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85 | Talia-Hibbert-Highly-Suspicious.txt | 23 | queen, but I sit alone at the back so as not to infect everyone else’s happiness with my grim and gray mood. This gives me a lot of time to gaze out the window and ruminate on my sins. I have to fix this. I have to fix everything, and as much as my pride and my nerves cringe away from it, I’m done coddling both. Either I face my feelings, or I don’t. Either I try, really try, to move on from everything my dad put us through, or I spend the rest of my life living in his shadow. I know what I want to do. And I’m Celine bloody Bangura, so I have no excuse not to do it. That’s what I tell myself, again and again, as I step off the bus in front of the Sherwood. Mum is waiting by her parked Corsa down the street, bundled up in her bright blue coat, arms folded against the cold. She spots me and waves, her whole face lighting up with this wide, welcoming smile, and my chest heaves. Beside me, Aurora whispers, “Celine, are you okay?” “I’m fine,” I gasp. “Are you crying?” “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll text you later.” Then I rush off before anyone else notices the literal ocean spilling down my cheeks. Mum’s not wearing her glasses, so she doesn’t notice my expression until I’m a foot away and throwing myself into her arms. “Celine?” she asks, her confusion muffled by my hair, a comforting vibration through my entire tense body. “Baby? What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” I sob. “Oh, sweetheart. Come here, give me your bag. Get in the car.” Mum directs my basic functions like I’m five again and stuffs me into the passenger seat. Then she’s in the driver’s seat, picking up her glasses from the dashboard and peering at me like the clue to my inner turmoil might be tattooed on my face. Spoiler alert: it is not. “Is this about Bradley?” Mum asks. I would honestly rather die than say yes, because that would involve admitting to my mother that I have a romantic connection with another human person, and since I haven’t even managed to admit that to the person in question, I’m clearly not there yet. Brad’s phone sits heavy in my pocket, vibrating with a text that’s probably from Jordan. “He’s doing well,” Mum says. “Back at home resting. Just some cracked ribs and abrasions and a minor concussion. Maria says he’ll be right as rain—” This news does make me feel at least a quarter better. One of the links in the anxiety chain formerly known as my spine loosens. “—in time for your little party at the weekend.” Aaaand that makes me feel worse. Because Brad might be at the ball, but he won’t want to see me. And I don’t want to see Dad. And I should be so happy right now because I did it; I’m a Breakspeare Explorer, whether I get the scholarship or not; I have Katharine Breakspeare’s seal of approval and the | 0 |
60 | Divine Rivals.txt | 27 | the rubble for something? Should she pull a board free from the barricade? She paused before it, rife with uncertainty even as her thoughts roared at her to hurry. At the corner of her eye, a wounded soldier was bowed over, weeping for his mother. His agony pierced Iris, and she decided she would take a board of wood from the barricade. There was no time for her to chase down the nurses or the doctors, who were already overwhelmed. There was no time to find a stretcher. She began to claw at the structure, determined to work a plank free. She didn’t feel the shadows or the cold that rippled through the smoke. She was so intent on liberating this piece of wood that she failed to realize that the wind had ceased and frost had spangled the cobblestones at her feet. “Down, down, down!” The command cut through the mire and the chaos like a blade. Iris froze, lifting her eyes to the churning sky. At first she thought the clouds were moving. A thunderstorm was building. But then she saw the wings, long and pronged, transparent in the fading light. She saw the monstrous white bodies emerge as they flew closer, nearly upon the town. She had never seen an eithral before. She had never been this close to one. Even as she had once lain sprawled in the field with Roman, she had never been so close as to taste the rot and death in their pinions. To feel the beat of their wings. “Down and steady!” The command came again. It was Keegan’s voice, hoarse and frayed and yet powerful enough to knock everyone’s sense back into place. Iris turned, frantically searching for Roman. She found him five paces away, standing frozen, but it was evident he had been coming to her. Wounded soldiers and rubble lay between them. There was no clear path, and his eyes were wide, his face pale. He had never appeared so afraid, and Iris had to resist the temptation to run to him. Don’t move, Iris, he mouthed to her. She drew a deep breath. Her hands twitched at her sides as the creatures flew closer. Any minute now. Any minute, and they would be overhead. “Mum,” the soldier beside her moaned, rocking on his heels. “Mum!” Iris glanced at him with alarm. So did Roman, a vein pulsing at his temple. “You must be quiet,” she said to the soldier. “You must stop moving.” “I need to find my mum,” the boy wept, beginning to crawl over the ruin. “I need to go home.” “Stay down!” Iris cried, but he wasn’t listening. She could see her breath; she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. “Please stop moving!” A shadow of wings spilled over her. The stench of decay stole through the chilled air. This is the end, Iris thought. She looked at Roman, five paces away. He was so close, and yet too far to reach. She imagined their future. All the things she wanted to do with | 0 |
73 | Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt | 12 | mouth shut. That note was explanation enough: Leave me alone. Ava abandoned her search, but never her hope; every six months, she updated their address and contact information in the public registry. One day, Ava was certain, Thais would come back. And now she had. Without a single word. Io could already imagine the astonished sadness in Ava’s eyes. She would do anything—anything—to keep Ava from being hurt again. But she couldn’t lie. Lies curdled love into something sour and noxious. “Ava,” she said. “Thais is back in Alante.” Io watched her sister’s eyes fall, her shoulders stiffen. She knew at once what was going to follow: “I know,” Ava replied. The first thing Io felt, the strongest, was betrayal. All their lives, Thais was on one end, Io on the other, and Ava in the middle. Ava wasn’t supposed to choose sides. She wasn’t supposed to choose Thais. The coffee cup was suddenly too hot. Io placed it on the short table, sloshing some on the carpet in the process. “You know?” Her voice came out a whisper. Ava reached for Io’s hands. “Sister mine, I’m so sorry! I wanted to tell you, but Thais made me promise I wouldn’t. I remember how angry at you she was before she left, and how often you guys fought, and I didn’t want . . . You are finally happy again. And she seems happy, too. I didn’t want to ruin it, for either of you!” Io’s thoughts raced. “Thais is angry with me?” “I mean . . .” Ava looked panicked, her thumbs running comforting circles on the backs of Io’s hands. “I don’t know if she’s still angry, but she definitely was before she left. You guys thought I didn’t notice any of it, because I was practicing for my Academia Aska audition, but I could hear you fighting all the time. I know she wanted you to keep working and you wanted to quit. I assume that’s what you fought about . . .” It was, in a way. When Io was fifteen, Thais fell in with a group of activists from the Artisti District. They had big ideas about how the economy would benefit from the inclusion of other-born in the upper ranks of society. Their leader was a blond charmer by the name of Thomas Mutton, who had no powers of his own and yet procured Thais jobs weaving new threads: a young mother struggling with postpartum depression, a failed artist trying to find his muse, a brokenhearted man looking to love again. Thais fancied herself a knight in shining armor, and the money wasn’t so bad, either. But then Thomas met Io. And he realized how much more money he could be making off a cutter. He started getting small jobs for Io, mainly with recovering addicts. Thais told her how wonderful it would be to help these people, how Io would be proving everyone who feared cutters wrong. Cut, they said, so Io cut. One day, Thomas proposed a different kind of job: one of the | 0 |
34 | The Call of the Wild.txt | 55 | fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper. Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and unconsciously he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his days, no matter what the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in the red sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's riding-whip; but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide. He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach. He did not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them than not to do them. His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became hard as iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an internal as well as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to the farthest reaches of his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril. He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected between his toes; and when he was thirsty and there was a thick scum of ice over the water hole, he would break it by rearing and striking it with stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and forecast it a night in advance. No matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind that later blew inevitably found him to leeward, sheltered and snug. And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at | 1 |
82 | Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt | 6 | smitten with him, a smile dancing across her face when she recounted their time together. I told her to be careful, to look into his past, but she brushed me off. I tried to plant a seed of doubt so she could save herself, but she chose not to. When a person is falling in love, they ignore the warning signs. “Have you sold the netsuke?” I asked her one day. “I haven’t had time.” It was a key piece of evidence against her. It played into the narrative of the obsessed woman stalking me, breaking into my home, taking a souvenir. Why did she hold on to it? She clearly needed the money. Maybe her circumstances kept her from thinking straight. She was exhausted, stressed, drinking every night. She was playing right into our hands. I promised Lee new identification. A new start. As the grieving widow, I would no longer need to reinvent myself, but I pressed forward with the fake ID. I sent her to get a photo, just as Jesse had sent me. She had to believe I was helping her. At home, I played my doting slave role to perfection. Any hint of rebellion would tip Benjamin off to my plan, so I went along, meek, obsequious, and fawning. The punishments he doled out were rote, tolerable. I contacted Vanessa Vega and arranged a lunch. This would throw suspicion off me. How could a woman plotting her husband’s murder simultaneously plan a gala fundraiser? I wore a dress that day, a pale pink chiffon skirt despite the rain clouds brewing. I threw a cropped leather jacket over it to add some edge. Vanessa had suggested a trendy oyster bar in Pioneer Square, so I left early to avoid traffic. If I turned up late, word might get back to Benjamin and I’d be punished, for real. When I arrived at the restaurant, all brick walls and high ceilings, Vanessa was already seated at a central table with Laurie Gamble. My stomach danced unpleasantly. Vanessa was polished and perfect, but she had a certain warmth, unlike her BFF. Laurie was an icy blonde with an innate ability to be dismissive and condescending. I’d met her on several occasions, but she had consistently looked me over, then overlooked me. “Hello, gorgeous.” Vanessa rose and kissed both my cheeks in a European greeting. Laurie’s hug was perfunctory. I sat down across from them, instantly feeling outnumbered, subtly excluded. We made small talk—about hair, skin, and clothes mostly—as we perused the menus. Once we’d ordered oysters and salads, a bottle of wine for the table, Vanessa got down to business. “I’m so glad you agreed to help with the gala.” Like I had a choice. “Of course.” I smiled. “Put me to work.” Laurie leaned forward. “We’d like you to take the lead on the silent auction. I’ve put together a list of vendors you can visit to ask for donations.” Begging for freebies was a miserable job. But once my husband was found murdered in my own home… well, surely, | 0 |
44 | Their Eyes Were Watching God.txt | 18 | nothin’ don’t change him.” “You know many’s de time Ah done thought about dat Their Eyes Were Watching God 59 mahself. He gits on her ever now and then when she make little mistakes round de store.” “Whut make her keep her head tied up lak some ole ’oman round de store? Nobody couldn’t git me tuh tie no rag on mah head if Ah had hair lak dat.” “Maybe he make her do it. Maybe he skeered some de rest of us mens might touch it round dat store. It sho is uh hidden mystery tuh me.” “She sho don’t talk much. De way he rears and pitches in de store sometimes when she make uh mistake is sort of ungodly, but she don’t seem to mind at all. Reckon dey understand one ’nother.” The town had a basketful of feelings good and bad about Joe’s positions and possessions, but none had the temerity to challenge him. They bowed down to him rather, because he was all of these things, and then again he was all of these things because the town bowed down. 6 Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun. So Janie had another day. And every day had a store in it, except Sundays. The store itself was a pleasant place if only she didn’t have to sell things. When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for the others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to. Take for instance the case of Matt Bonner’s yellow mule. They had him up for conversation every day the Lord sent. Most especial if Matt was there himself to listen. Sam and Lige and Walter were the ringleaders of the mule-talkers. The others threw in whatever they could chance upon, but it seemed as if Sam and Lige and Walter could hear and see more about that mule than the whole county put together. All they needed was to see Matt’s long spare shape coming down the street and by the time he got to the porch they were ready for him. “Hello, Matt.” Their Eyes Were Watching God 61 “Evenin’, Sam.” “Mighty glad you come ’long right now, Matt. Me and some others wuz jus’ about tuh come hunt yuh.” “Whut fuh, Sam?” “Mighty serious matter, man. Serious!!” “Yeah man,” Lige would cut in, dolefully. “It needs yo’ strict attention. You ought not tuh lose no time.” “Whut is it then? You oughta hurry up and tell me.” “Reckon we better not tell yuh heah at de store. It’s too fur off tuh do any good. We better all walk on down by Lake Sabelia.” “Whut’s wrong, man? Ah ain’t after none uh y’alls fool- ishness now.” “Dat mule uh yourn, Matt. You better go see ’bout him. He’s bad off.” “Where ’bouts? Did he wade in de lake and uh alligator ketch him?” “Worser’n | 1 |
14 | Five On A Treasure Island.txt | 59 | a minute or two. Then he went back to the rocky steps and disappeared down them. He followed his chalk-marks, and soon came to where George was attacking the door. She had smashed it well round the lock- but it simply would not give way. Julian took the axe from her and drove it hard into the wood. After a blow or two something seemed to happen to the lock. It became loose, and hung a little sideways. Julian put down his axe. "I think somehow that we can open the door now," he said, in an exited voice. "Get out of the way, Tim, old fellow. Now then, push, George!" They both pushed- and the lock gave way with a grating noise. The big door opened creakingly, and the two children went inside, flashing their torches in excitement. The room was not much more than a cave, hollowed out of the rock- but in it was something quite different from the old barrels and boxes the children had found before. At the back, in untidy piles, were curious, brick-shaped things of dull yellow-brown metal. Julian picked one up. "George!" he cried. "The ingots! These are real gold! Oh, I know they don't look like it- but they are, all the same. George, oh George, there's a small fortune here in this cellar- and it's yours! We've found it at last!" Chapter Fourteen PRISONERS! Contents- Prev/Next GEORGE couldn't say a word. She just stood there, staring at the pile of ingots, holding one in her hand. She could hardly believe that these strange brick-shaped things were really gold. Her heart thumped fast. What a wonderful, marvellous find! Suddenly Tim began to bark loudly. He stood with his back to the children, his nose towards the door- and how he barked! "Shut up, Tim!" said Julian. "What can you hear? Is it the others coming back?" He went to the door and yelled down the passage outside. "Dick! Anne! Is it you? Come quickly, because we've found the ingots! WE'VE FOUND THEM! HURRY! HURRY!" Tim stopped barking and began to growl. George looked puzzled. "Whatever can be the matter with Tim?" she said. "He surely can't be growling at Dick and Anne." Then both children got a most tremendous shock- for a man's voice came booming down the dark passage, making queer echoes all around. "Who is here? Who is down here?" George clutched Julian in fright. Tim went on growling, all the hairs on his neck standing up straight. "Do be quiet, Tim!" whispered George, snapping off her torch. But Tim simply would not be quiet. He went on growling as if he were a small thunderstorm. The children saw the beam of a powerful torchlight coming round the corner of the dungeon passage. Then the light picked them out, and the holder of the torch came to a surprised stop. "Well, well, well!" said a voice. "Look who's here! Two children in the dungeons of my castle." "What do you mean, your castle!" cried George. "Well, my dear little girl, it | 1 |
34 | The Call of the Wild.txt | 91 | save at the front. Once more Francois called, and once more Buck laughed and kept away. "T'row down de club," Perrault commanded. Francois complied, whereupon Buck trotted in, laughing triumphantly, and swung around into position at the head of the team. His traces were fastened, the sled broken out, and with both men running they dashed out on to the river trail. Highly as the dog-driver had forevalued Buck, with his two devils, he found, while the day was yet young, that he had undervalued. At a bound Buck took up the duties of leadership; and where judgment was required, and quick thinking and quick acting, he showed himself the superior even of Spitz, of whom Francois had never seen an equal. But it was in giving the law and making his mates live up to it, that Buck excelled. Dave and Sol-leks did not mind the change in leadership. It was none of their business. Their business was to toil, and toil mightily, in the traces. So long as that were not interfered with, they did not care what happened. Billee, the good-natured, could lead for all they cared, so long as he kept order. The rest of the team, however, had grown unruly during the last days of Spitz, and their surprise was great now that Buck proceeded to lick them into shape. Pike, who pulled at Buck's heels, and who never put an ounce more of his weight against the breast-band than he was compelled to do, was swiftly and repeatedly shaken for loafing; and ere the first day was done he was pulling more than ever before in his life. The first night in camp, Joe, the sour one, was punished roundly-- a thing that Spitz had never succeeded in doing. Buck simply smothered him by virtue of superior weight, and cut him up till he ceased snapping and began to whine for mercy. The general tone of the team picked up immediately. It recovered its old-time solidarity, and once more the dogs leaped as one dog in the traces. At the Rink Rapids two native huskies, Teek and Koona, were added; and the celerity with which Buck broke them in took away Francois's breath. "Nevaire such a dog as dat Buck!" he cried. "No, nevaire! Heem worth one t'ousan' dollair, by Gar! Eh? Wot you say, Perrault?" And Perrault nodded. He was ahead of the record then, and gaining day by day. The trail was in excellent condition, well packed and hard, and there was no new-fallen snow with which to contend. It was not too cold. The temperature dropped to fifty below zero and remained there the whole trip. The men rode and ran by turn, and the dogs were kept on the jump, with but infrequent stoppages. The Thirty Mile River was comparatively coated with ice, and they covered in one day going out what had taken them ten days coming in. In one run they made a sixty-mile dash from the foot of Lake Le Barge to the White Horse Rapids. Across Marsh, Tagish, | 1 |
39 | The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt | 32 | draw Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales Profusely breathing from the piney groves, And vales of fragrance; there at a distance hear The roaring floods, and cataracts.* *Thomson St. Aubert was revived by rest, and by the serene air of this summit; and Valancourt was so charmed with all around, and with the conversation of his companions, that he seemed to have forgotten he had any further to go. Having concluded their simple repast, they gave a long farewell look to the scene, and again began to ascend. St. Aubert rejoiced when he reached the carriage, which Emily entered with him; but Valancourt, willing to take a more extensive view of the enchanting country, into which they were about to descend, than he could do from a carriage, loosened his dogs, and once more bounded with them along the banks of the road. He often quitted it for points that promised a wider prospect, and the slow pace, at which the mules travelled, allowed him to overtake them with ease. Whenever a scene of uncommon magnificence appeared, he hastened to inform St. Aubert, who, though he was too much tired to walk himself, sometimes made the chaise wait, while Emily went to the neighbouring cliff. It was evening when they descended the lower alps, that bind Rousillon, and form a majestic barrier round that charming country, leaving it open only on the east to the Mediterranean. The gay tints of cultivation once more beautified the landscape; for the lowlands were coloured with the richest hues, which a luxuriant climate, and an industrious people can awaken into life. Groves of orange and lemon perfumed the air, their ripe fruit glowing among the foliage; while, sloping to the plains, extensive vineyards spread their treasures. Beyond these, woods and pastures, and mingled towns and hamlets stretched towards the sea, on whose bright surface gleamed many a distant sail; while, over the whole scene, was diffused the purple glow of evening. This landscape with the surrounding alps did, indeed, present a perfect picture of the lovely and the sublime, of 'beauty sleeping in the lap of horror.' The travellers, having reached the plains, proceeded, between hedges of flowering myrtle and pomegranate, to the town of Arles, where they proposed to rest for the night. They met with simple, but neat accommodation, and would have passed a happy evening, after the toils and the delights of this day, had not the approaching separation thrown a gloom over their spirit. It was St. Aubert's plan to proceed, on the morrow, to the borders of the Mediterranean, and travel along its shores into Languedoc; and Valancourt, since he was now nearly recovered, and had no longer a pretence for continuing with his new friends, resolved to leave them here. St. Aubert, who was much pleased with him, invited him to go further, but did not repeat the invitation, and Valancourt had resolution enough to forego the temptation of accepting it, that he might prove himself not unworthy of the favour. On the following morning, therefore, they were to part, | 1 |
58 | Confidence_-a-Novel.txt | 89 | this isn’t folly. This is a criminal operation. I’ve already gathered some truly damning evidence against NuLife, and I intend to expose the corporation for what it is.” “See what you can dig up on this guy,” I said to Brianna. I stayed in the office long after everyone left, first finishing paperwork, then playing PC games that reminded me of childhood. Get the POV character into the castle, then get him to defeat the ghosts. Send the race car around the track until it crashes. Brianna stayed at a desk on the floor within sight of my office, answering emails and typing up expense reports until I finished playing, at which point I summoned her. Then I described what I was in the mood for and she nodded curtly and vanished, at which point I started playing the PC games again. No longer than an hour later she reappeared with someone who looked twenty-one, strong jawed in black jeans with a crossbar in his ear, and handed me her wallet, which I peeled apart to reveal a bag containing a few bumps of coke. “Thank you, Brianna,” I said, and she left, and the twenty-one-year-old grabbed the coke from me and did a bump, and then I did a bump, and then he took his shirt off and I took my shirt off. Sometimes I went to parts of town where I knew I wouldn’t be recognized, and the sex was quick and messy in the bathroom stalls of bars and clubs and, just once, a department store. Few if any questions were asked. I always offered to pay, which torqued some people off. I should never have offered to pay. People reported that Emily had relocated from her mansion in LA to the Farm, where she and Orson were sharing a “modest home” together. There was a photo of it: an Enner house not unlike any other Enner house, a split-level with a garage and a garret and a bay window in the living room—I’d been in hundreds of them before but had never imagined that Orson and Emily would share one. In the photo, the two of them stood in their driveway, Orson in a black-and-red flannel with a full beard and Emily in leggings and a fleece jacket, her hair a tawny brown—quite possibly her natural color, but there was no way of knowing—her cheeks rouged from the Oswego cold. There were other photos of them too: leaving clubs hand in hand, attending galas, posing with other celebrities. I read the tweets about them: It’s L. Ron Hotboy and Lady Barnum Do they milk cows on the Farm? Or just investors? I think of him as a fancy millennial Koresh Honestly if he looks like that all the time I want in on the hustle I began building the NuLife Centers in Urmau and employed thousands of Urmanese in the manufacture of Bliss-Minis. For every Urmanese NuLife Center I opened, I opened one in the States, until most major U.S. cities had brick-and-mortar places where people could buy | 0 |
61 | Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt | 66 | accepted narrative of her having taken a fall during a nasty storm.) Decades later, villagers throughout the Berchtesgaden Alps claim to hear Eichorn’s voice calling “Dani! Dani!” during winter tempests, though whether this amounts to evidence that one or both remain trapped in some liminal alpine realm is the subject of much conjecture. See When Folklorists Become Folklore: Ethnographic Accounts of the Eichorn/de Grey Saga by Ernst Graf. 18th November The provisions were more than adequate. The entire village came together in a towering display of generosity and efficiency. By nine o’clock this morning, we had two horses and a sleigh stocked with enough food, firewood, blankets, and assorted comforts to last us days. Somehow, one of the women found time to knit a jacket for Shadow which, combined with the other gifts, left me unaccountably flustered—given my companion’s size, it would have taken her hours. Bambleby and I entertained ourselves at the cottage by coaxing a recalcitrant Shadow into his new raiment, which was patterned with flowers and equipped with a jaunty hood. The dog hung his head in abject embarrassment until his tormentors deigned to relieve him of this woollen pillory, and he spent the next hour pointedly ignoring me. Fortunately, the path taken by Lilja and Margret into the wilderness was clear, for it had not snowed since their abduction, and sailors believed the skies would remain fair for another day or so. As the villagers readied our provisions, Bambleby and I hiked up to the spring one last time. Poe had made little progress with his tree, though the snow was scattered with soot he had shovelled from the interior. Bambleby exclaimed in displeasure at the sight of the venerable old tree reduced to a husk. “Frost-blasted,” he muttered. “Disrespectful bloody bogles.” Before Poe or I could speak, he touched the tree, and it was healed—ruddy with health and radiant with greenery against the winter pallor. Poe gave a cry and fell upon his sharp knees before Bambleby, trembling, which the latter took no notice of whatsoever. When Poe brought him a magnificent loaf as a thank- you present, Bambleby said rudely, “I am sick to death of bread. Bring me something that will keep me warm in this hellish place.” “Can he do that?” I said after Poe went scrambling back into his tree home, from which arose a queer chorus of clanging and scraping and a sort of bubbling noise. Bambleby only waved his hand and went back to his sulking. Poe reappeared within the hour with a basket woven from willow boughs, covered with a coarse wool blanket. Bambleby accepted it ungraciously and without even glancing at the contents, even though whatever was beneath the wool steamed intriguingly. I had to take the basket away from him, and found within half a dozen glazed cakes, not unlike those I have seen Ljoslanders consume on special occasions. These would continue steaming until eaten. Poe answered my questions with something approaching good nature, his black eyes a little damp as his fingers lovingly stroked the roots of | 0 |
34 | The Call of the Wild.txt | 4 | that were unlike any known grade of gold in the Northland. But no living man had looted this treasure house, and the dead were dead; wherefore John Thornton and Pete and Hans, with Buck and half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They sledded seventy miles up the Yukon, swung to the left into the Stewart River, passed the Mayo and the McQuestion, and held on until the Stewart itself became a streamlet, threading the upstanding peaks which marked the backbone of the continent. John Thornton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the wild. With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased. Being in no haste, Indian fashion, he hunted his dinner in the course of the day's travel; and if he failed to find it, like the Indian, he kept on travelling, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this great journey into the East, straight meat was the bill of fare, ammunition and tools principally made up the load on the sled, and the time-card was drawn upon the limitless future. To Buck it was boundless delight, this hunting, fishing, and indefinite wandering through strange places. For weeks at a time they would hold on steadily, day after day; and for weeks upon end they would camp, here and there, the dogs loafing and the men burning holes through frozen muck and gravel and washing countless pans of dirt by the heat of the fire. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune of hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs, rafted across blue mountain lakes, and descended or ascended unknown rivers in slender boats whipsawed from the standing forest. The months came and went, and back and forth they twisted through the uncharted vastness, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Cabin were true. They went across divides in summer blizzards, shivered under the midnight sun on naked mountains between the timber line and the eternal snows, dropped into summer valleys amid swarming gnats and flies, and in the shadows of glaciers picked strawberries and flowers as ripe and fair as any the Southland could boast. In the fall of the year they penetrated a weird lake country, sad and silent, where wild- fowl had been, but where then there was no life nor sign of life-- only the blowing of chill winds, the forming of ice in sheltered places, and the melancholy rippling of waves on lonely beaches. And through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails of men who had gone before. Once, they came upon a path blazed through the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed very near. But the path began nowhere and ended | 1 |
86 | Tessa-Bailey-Unfortunately-Yours.txt | 68 | wasn’t going to insult a man who’d literally stopped in his tracks on the way out of town and stayed to help her. Not a chance. “And I’m sorry to disappoint you, Dalton, but it is a real marriage. August Cates is an incredible person, actually. Did you know he moved to St. Helena to open a winery in his friend’s name? His friend had this dream, but he died before he could fulfill it, so August is doing it for him. Yes, even though he’s awful at winemaking. I don’t expect you to understand integrity like that. You made wine because you wanted to be the best. He makes it to honor a friend. August . . . he listens to me and tries to understand me when I can barely understand myself most of the time. He wants me to believe in love. He said that. Out loud.” She stood up and started to pace. “He’s reliable. And funny. He’s one of the only people I’ve ever met who genuinely makes me laugh. I don’t have to fake it. And I care about him.” Oh God, was she really doing this? Marrying August for some indefinable reason when her ticket back to the East Coast was within her grasp? Yes. Yes, she was. “I’m not calling off the wedding in exchange for getting the money now. Your rules are bullshit, but apparently . . . I’m following them anyway. I’m marrying him.” “My rules might be bullshit, but you’re going to wish you didn’t have to follow them. Turn down my offer and you’ll be obligated to convince Ingram Meyer that you’re not a couple of brazen cons—and believe me, it won’t be easy.” “Good. I welcome the opportunity. Arrivederci, Father.” * * * August’s palms started to sweat at the very moment the wedding march started. All right, this was really happening. This was his wedding day. August had never imagined his own wedding, per se. But he’d always assumed his parents would be there. Sam, too. He’d figured on a lot more people in naval uniforms and fewer people in statement scarves. He didn’t know anyone in attendance very well. Julian stood to his right, giving him a steady professor look that caused August a beat of panic. Did he forget to turn in his homework? No, this was his wedding day and he . . . needed some reassurance. Someone to smack him in the head and remind him he was marrying a ten. Because he was. That was what he really needed. To see Natalie. She knew him. They knew each other. She was his closest friend in the tent, for better or for worse. I’ll make it for better. Won’t I? Yeah, you will, said Sam’s voice in his head. You’re more than stubborn enough. August’s hand automatically rose to his pocket, his pulse calming when he felt the outline of the laminated picture— Oh shit. Oh . . . shit. August’s emotions were raw to begin with, but when Natalie appeared at the top | 0 |
15 | Frankenstein.txt | 12 | series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality. As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish; a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the hangman who would gain his fee? These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had shown me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me, for although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came, therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected, but his visits were short and with long intervals. One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I was overcome by gloom and misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been. Such were my thoughts when the door of my apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered. His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in French, "I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to make you more comfortable?" "I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me; on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving." "I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge." "That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?" "Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonizing than the strange chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality, seized immediately, and charged with murder. The first sight | 1 |
96 | We-Could-Be-So Good.txt | 0 | urge to push his sleeves back down. So what if Andy thinks he’s rough or coarse—plenty of people do. He thinks Andy is spoiled and out of touch. They’re both free to think all kinds of insulting things about one another. Nick doesn’t care. Besides, Nick has a mirror and knows that anyone who looks at him and doesn’t like what they see just has bad taste. What does it matter if Andy has bad taste? He’s wearing boat shoes and linen pants at Yankee Stadium—taste doesn’t get much worse than that. “You know,” Andy says conversationally, “I don’t even care for the ballet.” Nick spins around to face him, and sees Andy with that fifty percent sheepish, fifty percent smug expression he’s never seen on any face other than Andy Fleming’s. “Bullshit.” The entire reason they’re at this godawful stadium watching this godawful team is that Nick won a bet. Andy bet that some reporting Nick did on a fire at the Museum of Modern Art would wind up above the fold on the front page; Nick—trying not to be pleased by this vote of confidence, however delusional, laughed in his face and bet that it wouldn’t. The deal was that if Andy won, then Nick had to go with Andy to the ballet. Otherwise, Andy would go with Nick to a baseball game. The only problem on Nick’s end is that baseball in New York now means only the Yankees. “I picked something I thought you’d hate,” Andy says. Nick feels a slow, reluctant smile spread across his face. “I probably wouldn’t have minded the ballet.” He knows what those male dancers wear. That would have kept his mind occupied for a couple hours, make no mistake, not that Andy needs to know about it. “I’d have probably liked the ballet a hell of a lot more than I’m enjoying this.” “Not a fan?” “Christ, no. I only picked this because I knew you’d hate it. Why do you root for the Red Sox, anyway? I thought you were from New York,” Nick says, as if he hadn’t spent half his life scanning the Herald Tribune for Andy’s mother’s byline right before reading the Chronicle from front to back. “I went to boarding school in New England.” The way Andy says it gently closes a door on that topic, and Nick is the last person in the world to push on a closed door. “I hate everything about them,” Nick says, gesturing toward the field with his beer. “I hate the stadium, I hate the fans, I hate the— Well, I’d probably like the players if they played on any other team.” “I wouldn’t,” Andy says mildly. “I can’t stand any of them.” Nick can’t imagine Andy hating anyone, can’t imagine him holding a grudge or being petty. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.” There’s the crack of wood against leather, then a whoosh of noise from the stands as the Yankees score a run. “Fuck that guy,” says Andy. Another runner crosses home. “And him, too.” | 0 |
53 | After Death.txt | 78 | underestimating the depths of wickedness to which they’re capable of descending. VOICES AS MEANINGLESS AS WIND IN DRY GRASS Above the storm, the sun is sliding away from this half of the planet. Here in the tempest, all the paycheck pussies are on their way to happy hour for a few glasses of whatever might smooth the wrinkles out of their minds. The freeway pilgrims who can’t afford several cocktails are crawling home to their nothing houses to say a prayer before they eat the beans and rice their god provides, their workday done, and nothing for them now but to stream a movie and get ready to kiss the boss’s ass again tomorrow. For Aleem Sutter, his average workday is three hours long, at most four, thirty minutes here and fifteen there, ragging the swing men to stay true to their promises to supply the goods, making sure the mules don’t forget how bad they’ll be jacked up if the weight of a shipment goes down even an ounce during transport, jamming dealers to meet their quotas, keeping the homeboys motivated with snaps, lots of Benjamins. Aleem doesn’t need to work a full forty because he has so many worker bees laboring for him. Right now, two blocks from his current position, four once-hot quiffs, now too old and skanked out to sell their booty even to cougar lovers, are spending eight hours capping up bulk barbiturates and parceling them into fifty-cent bags, tax-free cash work to augment the government checks they’ve been receiving illegally since they turned fifty. When he isn’t working, like now, Aleem is usually chilling out with his homeys or doing some tail, or what he calls “adventuring,” which is looking to get into some kind of trouble just to see if he still has the brains and balls to get out of it. Right now, riding shotgun in Kuba’s Lexus SUV, he’s tending to some domestic business, making sure his rights as a father are respected, following Nina’s Explorer, trying to decide if the treacherous bitch is just going out for a quart of milk or making a run for it. Kuba says, “I hate this shit.” “What shit?” “This weather.” “We got a drought.” “Not tonight we don’t.” “Gotta have rain, brother.” “We already got us an ocean.” “Can’t drink ocean water.” “Damn surfers pissin’ in it.” “It’s the salt,” says Aleem. “I put salt on everythin’.” “Drink salt water, your gut blows up.” “Blows up, huh?” “Blows up.” “You the man, Aleem.” “Got that right.” “You the man, I respect you, but shit.” “Say what?” “Salt don’t explode.” “Eat a box of Morton’s, see what happens.” “Salt ain’t a brick of C-4.” “So see what happens.” “Aleem, where you get these ideas?” “You ever gone to school, Kuba?” “I gone seven years ’fore I offed that teacher.” “I forgot about that.” “Had to drop out, change my name, join the gang.” “Best thing you ever done.” “I’m up on it,” Kuba agrees. “You was what—thirteen?” “Twelve. Teacher always talkin’ his big ideas.” “Some of | 0 |
27 | Silas Marner.txt | 27 | Aaron Winthrop) or adoptive (as with Eppie and Silas). When Eppie has to choose between her biological father, Godfrey, and her adoptive father, Silas, what factors count most with her? Wholesome human affections can restore a damaged personality like Silas'. Yet stunted affections, like those at Squire Cass' house, can damage a basically good person like Godfrey. Look at the way larger communities are bound together, too: Lantern-Yard, the city Silas came from, Raveloe as a whole, or the upperclass society of Raveloe. 4. CHANGE In Eliot's view, all change is the product of a multitude of tiny factors. The process is so complex that mere humans cannot presume to control it. To examine this theory, Eliot chose for her main setting a community with ingrained old beliefs, a place where change comes slowly. She shows how gradually the collective "mind" of village opinion shifts until it accepts Silas. Many individual characters, too, have fixed habits of thought that are hard to change. Consider, for example, Squire Cass, Nancy Lammeter, old Mr. Macey, Dolly Winthrop, Godfrey's wife Molly, and Silas himself. Choosing a long time span for her story, Eliot shows people changing gradually over the years, as Silas changes before his robbery and then after finding Eppie. She also minutely examines step by step the process of short-term changes--the reasoning that leads Godfrey to keep his secret marriage hidden or that makes Dunstan rob Silas. 5. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAST Raveloe is a society strongly connected to its past. In contrast, the town Silas comes from seems impersonal and transient--when Silas returns thirty-two years later, Lantern-Yard has been literally wiped off the face of the Earth. Individuals in this book also are connected to their own pasts in different degrees. Godfrey hopes to bury his past. Silas and Eppie cherish their past together. As Silas is redeemed by his love for Eppie, he regains a sense of his past, and memory heals him. Attachment to the past can be stultifying, however, for characters like Squire Cass and Nancy Lammeter. Look at the role played in this novel by local traditions, personal memories, and familiar objects or places. By her own comments, then, Eliot gives this story, set in the past, a meaning for her own modern world. 6. OTHER THEMES In Silas Marner, Eliot also examines the class system of England in microcosm (mark the differences between the upper and lower classes, and judge Eliot's comments on them). Connected to this is her belief in the importance of work. The villagers understand the value of having a craft or skill and the role this gives one in a community. Silas clings to his craft when all else is taken from him. In the upper class, the Lammeter girls understand hard work, but the Cass sons are dangerously idle. In examining the social structure of Raveloe, however, Eliot defines a society that no longer exists. In describing Raveloe particularly by comparing it to the town Silas comes from--she depicts an England that may have been destroyed by the spread of the | 1 |
23 | Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.txt | 90 | must put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but arms, in these critical moments. It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side; --all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; --all this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering .. <p 223 > the first unknown phantom in the other world; --neither of these can feel stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale. The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being torn from the row-locks. Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship nor boat to be seen. Give way, men, whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet of his sail; there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. There's white water again! --close to! Spring! Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: Stand up! and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the waves | 1 |
97 | What-Dreams-May-Come.txt | 20 | “Well,” he said, “I should be getting to work. Father’s accounts are not going to sort themselves out.” “Is there something wrong with the businesses?” Lady Calloway asked, clearly alarmed by the idea. But Lord Calloway waved the question away. “Of course not, Mother. He taught me well. When you are finished, Pritchard, I would like to know what should be done to help my brother’s recovery. I will be in the library.” He stepped out of the room before waiting for a response. The doctor spent a few more minutes looking over William, but then he declared him at the very least stable, if not recovering, and excused himself to go find Lord Calloway. Lady Calloway took hold of William’s hand in both of her own. “Where is Olivia?” she asked Lucy. “I did not see her this morning.” “She’s out riding.” Lucy lowered herself slowly onto the bed, where Lord Calloway had been sitting earlier. She could tell Lady Calloway needed something to distract her, and she fully understood why. Gazing down at William’s pale face was enough to tie Lucy’s stomach in knots, and she barely knew the man. She could only imagine how worried his mother was, particularly if he had been through something like this before. “No doubt she is trying to beat Simon,” Lady Calloway said with a smile. “She’ll never manage it, no matter how fast her horse is. I have never seen a beast that flies like Simon’s Hermes, nor a master who rides as if weightless like he does.” “Olivia is quite determined to put him in his place.” “I wish her all the luck. Since the day he took over for his father, Simon has never lost a race.” A soft moan came from the bed, and both women turned to William in surprise. Lucy’s heart kicked up a notch as she wondered if her moment of truth was suddenly here. Was he going to wake up and tell his mother everything? “William?” Lady Calloway whispered, pushing his hair from his forehead with trembling fingers. “Can you hear me, William?” But, despite his mother’s fervent words, William remained motionless. If he truly had woken, it had been for only a moment. Lucy let out the breath she’d been holding. She was not supposed to be glad he was asleep, but the longer he slept, the longer she would be able to stay with the Calloways and give them a reason to help her. “Maybe he will wake soon,” she told Lady Calloway and put a comforting hand on the woman’s arm. Or maybe all of this would turn disastrous, and Lucy would be only one heartbreak among many in the Calloway home. Chapter Nine Simon had to admit it; Olivia was getting good. Her horse had run with the wind at its tail, and their upcoming race—whenever he actually found the time for it—would be far more interesting than any had been in the past. There was even a chance, however slight, that she might win, and Simon knew he would never | 0 |
63 | Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt | 96 | Lore’s voice came out ragged. “Sorry for saving me?” Her mother lowered her chin, her long, pale hair almost covering her face. “But you can be strong now,” she said, as if Lore hadn’t spoken at all. “You can make the right choice.” “You’re asking her to die, and you think you’re in the right?” Gabe nearly spat it. But the Night Priestess didn’t respond. She looked only at Lore, only at her daughter. “It all springs from this choice,” she murmured. “You are the seed of the apocalypse.” And it was true. Lore didn’t know how, not yet, didn’t understand the intricacies. But she felt the truth. But it was also true what she’d told her mother. Lore was selfish. If it came down to her or the world, Lore chose herself. The Night Priestess sighed. Nodded, knowing Lore’s answer though she didn’t speak. Then, in a quick movement that the flickering flames bisected into strange jerks, she climbed up onto the lip of the well and descended the spinning stairs into the dark. Bastian moved forward, as if he’d follow and extract some kind of revenge, but Lore put her hand on his chest. “No,” she murmured, and had nothing else to add. “No.” He listened. “You’ve chosen your path, the three of you,” Anton murmured. “Woe betide us when the rest follow.” Bastian looked at Gabe. Flicked his hand. “The old man will live, Gabe.” Shoulders slumped in relief, Gabe finally took his dagger from Anton’s throat. He stepped back, letting the Priest Exalted stand on his own. Bastian’s hand moved, twisting in a graceful motion that looked near impossible. Golden swirls carved through the air, coalescing around his fingers, threads spun from the sun itself. Then Bastian thrust his handful of gold toward Anton. The strands attached to the ground around the Priest Exalted, and it erupted. Thick green vines grew rapidly through the stone, thorn-studded, the ends opening in blood-red rose blooms identical to the ones burning near the path. They wound around his legs, his middle. They entered his mouth before he could so much as scream. His eye rolled as the empty socket of the other was filled with green, then red, a rose unfurling in the scarred orbital, petals brushing his flame-ravaged brow. It was over in an instant. Anton Arceneaux was encased in roses and blood, one more statue in the garden. And Bastian had done it so easily, as if it was second nature. Gabe made a small, hoarse noise, stumbling back. “You said you wouldn’t kill him.” His voice went ragged at the end. “You said you wouldn’t!” “I said he would live.” Bastian stepped forward to the remains of his uncle and wrenched the bloody crown from his hand. The Priest had held on to it all this time. “And he does.” The smallest rise and fall of Anton’s chest. The thinnest whistle of breath. Bastian was right; in all those roses, Anton was still alive. Gods, it was worse. Gabe’s eyes went from his Priest to his King, shock | 0 |
7 | Casino Royale.txt | 97 | sorry. It's just that . . . it's that I can't believe everything's over and there's no one to be frightened of any more.' She pressed his hand. 'You must think me very stupid.' 'Of course not,' said Bond. 'But really nobody could be interested in us now. Forget it all. The whole job's finished, wiped up. This is our holiday and there's not a cloud in the sky. Is there?' he persisted. 'No, of course not.' She shook herself slightly. 'I'm mad. Now we'll be there in a second. I do hope you're going to like it.' They both leant forward. Animation was back in her face and the incident left only the smallest question-mark hanging in the air. Even that faded as they came through the dunes and saw the sea and the modest little inn amongst the pines. 'It's not very grand, I'm afraid,' said Vesper. 'But it's very clean and the food's wonderful.' She looked at him anxiously. She need not have worried. Bond loved the place at first sight - the terrace leading almost to the high-tide mark, the low two-storied house with gay brick-red awnings over the windows and the crescent-shaped bay of blue water and golden sands. How many times in his life would he have given anything to have turned off a main road to find a lost corner like this where he could let the world go by and live in the sea from dawn to dusk. And now he was to have a whole week of this. And of Vesper. In his mind he fingered the necklace of the days to come. They drew up in the courtyard behind the house and the proprietor and his wife came out to greet them. Monsieur Versoix was a middle-aged man with one arm. The other he had lost fighting with the Free French in Madagascar. He was a friend of the chief of police of Royale and it was the Commissaire who had suggested the place to Vesper and had spoken to the proprietor on the telephone. As a result, nothing was going to be too good for them. Madame Versoix had been interrupted in the middle of preparing dinner. She wore an apron and held a wooden spoon in one hand. She was younger than her husband, chubby and handsome and warm-eyed. Instinctively Bond guessed that they had no children and that they gave their thwarted affection to their friends and some regular customers, and probably to some pets. He thought that their life was probably something of a struggle and that the inn must be very lonely in winter-time with the big seas and the noise of the wind in the pines. The proprietor showed them to their rooms. Vesper's was a double room and Bond was next door, at the corner of the house, with one window looking out to sea and another with a view of the distant arm of the bay. There was a bathroom between them. Everything was spotless, and sparsely comfortable. The proprietor was pleased when they | 1 |
90 | The-Lost-Bookshop.txt | 13 | Extraordinaires. Bound in cerulean blue, it was a two-volume translation of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories by Charles Baudelaire. I opened the cover to find that it was a first edition, published by Michel Lévy Frères, Paris, 1856–1857. My father was a fanatic when it came to Mr Poe and I too enjoyed ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and so I saw it as a sign. I enquired as to the price of the book, my broken French immediately betraying me as a foreigner. It sounded like one hundred francs too many and after much gesturing (him turning out his pockets to indicate that I was robbing him blind) we agreed a price. I felt drunk with recklessness, spending the little money I had on another book. As he began wrapping the volumes in brown paper and string, I heard a voice I recognised calling my name. ‘Monsieur Hassan,’ I said, surprised when he, yet again, took my hand and kissed it. I flushed immediately and the bookseller smirked. They then began a conversation in French that I could not follow, but the subject matter soon became clear. ‘I see you have purchased my Baudelaire,’ he said, with a devilish smile. ‘Whatever do you mean?’ ‘I told my friend here to keep this translation for me, but I see he has sold it to you … for a much higher price.’ The implication was not lost on me, that I was a silly woman who’d be taken for a fool. I chose to ignore it. ‘Well then, it is not your Baudelaire but mine,’ I said, taking the package and heading back towards my hotel. ‘At least allow me to offer you dinner tonight, as a felicitation for your excellent bargain,’ he said, his long strides easily catching up with me. ‘No thank you, I cannot accept such an unsuitable invitation. We are strangers.’ ‘Oof,’ he said, mockingly taking a dagger to the heart. ‘But we are not strangers and it would seem that you are alone in Paris …’ ‘I’m not alone,’ I said, defensively. ‘I’m staying with my … aunt.’ ‘Ah, I see,’ he said, nodding and almost admitting defeat. ‘Alors, if you change your mind, Mademoiselle Opaline,’ he added, handing me his card. ‘I will not forget this slight easily but, fortunately for you, I have a forgiving nature.’ With a tip of his hat, he disappeared down a side street and I was left standing there, feeling furious. He was an infuriating, pompous, arrogant man. And I loathed him. And yet I put his card in my pocket rather than throwing it in the Seine. That evening, I wrote one of the postcards I had bought at the bookstall to my Jane. I knew I could trust her to keep my whereabouts a secret. The thing about Jane was, you could hear her laugh before you ever saw her. She adored the outdoors, which Mother declared ‘unladylike’. I missed her terribly, but writing to her closed the distance between us, if only | 0 |
34 | The Call of the Wild.txt | 90 | to rouse it. The whip flashed out, here and there, on its merciless errands. John Thornton compressed his lips. Sol-leks was the first to crawl to his feet. Teek followed. Joe came next, yelping with pain. Pike made painful efforts. Twice he fell over, when half up, and on the third attempt managed to rise. Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into him again and again, but he neither whined nor struggled. Several times Thornton started, as though to speak, but changed his mind. A moisture came into his eyes, and, as the whipping continued, he arose and walked irresolutely up and down. This was the first time Buck had failed, in itself a sufficient reason to drive Hal into a rage. He exchanged the whip for the customary club. Buck refused to move under the rain of heavier blows which now fell upon him. Like his mates, he barely able to get up, but, unlike them, he had made up his mind not to get up. He had a vague feeling of impending doom. This had been strong upon him when he pulled in to the bank, and it had not departed from him. What of the thin and rotten ice he had felt under his feet all day, it seemed that he sensed disaster close at hand, out there ahead on the ice where his master was trying to drive him. He refused to stir. So greatly had he suffered, and so far gone was he, that the blows did not hurt much. And as they continued to fall upon him, the spark of life within flickered and went down. It was nearly out. He felt strangely numb. As though from a great distance, he was aware that he was being beaten. The last sensations of pain left him. He no longer felt anything, though very faintly he could hear the impact of the club upon his body. But it was no longer his body, it seemed so far away. And then, suddenly, without warning, uttering a cry that was inarticulate and more like the cry of an animal, John Thornton sprang upon the man who wielded the club. Hal was hurled backward, as though struck by a failing tree. Mercedes screamed. Charles looked on wistfully, wiped his watery eyes, but did not get up because of his stiffness. John Thornton stood over Buck, struggling to control himself, too convulsed with rage to speak. "If you strike that dog again, I'll kill you," he at last managed to say in a choking voice. "It's my dog," Hal replied, wiping the blood from his mouth as he came back. "Get out of my way, or I'll fix you. I'm going to Dawson." Thornton stood between him and Buck, and evinced no intention of getting out of the way. Hal drew his long hunting-knife. Mercedes screamed. cried, laughed, and manifested the chaotic abandonment of hysteria. Thornton rapped Hal's knuckles with the axe-handle, knocking the knife to the ground. He rapped his knuckles again as | 1 |
60 | Divine Rivals.txt | 25 | braced herself. “While Enva and her music have convinced a few weak-minded individuals to enlist, most of us here want to focus on other matters. So don’t let this war talk fool you. It’ll all blow over soon. Keep up the good work and come to me at once if someone from the Inkridden Tribune approaches you about this.” Iris curled her hand into a fist under her desk until she could feel the bite of her fingernails. Forest was the furthest thing from a weak-minded individual. When Dacre had started attacking town after town last summer, the chancellor and residents of Western Borough had sent out a call for help. He is overtaking us! they had cried, the words traveling through crackling telephone wires. He is killing us if we don’t agree to bow to him, to fight for him. We need aid! Sometimes Iris still felt shame when she thought of how slow people in the east had been to answer that cry. But the ugly truth was the denizens of Oath hadn’t believed it when the news broke of Dacre’s return. Not until Enva’s music began to trickle through the streets, woven with the revelation. It had been the Southern and Central Boroughs to respond first, assuming if they sent a few auxiliary forces, Dacre could be overcome before he razed the west to the ground. They underestimated him. They underestimated the number of devout people who would choose to fight for Dacre. That was the beginning of the war. It unfolded rapidly, ruthlessly. While Oath was sleeping, the west was burning. And yet despite the countless dark kilometers that stretched between the east and the west, Forest was one of the first to enlist. Iris wondered where he was at that very moment. Sleeping in a cave, hiding in a trench, wounded in a hospital, shackled in the enemy’s camp. All while she sat safely at her desk, typing up classifieds, obituaries, and articles. She wondered if he was still breathing. Zeb called her into his office an hour later. “I’ll give you three days, Winnow,” he said, fingers steepled over his desk. “Three days to write an essay, topic of your choosing. If it’s better than Kitt’s, I’ll publish it and seriously consider you for the column.” She could hardly believe him. An open assignment. He rarely gave those out. But then she remembered what he had said earlier, and she nearly spoke her mind. I plan to write about those weak-minded individuals. “Winnow?” Iris realized she was frowning; her jaw was clenched. “Yes, thank you, sir.” She forced a smile and returned to her desk. She couldn’t afford to lose this promotion. Which meant she couldn’t afford to upset Zeb with her essay. She needed to write something he would want to publish. This open assignment suddenly felt very narrow indeed. “There you are.” Roman’s voice caught her on the way out of the lobby, just as dusk fell. Iris startled when he seamlessly fell into stride beside her. “What do you want, Kitt?” she asked | 0 |
11 | Emma.txt | 17 | her to converse on the important subject. Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception, and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been, and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject. "On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so many months," continued Mrs. Weston, "she was energetic. This was one of her expressions. `I will not say, that since I entered into the engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:'-- and the quivering lip, Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart." "Poor girl!" said Emma. "She thinks herself wrong, then, for having consented to a private engagement?" "Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed to blame herself. `The consequence,' said she, `has been a state of perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken, and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be.' `Do not imagine, madam,' she continued, `that I was taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own; and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel Campbell.'" "Poor girl!" said Emma again. "She loves him then excessively, I suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her judgment." "Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him." "I am afraid," returned Emma, sighing, "that I must often have contributed to make her unhappy." "On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural consequence of the evil she had involved herself in," she said, "was that of making her unreasonable. The consciousness of having done amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious and irritable to a degree that must have been-- that had been--hard for him to bear. `I did not make the allowances,' said she, | 1 |
3 | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt | 62 | anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim says: "Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and listen tell I hears it agin." So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. Next I got to itching under- neath. I didn't know how I was going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore -- and then I was pretty soon comfortable again. Tom he made a sign to me -- kind of a little noise with his mouth -- and we went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said no; he might wake and make a dis- turbance, and then they'd find out I warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be- witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and | 1 |
94 | Titanium-Noir.txt | 6 | this…cub…into my hands.” “Yeah.” “You understand that once he is in my keeping, your control of his ultimate destiny will be limited.” “I do. I need to talk to him in a quiet place, Mr. Nugent. A full and frank discussion is necessary between us. We’re past the point where we can just hug it out.” “And after?” “I would not expect to socialise with him any more.” “This…is not an inconsiderable request, Mr. Sounder.” “Let’s be straight, Mr. Nugent. You and I don’t make inconsiderable requests of one another, now, do we?” “I ask you for a liver, you bring me a man.” “He does include a liver.” “I am not sure that I wish one quite so entailed, sir.” I take a breath and I let him have it. “Mr. Nugent, I may or may not know where that item you are looking for is, but I will tell you up-front that I do know why you want it. I know what it means.” Silence. “Your friend Mr. Zoegar, he was of the opinion that you and I could not trust one another. I took that to mean you would never trust me, but now it seems you sought to have me do something with consequences far beyond what you led me to believe. That is not the act of a friend, sir. Now, this situation we are all in is complex and delicate, and right now I feel a broad disaffection with almost all parties to the negotiation. We can proceed on that basis into the next stage, or you and I can step together a little more. I’m right here offering you the opportunity to restore the goodwill between us. What do you say?” “Mr. Zoegar would use the word ‘consilience’ to describe what you propose, Mr. Sounder. A jumping together of destinies.” “Well, for the next half hour, I won’t make any firm decisions about which way my destiny is going to jump. After that, I’ll figure I’m on my own, and things could get untidy.” There’s a pause during which I assume Lyman Nugent considers the state of my affairs before they become untidy: a scientist murdered under an alias, a cage match, a gunshot wound, a dead lounge singer, a dead police officer, an exploded police station, stolen internal organs containing encrypted nuclear grade kompromat, and now my would-be murderer, my ex-girlfriend’s cousin and by definition one of the most powerful men in the world, mutilated, bleeding and pissed off on my office carpet. Figure Nugent likes all that even less than I do. “I shall be delighted to accept your kind invitation, Mr. Sounder. See you in twenty minutes or so.” “See you then.” He hangs up, and I turn and look down at Maurice Tonfamecasca. “Fuck you, Sounder.” “Maurice, you came to my house. Now you’ve got nineteen minutes to persuade me we can forge an eternal friendship. After that it’s out of my hands.” Maurice smack-talks me for eighteen straight minutes and ten seconds. When Zoegar and a few friends arrive with | 0 |
39 | The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt | 31 | and, seated on some wild cliff, where only the ilex or the larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of fir, and precipices where human foot had never wandered, into the glen--so deep, that the thunder of the torrent, which was seen to foam along the bottom, was scarcely heard to murmur. Over these crags rose others of stupendous height, and fantastic shape; some shooting into cones; others impending far over their base, in huge masses of granite, along whose broken ridges was often lodged a weight of snow, that, trembling even to the vibration of a sound, threatened to bear destruction in its course to the vale. Around, on every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were seen only forms of grandeur--the long perspective of mountain-tops, tinged with ethereal blue, or white with snow; vallies of ice, and forests of gloomy fir. The serenity and clearness of the air in these high regions were particularly delightful to the travellers; it seemed to inspire them with a finer spirit, and diffused an indescribable complacency over their minds. They had no words to express the sublime emotions they felt. A solemn expression characterized the feelings of St. Aubert; tears often came to his eyes, and he frequently walked away from his companions. Valancourt now and then spoke, to point to Emily's notice some feature of the scene. The thinness of the atmosphere, through which every object came so distinctly to the eye, surprised and deluded her; who could scarcely believe that objects, which appeared so near, were, in reality, so distant. The deep silence of these solitudes was broken only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen cowering round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing high in the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow thunder that sometimes muttered at their feet. While, above, the deep blue of the heavens was unobscured by the lightest cloud, half way down the mountains, long billows of vapour were frequently seen rolling, now wholly excluding the country below, and now opening, and partially revealing its features. Emily delighted to observe the grandeur of these clouds as they changed in shape and tints, and to watch their various effect on the lower world, whose features, partly veiled, were continually assuming new forms of sublimity. After traversing these regions for many leagues, they began to descend towards Rousillon, and features of beauty then mingled with the scene. Yet the travellers did not look back without some regret to the sublime objects they had quitted; though the eye, fatigued with the extension of its powers, was glad to repose on the verdure of woods and pastures, that now hung on the margin of the river below; to view again the humble cottage shaded by cedars, the playful group of mountaineer-children, and the flowery nooks that appeared among the hills. As they descended, they saw at a distance, on the right, one of the grand passes of the Pyrenees into Spain, gleaming with its battlements and towers to the splendour | 1 |
59 | Costanza-Casati-Clytemnestra.txt | 31 | Leda’s soothing herbs, but the baby stares back at her, delighted and a bit defiant, his tiny hands reaching for her face. And when he gets tired, he cries. But when Tantalus rocks him, when he kisses him, he relaxes. The elders welcomed him soon after he was born. They took him naked as he was and brought him to Mount Taygetus. The baby kicked and wailed but he was safe. Safe because he was healthy. The elders checked him and found him perfect, strong. She walks for hours, carrying him in her arms. He is a curious child. She shows him flowers, takes each petal and holds it to his face. Crocuses, laurel, lilies, anemones. She tells him stories about them. The Phoenician princess Europa was lured into Zeus’s arms when he breathed a crocus from his mouth; the nymph Daphne turned into a laurel tree to hide from Apollo, who desired her; the goddess Persephone was abducted by Hades, king of the underworld, while picking lilies in a meadow. The baby likes the anemones most, so Clytemnestra tells him of Adonis slain by a boar and Aphrodite who loved him, remembering when she and Tantalus spoke of the myth on their first night together. Leda loves the baby very much. She takes him in her arms when Clytemnestra is too tired and lets him play with her earrings, shiny miracles in his eyes. She becomes the woman she was when Phoebe and Philonoe were born, when she would spend her days singing and talking to them, their small heads in her hands. It is a joy for Clytemnestra to see her mother like this, to see the softness behind the strength, the eyes shining with purpose. When Timandra touches the baby’s feet, Leda whispers, “Be careful. Babies are fragile.” When Clytemnestra has fed him, Leda tucks him in a blanket and traces his tiny features with her finger: eyes, nose, lips, ears. Tantalus starts planning their trip to Maeonia. He sends a messenger to the port to carry the news to the other side of the Aegean Sea. An heir is born and the king is ready to return, the queen at his side. * * * She is sitting in a corner of the town square, lulling the baby under the shade of an oak. She has escaped the dining hall in an effort to avoid Agamemnon and Menelaus; she doesn’t like the way they glance at the baby, with a mixture of coldness and distaste. Sometimes it looks almost like pity. “We are leaving soon,” she tells him, and he opens his eyes wide, smiling. “We are going to your father’s land.” It is quiet here. Two young women are passing, jugs filled with water on their shoulders, a dog following them, licking their ankles. A man is gathering baskets of olives and onions outside his door. The smells dance in the air, filling the square, and a child peeps out a window, a hungry look on his face. Clytemnestra lifts her eyes. Helen is walking toward the | 0 |
0 | 1984.txt | 97 | was still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be averted. In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it. The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision had had a certain hold even on the groups who actually profited by each historical change. The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (111 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years--imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations--not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive. It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions, and counter-revolutions in all parts of the world that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked-out political theories. But they had been foreshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious. What kind of people would control this world had been equally obvious. The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government. As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition. This last difference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some extent by | 1 |
46 | To Kill a Mockingbird.txt | 57 | time for Dill, and I folded myself inside the tire. Until it happened I did not realize that Jem was offended by my contradicting him on Hot Steams, and that he was patiently awaiting an opportunity to reward me. He did, by pushing the tire down the sidewalk with all the force in his body. Ground, sky and houses melted into a mad palette, my ears throbbed, I was suffocating. I could not put out my hands to stop, they were wedged between my chest and knees. I could only hope that Jem would outrun the tire and me, or that I would be stopped by a bump in the sidewalk. I heard him behind me, chasing and shouting. The tire bumped on gravel, skeetered across the road, crashed into a barrier and popped me like a cork onto pavement. Dizzy and nauseated, I lay on the cement and shook my head still, pounded my ears to silence, and heard Jem's voice: "Scout, get away from there, come on!" I raised my head and stared at the Radley Place steps in front of me. I froze. "Come on, Scout, don't just lie there!" Jem was screaming. "Get up, can'tcha?" I got to my feet, trembling as I thawed. "Get the tire!" Jem hollered. "Bring it with you! Ain't you got any sense at all?" When I was able to navigate, I ran back to them as fast as my shaking knees would carry me. "Why didn't you bring it?" Jem yelled. "Why don't you get it?" I screamed. Jem was silent. "Go on, it ain't far inside the gate. Why, you even touched the house once, remember?" Jem looked at me furiously, could not decline, ran down the sidewalk, treaded water at the gate, then dashed in and retrieved the tire. "See there?" Jem was scowling triumphantly. "Nothin' to it. I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifyin'." There was more to it than he knew, but I decided not to tell him. Calpurnia appeared in the front door and yelled, "Lemonade time! You all get in outa that hot sun 'fore you fry alive!" Lemonade in the middle of the morning was a summertime ritual. Calpurnia set a pitcher and three glasses on the porch, then went about her business. Being out of Jem's good graces did not worry me especially. Lemonade would restore his good humor. Jem gulped down his second glassful and slapped his chest. "I know what we are going to play," he announced. "Something new, something different." "What?" asked Dill. "Boo Radley." Jem's head at times was transparent: he had thought that up to make me understand he wasn't afraid of Radleys in any shape or form, to contrast his own fearless heroism with my cowardice. "Boo Radley? How?" asked Dill. Jem said, "Scout, you can be Mrs. Radley-" "I declare if I will. I don't think-" "'Smatter?" said Dill. "Still scared?" "He can get out at night when we're all asleep...." I said. Jem hissed. "Scout, how's he gonna know what | 1 |
52 | A-Living-Remedy.txt | 88 | there was no question that they would go. They spent the first two years of their marriage there before relocating to Seattle, the city of my mother’s dreams, where she worked as a respiratory therapist and he decided to enter a restaurant-management certificate program. It seemed like a promising career change; my father had seen other friends move into the service industry, and they assured him that he would be great at it. A regional pizza chain soon hired him to manage one of its new locations in southern Oregon. My parents found their new home a bit quiet compared with Seattle and far less beautiful than Alaska, and did not expect to stay in the region for long. But transfers and job opportunities in Portland, Denver, and Boise didn’t come through, and then my mother’s parents moved into a small house across town, giving them another tether to the area—and a future child-care provider in my energetic grandmother. In July 1981, they drove up to Seattle to adopt a ten-week-old Korean girl some friends had told them about, born severely premature to an immigrant family that did not believe they could raise a medically complex child. The doctors told my adoptive parents that I would have multiple disabilities and might never live independently, but they had spent weeks praying about the adoption and believed that I was meant to be theirs. Though they had initially wondered how their families would react to having an Asian child in the family, they stopped worrying when my grandmother charged them to go get that baby girl and bring her home to us. Given my history, they weren’t surprised when I crawled and walked later than average; they were surprised that by age two I spoke in paragraphs and was able to memorize anything that was read to me. Every day was a ceaseless drumbeat of questions and observations: why this, why that, I saw, I heard, I want to tell you, did you notice, do you think . . . ? A neighbor with four children jokingly told my mother that if I had been her first, she would have stopped at one. They were still adjusting to their new life as parents when Dad’s mother fell ill again, her body rejecting its foreign organ. My father took me to Cleveland to see her. In photos from that visit, I am a chubby, happy one-year-old in a flowered blouse and a blue corduroy jumper, no longer small for my age, boasting a toothy grin, chipmunk cheeks, and black hair that sticks straight up in defiance of my parents’ styling efforts—no one had ever told them about Asian baby hair. My grandmother, who looks so much like my father with her wide smile, broad nose, and brown hair so dark it could almost be black like mine, reaches toward me as Dad props me up on her hospital bed. He must have known that the trip was an introduction as well as a goodbye. As grieved as he would be when his mother died a | 0 |
41 | The Secret Garden.txt | 6 | was a little one an' he began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him." Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it was rather like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with something more than indifference at the first plate Martha set before her. "I don't want it," she said. "Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously. "No." "Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit o' sugar." "I don't want it," repeated Mary. "Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes." "Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes." "I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference of ignorance. Martha looked indignant. "Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an' Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores." "Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary. "It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean up for mother an' give her a day's rest." Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade. "You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you good and give you some stomach for your meat." Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry. "Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" "Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' got to do?" Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be | 1 |
47 | Ulysses.txt | 96 | God' sake, doctor. Wife in her throes. Then keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them. Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me. A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their belts. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station. Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive soup. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. THERE IS NOT IN THIS WIDE WORLD A VALLEE. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she? He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. Can't blame them after all with the job they have especially the young hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did! His horse's hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had the presence of mind to dive into Manning's or I was souped. He did come a wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I oughtn't to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began. --Up the Boers! --Three cheers for De Wet! --We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree. Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill. The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to. Whether on the scaffold high. Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in his eye. Like that Peter or Denis | 1 |
24 | Of Human Bondage.txt | 90 | it never occurred to him that Fanny Price was consumed with jealousy, and watched his acceptance of someone else's tuition with ever-increasing anger. "You were very glad to put up with me when you knew nobody here," she said bitterly, "and as soon as you made friends with other people you threw me aside, like an old glove"--she repeated the stale metaphor with satisfaction--"like an old glove. All right, I don't care, but I'm not going to be made a fool of another time." There was a suspicion of truth in what she said, and it made Philip angry enough to answer what first came into his head. "Hang it all, I only asked your advice because I saw it pleased you." She gave a gasp and threw him a sudden look of anguish. Then two tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked frowsy and grotesque. Philip, not knowing what on earth this new attitude implied, went back to his work. He was uneasy and conscience-stricken; but he would not go to her and say he was sorry if he had caused her pain, because he was afraid she would take the opportunity to snub him. For two or three weeks she did not speak to him, and, after Philip had got over the discomfort of being cut by her, he was somewhat relieved to be free from so difficult a friendship. He had been a little disconcerted by the air of proprietorship she assumed over him. She was an extraordinary woman. She came every day to the studio at eight o'clock, and was ready to start working when the model was in position; she worked steadily, talking to no one, struggling hour after hour with difficulties she could not overcome, and remained till the clock struck twelve. Her work was hopeless. There was not in it the smallest approach even to the mediocre achievement at which most of the young persons were able after some months to arrive. She wore every day the same ugly brown dress, with the mud of the last wet day still caked on the hem and with the raggedness, which Philip had noticed the first time he saw her, still unmended. But one day she came up to him, and with a scarlet face asked whether she might speak to him afterwards. "Of course, as much as you like," smiled Philip. "I'll wait behind at twelve." He went to her when the day's work was over. "Will you walk a little bit with me?" she said, looking away from him with embarrassment. "Certainly." They walked for two or three minutes in silence. "D'you remember what you said to me the other day?" she asked then on a sudden. "Oh, I say, don't let's quarrel," said Philip. "It really isn't worth while." She gave a quick, painful inspiration. "I don't want to quarrel with you. You're the only friend I had in Paris. I thought you rather liked me. I felt there was something between us. I was drawn towards you--you know what I mean, your club-foot." | 1 |
33 | The Age of Innocence.txt | 24 | precisely the odd absence of surprise in her that gave him the sense of her having been plucked out of a very maelstrom: the things she took for granted gave the measure of those she had rebelled against. Archer had left her with the conviction that Count Olenski's accusation was not unfounded. The mysterious person who figured in his wife's past as "the secretary" had probably not been unrewarded for his share in her escape. The conditions from which she had fled were intolerable, past speaking of, past believing: she was young, she was frightened, she was desperate-- what more natural than that she should be grateful to her rescuer? The pity was that her gratitude put her, in the law's eyes and the world's, on a par with her abominable husband. Archer had made her understand this, as he was bound to do; he had also made her understand that simplehearted kindly New York, on whose larger charity she had apparently counted, was precisely the place where she could least hope for indulgence. To have to make this fact plain to her--and to witness her resigned acceptance of it--had been intolerably painful to him. He felt himself drawn to her by obscure feelings of jealousy and pity, as if her dumbly- confessed error had put her at his mercy, humbling yet endearing her. He was glad it was to him she had revealed her secret, rather than to the cold scrutiny of Mr. Letterblair, or the embarrassed gaze of her family. He immediately took it upon himself to assure them both that she had given up her idea of seeking a divorce, basing her decision on the fact that she had understood the uselessness of the proceeding; and with infinite relief they had all turned their eyes from the "unpleasantness" she had spared them. "I was sure Newland would manage it," Mrs. Welland had said proudly of her future son-in-law; and old Mrs. Mingott, who had summoned him for a confidential interview, had congratulated him on his cleverness, and added impatiently: "Silly goose! I told her myself what nonsense it was. Wanting to pass herself off as Ellen Mingott and an old maid, when she has the luck to be a married woman and a Countess!" These incidents had made the memory of his last talk with Madame Olenska so vivid to the young man that as the curtain fell on the parting of the two actors his eyes filled with tears, and he stood up to leave the theatre. In doing so, he turned to the side of the house behind him, and saw the lady of whom he was thinking seated in a box with the Beauforts, Lawrence Lefferts and one or two other men. He had not spoken with her alone since their evening together, and had tried to avoid being with her in company; but now their eyes met, and as Mrs. Beaufort recognised him at the same time, and made her languid little gesture of invitation, it was impossible not to go into the box. Beaufort | 1 |
36 | The House of the Seven Gables.txt | 62 | frailties of his youth, and seldom thought of it again. We leave the Judge to his repose. He could not be styled fortunate at the hour of death. Unknowingly, he was a childless man, while striving to add more wealth to his only child's inheritance. Hardly a week after his decease, one of the Cunard steamers brought intelligence of the death, by cholera, of Judge Pyncheon's son, just at the point of embarkation for his native land. By this misfortune Clifford became rich; so did Hepzibah; so did our little village maiden, and, through her, that sworn foe of wealth and all manner of conservatism, --the wild reformer,--Holgrave! It was now far too late in Clifford's life for the good opinion of society to be worth the trouble and anguish of a formal vindication. What he needed was the love of a very few; not the admiration, or even the respect, of the unknown many. The latter might probably have been won for him, had those on whom the guardianship of his welfare had fallen deemed it advisable to expose Clifford to a miserable resuscitation of past ideas, when the condition of whatever comfort he might expect lay in the calm of forgetfulness. After such wrong as he had suffered, there is no reparation. The pitiable mockery of it, which the world might have been ready enough to offer, coming so long after the agony had done its utmost work, would have been fit only to provoke bitterer laughter than poor Clifford was ever capable of. It is a truth (and it would be a very sad one but for the higher hopes which it suggests) that no great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is ever really set right. Time, the continual vicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity of death, render it impossible. If, after long lapse of years, the right seems to be in our power, we find no niche to set it in. The better remedy is for the sufferer to pass on, and leave what he once thought his irreparable ruin far behind him. The shock of Judge Pyncheon's death had a permanently invigorating and ultimately beneficial effect on Clifford. That strong and ponderous man had been Clifford's nightmare. There was no free breath to be drawn, within the sphere of so malevolent an influence. The first effect of freedom, as we have witnessed in Clifford's aimless flight, was a tremulous exhilaration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink into his former intellectual apathy. He never, it is true, attained to nearly the full measure of what might have been his faculties. But he recovered enough of them partially to light up his character, to display some outline of the marvellous grace that was abortive in it, and to make him the object of No less deep, although less melancholy interest than heretofore. He was evidently happy. Could we pause to give another picture of his daily life, with all the appliances now at command to gratify his instinct for the Beautiful, the garden | 1 |
40 | The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt | 75 | man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he threw the knife on the table, and listened. He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He opened the door, and went out on the landing. The house was quite quiet. No one was stirring. He took out the key, and returned to the room, locking himself in as he did so. The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been for the red jagged tear in the neck, and the clotted black pool that slowly widened on the table, one would have said that the man was simply asleep. How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and, walking over to the window, opened it, and stepped out on the balcony. The wind had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down, and saw the policeman going his rounds and flashing a bull's-eye lantern on the doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom gleamed at the corner, and then vanished. A woman in a ragged shawl was creeping round by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and then she stopped, and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse voice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the Square. The gas-lamps flickered, and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their black iron branches as if in pain. He shivered, and went back, closing the window behind him. He passed to the door, turned the key, and opened it. He did not even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted [85] the fatal portrait, the portrait to which all his misery had been due, had gone out of his life. That was enough. Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished steel. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would be asked. He turned back, and took it from the table. How still the man was! How horribly white the long hands looked! He was like a dreadful wax image. He locked the door behind him, and crept quietly down-stairs. The wood-work creaked, and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped several times, and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely the sound of his own footsteps. When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in the wainscoting, and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he pulled | 1 |
1 | A Game of Thrones.txt | 45 | humor whatsoever. "Your wishes are not my concern. On your feet, or I'll have you carried." Tyrion clambered awkwardly to his feet. "A cold night," he said casually, "and the High Hall is so drafty. I don't wish to catch a chill. Mord, if you would be so good, fetch my cloak." The gaoler squinted at him, face dull with suspicion. "My cloak," Tyrion repeated. "The shadowskin you took from me for safekeeping. You recall." "Get him the damnable cloak," Ser Vardis said. Mord did not dare grumble. He gave Tyrion a glare that promised future retribution, yet he went for the cloak. When he draped it around his prisoner's neck, Tyrion smiled. "My thanks. I shall think of you whenever I wear it." He flung the trailing end of the long fur over his right shoulder, and felt warm for the first time in days. "Lead on, Ser Vardis." The High Hall of the Arryns was aglow with the light of fifty torches, burning in the sconces along the walls. The Lady Lysa wore black silk, with the moon-and-falcon sewn on her breast in pearls. Since she did not look the sort to join the Night's Watch, Tyrion could only imagine that she had decided mourning clothes were appropriate garb for a confession. Her long auburn hair, woven into an elaborate braid, fell across her left shoulder. The taller throne beside her was 368 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN empty; no doubt the little Lord of the Eyrie was off shaking in his sleep. Tyrion was thankful for that much, at least. He bowed deeply and took a moment to glance around the hall. Lady Arryn had summoned her knights and retainers to hear his confession, as he had hoped. He saw Ser Brynden Tully's craggy face and Lord Nestor Royce's bluff one. Beside Nestor stood a younger man with fierce black side-whiskers who could only be his heir, Ser Albar. Most of the principal houses of the Vale were represented. Tyrion noted Ser Lyn Corbray, slender as a sword, Lord Hunter with his gouty legs, the widowed Lady Waynwood surrounded by her sons. Others sported sigils he did not know; broken lance, green viper, burning tower, winged chalice. Among the lords of the Vale were several of his companions from the high road; Ser Rodrik Cassel, pale from half-healed wounds, stood with Ser Willis Wode beside him. Marillion the singer had found a new woodharp. Tyrion smiled; whatever happened here tonight, he did not wish it to happen in secret, and there was no one like a singer for spreading a story near and far. In the rear of the hall, Bronn lounged beneath a pillar. The freerider's black eyes were fixed on Tyrion, and his hand lay lightly on the pommel of his sword. Tyrion gave him a long look, wondering . . . Catelyn Stark spoke first. "You wish to confess your crimes, we are told." "I do, my lady," Tyrion answered. Lysa Arryn smiled at her sister. "The sky cells always break them. The gods can see them there, | 1 |
36 | The House of the Seven Gables.txt | 38 | quoth good Uncle Venner, quite overcome, "if you were to speak to a young man as you do to an old one, his chance of keeping his heart another minute would not be worth one of the buttons on my waistcoat! And--soul alive!--that great sigh, which you made me heave, has burst off the very last of them! But, never mind! It was the happiest sigh I ever did heave; and it seems as if I must have drawn in a gulp of heavenly breath, to make it with. Well, well, Miss Phoebe! They'll miss me in the gardens hereabouts, and round by the back doors; and Pyncheon Street, I'm afraid, will hardly look the same without old Uncle Venner, who remembers it with a mowing field on one side, and the garden of the Seven Gables on the other. But either I must go to your country-seat, or you must come to my farm,--that's one of two things certain; and I leave you to choose which!" "Oh, come with us, by all means, Uncle Venner!" said Clifford, who had a remarkable enjoyment of the old man's mellow, quiet, and simple spirit. "I want you always to be within five minutes, saunter of my chair. You are the only philosopher I ever knew of whose wisdom has not a drop of bitter essence at the bottom!" "Dear me!" cried Uncle Venner, beginning partly to realize what manner of man he was. "And yet folks used to set me down among the simple ones, in my younger days! But I suppose I am like a Roxbury russet,--a great deal the better, the longer I can be kept. Yes; and my words of wisdom, that you and Phoebe tell me of, are like the golden dandelions, which never grow in the hot months, but may be seen glistening among the withered grass, and under the dry leaves, sometimes as late as December. And you are welcome, friends, to my mess of dandelions, if there were twice as many!" A plain, but handsome, dark-green barouche had now drawn up in front of the ruinous portal of the old mansion-house. The party came forth, and (with the exception of good Uncle Venner, who was to follow in a few days) proceeded to take their places. They were chatting and laughing very pleasantly together; and--as proves to be often the case, at moments when we ought to palpitate with sensibility--Clifford and Hepzibah bade a final farewell to the abode of their forefathers, with hardly more emotion than if they had made it their arrangement to return thither at tea-time. Several children were drawn to the spot by so unusual a spectacle as the barouche and pair of gray horses. Recognizing little Ned Higgins among them, Hepzibah put her hand into her pocket, and presented the urchin, her earliest and staunchest customer, with silver enough to people the Domdaniel cavern of his interior with as various a procession of quadrupeds as passed into the ark. Two men were passing, just as the barouche drove off. "Well, Dixey," said | 1 |
9 | Dracula.txt | 52 | all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and had dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor, Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place, who came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications later on, in the Admiralty Court, for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statues of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a dead hand. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death, a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca, and placed in the mortuary to await inquest. Already the sudden storm is passing,and its fierceness is abating. Crowds are scattering backward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm. 9 August.--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S.F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and took formal possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here today except the strange coincidence. The officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a `nine days wonder', they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of other complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more | 1 |
22 | Lord of the Flies.txt | 96 | burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right shoulder and there was the glitter of water. Then he was down, rolling over and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm to ward off, trying to cry for mercy. He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a huge peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill, epaulettes, a revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform. A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine gun. The ululation faltered and died away. The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment, then took his hand away from the butt of the revolver. "Hullo." Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appearance, Ralph answered shyly. "Hullo." The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered. "Are there any adults--any grownups with you?" Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a halfpace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all. "Fun and games," said the officer. The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black. The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph. "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?" Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a haircut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment. "Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?" "Only two. And they've gone." The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. "Two? Killed?" Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shuddering with flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He whistled softly. Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small savages. One of them came close to the officer and looked up. "I'm, I'm--" But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away. The officer turned back to Ralph. "We'll take you off. How many of you are there?" Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him to the group of painted boys. "Who's boss here?" "I am," said Ralph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still. "We saw your smoke. And you don't know how many of you there are?" "No, | 1 |
65 | Hedge.txt | 28 | that you’re feeling better these days.” It was the way Ella moved now—more surely, as if she weren’t being tugged backward by a rope, a new carelessness in her simplest gestures like buttering a piece of toast. She was ending the school year with high grades. Her friendship circle had expanded. On her Instagram page, she beamed and laughed. With no help from Maud or Peter, she’d applied to be a counselor at the camp that she used to attend at Marin Headlands. That weekend, she and two friends lay on the deck, sunning themselves in their bathing suits, as if they lived in Southern California, not Northern. “I don’t know whether to tell you guys to put on sunscreen or sweaters,” Maud said from the sliding glass doors. Ella looked over languidly. She was wearing a bikini, no trace of the cut on her stomach. “We’re fine, Mom,” she said. Peter walked down the hall with the recycling bins stacked in his arms. “She seems so good,” Maud said, taking one of the bins. “It’s hard to believe.” “I’m glad she has friends now. And nice ones.” She followed Peter down the front stairs. He knew that she herself had a new friend and that the two of them went hiking. He knew that Alice made Maud lunch and that she had a dog. But he had no idea what Alice was to her. Because I haven’t told you, she thought, as they reached the street. And you haven’t asked. Since that one awkward night, they hadn’t tried to have sex. Now Peter took the lid off the recycling can. Does your loneliness feel like mine? Maud wondered. An ache that rattled her body, loud as the bottles raining against the steel can. When she showed up at Alice’s that Wednesday, a pickup truck was pulling through the gate onto Highway One, driven by a woman in aviator glasses. As she passed Maud’s car, she lifted her hand off the steering wheel and raised her middle finger. “I think the person leaving here just flipped me off,” Maud told Alice. She’d found her around back, looking for ticks in Clark’s fur, a pair of tweezers in hand, reading glasses on her face. “That was Gloria.” Alice pinched the tweezers and yanked out a tick. “And she probably did flip you off.” She dipped her finger in alcohol and pressed it to Clark’s skin. “Why?” Maud said. Ignoring the question, Alice put the reading glasses in the pocket of her shirt and picked up her canteen. “You still want to check the grasses to see if they’re dead?” Maud nodded, and they headed toward the field. “She knows I’m not gay, right?” she said. “That’s part of the problem.” “If I were gay, she wouldn’t care that we spend time together?” “If you were gay and we were sleeping together, she wouldn’t care. But you aren’t gay and we aren’t sleeping together.” Maud wondered what scene had taken place before she drove up to the house. An argument, clearly. She rolled back | 0 |
2 | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt | 20 | understand how to jump. But the minds of rats could not understand trigonometry. When they were dead they lay on their sides. Their coats dried then. They were only dead things. The prefect was there again and it was his voice that was saying that he was to get up, that Father Minister had said he was to get up and dress and go to the infirmary. And while he was dressing himself as quickly as he could the prefect said: --We must pack off to Brother Michael because we have the collywobbles! He was very decent to say that. That was all to make him laugh. But he could not laugh because his cheeks and lips were all shivery: and then the prefect had to laugh by himself. The prefect cried: --Quick march! Hayfoot! Strawfoot! They went together down the staircase and along the corridor and past the bath. As he passed the door he remembered with a vague fear the warm turf-coloured bogwater, the warm moist air, the noise of plunges, the smell of the towels, like medicine. Brother Michael was standing at the door of the infirmary and from the door of the dark cabinet on his right came a smell like medicine. That came from the bottles on the shelves. The prefect spoke to Brother Michael and Brother Michael answered and called the prefect sir. He had reddish hair mixed with grey and a queer look. It was queer that he would always be a brother. It was queer too that you could not call him sir because he was a brother and had a different kind of look. Was he not holy enough or why could he not catch up on the others? There were two beds in the room and in one bed there was a fellow: and when they went in he called out: --Hello! It's young Dedalus! What's up? --The sky is up, Brother Michael said. He was a fellow out of the third of grammar and, while Stephen was undressing, he asked Brother Michael to bring him a round of buttered toast. --Ah, do! he said. --Butter you up! said Brother Michael. You'll get your walking papers in the morning when the doctor comes. --Will I? the fellow said. I'm not well yet. Brother Michael repeated: --You'll get your walking papers. I tell you. He bent down to rake the fire. He had a long back like the long back of a tramhorse. He shook the poker gravely and nodded his head at the fellow out of third of grammar. Then Brother Michael went away and after a while the fellow out of third of grammar turned in towards the wall and fell asleep. That was the infirmary. He was sick then. Had they written home to tell his mother and father? But it would be quicker for one of the priests to go himself to tell them. Or he would write a letter for the priest to bring. Dear Mother, I am sick. I want to go home. Please come and take | 1 |
91 | The-One.txt | 0 | of my car while I was in class.” Sloane motions toward the garage. “I was just assessing the damage. And it’s pretty bad.” Her mother-in-law puts a hand over her heart. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, dear.” She shakes her head. “Crime seems to be on the rise everywhere these days. I hate going anywhere in San Francisco without secure parking. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Sloane forces a smile. “Thank you.” What on earth is she doing here? And why did it have to be now? Kay’s heels clack against the hardwood floor as Sloane follows her into the living room. Her platinum-blonde bob is teased a good inch at the roots, adding to her already tall stature. Kay stands a good head taller than Sloane’s own mother, and Sloane wonders what Kay would think of Crystal if she were still alive. Kay is a well-kept woman, sparing no cost in her appearance. Crystal bleached her hair from a box, still sporting a perm in 1998. Even without money, her mother’s beauty would outshine everyone else in the room. There was a fire in her eyes that Sloane has never seen in anyone else. “My meeting with the new corporate client finished early, so I thought we could drive together to the restaurant. But maybe we should get an Uber after what happened to your car. Unless Ethan can drive us?” Sloane fights to shake the image of Brody’s gritted teeth and wild eyes when his hand clenched around her throat. What restaurant? Sloane racks her brain but is sure she’s never heard anything from Ethan—or Kay—about this visit. Or dinner plans. Kay furrows her brows. “Did Ethan not tell you? I thought I’d stay the night rather than fly back right away. Take you two to dinner. He said you’d both be free. I spoke to him about it a week ago.” Sloane feels a stab of resentment at her mother-in-law’s words. Ethan can make definite plans a week in advance with his mother? Why can’t he ever do that for me? Kay eyes Sloane’s attire before continuing. “I made us a reservation at Vito’s for eight.” Sloane glances at her leggings and faded t-shirt embellished with the rock band Heart. “I forgot,” she lies. “I’m so sorry. Things have been a little hectic at the hospital lately.” She forges an apologetic smile. “It skipped my mind it was tonight.” “I completely understand. So…” Kay looks around the empty living room. “Will Ethan be meeting us there?” Sloane doubts that Ethan ever told his mother about his affair. And now he’s conveniently left it to her to pretend everything is great between them. “I’m not sure. I’ll send him a text and see what time he’ll be done with work.” Swallowing the distaste in her mouth at Ethan’s unmentioned plans with his mother, Sloane moves into the kitchen to get her phone. “Great,” Kay says. “I’ll just put my things in the guest room.” Her words barely register as Sloane grabs her phone off the kitchen island and types a | 0 |
92 | The-Scorched-Throne-1-Sara-Hashe.txt | 50 | ahead. His features slackening in death as blood poured in an inverted V around the arrow cleaving his throat. “Wake up!” I shouted, shaking Arin’s arm. “Please!” My magic slammed around my cuffs, agitated. I had to stop the arrows. This was a Jasadi attack, and I did not need to venture a guess what they wanted. How could Arin allow us to risk the Meridian Pass? We were waiting targets down here. The soldiers would protect their Heir. Sefa and Marek only had me. Grief. Rage. Fear. I had no doubts as to which was motivating my magic this time. When I pushed my magic toward him, it complied. I could only hope it wouldn’t hurt him more. I had neither the skill nor the time to form a proper shield. With great difficulty, I turned my horse away from him and spurred it on. If anyone was going to kill Arin of Nizahl, it would be me. Dust and pebbles churned over the canyon, obscuring my vision. A boon. The soldiers wouldn’t see me toss my horse’s reins to the side and leap onto the side of the Meridian Pass. The smooth rock face slid beneath my boots, but I had climbed worse. With a push from my magic, I scaled it quickly. I hauled myself to the top of the canyon. Arms grabbed me. A dozen bows took aim at my face. “You need to stop,” I panted. “Do what you will to the soldiers, but I have friends down there.” “It is you.” A man lowered his bow in disbelief. He studied me as though I might disappear at any moment. “Malika Essiya.” The group on the opposite side of the canyon was still shooting arrows. Every muscle in my body was tensed for a scream I recognized. “Are you… the Urabi?” He nodded, pressing a palm to his heart. One by one, the other archers lowered their bows. “My name is Efra, Mawlati. We have come to rescue you.” The next time I saw Soraya, I would make her gargle with all the teeth I planned to knock from her mouth for leaking the news of my existence to the Urabi. They were looking at me with a reverence I didn’t deserve, calling me by a title I left in the ash with my grandparents’ bodies. She had plucked my nightmare into reality. My heart pounded in a familiar song: run, run, run. I was watching Niphran burn on a lake. The kitmer pacing around me, waiting. My knees buckling beneath the weight of the crowd of shadows on shore. “He is using me to lure you to the Alcalah,” I said. “You have to run.” Efra stared at me. “The Nizahl Heir knows you are a Jasadi?” And then, with blistering accusation, “And you agreed to help the silver serpent lure us to our deaths?” “Will someone grab her? We need to move!” cried a bowman on the opposite side. Efra’s disgust filled me with shame, and shame was an old friend. My heart slowed. The | 0 |
60 | Divine Rivals.txt | 67 | how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel. I say this to you knowing full well that I am riddled with contradictions. As you’ve read in my other letters, I love my brother’s bravery, but I hate how he’s abandoned me to fight for a god. I love my mother, but I hate what booze has done to her, as if it’s drowning her and I don’t know how to save her. I love the words I write until I soon realize how much I hate them, as if I am destined to always be at war within myself. And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of. A world where my brother is home safe, and my mother is well, and I write words that I don’t despise half of the time. Words that will mean something to someone else, as if I’ve cast a line into the dark and felt a tug in the distance. All right, now I’ve let the words spill out. I’ve given you a piece of armor, I suppose. But I don’t think you’ll mind. She sent the letter over the threshold, telling herself not to expect a reply. At least, not for a little while. Iris began to work on her essay, trying to sense the shape of it. But her attention was on her wardrobe door, on the shadows that lined the threshold and the stranger who dwelled beyond it. She paused to check the time. It was half past ten at night. She considered leaving the flat to search for her mother. The worry was a nagging weight in her chest, but Iris wasn’t sure where she should go. If it would be safe for her to walk alone this late at night. She’ll return soon. Just like she always does. When the clubs close at midnight. A letter passed through the portal, bringing her back to the present. Iris reached for it. The paper crinkled in her fingers as she read: One person. One piece of armor. I’ll strive for this. Thank you. {10} Station Nine The office was overflowing with felicitations the following day. Iris leaned against the tea sideboard, watching as Roman was greeted with grins and claps on the back. “Congratulations, Kitt!” “I hear Miss Little is beautiful and accomplished. What a catch.” “When’s the wedding?” Roman smiled and received it all graciously, dressed in starched clothes and polished leather shoes, his black hair combed out of his eyes and his face shaven. Another perfect appearance. If Iris didn’t know better—if she hadn’t sat on a park bench with him and heard him confess how reluctant he was to marry a stranger—she would have thought he was thrilled. She wondered if she had dreamt that moment with him, when they had almost spoken to one another like old friends. When he had laughed, listened, and apologized. Because it suddenly felt like some feverish | 0 |
22 | Lord of the Flies.txt | 99 | the wrecked shelter. There was the platform and the pool. The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe had eaten, the thing to do was to try again. And anyway, he couldn't stay here all night in an empty shelter by the deserted platform. His flesh crept and he shivered in the evening sun. No fire; no smoke; no rescue. He turned and limped away through the forest toward Jack's end of the island. The slanting sticks of sunlight were lost among the branches. At length he came to a clearing in the forest where rock prevented vegetation from growing. Now it was a pool of shadows and Ralph nearly flung himself behind a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig's skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless. Or was it? Little prickles of sensation ran up and down his back. He stood, the skull about on a level with his face, and held up his hair with two hands. The teeth grinned, the empty sockets seemed to hold his gaze masterfully and without effort. What was it? The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell. A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to the skull that lay grinning at the sky. When the green glow had gone from the horizon and night was fully accomplished, Ralph came again to the thicket in front of the Castle Rock. Peeping through, he could see that the height was still occupied, and whoever it was up there had a spear at the ready. He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the deep night were coming on. Ralph moaned faintly. Tired though he was, he could not relax and fall into a well of sleep for fear of the tribe. Might it not be possible to walk boldly into the fort, say-- "I've got pax," laugh lightly and sleep among the others? Pretend they were still boys, | 1 |
64 | Happy Place.txt | 93 | “She and her hairdresser friend went into business together. They mostly do weddings and dances. Still FaceTimes me twice a month, makes about five minutes of small talk, then says goodbye.” His teeth skate over his bottom lip. “I’m sorry.” He’s the only person who knows how much it bothers me that I barely know Eloise, that despite having a sister, I always felt acutely alone in our childhood home. Between our six-year age gap and her constant disagreements with our parents, we didn’t have much time to bond. I shrug. “Some things never change, and the best thing is to stop hoping they will.” “Other things do, though,” he says. I break eye contact. “What about your sisters? How are they?” “Good,” he replies, half smiling. “Lou’s with my mom this week. Said to tell you hi.” I smile despite the twinge in my chest. “And Michael? Still in Colorado?” He nods. “She’s dating another aerospace engineer, who works for a competing company. They moved in together, but they’re both under NDAs, so neither of them even lets the other into their home office.” I laugh. “That,” I say, “is so unbelievably on-brand.” “I know,” he says. “And Lou finished at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in May.” “That’s amazing,” I say. Together, the three of them could be loud and rude and competitive. They argued over everything—what to have for dinner, who got first use of the shower, who really understood the rules of dominoes and who was totally off —as if as soon as a thought or feeling occurred to them, it spewed out. But nothing ever blew up. Little arguments flared and extinguished; small insults casually faded. And everyone went back to joking, hugging, kicking, acting like siblings do in movies. I wonder but don’t ask whether his younger sister, Lou, is just visiting their mom or if she ended up moving home after grad school like she’d been planning, back when Wyn’s stay out there was supposed to be temporary. She was going to take over Gloria’s care. “I miss them,” I admit. “They miss you too,” he says. I ask, “Do they wonder why I never visit?” “I go out of town sometimes,” he says. “For work stuff.” “Work stuff?” I ask. He nods but doesn’t clarify. “They think we’re seeing each other then.” I nod. I don’t have anything to say to that. He clears his throat. “My mom said you were taking a pottery class.” “Oh,” I say. “Yeah.” “I pretended I already knew about it,” he says. “Right. That’s good.” “But she mentioned that she thinks you’re getting better. And your newest bowl looked way less like a butt.” The laugh rockets out of me as if shot from a cannon. “That’s funny, because you should have seen the rapturous text she sent me about that butt- bowl. She pretended it was very good.” “Nah.” He grins. “She wasn’t pretending. She told me it was really good. It just also looked like a butt. You know how she is.” “Remember how nice she was | 0 |
35 | The Da Vinci Code.txt | 33 | have you stay onboard with our guest until we return. We can't very well drag him all over London with us." Sophie looked wary. "Leigh, I was serious about the French police finding your plane before we return." Teabing laughed. "Yes, imagine their surprise if they board and find Rmy." Sophie looked surprised by his cavalier attitude. "Leigh, you transported a bound hostage across international borders. This is serious." "So are my lawyers." He scowled toward the monk in the rear of the plane. "That animal broke into my home and almost killed me. That is a fact, and Rmy will corroborate." "But you tied him up and flew him to London!" Langdon said. Teabing held up his right hand and feigned a courtroom oath. "Your honor, forgive an eccentric old knight his foolish prejudice for the British court system. I realize I should have called the French authorities, but I'm a snob and do not trust those laissez-faire French to prosecute properly. This man almost murdered me. Yes, I made a rash decision forcing my manservant to help me bring him to England, but I was under great stress. Mea culpa. Mea culpa." Langdon looked incredulous. "Coming from you, Leigh, that just might fly." "Sir?" the pilot called back. "The tower just radioed. They've got some kind of maintenance problem out near your hangar, and they're asking me to bring the plane directly to the terminal instead." Teabing had been flying to Biggin Hill for over a decade, and this was a first. "Did they mention what the problem is?" 223 "The controller was vague. Something about a gas leak at the pumping station? They asked me to park in front of the terminal and keep everyone onboard until further notice. Safety precaution. We're not supposed to deplane until we get the all clear from airport authorities." Teabing was skeptical. Must be one hell of a gas leak. The pumping station was a good half mile from his hangar. Rmy also looked concerned. "Sir, this sounds highly irregular." Teabing turned to Sophie and Langdon. "My friends, I have an unpleasant suspicion that we are about to be met by a welcoming committee." Langdon gave a bleak sigh. "I guess Fache still thinks I'm his man." "Either that," Sophie said, "or he is too deep into this to admit his error. Teabing was not listening. Regardless of Fache's mind-set, action needed to be taken fast. Don't lose sight of the ultimate goal. The Grail. We're so dose. Below them, the landing gear descended with a clunk. "Leigh," Langdon said, sounding deeply remorseful, "I should turn myself in and sort this out legally. Leave you all out of it." "Oh, heavens, Robert!" Teabing waved it off. "Do you really think they're going to let the rest of us go? I just transported you illegally. Miss Neveu assisted in your escape from the Louvre, and we have a man tied up in the back of the plane. Really now! We're all in this together." "Maybe a different airport?" Sophie said. Teabing shook his head. | 1 |
36 | The House of the Seven Gables.txt | 19 | more, for this incident, how unaccountably silent and impenetrable the house had become. As her next resort, Phoebe made her way into the garden, where on so warm and bright a day as the present, she had little doubt of finding Clifford, and perhaps Hepzibah also, idling away the noontide in the shadow of the arbor. Immediately on her entering the garden gate, the family of hens half ran, half flew to meet her; while a strange grimalkin, which was prowling under the parlor window, took to his heels, clambered hastily over the fence, and vanished. The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and circular bench were still damp, and bestrewn with twigs and the disarray of the past storm. The growth of the garden seemed to have got quite out of bounds; the weeds had taken advantage of Phoebe's absence, and the long-continued rain, to run rampant over the flowers and kitchen-vegetables. Maule's well had overflowed its stone border, and made a pool of formidable breadth in that corner of the garden. The impression of the whole scene was that of a spot where no human foot had left its print for many preceding days,--probably not since Phoebe's departure,--for she saw a side-comb of her own under the table of the arbor, where it must have fallen on the last afternoon when she and Clifford sat there. The girl knew that her two relatives were capable of far greater oddities than that of shutting themselves up in their old house, as they appeared now to have done. Nevertheless, with indistinct misgivings of something amiss, and apprehensions to which she could not give shape, she approached the door that formed the customary communication between the house and garden. It was secured within, like the two which she had already tried. She knocked, however; and immediately, as if the application had been expected, the door was drawn open, by a considerable exertion of some unseen person's strength, not wide, but far enough to afford her a side-long entrance. As Hepzibah, in order not to expose herself to inspection from without, invariably opened a door in this manner, Phoebe necessarily concluded that it was her cousin who now admitted her. Without hesitation, therefore, she stepped across the threshold, and had no sooner entered than the door closed behind her. XX The Flower of Eden PHOEBE, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether bedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of the old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been admitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, not towards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, which had formerly been the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. The sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and | 1 |
39 | The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt | 23 | any on his daughter. CHAPTER II I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. SHAKESPEARE Madame St. Aubert was interred in the neighbouring village church; her husband and daughter attended her to the grave, followed by a long train of the peasantry, who were sincere mourners of this excellent woman. On his return from the funeral, St. Aubert shut himself in his chamber. When he came forth, it was with a serene countenance, though pale in sorrow. He gave orders that his family should attend him. Emily only was absent; who, overcome with the scene she had just witnessed, had retired to her closet to weep alone. St. Aubert followed her thither: he took her hand in silence, while she continued to weep; and it was some moments before he could so far command his voice as to speak. It trembled while he said, 'My Emily, I am going to prayers with my family; you will join us. We must ask support from above. Where else ought we to seek it--where else can we find it?' Emily checked her tears, and followed her father to the parlour, where, the servants being assembled, St. Aubert read, in a low and solemn voice, the evening service, and added a prayer for the soul of the departed. During this, his voice often faltered, his tears fell upon the book, and at length he paused. But the sublime emotions of pure devotion gradually elevated his views above this world, and finally brought comfort to his heart. When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he tenderly kissed Emily, and said, 'I have endeavoured to teach you, from your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed out to you the great importance of it through life, not only as it preserves us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous, yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if indulged at the expence of our duties--by our duties I mean what we owe to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of those various innocent enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be the sun-shine of our lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the precepts I have so often given you, and which your own experience has so often shewn you to be wise. 'Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace remark, but let reason THEREFORE restrain sorrow. I would not annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other hand, is all vice--vice, of which the deformity is not | 1 |
6 | Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt | 57 | to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers’ was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making an oriental bow, and saying—”With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account.” Now my original business—that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts—was considerably increased by receiving the master’s office. There was now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor I threw | 1 |
43 | The Turn of the Screw.txt | 18 | manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not a little else besides! "She asks me every three minutes if I think you're coming in." "I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it out. "Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her familiarity with anything so dreadful--a single other word about Miss Jessel?" "Not one, miss. And of course you know," my friend added, "I took it from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there WAS nobody." "Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still." "I don't contradict her. What else can I do?" "Nothing in the world! You've the cleverest little person to deal with. They've made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverer even than nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has now her grievance, and she'll work it to the end." "Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?" "Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me out to him the lowest creature--!" I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; she looked for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. "And him who thinks so well of you!" "He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it! But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of me." My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much as look at you." "So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speed me on my way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. "I've a better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do. It's YOU who must go. You must take Flora." My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?" "Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. Straight to her uncle." "Only to tell on you--?" "No, not `only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy." She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?" "Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's." She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?" "Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as possible and leave me with him alone." I was amazed, myself, at the spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: "they mustn't, before she goes, see each other for three seconds." Then it came over me that, in spite of Flora's presumable sequestration from the instant of her return from the pool, it might already be too late. "Do you mean," I | 1 |
69 | In the Lives of Puppets.txt | 71 | were other pieces that looked salvageable, but he ignored them for now. If there was some kind of power core still active, they needed it, especially since it seemed to have some juice left. He couldn’t turn away from power. Not when it was so close. It could lead to the creation of another mechanical heart. And when that thought entered his head, it refused to leave, bouncing around his skull. He took a break an hour into it, sitting on the ground, watching as Nurse Ratched held up a discarded arm toward Rambo. “How do you do,” she said in that queer, flat voice of hers. “It’s nice to meet you,” Rambo replied, reaching up with his pincers to grab the hand. Which, of course, Nurse Ratched immediately dropped. “Aaaaaaaahhhh,” she said. “You tore off my arm. You have killed me. Why, Rambo, why.” Rambo screamed in terror. “Oh my god, oh my god. What have I done? What kind of monster am I?” He flung the arm as hard as he could. It flew up … and crashed back down on top of him, setting him off all over again. “Ha, ha,” Nurse Ratched said as her screen filled with a smiley face. “Just kidding. That was not really my arm. I am still alive.” “Don’t do that,” Rambo scolded her. “You scared me. I thought I was a murderer. Vacuums aren’t allowed to be murderers!” “Too bad,” Nurse Ratched said as her screen darkened. “You would make a good murderer. Not as good as me, but good enough.” A halo appeared on her screen, surrounded by golden light. “Not that I would murder. Engaging Empathy Protocol. Murder is bad, and I would feel bad, and I don’t want to feel bad because feelings are detrimental to my existence.” “Keep telling yourself that,” Vic muttered as he picked himself up off the ground. He stretched his arms over his head, back popping. And then he got back to work. It took another hour before Nurse Ratched said, “You are close.” He paused, looking down at the bodies and body parts around him. He was little more than halfway through the heap. His chest felt tight, his breaths short and quick. “Still registering the power source?” “Yes,” she said. “Is it a new friend?” Rambo asked. “Perhaps,” Nurse Ratched said. “Or perhaps it is a terrible machine bent on destroying everything it comes into contact with.” “Oh,” Rambo said as he beeped worriedly. “I hope it’s the first one.” “I would put the odds at being twelve percent in your favor. And eighty percent against.” Rambo clacked his pincers as he counted. “What about the last eight percent?” “There is an eight percent chance that the power source has gone critical and will cause an explosion that will level the surrounding area, killing all of us in the process.” “It’s not going to explode,” Vic told Rambo. “She would never have let us get this far if she thought that was going to happen.” “So I let you think,” Nurse Ratched | 0 |
22 | Lord of the Flies.txt | 63 | forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly: "You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home--" Ralph pushed Piggy to one side. "I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts--then you go off hunting and let out the fire--" He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling. "There was a ship--" One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig. "The job was too much. We needed everyone." Ralph turned. "You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt--" "We needed meat." Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair. Piggy began again. "You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the smoke going--" This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters, drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation. "You would, would you? Fatty!" Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror: "My specs!" He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings. "One side's broken." Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently at Jack. "I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus' you wait--" Jack made a move toward Piggy who scrambled away till a great rock lay between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his one flashing glass. "Now I only got one eye. Just you wait--" Jack mimicked the whine and scramble. "Jus' you wait--yah!" Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to laugh. Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with himself for giving way. He muttered. "That was a dirty trick." Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words came in a shout. "All right, all right!" He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph. "I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I--" He drew himself up. "--I | 1 |
53 | After Death.txt | 40 | snapshot, Michael might have only a day or two before the ISA is able to share his image with thousands of agents by the old-fashioned expedient of wanted sheets and posters printed with obsolete technology and then distributed by hand. A realization pivots him from the window. Now that they have so unexpectedly, fortuitously connected him to Carter Woodbine, they must know that he fled Beverly Hills in the attorney’s Bentley. They are able to monitor its unique GPS signal and swiftly track it to its current location, the garage on the top floor of this residence. In fact, they should already be blocking off the street, surrounding the house. Having died once, Michael has no doubt that he can die again. Although he was reanimated, the next death will be final because it will be so violent that it will put him beyond all possibility of resurrection. His enemies will see to that. He is the Singularity, but the merging of man and machine does not provide immortality; a machine reduced to radioactive melt and scattered scraps of metal cannot be repaired. From his previous invasion of ISA’s computer system, Michael has imprinted in memory everything in Durand Calaphas’s agency file, including his iPhone number. As he leaves the library, navigates the living room, and takes the stairs to the top floor, he also goes online, into a bottomless sea of microwaves carrying data. Because he already knows the number and GPS signal of Calaphas’s phone, he instantly finds the agent in a Beverly Hills restaurant. He quickly enters that phone, speeds through the list of contacts, and locates the number for Grantworth. By the time he reaches the foyer, he is in the deputy director’s phone, where he accesses CONTACTS and grabs the number for the ISA director, Katherine Ormond-Wattley. Crossing the foyer into the hall that leads to the garage, he mentally enters Ormond-Wattley’s phone as she’s in the middle of an encrypted discussion with the president’s national security adviser, Pierce Leyton. Michael hears what Katherine Ormond-Wattley says and also hears what she hears after Leyton’s encrypted transmissions are translated into normal English, or into English that’s as normal as Leyton is able to speak it. They’re talking about a cable-network prime-time host whom they would like to destroy professionally if they could do so without seeming to be behind whatever lie about him they might concoct and document with manufactured evidence. As Michael enters the garage and turns on the lights, he drops through the contacts on Director Kathy’s phone and finds Carter Woodbine’s number. He slides into the agency’s audio archives and listens to the attorney’s initial conversation with the director. He had taken the half million from Woodbine shortly after three o’clock in the morning, but the attorney hadn’t placed his call to Ormond-Wattley until 1:35 in the afternoon, approximately ten hours later. Strange. On the phone call, Woodbine seeks the assistance of the ISA, not only to recover the money but also to find Michael and determine how the five-story fortress that houses the law | 0 |
4 | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt | 66 | said the Caterpillar. `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar. Alice folded her hands, and began:-- `You are old, Father William,' the young man said, `And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?' `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, `I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.' `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door-- Pray, what is the reason of that?' `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, `I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box-- Allow me to sell you a couple?' `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak-- Pray how did you manage to do it?' `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life.' `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-- What made you so awfully clever?' `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,' Said his father; `don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!' `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar. `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the words have got altered.' `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes. The Caterpillar was the first to speak. `What size do you want to be?' it asked. `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied; `only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.' `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar. `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind,' said Alice: `three inches is such a wretched height to be.' `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended!' `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and | 1 |
10 | Dune.txt | 19 | their past. There were men to fear and distrust in the smuggler crew. Paul pulled at his lip to indicate he understood, looked up at the men standing guard above them on the rocks. He saw Stilgar there. Memory of the unsolved problem with Stilgar cooled some of Paul's elation. "Stilgar," he said, "this is Gurney Halleck of whom you've heard me speak. My father's master-of-arms, one of the swordmasters who instructed me, an old friend. He can be trusted in any venture." "I hear," Stilgar said. "You are his Duke." Paul stared at the dark visage above him, wondering at the reasons which had impelled Stilgar to say just that. His Duke. There had been a strange subtle intonation in Stilgar's voice, as though he would rather have said something else. And that wasn't like Stilgar, who was a leader of Fremen, a man who spoke his mind. My Duke! Gurney thought. He looked anew at Paul. Yes, with Leto dead, the title fell on Paul's shoulders. The pattern of the Fremen war on Arrakis began to take on new shape in Gurney's mind. My Duke! A place that had been dead within him began coming alive. Only part of his awareness focused on Paul's ordering the smuggler crew disarmed until they could be questioned. Gurney's mind returned to the command when he heard some of his men protesting. He shook his head, whirled. "Are you men deaf?" he barked. "This is the rightful Duke of Arrakis. Do as he commands." Grumbling, the smugglers submitted. Paul moved up beside Gurney, spoke in a low voice. "I'd not have expected you to walk into this trap, Gurney." "I'm properly chastened," Gurney said. "I'll wager yon patch of spice is little more than a sand grain's thickness, a bait to lure us." "That's a wager you'd win," Paul said. He looked down at the men being disarmed. "Are there any more of my father's men among your crew?" "None. We're spread thin. There're a few among the free traders. Most have spent their profits to leave this place." "But you stayed." "I stayed." "Because Rabban is here," Paul said. "I thought I had nothing left but revenge," Gurney said. An oddly chopped cry sounded from the ridgetop. Gurney looked up to see a Fremen waving his kerchief. "A maker comes," Paul said. He moved out to a point of rock with Gurney following, looked off to the southwest. The burrow mound of a worm could be seen in the middle distance, a dust-crowned track that cut directly through the dunes on a course toward the ridge. "He's big enough," Paul said. A clattering sound lifted from the factory crawler below them. It turned on its treads like a giant insect, lumbered toward the rocks. "Too bad we couldn't have saved the carryall," Paul said. Gurney glanced at him, looked back to the patches of smoke and debris out on the desert where carryall and ornithopters had been brought down by Fremen rockets. He felt a sudden pang for the men lost there -- | 1 |
16 | Great Expectations.txt | 28 | eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive. The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of the river. "All right," said the sergeant. "March." We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are expected on board," said the sergeant to my convict; "they know you are coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up here." The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried, dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt while they rested. After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much interested in us, but | 1 |
95 | USS-Lincoln.txt | 39 | systems.” Derrota nodded. “I’m not typically the go-to explosives guy.” Ignoring him, Resnick continued, “You three will be working in an oxygen-free environment,” he said to Pristy. “There are combat suits in the lockers next to the control room. Get suited and ready to go in fifteen minutes. I will wait here.” Captain Pristy frowned at Resnick and didn’t move. The others all looked at her, sensing something was wrong. Resnick’s head tilted. “Problem?” “Yes, sir,” Pristy said. “Why us?” “You’re here,” Resnick said. Pristy shook her head. “That’s not a good reason, General. None of us are properly trained. If this is as important as you say, why don’t you have your best agents on it?” “They’re not available.” “Then why don’t you go?” “You always question your superiors?” Resnick asked. “Only when the orders make no sense, sir.” “No wonder you were posted out in the middle of nowhere.” Pristy’s face heated up with rising anger. “Look, General—” “I stay behind in case you screw up and die,” Resnick said. “Which happens, especially to petty officers who haven’t properly set their ChronoLinks.” “What?” Aubrey looked at her wrist, swore, and started fiddling. After a few clicks, she said, “Got it.” “And as for the rest of the agents, Captain,” Resnick said. “When USS Adams got captured, its databases raided and its crew tortured and then eaten, what do you think the Liquilids found?” “Earth’s territories and our allies,” Pristy snapped back. “You told me.” “I didn’t tell you enough, or you would have figured out the important bit.” Resnick walked past her to the ringularity. He spun on his heel and crossed his arms. “Go ahead. See if you can figure it out. I’ll wait.” “Shit,” Derrota said. “Time travel.” “Two points to the scientist,” sarcasm laced Resnick’s voice. “Now, there are no records on Adams of time travel, but there are records of this place, and guess where they came first? Better yet, tell me what a species … one that craves total domination and has more power than any other we’ve seen … would do once it acquired time travel.” Pristy sighed. “Take over everything.” “From the beginning of time.” “How long before they come here?” Derrota asked. “Oh, they are here,” Resnick said. “They’re just not now. We’ve lost five hundred people securing this base. And the rest of the real time agents, along with the Grand Consortium’s four other timeships, are fighting the Liquilids throughout time and space. So, all I have to work with are you three.” He let the words sink in, then asked Aubrey, “What are the four tenets of time travel?” She looked startled to be addressed but reeled them off like a medical resident identifying patient symptoms. “Tenet one: Top Secret. All time-travel capabilities must remain classified. Two: Uncontaminated. Leave nothing behind, especially when traveling to the past. Three: Historical Purity. Never rewrite history. Your historical timeline stability score, as measured by your ChronoLink, must be above 98.5 before the mission can be considered a success. Four: No Causal Loops. If | 0 |
28 | THE SCARLET LETTER.txt | 27 | with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.% When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and Thesaurus abashed: (adj, v) discomfited; (adj) dungeon: (n, v) keep; (n) prison, cell, copiousness, abundance, lushness, mortified, sheepish, embarrassed, jail, penitentiary, fastness, oubliette, affluence, wealth, luxury, excess, ashamed, confused, humiliated, Bastille, bridewell, detention, house luxuriancy, rampancy; (adj) afraid, shamefaced, confounded; (v) of correction. fecundity. dashed. ANTONYMS: (adj) proud, flourishes: (n) added extras, motherly: (adj) tender, fatherly, warm, undaunted, reassured, pleased, trappings, superfluities, trimmings, sisterly, loving, affectionate; (adv) heartened, emboldened, cool, accompaniments, additions, maternally; (v) ardent, fond, devoted, confident, composed, relaxed, embellishments. erotic. ANTONYM: (adj) paternal. unabashed. gristly: (adj) stringy, rubbery, tough, stepped: (v) advanced, gone, stopen. darksome: (adj) obscure, darkling, chewy, fibrous, hard, stiff, leathery, sumptuary: (adj) monetary, crumenal, darkish, abstruse, dusky, sombre, sinewy. fiscal, financial, restrictive, gloomy, dim, | 1 |
3 | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt | 18 | it was all my fault, not if I could help it. Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky. Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake- skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread him- self out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market- house there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white | 1 |
50 | A Day of Fallen Night.txt | 35 | had reeked like a corpse. Now it was clear and frozen stiff. In five centuries, there had been no wars or sieges here. Ascalun was unconquered. Her mother had grown up in the castle. Glorian had been born there, like most Berethnet women. The bells had rung for days, and all had called her the Gift of Halgalant, for with her arrival all wounds had been healed. I was meant to bring peace, she thought. Now I stand on the brink of war. Snow was banked on every street, dirty and trampled, torn by footprints. The procession rode through the wards of the capital, where torches lit the pending night. They had arrived at eventide, when most of the city would be at home or in the sanctuaries at prayer. Still, a royal entry required ceremony, even when unexpected. Trumpets called out her approach. Glorian set her gaze on the castle and withdrew into the secret place inside her, where she could not hear or see. The ride passed like a dream. Blazing torches, candles fretting in windows, rain against her face. People shouted out to her, still thinking she was her mother, returned from the North. Only when they were past the castle gates did she breathe painlessly again. ‘Lady Florell, take Her Royal Highness to her old rooms in the Queens’ Tower,’ Lord Robart said. ‘She must be very tired.’ **** The Queens’ Tower – called the King’s Tower for centuries, before the name became absurd – had been made to withstand both attack and invasion. Its sides were round and sanded, impossible to climb, not one foothold between its lower windows. Glorian followed Florell up hundreds of steps. Her bedchamber was just as she remembered it. A fire crackled in the arched hearth, and a supper of game stew and hot wastel had been left on a table. Helisent removed her damp cloak for her. ‘I wish to bathe,’ Glorian said, as if from a distance. ‘I have a chill.’ Florell nodded. ‘Mariken,’ she said to her Mentish servant, ‘have hot baths prepared for everyone, if you would.’ ‘Yes, my lady.’ ‘I’m well, Florell,’ Julain said, her voice quaking a little. ‘I should stay with Glorian.’ ‘Julain.’ Florell took her by the shoulders. ‘You cannot watch over a princess – or a queen – if you don’t have a care for yourself first. All of us are grieving and shaken.’ She took the cloak from Helisent. ‘Go, all of you, and rest this night. Mariken will bring your supper.’ Glorian sank on to the bed and took off her gloves. She was too tired to cry, or to undress, or do anything but stare at the nearest candle. She wondered if her parents had been taken by the fire, or by the sea. ‘Sweeting,’ Florell said, ‘may I speak frankly – as your mother’s friend, and yours?’ ‘I do not expect deference from you of all people, Florell.’ ‘You should expect it from us all. In seven days, you will be Queen of Inys.’ Glorian managed a nod. ‘The | 0 |
8 | David Copperfield.txt | 32 | my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat, - for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. 'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.' 'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?' I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. 'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied - and is, in short, to be let as a - in short,' said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, 'as a bedroom - the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to -' and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar. 'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me. 'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.' 'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger.' 'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence - 'I live there.' I made him a bow. 'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road, - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself - I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.' I thanked him with | 1 |
60 | Divine Rivals.txt | 45 | … the words vanished within her. She held up her handful of letters. And she said, “You.” Roman was silent for a beat. He drew a deep breath and whispered, “Me.” Iris smiled, a shield for how mortified she was. She felt like laughing and crying, but she forced them both down. Her head began to ache. “All this time, you were receiving my letters?” “Yes,” Roman replied. “I just … I can’t believe this, Kitt!” “Why? What’s so hard to believe, Iris?” “All this time it was you.” She blinked away her tears and tossed one of the letters onto Roman’s bed. It was satisfying, to hear the paper crinkle, a distraction from her embarrassment. She dropped another page, and then another. The letters fell onto his lap. “Stop it, Iris,” Roman said, gathering them up as they drifted. As she carelessly crinkled them. “I understand why you’re angry at me, but let me expl—” “How long have you known?” she asked tersely. “When did you know it was me?” Roman paused, his jaw clenched. He continued to gently gather her letters. “I knew from the beginning.” “The beginning?” “From the first letter you sent,” he amended. “You didn’t mention your name, but you talked about your job at the Gazette, the columnist position.” Iris froze in horror, listening to him. He had known all this time? He had known all this time! “I honestly thought it was a prank at first,” he rambled on. “That you were doing it to get in my head. Until I read the other letters—” “Why didn’t you say something to me, Kitt?” “I wanted to. But I was worried you would stop writing.” “So you thought it best to play me for a fool?” His eyes smoldered with offense. “I never once played you for a fool, Iris. Nor did I ever think that of you.” “Were you humoring me, then?” she asked. She hated how her voice trembled. “Was this all some joke to play on the poor low-class girl at work?” She hit a nerve. Roman’s face crumpled, as if she had just struck him. “No. I would never do any of those things to you, and if you think that I would, then you don’t—” “You lied to me, Kitt!” she cried. “I didn’t lie to you. All the things I told you … none of them were lies. None of them, do you hear me?” Iris stared at Roman. He was red-faced and holding her letters to his chest, and she suddenly had to add new layers to him. All the Carver details. She thought of Del, realizing that Roman had been an older brother; he had lost his sister. He had pulled her from the waters after she had drowned on her seventh birthday. He had carried her body home to his parents. A lump rose in her throat. Iris closed her eyes. Roman sighed. “Iris? Will you come here? Sit beside me for a while, and we can talk more.” She needed a moment to herself. To process | 0 |
20 | Jane Eyre.txt | 54 | o f a b l a z i n g f i r e w h e n w e g o t b a c k ! B u t , t o t h e l i t t l e o n e s a t l e a s t , t h i s w a s d e n i e d ; e a c h h e a r t h i n t h e s c h o o l - r o o m w a s i m m e d i a t e l y s u r r o u n d e d b y a d o u b l e r o w o f g r e a t g i r l s , a n d b e h i n d t h e m t h e y o u n g e r c h i l d r e n c r o u c h e d i n g r o u p s , w r a p p i n g t h e i r s t a r v e d a r m s i n t h e i r p i n a f o r e s . A l i t t l e s o l a c e c a m e a t t e a - t i m e , i n t h e s h a p e o f a d o u b l e r a t i o n o f b r e a d a w h o l e , i n s t e a d o f a h a l f , s l i c e w i t h t h e d e l i c a t e a d d i t i o n o f a t h i n s c r a p o f b u t t e r : i t w a s t h e h e b d o m a d a l t r e a t t o w h i c h w e a l l l o o k e d f o r w a r d f r o m S a b b a t h t o S a b b a t h . I g e n e r a l l y c o n t r i v e d t o r e s e r v e a m o i e t y o f t h i s b o u n t e o u s r e p a s t f o r m y s e l f ; b u t t h e r e m a i n d e r I w a s i n v a r i a b l y o b l i g e d t o p a r t w i t h . T h e S u n d a y e v e n i n g w a s s p e n t i n r e p e a t i n g , b y h e a r t , t h e C h u r c h C a t e c h i s m , a n d t h e f i f t h , s i x t h a n d s e v e n t h c h a p t e r s o f S t . M a t t h e w ; a n d i n l i s t e n i n g t o a l o n g s e r m o n , r e a d b y M i s s M i l l e r , w h o s e i r r e p r e s s i b l e y a w n s a t t e s t e d h e r w e a r i n e s s . A f r e q u e n t i n t e r l u d e o f t h e s e p e r f o r m a n c e s w a s t h e e n a c t m e n t o f t h e p a r t o f E u t y c h u s b y s o m e h a l f - d o z e n o f l i t t l e g i r l s , w h o , o v e r p o w e r e d w i t h s l e e p , w o u l d f a l l d o w n , i f n o t o u t o f t h e t h i r d l o f t , y e t o f f t h e f o u r t h f o r m , a n d b e t a k e n u p h a l f d e a d . T h e r e m e d y w a s t o t h r u s t t h e m f o r w a r d i n t o t h e c e n t e r o f t h e s c h o o l - r o o m , a n d o b l i g e t h e m t o s t a n d t h e r e t i l l t h e s e r m o n w a s f i n i s h e d . S o m e t i m e s t h e i r f e e t f a i l e d t h e m , a n d t h e y s a n k t o g e t h e r i n a h e a p ; t h e y w e r e t h e n p r o p p e d u p w i t h t h e m o n i t o r ' s h i g h s t o o l s . I h a v e n o t y e t a l l u d e d t o t h e v i s i t s o f M r . B r o c k l e h u r s t ; a n d i n d e e d t h a t g e n t l e m a n w a s f r o m h o m e d u r i n g t h e g r e a t e r p a r t o f t h e f i r s t m o n t h a f t e r m y a r r i v a l ; p e r h a p s p r o l o n g i n g h i s s t a y w i t h h i s f r i e n d t h e a r c h d e a c o n ; h i s a b s e n c e w a s a r e l i e f t o m e . I n e e d n o t s a y t h a t I h a d m y o w n r e a s o n s f o r d r e a d i n g h i s c o m i n g ; b u t c o m e h e d i d a t l a s t . O n e a f t e r n o o n ( I h a d t h e n b e e n t h r e e w e e k s a t L o w o o d ) , a s I w a s s i t t i n g w i t h a s l a t e i n m y h a n d , p u z z l i n g o v e r a s u m i n l o n g d i v i s i o n , m y e y e s , r a i s e d i n a b s t r a c t i o n t o t h e w i n d o w , c a u g h t s i g h t o f a f i g u r e j u s t p a s s i n g ; I r e c o g n i z e d a l m o s t i n s t i n c t i v e l y t h a t g a u n t o u t l i n e ; a n d w h e n , t w o m i n u t e s a f t e r , a l l t h e s c h o o l , t e a c h e r s i n c l u d e d , r o s e e n m a s s e , i t w a s n o t n e c e s s a r y f o r m e t o l o o k u p i n o r d e r t o a s c e r t a i n w h o s e e n t r a n c e t h e y t h u s g r e e t e d . A l o n g s t r i d e m e a s u r e d t h e s c h o o l - r o o m , a n d p r e s e n t l y b e s i d e M i s s T e m p l e , w h o h e r s e l f h a d r i s e n , s t o o d t h e s a m e b l a c k c o l u m n w h i c h h a d f r o w n e d o n m e s o o m i n o u s l y f r o m t h e h e a r t h - r u g o f G a t e s h e a d . I n o w g l a n c e d s i d e w a y s a t t h i s p i e c e o f a r c h i t e c t u r e . Y e s , I w a s r i g h t ; i t w a s M r . B r o c k l e h u r s t , b u t t o n e d u p i n a s u r t o u t , a n d l o o k i n g l o n g e r , n a r r o w e r , a n d m o r e r i g i d t h a n e v e r . I h a d m y o w n r e a s o n s f o r b e i n g d i s m a y e d a t t h i s a p p a r i t i o n : t o o w e l l I r e m e m b e r e d t h e p e r f i d i o u s h i n t s g i v e n b y M r s . R e e d a b o u t m y d i s p o s i t i o n , e t c . ; t h e p r o m i s e p l e d g e d b y M r . B r o c k l e h u r s t t o a p p r i s e M i s s T e m p l e | 1 |
60 | Divine Rivals.txt | 71 | I’ll kill you myself, do you hear me?” “Attie,” Iris said calmly, stepping over the threshold. “I need to introduce you to someone.” She moved aside so Attie could get a clear view of Roman, entering the B and B for the first time. Attie’s jaw dropped. But she quickly recovered from her surprise, her eyes narrowing with slight suspicion. “Did the eithrals drop a boy from the sky, then?” “Another correspondent,” Iris said, at which Roman glanced at her. “This is Roman Kitt. Kitt, this is my friend and fellow writer, Att—” “Thea Attwood,” he finished, and he set down his typewriter case to extend his hand to Attie, reveling in her renewed shock. “It’s an honor to finally meet you.” Iris was confused, glancing between the two of them. But Attie’s own surprise melted and suddenly she was grinning. She shook Roman’s hand and asked, “Do you have a copy with you?” Roman slid the leather bag from his shoulder. He untethered it and procured a newspaper, wound tight to ward off wrinkles. He gave it to Attie, and she viciously unfurled it, her eyes racing across the headlines. “Gods below,” she murmured, breathless. “Look at this, Iris!” Iris moved to stand at Attie’s side, only to stifle her own gasp. Attie’s war article was on the front page of the Inkridden Tribune. A major headline. THE PATH OF DACRE’S DESTRUCTION by THEA ATTWOOD Iris read the first few lines over Attie’s shoulder, awe and excitement coursing through her. “If you’ll both excuse me, there’s a letter I need to write,” Attie said abruptly. Iris watched her bolt down the hallway, knowing she was probably going to wax vengefully poetic to the professor who had once dismissed her writing. Iris’s smile lingered, thinking about Attie’s words on the front page and how many people in Oath had most likely read them. From the corner of her eye, she saw Roman reaching into his bag again. There was another crinkle of paper, and she resisted looking at him until he spoke. “Did you think I wouldn’t bring one for you, Winnow?” “What do you mean?” she asked, a touch defensively. She finally glanced at him to see he was extending another rolled newspaper to her. “Read it for yourself,” he said. She accepted the paper, slowly unrolling it. Another edition of the Inkridden Tribune, from a different day. But this time, it was Iris’s article on the front page. THE UNEXPECTED FACE OF WAR by INKRIDDEN IRIS Her eyes passed over the familiar words—A war with the gods is not what you expect it to be—and her vision blurred for a moment as she gathered her composure. She swallowed and rolled the paper back up, extending it to Roman, who was watching her with an arched brow. “Inkridden Iris,” he said, his rich drawl making her sound like a legend. “Oh, Autry fumed for days when he saw it, and Prindle cheered, and suddenly the city of Oath is reading about a not-so-distant war and realizing it is only a matter | 0 |
79 | Quietly-Hostile.txt | 98 | I wonder when it’s gonna happen and what embarrassing thing I’ll be wearing when it does, and if anyone is gonna see me dying and think I look stupid. I started thinking about death so much that when the pandemic hit and every news report was like, “Bye, fat people!” I added Kirsten to my bank account, which is a thing I never thought I’d do because what if she decides to get cute? I don’t even like sharing popcorn with her at the movies, but if someone coughed into my mouth and I died from it, I didn’t want her to be tasked with that olden-times gay shit where she has to go through a bunch of headachy paperwork just to withdraw whatever money I have to cremate me before she moves on to her new nonfat wife who loves nonfat lattes and also being alive. Sob. But never in all my fatalistic daydreaming did it ever occur to me that I would go down to hell doing a dumb-ass bit. I am very good in an emergency. One of the things that made me so good at my animal hospital job is that I am unflappable in a crisis, which is a quality I didn’t even know I possessed until the first time someone ran in screaming with an injured, bloody pet, and instead of crawling under the desk to tremble and cry, I took the shrieking dog from its owner and ran it back for a doctor to start working on it. I sat at the front desk, literally the first semi-friendly face people would see (you gotta withhold the exuberant friendliness until you gauge whether the client approaching the desk is cool or an asshole), and I can’t count how many times over fourteen years someone was shoving a wounded half-dead (or sometimes fully dead) animal at my face while screaming “HELP ME” in all caps. I never freaked out or got scared. I just assessed what was going on as quickly as I could (hit by car, attacked at the dog park, consumed a pan of weed brownies) and did whatever was supposed to happen next without falling apart. I mean, who does that help? Maybe that’s why I was so cool and relaxed in the face of my own demise? Either the doctors were gonna fix me or not, no use panicking and wailing about it, may as well try to have a good time while gasping out these final jokes. If only I could apply that to my living life. My airway was clear enough not to need intubation, so I laid there with my eyes shut and tried not to say anything as the doctors and nurses went about their business of injecting me with antihistamines and Pepcid and enough prednisone to knock down a horse. I opened my eyes a crack to watch the doctor make marks on my hands to track the swelling, and even though it would’ve been the perfect time to make that Ball Park hot dog joke, I didn’t. | 0 |
3 | Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt | 10 | a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying some- thing to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five- center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill- top we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says: "Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood." Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And | 1 |
99 | spare.txt | 59 | class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">was guilty of an even more egregious vehicular crime than her husband.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Every day Mrs. R parked her car in Mummy’s old spot.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">244<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.me/Afghansalarlibrary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I can still see her gliding into that space, right where my mother’s green<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">BMW used to be. It was wrong of me, and I knew it was wrong, but on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">some level I condemned Mrs. R for it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">64.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I WAS AN UNCLE. Willy and Kate had welcomed their first child, George, and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">he was beautiful. I couldn’t wait to teach him about rugby and Rorke’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Drift, flying and corridor cricket—and maybe give him a few pointers about<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">how to survive life in the fishbowl.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Reporters, however, used this joyous occasion as an opportunity to ask<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">me...if I was miserable.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">What?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">The baby had moved me one link down the chain of succession, making<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">me fourth from the throne instead of third. So reporters said, Bad luck, eh?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">You must be joking.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">There must be some misgivings.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Couldn t be happier.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">A half-truth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I was delighted for Willy and Kate, and I was indifferent to my place in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">the order of succession.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">But nothing to do with either thing, I wasn’t anywhere close to happy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">65.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">A I traveled to that war-torn country, an official visit, and went<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">specifically to several places where daily life had been poisoned by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">land mines, including one town believed to be the most heavily mined place<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">in all of Africa.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">August 2013.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I wore the same protective gear my mother had worn when she visited<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Angola on her historic trip. | even worked with the same charity that had<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">invited her: Halo Trust. I was deeply frustrated to learn from the charity’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">245<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> | 0 |
18 | Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt | 94 | He tapped irritably at a control panel. Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important. Whatever Zaphod's qualities of mind might include - dash, bravado, conceit - he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. "Zaphod," she said patiently, "they were floating unprotected in open space ... you wouldn't want them to have died would you?" "Well, you know ... no. Not as such, but ..." "Not as such? Not die as such? But?" Trillian cocked her head on one side. "Well, maybe someone else might have picked them up later." "A second later and they would have been dead." "Yeah, so if you'd taken the trouble to think about the problem a bit longer it would have gone away." "You'd been happy to let them die?" "Well, you know, not happy as such, but ..." "Anyway," said Trillian, turning back to the controls, "I didn't pick them up." "What do you mean? Who picked them up then?" "The ship did." "Huh?" "The ship did. All by itself." "Huh?" "Whilst we were in Improbability Drive." "But that's incredible." "No Zaphod. Just very very improbable." "Er, yeah." "Look Zaphod," she said, patting his arm, "don't worry about the aliens. They're just a couple of guys I expect. I'll send the robot down to get them and bring them up here. Hey Marvin!" In the corner, the robot's head swung up sharply, but then wobbled about imperceptibly. It pulled itself up to its feet as if it was about five pounds heavier that it actually was, and made what an outside observer would have thought was a heroic effort to cross the room. It stopped in front of Trillian and seemed to stare through her left shoulder. "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said. Its voice was low and hopeless. "Oh God," muttered Zaphod and slumped into a seat. "Well," said Trillian in a bright compassionate tone, "here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things." "It won't work," droned Marvin, "I have an exceptionally large mind." "Marvin!" warned Trillian. "Alright," said Marvin, "what do you want me to do?" "Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance." With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micromodulation of pitch and timbre - nothing you could actually take offence at - Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human. "Just that?" he said. "Yes," said Trillian firmly. "I won't enjoy it," said Marvin. Zaphod leaped out of his seat. "She's not asking you to enjoy it," he shouted, "just do it will you?" "Alright," said Marvin like the tolling of a great cracked bell, "I'll do it." "Good ..." snapped Zaphod, "great ... thank you ..." Marvin turned and lifted his flat-topped triangular red eyes up | 1 |
26 | Pride And Prejudice.txt | 0 | had given him the earliest information of it. ``I must ask whether you were surprised?'' said Elizabeth. ``Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.'' ``That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.'' And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. ``On the evening before my going to London,'' said he, ``I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.'' Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. ``Did you speak from your own observation,'' said she, ``when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?'' ``From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.'' ``And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.'' ``It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.'' Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted. __ CHAPTER XVII (59) ``MY dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?'' was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor any thing else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by any thing extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy | 1 |
15 | Frankenstein.txt | 15 | explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe. Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, "My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again." "I am not mad," I cried energetically; "the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race." The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes. As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost self-violence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice. A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the following letter from Elizabeth: My dear Friend, It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at Paris; you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in less than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I expect to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This winter has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious suspense; yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity. Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period, when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we meet. Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied. But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be pleased with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I have often wished to express to you but have never | 1 |
95 | USS-Lincoln.txt | 6 | her emotions. She swallowed and blinked away the welling of tears. Will I ever have a real home? Chapter 55 Liquilid Empire Star System Asteroid Command Center Captain Gail Pristy No sooner had the six of them arrived than Resnick was busy checking his ChronoLink. For the umpteenth time, Pristy wondered what the hell that was all about. If destiny was so set in stone, chiseled into the annals of space-time, then what the hell was he looking for? The four others, Derrota, Dr. Kline, LaSalle, and Petty Officer Aubrey Laramie, were far less concerned by Resnick’s actions than they were by their surroundings. It was a subterranean space that dwarfed the one below Lost Tombstone by a factor of a hundred. Everyone squinted against the flashing, strobing lights, complementary colors seeming to be changing value, red to green, yellow to purple, and so on. Prior to stepping into the subterranean ringularity, Resnick had relayed what their final mission would entail. And that after this, the services of the five of them would no longer be required. Whatever that meant … Derrota looked about the vast space with an expression of “ahh.” Pristy joined him. “What are we looking at here, Stephan?” “Simply put, this is the basis, the root cause, of so much suffering, so many deaths.” The others gathered around them, including Resnick. The flux generator loomed above, a breathtaking sight. Derrota continued, “My assumption is the core there … those glowing concentric rings, they’re designed to both harness and manipulate energy. Flux, the key principle at work here, allows the alteration of space-time curvature.” He looked to Resnick for affirmation. “Close enough, Mr. Derrota … The resulting gravity and electromagnetism differentials are key aspects of the generator. That is what keeps unsuspecting starships from jumping away or utilizing wormhole manufacturing technology.” Aubrey said, “It is here that the spider spins her web, waits for her naïve prey to wander into her intricate trap, ignorant of the impending doom that lurks in the shadows.” All eyes went to the petty officer second-class. She looked back at them. “What?” Dr. Kline said, “Well put, Aubrey. Almost poetic.” Superintendent LaSalle added, “… and creepy as hell.” Electromagnetic fields suddenly crackled above them with a flurry of small lightning bolts, as if to punctuate LaSalle’s comment. Resnick straightened, catching sight of something or someone off in the distance. He put a finger to his lips before gesturing the group to take several steps back and move behind one of the large support pillars that were prevalent throughout the cavern. In a hushed voice, he said, “They’re just now coming back on duty.” Pristy said, “Who’s—” Irritated, Resnick shushed her. “Liquilids, who else?” She hated being shushed. I’m not a child, you pompous jerk. “We’re running late. We need to do what we came here to do and get out.” Dr. Kline, looking exasperated, said, “That thing, this flux generator, is huge. There’s no way we can destroy it. We’d need a bomb or something.” Resnick made a face. “Did you not listen to | 0 |
58 | Confidence_-a-Novel.txt | 77 | detail or build on his punchline or chop the head off a chicken. He put his hands on his hips and stood in front of me and I wanted to kiss him, or at the very least hold him, but the unspoken distance between us remained. The old days were the old days and this was now. “I’m glad you liked it,” I said. “It was really inspiring,” Emily said. “It really was.” Orson got close enough to me to muss my hair: his touch was warm. “Do you want to stay for the day and help out? Take a break from New York?” “That would be nice.” We were met with applause at the stairhead. There were camera flashes, repeated requests to be told what to do. Orson shouted above the adoration: “Live each day as if it were the next one!” The words were repeated back loudly, and as we descended the steps and walked through the living room the NuLifers stood aside to let us pass, silt permitting the progression of a stream. Some even reached out to touch Orson, which didn’t seem to bother him. The reception outside was even louder than it had been inside. The lawn bordering the house had been trod into a thick mud, and we waded through it to get to the front of the crowd. I didn’t even care that I was destroying a pair of loafers: I just wanted to follow Orson, to be as close to him as possible. Orson picked up a bullhorn sitting on the patio’s edge and spoke into it. “Friends! Can you listen to me for a moment?” The din settled like dust. Orson gestured to me. I smiled timidly. “This is Ezra Green. Do you all recognize him?” Some scattered cheers, mostly restless confusion. “He’s the CFO of NuLife. He’s a very, very wise person. He happened to give a speech the other day about the very things we’re talking about here at Wholeness.” He turned to me. “Ezra, would you be willing to reprise your performance?” I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves and Orson handed me the bullhorn. Then I repeated what I could remember of my speech. I even took off my shoe again. When I finished, the applause was head splitting. “Ezra Green!” Orson shouted as loudly as he could over the noise. Emily stood between us, applauding eagerly for me. I’d outdone her. I’d commanded his audience. “Okay, friends,” he said. “You’ve heard some words of wisdom. Now spend some time meditating on them. We have plenty of work to do.” A final and energetic round of applause. Orson grabbed Emily’s hand and led us to the side of the farmhouse, which was still slippery and wet with mud but offered us some degree of privacy. “That was genius, Ez,” he said. “Thank you.” “True bliss looks like magic from a distance,” he intoned, and I winced at the fact that he was repeating one of our corporate slogans. But at least he was repeating it to | 0 |
48 | Wuthering Heights.txt | 75 | an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him, asserting that she could not help it then, and, being done, she had now no power to repeal it. Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and in a fort- night more I got a long letter which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honey- moon. I'll read it, for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious if they were valued living. DEAR ELLEN, it begins, I came last night to Wuther- ing Heights, and heard for the first time that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too dis- tressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you. Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again---that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him and Catherine. I can't follow it, though (those words are underlined); they need not expect me; and they may draw what con- clusions they please, taking care, however, to lay noth- ing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection. The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions; the first is---How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recog- nize any sentiment which those around share with me. The second question I have great interest in; it is this----Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I shan't tell my reasons for making this inquiry, but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married---that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar. Now you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts; they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an un- natural dream. The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors: by that I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour to inspect the park and the gardens, and probably the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farmhouse, and your old fellow-serv- ant Joseph issued out to receive us by the light of a dip | 1 |
69 | In the Lives of Puppets.txt | 47 | his tools and carried them toward the work bench. Hap sat ramrod straight in his chair. His head was tilted as if he were listening. He had a strange expression on his face, faraway and lost. “What is it?” Vic asked. “What’s wrong?” “S-sound. What is that s-sound?” Vic listened. He didn’t hear anything. Nurse Ratched did. “It is music. Gio is playing a record in the ground house.” Hap stood abruptly, the chair banging against the wall. He moved toward the door without speaking. Before Vic could call to him, he vaulted over the edge of the railing. “I wish I could do that,” Rambo said. “It looks so cool. I’m gonna do it. No one try and stop me this time.” Vic managed to grab Rambo before he could roll toward the railing. “No.” Rambo beeped rudely. “Hey! I said not to stop me.” “You take the elevator,” Vic told him. “Just because someone else does something doesn’t mean you have to.” “How profound,” Nurse Ratched said. “I am impressed, Victor.” Later, as Vic closed down the lab for the night, he got lost in his own head. Once, when he was ten, he had suddenly become fixated on the fact that he was not an android like his father. It upset him greatly and sent him spiraling for two days. He was inconsolable. They were different, he tried to explain to Dad, even as his father said their differences did not matter. But to Victor, they did matter. He wanted his blood drained, his bones and tendons replaced with metal and wiring. He couldn’t articulate the why of it, not enough to satisfy either of them. Dad had tried to calm him down, tried to explain that he was perfect just the way he was, but Vic wouldn’t hear of it. At the end of the second day he was exhausted, his eyes feeling like they were filled with sand, his head pounding, his thoughts jumbled. Dad had sat a few feet away from him to give him space, legs folded, hands on his knees, and said, “Victor, listen to me.” He didn’t look at his father, but he heard him. He grunted quietly in response. “We’re not the same,” Dad had said, voice gentle and soft. “But know that I was alone and sad before you came into my world. You gave me hope, Victor. It started in the tips of my toes before it rose through the rest of my body and latched firmly in my chest. It has never left. It evolved into something so much greater. And it’s because of this feeling that I can say I don’t need you to be like me. I need you to be you.” Vic hadn’t spoken. Not then. But he listened, and he never forgot. He was quiet as the elevator lowered toward the ground. He followed his friends toward the ground house, pausing in the doorway. Dad sat in his chair, a curious expression on his face. He didn’t turn to look at Vic. He was focused | 0 |
74 | Kristy-Woodson-Harvey-The-Summer-of-Songbirds.txt | 24 | how could I have been so stupid? Or, more to the point: Why had I repeatedly ignored the gut feeling that told me something was wrong? “That’s why he went to work for his mom,” I said, everything suddenly clicking into place. “It’s the only way she would clean up his mess,” Daphne chimed in. “And make sure everyone got paid. On her terms.” I looked up at her, tears filling my eyes. “And you were going to tell me. You were going to disbar yourself for me even after what a nightmare I’ve been.” She shrugged. Mom walked in. “Honey, why don’t you come home tonight? I feel very unsettled. And, Wendy, I am so sorry that we are even remotely connected with this.” “Oh, old Mrs. Moneybags won’t let him rot in jail. I’ll get my cash. But I feel bad for all those people who may not.” I was reeling. Part of me wanted to get in my pink bathtub in my condo upstairs, but the other part didn’t want to be alone. I still couldn’t believe this was true. I needed to talk to Bryce. I needed to see him. “So,” Daphne said in a low voice to Wendy, “that secret business lunch with Finn was more like a planning session?” “I can’t fathom what you’re insinuating,” Wendy replied with a wink. The look on Daphne’s face told me Wendy was no longer annoying high school Wendy. She was boss-bitch Wendy. “Well, ladies,” Wendy said, “apologies all around, but this is business. And good luck, Lanier. Seems like you’re going to need it.” Okay, so, maybe high school Wendy was still in there somewhere. Daphne got up to leave too. “Daph!” I called after her. She didn’t turn around, and I realized that even though she was going to tell me about Bryce, that didn’t mean she’d forgiven me. I got up and ran out onto the sidewalk. “Daphne!” I called again. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.” She stopped long enough to say, “You’re only sorry when I save you.” Maybe she was right; maybe that was true. But I had saved Daphne too. * * * The beginning of our junior year of high school, Daphne’s dad’s house had officially become our hangout spot. He was, after all, never there, and we could do pretty much anything we wanted. One afternoon after school, while we were watching reruns of Keeping Up with the Kardashians—which Mom wouldn’t let us watch—and downing Cheetos—which Mom wouldn’t let us eat—Ray burst through the back door. He had been gone for like three days, which wasn’t unusual. I could tell by the sideways way he was walking that he was really drunk. His shirttail was hanging out, his eyes bloodshot, his hair messy. And he definitely hadn’t shaved in a while. He startled when he saw the two of us, as if he had forgotten he had a daughter at all. “You!” he said, pointing at Daphne. “This is all your fault. If I didn’t have to see your face, which is | 0 |
86 | Tessa-Bailey-Unfortunately-Yours.txt | 97 | it to her nose to inhale the bouquet. The other judges were already coughing, looking at each other in confusion. Had they accidentally been served vinegar? They spat it out into the provided silver buckets almost in tandem. Natalie, however, seemed determined to hold off as long as possible. Her face turned red, tears forming in her eyes. But to his shock, the swallow went down her throat, followed by a gasp for air. “I’m afraid . . . ” began one of the judges, visibly flustered. The crowd whispered behind August. “I’m afraid something must have gone terribly wrong during your process.” “Yes . . .” The other judge laughed behind his wrist. “Or a step was left out entirely.” The rows of people behind him chuckled, and Natalie’s attention strayed in that direction. She opened her mouth to say something and closed it again. Normally, she wouldn’t hesitate to cut him off at the knees, so what was this? Pity? She’d chosen this moment? This moment, when he needed to walk out of here with some semblance of pride, to go easy on him? Nah. Not having it. He didn’t need this spoiled, trust-fund brat to pull her punches. He’d seen shit during combat that people on this well-manicured lawn couldn’t even fathom in their wildest dreams. He’d jumped out of planes into pitch-black skies. Existed on pure stubbornness for weeks on end in the desert. Suffered losses that still felt as though they’d happened yesterday. And yet you couldn’t even make decent wine. He’d failed Sam. Again. A fact that hurt a damn sight more than this rich girl judging him harshly in front of these people he’d probably never see again after today. In fact, he needed Natalie to just drop the hammer already, so he could show her how little he cared about her opinion. It was his friend’s dream never being realized that should hurt. Not her verdict. August propped his hands on the judging table and leaned forward, seeing nothing but the beautiful, black-haired dream haunter and watching her golden eyes go wide at his audacity. “You’re not waiting for a bribe, are you? Not with a last name like Vos.” He winked at her and leaned down until only Natalie could hear the way he dropped his voice. “Unless you’re hoping for a different kind of bribe, princess, because that can be arranged.” She threw wine in his face. For the second time. Honestly, he couldn’t even blame her. He was lashing out over his failure and Natalie was a convenient target. But he wasn’t going to apologize. What good would it do? She already hated him and he’d just found a way to strengthen that feeling. The best thing he could do to make up for the insult to Natalie was to leave town—and that’s exactly what he planned to do. He’d been given no choice. With wine dripping from his five-o’clock shadow, August pushed off the table, swiped a sleeve over his damp face, and stormed across the lawn to the parking | 0 |
53 | After Death.txt | 43 | restrained by a foolish sense of community values, by honor, by pity—or by anything, really. The chance of finding Nina and John in one of these buildings is low, and the likelihood that the plan Aleem cooked up to deal with the four SUVs will work is even lower. However, this world doesn’t reward second-guessers. You can change direction if a fork in the path appears and has promise, but you can’t back up and rethink, because in this business, to both your enemies and your homeys, that looks like retreat. Retreat is seen as weakness, and the weak die young, which they deserve to do. The only thing that Aleem despises is weakness. Once you commit to an operation, you have to drive forward hard, never doubting, never relenting. If the result isn’t what you hoped, even if it’s a disaster, you can learn from it after it’s done. Anyhow, no mistake he can make is so bad that it can’t be erased with enough violence and cash. With a shitload of money, he can buy his way out of most trouble, and when money isn’t enough, he can kill his way out, which is why he has the respect of his homeboys and not just of his homeboys, but also the respect of all those who are gangsters disguised as pillars of their communities, as friends of the working man and woman. You can’t win a war if you don’t drive forward hard and harder even when fighting seems hopeless. And to Aleem Sutter, life is war. THE ONLY WISDOM WE CAN HOPE TO ACQUIRE To Nina’s right, pressed against her, felt but unseen, John sits in two inches of cold water, deep in the rat hole, under the artfully rearranged trash, his back to the wall. He has wrapped his arms around the duffel bag that rests on his lap, less to safeguard the money than to anchor himself against the nervous spasming of muscles that might rattle the rubbish heap around them. The Tac Light is switched off, propped across Nina’s thighs. She grips the pistol in both hands, though she can’t imagine how she can effectively use it. The gun has a ten-round magazine. She’s not a bad shot, but she can’t take out eight men who are heavily gunned up. To her left is the opening to their hiding place, concealed by a splintering and delaminating sheet of fungus-riddled plywood over which is draped a long, rumpled length of filth-encrusted, opaque plastic like the cast-off ectoplasm of some ghost that has finally ceased to haunt this world. She feels swallowed up and helpless, the room as dark as the belly of a whale. The air reeks of many forms of foul matter and the putrefaction of perhaps a rat or two. She’s shivering and can feel John shivering against her. She hesitates to caution him about his rapid, anxious breathing. He’s smart and brave, and when he hears someone in the building, when the door opens to this room, he will fall silent and still. Some | 0 |
99 | spare.txt | 63 | disembark, then some Special Forces guys<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">appeared in the alcove. They returned my weapons and handed me a vial of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">morphine, to keep on my person at all times. We were now in a place where<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">pain, injuries, trauma were commonplace. They hurried me off the plane<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">into a four-by-four with blacked windows and dusty seats. We drove to a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">different part of the base, then hurried into a Portakabin.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Empty. Not a soul.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">144<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Where is everybody? Bloody hell, was peace declared while I was in the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">air?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">No, the whole base was out on a mission.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I looked around. Apparently they’d left in the middle of a meal. Tables<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">were covered with half-empty pizza boxes. I tried to remember what I’d<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">eaten on the flight. Nothing. I began shoving cold pizza into my mouth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I took my in-theater test, one last barrier to entry, one last measure to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">prove that I knew how to do the job. Shortly after, I climbed into a Chinook<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">and flew about fifty miles to a much smaller outpost. Forward Operating<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Base Dwyer. Long, unwieldy name for what was little more than a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">sandcastle made of sandbags.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I was met by a sand-covered soldier who said he’d been ordered to show<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">me around.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Welcome to Dwyer.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Thanks.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I asked how the place got its name.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">One of our lads. K-I-A. Vehicle hit a land mine.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">The quick tour revealed Dwyer to be even more spartan than it looked<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">from the Chinook. No heat, few lights, not much water. There was<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">plumbing, of a sort, but the pipes were usually clogged or frozen. There was<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">also a building that purported to be a “shower block,” but I was advised: use<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">at your peril.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Basically, my tour guide told me, just give up being clean. Focus instead<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">on staying warm.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">It gets that cold here?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">He chortled.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span | 0 |
40 | The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt | 48 | it the torn curtain was lying. He remembered that the night before, for the first time in his life, he had forgotten to hide it, when he crept out of the room. But what was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible it was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it. He opened the door a little wider, and walked quickly in, with half- closed eyes and averted head, determined that he would not look even once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down, and taking up the gold- and-purple hanging, he flung it over the picture. He stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other things that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to wonder if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had thought of each other. "Leave me now," said Campbell. He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been thrust back into the chair and was sitting up in it, with Campbell gazing into the glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs he heard the key being turned in the lock. It was long after seven o'clock when Campbell came back into the library. He was pale, but absolutely calm. "I have done what you asked me to do," he muttered. "And now, good-by. Let us never see each other again." "You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that," said Dorian, simply. As soon as Campbell had left, he went up-stairs. There was a horrible smell of chemicals in the room. But the thing that had been sitting at the table was gone. CHAPTER XIII [94] "There is no good telling me you are going to be good, Dorian," cried Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled with rose-water. "You are quite perfect. Pray don't change." Dorian shook his head. "No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good actions yesterday." "Where were you yesterday?" "In the country, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself." "My dear boy," said Lord Henry smiling, "anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so uncivilized. There are only two ways, as you know, of becoming civilized. One is by being cultured, the other is by being corrupt. Country-people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate." "Culture and corruption," murmured Dorian. "I have known something | 1 |
41 | The Secret Garden.txt | 94 | Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a kind of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held it fast. "You are just what I--what I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my mother--as well as Dickon's!" All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been Dickon's brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes. "Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden, I do believe. She couldna' keep out of it. Thy father mun come back to thee--he mun!" CHAPTER XXVII IN THE GARDEN In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live. So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellow-faced, sickly, bored and wretched chi Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of it. They began to push her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her digestion and made her yellow and tired. So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come | 1 |
53 | After Death.txt | 23 | of her children as she disappeared beneath the raw earth. Pepe and his guests were much amused, although the man from the State Department, T. Denby Danford, expressed concern. He fretted that such cruelty was unnecessary when a bullet to the back of the head would provide the same result as being buried alive. When even Denby realized that his distaste for this soiree was causing offense to the celebrants and souring their mood to such an extent that a fourth grave might be dug, he kept his opinion to himself, turned on the charm, and took refuge in more champagne. Soon, not even muffled cries came from the physician’s grave. As the workmen finished filling it and tamping down the soil, a classical guitarist and a bongoist provided festive music until the time came to bury the professor who was also a popular novelist. Interred with copies of his books, he screamed defiant accusations, using words that puzzled Aleem and most of those present. Finally the fool’s mouth filled with dirt and he was unable to find air to breathe, whereupon the musicians returned to their instruments in high spirits. The young priest proved to be by far the partiers’ favorite. He evoked the most laughter as he resorted to the Lord’s Prayer while the busy shovelers worked up a sweat, especially when he spoke the words that Christ had spoken as the nails pierced Him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It was an evening to remember, a celebration of the values that brought them together, a bonding revel. Aleem was exhilarated, filled with pride to be Pepe’s brother from another mother, filled with hope for the future, brimming with ambition. When they returned to the grand house on the grassy plateau, he was offered a girl of sixteen, Margareta, for the night. He told Pepe that two days in this place had tempered him, as steel is tempered to make a better sword; he was such a hard man now, he might damage one lover beyond repair; therefore, in consideration of Margareta’s health, it would be better if a second girl were also provided so that neither would be ruined forever in the process of satisfying him. This tongue-in-cheek braggadocio delighted Pepe. Seventeen-year-old Selena was sent to Aleem’s room with Margareta. He used them well and long and with no respect, but when at last they left him before dawn, he remained sleepless in the recognition that the most stimulating and thrilling moments of the night had not involved those lubricious girls, but instead the three people lying six feet under the jungle floor without benefit of coffins. Now, in this orchard of dead trees, where “Macarena” no longer echoes, soaked to the skin for the lack of rain gear, his mud-caked shoes heavier by the minute, with four decommissioned vehicles to be somehow repaired and started and driven away, with as many as eight discarded phones to be retrieved, Aleem has reached the end of his patience. He no longer wants to rape Nina | 0 |
40 | The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt | 1 | down and see the girl's mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about it all?" "My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian, sipping some pale- yellow wine from a delicate gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass, and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the Opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't [53] talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. Tell me about yourself and what you are painting." "You went to the Opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly, and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to the Opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!" "Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. "You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past." "You call yesterday the past?" "What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." "Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who used to come down to my studio, day after day, to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's influence. I see that." The lad flushed up, and, going to the window, looked out on the green, flickering garden for a few moments. "I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil," he said, at last,--"more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain." "Well, I am punished for that, Dorian,--or shall be some day." "I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. "I don't know what you want. What do you want?" "I want the Dorian Gray I used to know." "Basil," said the lad, going | 1 |
59 | Costanza-Casati-Clytemnestra.txt | 95 | there is something darker about him, something slippery . . .” She stares at the rocks on the ground, lost in thought. “I know what you mean,” Clytemnestra says. “It is like trying to catch the leaves when the wind makes them dance. One moment you have them, and the next they fly away.” Penelope laughs. “We used to do that years ago, remember? Running around the plain, flying leaves all around us.” Clytemnestra nods, smiling. She would always catch the most leaves, but Penelope would grab the beautiful ones, bright red and pale orange. “But yes,” Penelope says, “Odysseus is like that. He is a man with secrets.” “And yet you like him.” “Very much.” Penelope’s face is luminous. “My father used to tease me and say that I would marry some forgotten king on a forgotten island.” Clytemnestra nudges her. “Well, you are.” Penelope laughs. “Who knows about Ithaca? Who will remember Odysseus?” “Probably no one. The clever ones are always forgotten.” “That is why there will be no songs about you and me but plenty about Diomedes the brute.” They laugh together while the wind starts to smell like spring, and life goes on around them, undisturbed. * * * Clytemnestra sits alone in the mousike room, looking at the flutes and lyres in the baskets lining the wall. The space is small with a low ceiling, the walls covered with chalked drawings—images they used to draw as children. There are Helen’s lyres and Clytemnestra’s lynxes, Castor’s spears and Timandra’s dogs. In one corner of the wall, a noble girl has scribbled Polydeuces is handsome like Apollo. “Your brother sounds like a charmer.” Odysseus appears at the door. He moves like a cat, so that even she, who is trained to listen for the slightest sounds, never hears him coming. She takes an aulos, the double-reeded flute, Polydeuces’s favorite. “Do you play?” she asks. “Yes,” he says. “Though I can’t say I have that kind of talent.” He takes the flute from her hands. “Ah, this is beautiful. Libyan lotus plant? It’s so light.” He looks at her with a smile. “I imagine Helen was the most gifted in this class.” She smiles back. “I was gifted too.” He holds up his hands. “Of course.” There is a moment of awkward silence in which he puts the aulos in the basket and leans back against the wall. Then, “I must say, Helen doesn’t have much luck with men. I have heard how she suffered with Theseus . . . poor girl.” He shakes his head, mortified. “That was different. She chose Menelaus,” Clytemnestra replies. He tilts his head. “Did she really have that choice? In my experience, some men—kings and heroes, men loved by the gods—always get what they want. Call it power, obstinacy, or simply unwillingness to accept failure.” “You got what you wanted too,” she says. “You will marry Penelope.” He stares at her as if confused to be compared to powerful men. He hides it quickly and leans forward until his face is only a breath | 0 |
20 | Jane Eyre.txt | 78 | a n d e m p h a s i s , a f l e x i b i l i t y o f v o i c e a n d a n a p p r o p r i a t e n e s s o f g e s t u r e , v e r y u n u s u a l i n d e e d a t h e r a g e , a n d w h i c h p r o v e d s h e h a d b e e n c a r e f u l l y t r a i n e d . " W a s i t y o u r m a m m a w h o t a u g h t y o u t h a t p i e c e ? I a s k e d . " Y e s ; a n d s h e j u s t u s e d t o s a y i t i n t h i s w a y : ' Q u ' a v e z v o u s d o n e ? l u i d i t u n d e c e s r a t s ; p a r l e z ! " ' S h e m a d e m e l i f t m y h a n d s o t o r e m i n d m e t o r a i s e m y v o i c e a t t h e q u e s t i o n . " N o w s h a l l I d a n c e f o r y o u ? " " N o , t h a t w i l l d o ; b u t a f t e r y o u r m a m m a w e n t t o t h e H o l y V i r g i n , a s y o u s a y , w i t h w h o m d i d y o u l i v e t h e n ? " " W i t h M a d a m F r d r i c a n d h e r h u s b a n d ; s h e t o o k c a r e o f m e , b u t s h e i s n o t h i n g r e l a t e d t o m e . I t h i n k s h e i s p o o r , f o r s h e h a d n o t s o f i n e a h o u s e a s m a m m a . I w a s n o t l o n g t h e r e . M r . R o c h e s t e r a s k e d m e i f I w o u l d l i k e t o g o a n d l i v e w i t h h i m i n E n g l a n d , a n d I s a i d y e s ; f o r I k n e w M r . R o c h e s t e r b e f o r e I k n e w M a d a m F r d r i c , a n d h e w a s a l w a y s k i n d t o m e a n d g a v e m e p r e t t y d r e s s e s a n d t o y s ; b u t y o u s e e h e h a s n o t k e p t h i s w o r d , f o r h e h a s b r o u g h t m e t o E n g l a n d , a n d n o w h e i s g o n e b a c k a g a i n h i m s e l f , a n d I n e v e r s e e h i m . " A f t e r b r e a k f a s t , A d l e a n d I w i t h d r e w t o t h e l i b r a r y , w h i c h r o o m , i t a p p e a r s , M r . R o c h e s t e r h a d d i r e c t e d s h o u l d b e u s e d a s t h e s c h o o l - r o o m . M o s t o f t h e b o o k s w e r e l o c k e d u p b e h i n d g l a s s d o o r s ; b u t t h e r e w a s o n e b o o k - c a s e l e f t o p e n , c o n t a i n i n g e v e r y t h i n g t h a t c o u l d b e n e e d e d i n t h e w a y o f e l e m e n t a r y w o r k s , a n d s e v e r a l v o l u m e s o f l i g h t l i t e r a t u r e , p o e t r y , b i o g r a p h y , t r a v e l s , a f e w r o m a n c e s , e t c . I s u p p o s e h e h a d c o n s i d e r e d t h a t t h e s e w e r e a l l t h e g o v e r n e s s w o u l d r e q u i r e f o r h e r p r i v a t e p e r u s a l ; a n d , i n d e e d , t h e y c o n t e n t e d m e a m p l y f o r t h e p r e s e n t ; c o m p a r e d w i t h t h e s c a n t y p i c k i n g s I h a d n o w a n d t h e n b e e n a b l e t o g l e a n a t L o w o o d , t h e y s e e m e d t o o f f e r a n a b u n d a n t h a r v e s t o f e n t e r t a i n m e n t a n d i n f o r m a t i o n . I n t h i s r o o m , t o o , t h e r e w a s a c a b i n e t p i a n o , q u i t e n e w a n d o f s u p e r i o r t o n e ; a l s o a n e a s e l f o r p a i n t i n g , a n d a p a i r o f g l o b e s . I f o u n d m y p u p i l s u f f i c i e n t l y d o c i l e , t h o u g h d i s i n c l i n e d t o a p p l y ; s h e h a d n o t b e e n u s e d t o r e g u l a r o c c u p a t i o n o f a n y k i n d . I f e l t i t w o u l d b e i n j u d i c i o u s t o c o n f i n e h e r t o o m u c h a t f i r s t ; s o , w h e n I h a d t a l k e d t o h e r a g r e a t d e a l , a n d g o t h e r t o l e a r n a l i t t l e , a n d w h e n t h e m o r n i n g h a d a d v a n c e d t o n o o n , I a l l o w e d h e r t o r e t u r n t o h e r n u r s e . I t h e n p r o p o s e d t o o c c u p y m y s e l f t i l l d i n n e r - t i m e i n d r a w i n g s o m e l i t t l e s k e t c h e s f o r h e r u s e . A s I w a s g o i n g u p s t a i r s t o f e t c h m y p o r t f o l i o a n d p e n c i l s , M r s . F a i r f a x c a l l e d t o m e : " Y o u r m o r n i n g s c h o o l h o u r s a r e o v e r n o w , I s u p p o s e , " s a i d s h e . S h e w a s i n a r o o m t h e f o l d i n g - d o o r s o f w h i c h s t o o d o p e n ; I w e n t i n w h e n s h e a d d r e s s e d m e . I t | 1 |
33 | The Age of Innocence.txt | 10 | his purpose he had found strength to let events shape themselves as they would. But as he followed Madame Olenska into the hall he thought with a sudden hunger of being for a moment alone with her at the door of her carriage. "Is your carriage here?" he asked; and at that moment Mrs. van der Luyden, who was being majestically inserted into her sables, said gently: "We are driving dear Ellen home." Archer's heart gave a jerk, and Madame Olenska, clasping her cloak and fan with one hand, held out the other to him. "Good-bye," she said. "Good-bye--but I shall see you soon in Paris," he answered aloud--it seemed to him that he had shouted it. "Oh," she murmured, "if you and May could come--!" Mr. van der Luyden advanced to give her his arm, and Archer turned to Mrs. van der Luyden. For a moment, in the billowy darkness inside the big landau, he caught the dim oval of a face, eyes shining steadily-- and she was gone. As he went up the steps he crossed Lawrence Lefferts coming down with his wife. Lefferts caught his host by the sleeve, drawing back to let Gertrude pass. "I say, old chap: do you mind just letting it be understood that I'm dining with you at the club tomorrow night? Thanks so much, you old brick! Good-night." "It DID go off beautifully, didn't it?" May questioned from the threshold of the library. Archer roused himself with a start. As soon as the last carriage had driven away, he had come up to the library and shut himself in, with the hope that his wife, who still lingered below, would go straight to her room. But there she stood, pale and drawn, yet radiating the factitious energy of one who has passed beyond fatigue. "May I come and talk it over?" she asked. "Of course, if you like. But you must be awfully sleepy--" "No, I'm not sleepy. I should like to sit with you a little." "Very well," he said, pushing her chair near the fire. She sat down and he resumed his seat; but neither spoke for a long time. At length Archer began abruptly: "Since you're not tired, and want to talk, there's something I must tell you. I tried to the other night--." She looked at him quickly. "Yes, dear. Something about yourself?" "About myself. You say you're not tired: well, I am. Horribly tired . . ." In an instant she was all tender anxiety. "Oh, I've seen it coming on, Newland! You've been so wickedly overworked--" "Perhaps it's that. Anyhow, I want to make a break--" "A break? To give up the law?" "To go away, at any rate--at once. On a long trip, ever so far off--away from everything--" He paused, conscious that he had failed in his attempt to speak with the indifference of a man who longs for a change, and is yet too weary to welcome it. Do what he would, the chord of eagerness vibrated. "Away from everything--" he repeated. "Ever so | 1 |
17 | Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt | 76 | Ron and Hermione were thinking the same as he was. If Snape had been in on protecting the Stone, it must have been easy to find out how the other teachers had guarded it. He probably knew everything -- except, it seemed, Quirrell's spell and how to get past Fluffy. "You're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, aren't you, Hagrid?" said Harry anxiously. "And you wouldn't tell anyone, would you? Not even one of the teachers?" "Not a soul knows except me an' Dumbledore," said Hagrid proudly. "Well, that's something," Harry muttered to the others. "Hagrid, can we have a window open? I'm boiling." "Can't, Harry, sorry," said Hagrid. Harry noticed him glance at the fire. Harry looked at it, too. "Hagrid -- what's that?" But he already knew what it was. In the very heart of the fire, underneath the kettle, was a huge, black egg. "Ah," said Hagrid, fiddling nervously with his beard, "That's er..." "Where did you get it, Hagrid?" said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. "It must've cost you a fortune." "Won it," said Hagrid. "Las' night. I was down in the village havin' a few drinks an' got into a game o' cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest." "But what are you going to do with it when it's hatched?" said Hermione. "Well, I've bin doin' some readin'," said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. "Got this outta the library -- Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit -- it's a bit outta date, o' course, but it's all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, 'cause their mothers breathe on I em, see, an' when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o' brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An' see here -- how ter recognize diff'rent eggs -- what I got there's a Norwegian Ridgeback. They're rare, them." He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn't. "Hagrid, you live in a wooden house," she said. But Hagrid wasn't listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire. *** So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut. "Wonder what it's like to have a peaceful life," Ron sighed, as evening after evening they struggled through all the extra homework they were getting. Hermione had now started making study schedules for Harry and Ron, too. It was driving them nuts. Then, one breakfast time, Hedwig brought Harry another note from Hagrid. He had written only two words: It's hatching. Ron wanted to skip Herbology and go straight down to the hut. Hermione wouldn't hear of it. "Hermione, how many times in our lives are we going to see a dragon hatching?" "We've got lessons, we'll get into trouble, and that's nothing to what Hagrid's going to be in when someone finds out what he's doing -- " "Shut | 1 |
69 | In the Lives of Puppets.txt | 91 | MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. “Is Hap going to kill us?” Rambo asked nervously. “I hope not. I like being alive even if our house burned down.” “Probably,” Nurse Ratched said. “At the very least, he will kill Victor. I cannot say if we are also targets. Should I handle the situation right now? It would not be a problem.” “No,” Vic said quietly. “I thought you would say that,” she replied. “I am disappointed but not surprised.” Vic ignored her. “You,” he said. Hap scowled as he dropped his hands, wrapping them around his legs. “Human Annihilation Response Protocol. HARP.” “I d-d-d—” He shook his head like he was angry. Confused. He opened his mouth once more, but closed it before any sound came out. “Do you want to annihilate Victor?” Nurse Ratched asked. “No,” he spat. “N-no.” “But that is what you were made for.” “You d-don’t know that.” “Gio did,” Nurse Ratched said. “That is what he called you, and he knew almost everything.” Hap glared at her before pushing himself off the ground, back against the wall as he rose to his feet. “I w-wouldn’t.” “Did you know?” Vic asked Nurse Ratched, and the others stilled. “No. I did not know, Victor. About this place. About the video. About Hap. Gio must have installed the program in me and wiped the installation from my memory. I would not have even known it was there. While you were recovering, I ran a complete diagnostic check. I could not find anything else. He hid it well, but I do not think there is anything more.” “Why would he…” “I do not know. I thought I understood Giovanni, but it appears I was wrong. But that can wait until you have recovered. Your heart rate is returning to normal. Your blood pressure is almost within acceptable limits. Take a breath, please.” He did. “And another.” He did that too. When she tried to make him do it a third time, he waved her off, pulling himself up. His muscles felt stiff, as if the pieces didn’t quite fit together as they should. Exhausted, heartsore, and more than a little frightened, Victor did the only thing he could. He moved toward Hap, who looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. Vic stopped a few feet away, unsure if he should come any closer. An idea was forming in his head. It was coming together in pieces, the larger picture still nebulous though not without direction. And while the construction was shaky, almost too big for him to handle, it was the only thing he could latch on to. To the machine, he said, “Do you want to hurt me?” Hap shook his head. He glanced at Vic, then looked away again. “Good. Because I need your help.” Hap’s eyes widened as his head jerked up. “Wh-why? With wh-what?” And Victor Lawson said, “We’re going to find my father. We’re going to find him and bring him home.” Nurse Ratched asked if he’d lost his mind. Rambo wondered if they would get lost. Hap | 0 |
78 | Pineapple Street.txt | 16 | somewhere over the Rockies. When I landed, I had a voicemail from Amy telling me she thought it had gone very well. Now the judge would take it all “under advisement,” and in one to six months, Amy thought, we’d hear if he’d decided to vacate the original verdict. The day I got home, I checked my email and found a note from a young woman in Salem, Oregon. You knew her when she was a student in Providence. Paula Gutierrez; I’m sure the name rings a bell. She was hoping I could get a note to Beth Docherty, thanking her for what she’d said about you on the stand. It sounded so eerily familiar, she wrote to Beth. Like you were talking about my own life. A week later, Dane Rubra forwarded me an email from Allison Mayfield, who’d attended the school you came to Granby from. Do you remember her? The one who dropped out junior year after she cut her wrists with fingernail scissors? How about Zoe Ellis? She really thought the two of you were in love. She hadn’t reexamined it until a friend sent her news about the hearing. God bless Zoe, she was ready to go public, to write about it all. How about Annie Mintz? Do you still have a job? Do you still have a family? It’s hard to tell online. 39 In April, I flew back east to see Geoff. We spent a week together in New York—we lay around in bed, I worked on the book, we ordered food—and we made plans for him to come out to LA that summer. I was very happy about it. I’m still happy about it. I lied to Fran that I was in New York for research. I was holding out for the right moment to tell her, the right moment to hear her shriek “I’ve been waiting for this for thirty years!” From New York, I took the Amtrak up to Manchester, where Fran picked me up and brought me to Granby; I’d stay with her for two nights. We had something important to do, something I don’t want to tell you about quite yet. The next day, we’d go to the matinee of the student musical, the one the Shirley Jackson fanatic wanted me to see. Late that first afternoon, as Fran and I walked her golden retriever around the lacrosse field, my phone buzzed with three messages in a row, from Britt, Yahav, and Alder: Bad news and Motion for retrial denied and Fucckckck, respectively. My breath stopped with disbelief more than shock. Wasn’t it too soon? It had barely been a month. This was surely a mistake, some minor legal hiccup I didn’t understand. But it was real. Yahav wrote again: He can appeal, altho that’s an even longer shot. I’m so sorry, Bodie. I hope I didn’t give you false optimism. I tried not to. These things never come through. They’re designed that way. I showed my phone to Fran, my hand shaking. Boris tried to jump up to sniff | 0 |
6 | Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt | 1 | me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces I had seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippi of Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thought to myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sad fancyings—chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain—led on to other and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities of Bartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scrivener’s pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet. Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby’s closed desk, the key in open sight left in the lock. I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity, thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I will make bold to look within. Every thing was methodically arranged, the papers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing the files of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I felt something there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings’ bank. I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went any where in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his. Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just | 1 |
67 | How to Sell a Haunted House.txt | 90 | the road, and hauled her back inside, feeling pain explode at the base of her spine from the strain. “Close it!” Mark screamed over the wind. Louise had both arms around Poppy, who thrashed and kicked and screamed, slamming her body into Louise’s chest again and again, and the wind pushed the door into the frame, but the new bridge didn’t have any place to pull over, so they drove, passenger door not secured, a high-pitched whistling cutting through the cab, Poppy screaming, trying to get away, trying to throw herself out the door again, battering Louise until gravity got heavier and they came down the last span of the bridge, and then they shifted, leaning dangerously to the right on the final curve, Louise clinging to Poppy, holding her tight, and Mark pulled into the Shell station at the foot of the bridge and everything . . . stopped. They sat for a minute, lucky to be alive, then Louise reached over Poppy and pulled the door all the way shut and pressed the lock. She sat Poppy in her lap, stretched the seat belt over the two of them, and clamped her arms around her, trapping her in place. “Jesus Christ,” Mark said. “Let’s go,” Louise told him. Mark looked at her, thought about saying something, then reached across the wheel with his left hand and dropped the truck into drive. They pulled back onto Coleman. He didn’t want to stop in case Poppy tried to run again, so he timed the lights, slowing to twenty, to fifteen, waiting for them to switch from red back to green, then punching the gas. Speeding up when they turned yellow. Poppy lay limp in Louise’s lap, rocking forward and back with the acceleration. Pupkin stared out the passenger-side window while Poppy’s head rolled from side to side against Louise’s chest. She felt something wet on her arm. It was Poppy’s drool. She’s not even swallowing anymore. “I can’t believe we grew up with a dead body in the backyard,” Mark said. I was so happy you decided to go away for school, Louise remembered her mom saying one Christmas when she was back from college. I’d leave if I could, but I feel like I’m stuck here. Mark rolled slow at a red light, trying not to come to a complete stop. It changed to green and he gunned his engine and took off. For a moment, Poppy stopped breathing. Louise looked down, not knowing what to do. Then Poppy started breathing again with a thick, congested rasp. “Do we just start digging holes?” Louise asked. “Or do you remember if there was ever someplace Mom told us not to play?” Mark slowed to a roll, timing the next light. “Everywhere,” he said. “Playing in the backyard was like a punishment.” The light turned green and Mark took off. They were close now. “What about when you were going to build the deck?” Louise asked. “Did she say anything about where to dig or not to dig?” “She just told me they | 0 |
70 | Kalynn-Bayron-Youre-Not-Supposed.txt | 53 | and decide what to do from there. Agreed?” Bezi, Kyle, and even Javier nod. The path that twists around behind the supply shed isn’t maintained as well as the other paths that snake through Camp Mirror Lake. It’s overgrown with spider grass, and the gravel is heaped in uneven treads. Mr. Lamont mentioned that it used to extend all the way to Route 710 but that access was abandoned for the main entrance years ago. The trees press in on us from either side of the trail, and the darkness descends like a shade being drawn across the sky. Kyle clicks on his flashlight. I save the battery on mine, figuring we’ll need it for the walk back. The trail continues through the trees, and while a tall gate bars our path, I can see that it continues into a thickly wooded area. A rusted chain is looped through the gate, and it’s secured with a large, equally rusted padlock. I yank on it, and bits of orange metal flake off on my palm. “Great,” Javier says. “A little tetanus on the way to meet a shotgun-wielding recluse. This was such a good idea, Charity.” I ignore Javier and push on the gate. The chain is only loosely securing the entrance, and by pushing hard, a gap opens, and we slip through. “Come on,” I say, gesturing for Bezi to go through. She squeezes in and pops out the other side, then holds the gate open so I can slip through after her. We pry the gate apart for Javier and for Kyle, and when we’re all through, I survey the path ahead. The dark is almost complete now, and long shadows lean across the uneven pathway. Snaps and clicks sound from the surrounding forest. The feeling of being watched from the deepening shadows stokes a sense of panic in me. I feel like I can’t quite catch my breath or make my heart slow down. I have to beat back the fear over and over again as we push forward. “This was such a bad idea,” Javier whines as he steps on the back of my heel. I round on him. “I know we said we were gonna stick together, but damn. Can you watch my foot?” “I’m scared,” he says, his voice cracking. “There are bears and shit out here, Charity. You think that’s what Tasha was talking about?” I don’t answer him. All I want to do is find Tasha, and if I think too long about what was making her sound that way on the phone, I might lose my nerve. I turn back around and, keeping a firm grip on Bezi’s hand, lead us to the end of the path that intersects Route 710 in what I guess is about the length of a couple of city blocks. The paved road is crumbling, and vining foliage runs along the cracks. It doesn’t look like it’s being maintained at all. “This way leads to the next mile marker,” I say, gesturing to the right. “Two miles in the | 0 |
29 | Tarzan of the Apes.txt | 20 | to return to camp for reinforcements, and then make an attempt to track down the natives and rescue D'Arnot. It was late in the afternoon when the exhausted men reached the clearing by the beach, but for two of them the return brought so great a happiness that all their suffering and heartbreaking grief was forgotten on the instant. As the little party emerged from the jungle the first person that Professor Porter and Cecil Clayton saw was Jane, standing by the cabin door. With a little cry of joy and relief she ran forward to greet them, throwing her arms about her father's neck and bursting into tears for the first time since they had been cast upon this hideous and adventurous shore. Professor Porter strove manfully to suppress his own emotions, but the strain upon his nerves and weakened vitality were too much for him, and at length, burying his old face in the girl's shoulder, he sobbed quietly like a tired child. Jane led him toward the cabin, and the Frenchmen turned toward the beach from which several of their fellows were advancing to meet them. Clayton, wishing to leave father and daughter alone, joined the sailors and remained talking with the officers until their boat pulled away toward the cruiser whither Lieutenant Charpentier was bound to report the unhappy outcome of his adventure. Then Clayton turned back slowly toward the cabin. His heart was filled with happiness. The woman he loved was safe. He wondered by what manner of miracle she had been spared. To see her alive seemed almost unbelievable. As he approached the cabin he saw Jane coming out. When she saw him she hurried forward to meet him. Chapter 22 121 "Jane!" he cried, "God has been good to us, indeed. Tell me how you escaped--what form Providence took to save you for--us." He had never before called her by her given name. Forty-eight hours before it would have suffused Jane with a soft glow of pleasure to have heard that name from Clayton's lips--now it frightened her. "Mr. Clayton," she said quietly, extending her hand, "first let me thank you for your chivalrous loyalty to my dear father. He has told me how noble and self-sacrificing you have been. How can we repay you!" Clayton noticed that she did not return his familiar salutation, but he felt no misgivings on that score. She had been through so much. This was no time to force his love upon her, he quickly realized. "I am already repaid," he said. "Just to see you and Professor Porter both safe, well, and together again. I do not think that I could much longer have endured the pathos of his quiet and uncomplaining grief. "It was the saddest experience of my life, Miss Porter; and then, added to it, there was my own grief--the greatest I have ever known. But his was so hopeless--his was pitiful. It taught me that no love, not even that of a man for his wife may be so deep and terrible and self-sacrificing | 1 |
98 | Yellowface.txt | 23 | lesbian beekeeper. I was hesitant about signing with Eden Press at first, especially since it was an indie publisher instead of one of the Big Five—HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. But Brett convinced me that at a midsize house, I’d be a big fish in a small pond; that I’d get all the care and attention I never felt at my first publisher. Sure enough, compared to Garrett, Daniella practically coddles me. She responds to all my emails within the day, often within the hour, and always in depth. She makes me feel like I matter. When she tells me this book will be a hit, I know that she means it. I like her editorial style, too. Most of her requested changes are simple clarifications. Are American audiences going to know what this phrase means? Should this flashback be placed in this early chapter when we haven’t met the character in the proper timeline yet? This dialogue exchange is artful, but how does it move the story along? Honestly, I’m relieved. Finally someone’s calling Athena out on her bullshit, on her deliberately confusing sentence structures and cultural allusions. Athena likes to make her audience “work for it.” On the topic of cultural exposition, she’s written that she doesn’t “see the need to move the text closer to the reader, when the reader has Google, and is perfectly capable of moving closer to the text.” She drops in entire phrases in Chinese without adding any translations—her typewriter doesn’t have Chinese characters, so she left spaces and wrote them out by hand. It took me hours of fiddling with an OCR to search them online, and even then I had to strike out about half of them. She refers to family members in Chinese terms instead of English, so you’re left wondering if a given character is an uncle or a second cousin. (I’ve read dozens of guides to the Chinese kinship nomenclature system by now. It makes no goddamn sense.) She’s done this in all her other novels. Her fans praise such tactics as brilliant and authentic—a diaspora writer’s necessary intervention against the whiteness of English. But it’s not good craft. It makes the prose frustrating and inaccessible. I am convinced it is all in service of making Athena, and her readers, feel smarter than they are. “Quirky, aloof, and erudite” is Athena’s brand. “Commercial and compulsively readable yet still exquisitely literary,” I’ve decided, will be mine. The hardest part is keeping track of all the characters. We change almost a dozen names to reduce confusion. Two different characters have the last name Zhang, and four have the last name Li. Athena differentiates them by giving them different first names, which she only occasionally uses, and other names that I assume are nicknames (A Geng, A Zhu; unless A is a last name and I’m missing something), or Da Liu and Xiao Liu, which throws me for a loop because I thought Liu was a last name, so what are Da and Xiao doing there? Why are | 0 |
35 | The Da Vinci Code.txt | 21 | flesh and seeded womb. Turning his back to the others, he walked toward the towering windows, searching for any inspiration in their stained-glass mosaics. There was none. Place yourself in Saunire's mind, he urged, gazing outward now into College Garden. What would he believe is the orb that ought be on Newton's tomb? Images of stars, comets, and planets twinkled in the falling rain, but Langdon ignored them. Saunire was not a man of science. He was a man of humanity, of art, of history. The sacred feminine... the chalice... the Rose... the banished Mary Magdalene... the decline of the goddess... the Holy Grail. Legend had always portrayed the Grail as a cruel mistress, dancing in the shadows just out of sight, whispering in your ear, luring you one more step and then evaporating into the mist. Gazing out at the rustling trees of College Garden, Langdon sensed her playful presence. The signs were everywhere. Like a taunting silhouette emerging from the fog, the branches of Britain's oldest apple tree burgeoned with five-petaled blossoms, all glistening like Venus. The goddess was in the garden now. She was dancing in the rain, 281 singing songs of the ages, peeking out from behind the bud-filled branches as if to remind Langdon that the fruit of knowledge was growing just beyond his reach. Across the room, Sir Leigh Teabing watched with confidence as Langdon gazed out the window as if under a spell. Exactly as I hoped, Teabing thought. He will come around. For some time now, Teabing had suspected Langdon might hold the key to the Grail. It was no coincidence that Teabing launched his plan into action on the same night Langdon was scheduled to meet Jacques Saunire. Listening in on the curator, Teabing was certain the man's eagerness to meet privately with Langdon could mean only one thing. Langdon's mysterious manuscript has touched a nerve with the Priory. Langdon has stumbled onto a truth, and Saunire fears its release. Teabing felt certain the Grand Master was summoning Langdon to silence him. The Truth has been silenced long enough! Teabing knew he had to act quickly. Silas's attack would accomplish two goals. It would prevent Saunire from persuading Langdon to keep quiet, and it would ensure that once the keystone was in Teabing's hands, Langdon would be in Paris for recruitment should Teabing need him. Arranging the fatal meeting between Saunire and Silas had been almost too easy. I had inside information about Saunire's deepest fears. Yesterday afternoon, Silas had phoned the curator and posed as a distraught priest. "Monsieur Saunire, forgive me, I must speak to you at once. I should never breach the sanctity of the confessional, but in this case, I feel I must. I just took confession from a man who claimed to have murdered members of your family." Saunire's response was startled but wary. "My family died in an accident. The police report was conclusive." "Yes, a car accident," Silas said, baiting the hook. "The man I spoke to said he forced their car off the road into | 1 |
10 | Dune.txt | 80 | argument was useless. Still, she had to try, even if the gesture served only to remind herself that she would not trick him. "My Lord," she said, "if you'd only . . . " "The answer remains no. I indulge you shamefully in most things, not in this. I've just come from the dining hall where there are --" "My Lord! Please." "The choice is between your digestion and my ancestral dignity, my dear," he said. "They will hang in the dining hall." She sighed. "Yes, my Lord." "You may resume your custom of dining in your rooms whenever possible. I shall expect you at your proper position only on formal occasions." "Thank you, my Lord." "And don't go all cold and formal on me! Be thankful that I never married you, my dear. Then it'd be your duty to join me at table for every meal." She held her face immobile, nodded. "Hawat already has our own poison snooper over the dining table," he said. "There's a portable in your room." "You anticipated this . . . disagreement," she said. "My dear, I think also of your comfort. I've engaged servants. They're locals, but Hawat has cleared them -- they're Fremen all. They'll do until our own people can be released from their other duties." "Can anyone from this place be truly safe?" "Anyone who hates Harkonnens. You may even want to keep the head housekeeper: the Shadout Mapes." "Shadout," Jessica said. "A Fremen title?" "I'm told it means 'well-dipper,' a meaning with rather important overtones here. She may not strike you as a servant type, although Hawat speaks highly of her on the basis of Duncan's report. They're convinced she wants to serve -- specifically that she wants to serve you." "Me?" "The Fremen have learned that you're Bene Gesserit," he said. "There are legends here about the Bene Gesserit." The Missionaria Protectiva, Jessica thought. No place escapes them. "Does this mean Duncan was successful?" she asked. "Will the Fremen be our allies?" "There's nothing definite," he said. "They wish to observe us for a while, Duncan believes. They did, however, promise to stop raiding our outlying villages during a truce period. That's a more important gain than it might seem. Hawat tells me the Fremen were a deep thorn in the Harkonnen side, that the extent of their ravages was a carefully guarded secret. It wouldn't have helped for the Emperor to learn the ineffectiveness of the Harkonnen military." "A Fremen housekeeper," Jessica mused, returning to the subject of the Shadout Mapes. "She'll have the all-blue eyes." "Don't let the appearance of these people deceive you," he said. "There's a deep strength and healthy vitality in them. I think they'll be everything we need." "It's a dangerous gamble," she said. "Let's not go into that again," he said. She forced a smile. "We are committed, no doubt of that." She went through the quick regimen of calmness -- the two deep breaths, the ritual thought, then: "When I assign rooms, is there anything special I should reserve for you?" | 1 |
2 | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt | 22 | --That you told me a few nights ago, said Lynch, and we began the famous discussion. --I have a book at home, said Stephen, in which I have written down questions which are more amusing than yours were. In finding the answers to them I found the theory of esthetic which I am trying to explain. Here are some questions I set myself: IS A CHAIR FINELY MADE TRAGIC OR COMIC? IS THE PORTRAIT OF MONA LISA GOOD IF I DESIRE TO SEE IT? IF NOT, WHY NOT? --Why not, indeed? said Lynch, laughing. --IF A MAN HACKING IN FURY AT A BLOCK OF WOOD, Stephen continued, MAKE THERE AN IMAGE OF A COW, IS THAT IMAGE A WORK OF ART? IF NOT, WHY NOT? --That's a lovely one, said Lynch, laughing again. That has the true scholastic stink. --Lessing, said Stephen, should not have taken a group of statues to write of. The art, being inferior, does not present the forms I spoke of distinguished clearly one from another. Even in literature, the highest and most spiritual art, the forms are often confused. The lyrical form is in fact the simplest verbal vesture of an instant of emotion, a rhythmical cry such as ages ago cheered on the man who pulled at the oar or dragged stones up a slope. He who utters it is more conscious of the instant of emotion than of himself as feeling emotion. The simplest epical form is seen emerging out of lyrical literature when the artist prolongs and broods upon himself as the centre of an epical event and this form progresses till the centre of emotional gravity is equidistant from the artist himself and from others. The narrative is no longer purely personal. The personality of the artist passes into the narration itself, flowing round and round the persons and the action like a vital sea. This progress you will see easily in that old English ballad TURPIN HERO which begins in the first person and ends in the third person. The dramatic form is reached when the vitality which has flowed and eddied round each person fills every person with such vital force that he or she assumes a proper and intangible esthetic life. The personality of the artist, at first a cry or a cadence or a mood and then a fluid and lambent narrative, finally refines itself out of existence, impersonalizes itself, so to speak. The esthetic image in the dramatic form is life purified in and reprojected from the human imagination. The mystery of esthetic, like that of material creation, is accomplished. The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. --Trying to refine them also out of existence, said Lynch. A fine rain began to fall from the high veiled sky and they turned into the duke's lawn to reach the national library before the shower came. --What do you mean, Lynch asked surlily, by prating about beauty and the imagination in | 1 |
Subsets and Splits