonged to the proles. And could he be sure that when their time came the world they constructed would not be just as alien to him, Winston Smith, as the world of the Party? Yes, because at the least it would be a world of sanity. Where there is equality there can be sanity. Sooner or later it would happen, strength would change into consciousness. The proles were immortal, you could not doubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would come. And until that happened, though it might be a thousand years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds, passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill. 'Do you remember,' he said, 'the thrush that sang to us, that first day, at the edge of the wood?' 'He wasn't singing to us,' said Julia. 'He was singing to please himself. Not even that. He was just singing.' The birds sang, the proles sang. the Party did not sing. All round the world, in London and New York, in Africa and Brazil, and in the mysterious, forbidden lands beyond the frontiers, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in the villages of the endless Russian plain, in the bazaars of China and Japan -- everywhere stood the same solid unconquerable figure, made monstrous by work and childbearing, toiling from birth to death and still singing. Out of those mighty loins a race of conscious beings must one day come. You were the dead, theirs was the future. But you could share in that future if you kept alive the mind as they kept alive the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four. 'We are the dead,' he said. 'We are the dead,' echoed Julia dutifully. 'You are the dead,' said an iron voice behind them. They sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath. 'You are the dead,' repeated the iron voice. 'It was behind the picture,' breathed Julia.

and pegging out more diapers

The sun must have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining into the yard any longer. The flagstones were wet as though they had just been washed, and he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh and pale was the blue between the chimney-pots. Tirelessly the woman marched to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling silent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more. He wondered whether she took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twenty or thirty grandchildren. Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below. As he looked at the woman in her characteristic attitude, her thick arms reaching up for the line, her powerful mare-like buttocks protruded, it struck him for the first time that she was beautiful. It had never before occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work till it was coarse in the grain like an over-ripe turnip, could be beautiful. But it was so, and after all, he thought, why not? The solid, contourless body, like a block of granite, and the rasping red skin, bore the same relation to the body of a girl as the rose-hip to the rose. Why should the fruit be held inferior to the flower? 'She's beautiful,' he murmured. 'She's a metre across the hips, easily,' said Julia. 'That is her style of beauty,' said Winston. He held Julia's supple waist easily encircled by his arm. From the hip to the knee her flank was against his. Out of their bodies no child would ever come. That was the one thing they could never do. Only by word of mouth, from mind to mind, could they pass on the secret. The woman down there had no mind, she had only strong arms, a warm heart, and a fertile belly. He wondered how many children she had given birth to. It might easily be fifteen. She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wild-rose beauty and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, darning, cooking, sweeping, polishing, mending, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty unbroken years.

it would be perfectly prepared to

Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated. But this state of affairs is not necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat. In the crucial years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did a great deal to neutralize opposition. The older kind of Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called 'class privilege' assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent. He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years. The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors. The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same. All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is. They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but, since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of popular education is actually declining. What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference.