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67 |
How to Sell a Haunted House.txt
| 86 |
saw you turn your back on me and walk away,” Mark said. “I bet you didn’t know I saw that, but I did.” You don’t know how fragile this is, Louise thought. One day your brain just goes ping and you fall through the ice and puppets are talking and telling you what to do and when you fall into that world it means your brain is broken and you never get out again. “I’m sorry you remember it that way,” Louise said, voice tight, “because that must feel terrible, but that’s not what happened.” “Stop telling me what I remember!” Mark shouted. His voice echoed off the walls and took on a harsh, metallic edge. “Mark,” Louise tried, putting all the compassion she had into her voice, “memories are funny things—” “I remember everything being so heavy, I remember the water sucking me down, I remember being so cold my skin burned. I’ve never been that cold again in my life. I remember opening my mouth to breathe and the pond water tasted like copper. I remember a flash of gray sky, and seeing the edge of the ice, and seeing you watch me drown, and then you turned around and walked away. That’s my first memory. You walking away from me while I drowned.” “No.” Louise started talking over the end of his sentence. “That’s not how it was.” She felt like that cartoon coyote running in midair—the only thing keeping her from falling was the belief she was still on solid ground. “You didn’t think I remembered,” Mark said. “You and Mom and Dad thought that if you never talked about it this would go away, but I remember.” “I came right in the house when I couldn’t find you and got Mom and Mr. Calvin,” Louise said, remembering sitting down beside the fire while grownup voices murmured reassuringly from the sofa. She remembered opening up her new Spirograph and loving how clean and useful it looked. Where’s Mark? Potty. You’re bad, bad, bad, bad . . . “You were five years old,” Mark said, relentless. “And you told me to go out on the ice, and when I fell through you left me there to drown. They should have gotten you help for trying to kill me, but instead everyone acted like it didn’t happen because Louise is perfect.” Being scared made Louise angry. “What are you? The lone truth teller?” she shot back. “No one remembers anything from when they were two!” Mark stripped hard cheese off a piece of pizza. “I went on a church ski trip when I was fourteen,” Mark said, rolling the cheese into a pellet. “We went ice-skating and I stepped out on that frozen lake for the first time and had a panic attack and I. Remembered. Everything. I told Amanda Fox because I had to tell someone. She’s the only person who’s ever believed me. When I came home I asked Mom and I expected her to say ‘I’m so sorry’ and for her to get you and you’d apologize
| 0 |
50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 9 |
Mulsub in starlight. I never understood what that meant before now. What if she used the same magic as Canthe?’ Esbar looked at it, her expression resolving. ‘Hold the gate,’ she ordered their sisters. ‘I need higher ground.’ Tunuva ran towards the cliffs with her. Royal tombs were carved into their western face. In their wake, the gates cracked open to let out a flood of Ersyri soldiers, roaring as they made a last foray. Those operating the catapults went up and down the cliffs on a wooden platform, pulled by chains. Esbar and Tunuva climbed on to it. Feeling their weight, someone above began to hoist them up, and as the platform swayed above the tombs, they saw the whole city, on fire from one end to the other. Below, their sisters grew smaller, beating away the horde at the gates. ‘They’re coming from the north,’ Esbar said, watching. Tunuva nodded. She looked down at her cloak, once white, and found it soaked in blood. At the top, they stepped off the platform to find the city guard cranking down the arm of the largest catapult, Izi observing them. From here, starlight could be glimpsed through the smoke. ‘Izi, get to the tombs to recover,’ Esbar told her. ‘You’ve fought enough.’ ‘I’m fine, Prioress—’ ‘That was an order.’ With a nod of defeat, Izi went to the platform, holding her side. Tunuva craned her neck to see the catapults, which stood as tall as old bone towers. A stab at her senses drew her gaze north. ‘There,’ she announced, seeing the shape in the distance. ‘It’s coming.’ ‘Release on my command,’ Esbar called to the soldiers. ‘Not a moment before or after.’ Tunuva crouched on the edge of the cliff. When the great wyrm came into the glow of the burning city, she said, ‘It’s the one that killed Lalhar. The one that led the slaughter in Carmentum.’ ‘Dedalugun,’ Esbar said, as it moved closer and closer to the palace. ‘That is what the Ersyris have called it.’ Begetter of ashes. ‘It’s too near the Royal Fort,’ one of the soldiers warned. ‘We have to release, or—’ ‘Wait.’ Dedalugun lifted itself with a sweep of its wings, and Esbar bellowed, ‘Now!’ The soldiers pulled on a rope, releasing the weight. It hurtled downward, and the long arm of the catapult swung up to hurl the boulder high over Jrhanyam. It tumbled over and over before it struck its mark full in the flank, hard enough to obliterate a building. The soldiers roared in triumph. Dedalugun banked away from the Royal Fort with a sound that made the cliffs tremble. Below, the lesser wyrms and beasts echoed its cry. ‘They’re bonded,’ Tunuva murmured. ‘All of them. Dedalugun is the master, the sire.’ ‘Good.’ Esbar grasped the spear. ‘Let’s hope they all die together.’ Dedalugun had seen the threat. Its eyes brightened like a pair of red suns. ‘Move,’ Tunuva shouted to the soldiers, who ran for their lives just as the wyrm breathed explosive fire over the catapults, engulfing them in a
| 0 |
1 |
A Game of Thrones.txt
| 19 |
father counts Jonos Bracken among his oldest and most loyal bannermen." The three men-at-arms exchanged uncertain looks. "Our lord is honored by his trust," one of them said hesitantly. "I envy your father all these fine friends," Lannister quipped, "but I do not quite see the purpose of this, Lady Stark." She ignored him, turning to the large party in blue and grey. They were the heart of the matter; there were more than twenty of them. "I know your sigil as well: the twin towers of Frey. How fares your good lord, sers?" Their captain rose. "Lord Walder is well, my lady. He plans to take a new wife on his ninetieth name day, and has asked your lord father to honor the wedding with his presence." Tyrion Lannister sniggered. That was when Catelyn knew he was hers. "This man came a guest into my house, and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of seven," she proclaimed to the room at large, I 258 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN pointing. Ser Rodrik moved to her side, his sword in hand. "In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice." She did not know what was more satisfying: the sound of a dozen swords drawn as one or the look on Tyrion Lannister's face. SANSA Sansa rode to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendor of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armor, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind . . . and the knights themselves, the knights most of all. "It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling. They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last. The seven knights of the Kingsguard took the field, all but Jaime Lannister in scaled armor the color of milk, their cloaks as white as freshfallen snow. Ser Jaime wore the white cloak as well, but beneath it he was shining gold from head to foot, with a lion'shead helm and a golden sword. Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, thundered past them like an avalanche. Sansa remembered Lord Yohn Royce, who had guested at Winterfell two years 260 GLORGL R.R. MARTIN before. "His armor is bronze, thousands and thousands of years old, engraved with magic runes that ward him against harm,"
| 1 |
35 |
The Da Vinci Code.txt
| 4 |
of amazement. No instant of wonder. The famous face looked as it did in books. She stood in silence for what felt like forever, waiting for something to happen. "So what do you think?" her grandfather whispered, arriving behind her. "Beautiful, yes?" "She's too little." Saunire smiled. "You're little and you're beautiful." I am not beautiful, she thought. Sophie hated her red hair and freckles, and she was bigger than all the boys in her class. She looked back at the Mona Lisa and shook her head. "She's even worse than in the books. Her face is... brumeux." "Foggy," her grandfather tutored. "Foggy," Sophie repeated, knowing the conversation would not continue until she repeated her new vocabulary word. "That's called the sfumato style of painting," he told her, "and it's very hard to do. Leonardo da Vinci was better at it than anyone." Sophie still didn't like the painting. "She looks like she knows something... like when kids at school have a secret." Her grandfather laughed. "That's part of why she is so famous. People like to guess why she is smiling." "Do you know why she's smiling?" "Maybe." Her grandfather winked. "Someday I'll tell you all about it." Sophie stamped her foot. "I told you I don't like secrets!" "Princess," he smiled. "Life is filled with secrets. You can't learn them all at once." "I'm going back up," Sophie declared, her voice hollow in the stairwell. "To the Mona Lisa?" Langdon recoiled. "Now?" Sophie considered the risk. "I'm not a murder suspect. I'll take my chances. I need to understand what my grandfather was trying to tell me." "What about the embassy?" Sophie felt guilty turning Langdon into a fugitive only to abandon him, but she saw no other option. She pointed down the stairs to a metal door. "Go through that door, and follow the illuminated exit signs. My grandfather used to bring me down here. The signs 69 will lead you to a security turnstile. It's monodirectional and opens out." She handed Langdon her car keys. "Mine is the red SmartCar in the employee lot. Directly outside this bulkhead. Do you know how to get to the embassy?" Langdon nodded, eyeing the keys in his hand. "Listen," Sophie said, her voice softening. "I think my grandfather may have left me a message at the Mona Lisa-some kind of clue as to who killed him. Or why I'm in danger." Or what happened to my family. "I have to go see." "But if he wanted to tell you why you were in danger, why wouldn't he simply write it on the floor where he died? Why this complicated word game?" "Whatever my grandfather was trying to tell me, I don't think he wanted anyone else to hear it. Not even the police." Clearly, her grandfather had done everything in his power to send a confidential transmission directly to her. He had written it in code, included her secret initials, and told her to find Robert Langdon-a wise command, considering the American symbologist had deciphered his code. "As strange as it
| 1 |
25 |
Oliver Twist.txt
| 54 |
a scrape there, Mr. Giles.' 'I hope you don't mean to say, sir,' said Mr. Giles, trembling, 'that he's going to die. If I thought it, I should never be happy again. I wouldn't cut a boy off: no, not even Brittles here; not for all the plate in the county, sir.' 'That's not the point,' said the doctor, mysteriously. 'Mr. Giles, are you a Protestant?' 'Yes, sir, I hope so,' faltered Mr. Giles, who had turned very pale. 'And what are YOU, boy?' said the doctor, turning sharply upon Brittles. 'Lord bless me, sir!' replied Brittles, starting violently; 'I'm the same as Mr. Giles, sir.' 'Then tell me this,' said the doctor, 'both of you, both of you! Are you going to take upon yourselves to swear, that that boy upstairs is the boy that was put through the little window last night? Out with it! Come! We are prepared for you!' The doctor, who was universally considered one of the best-tempered creatures on earth, made this demand in such a dreadful tone of anger, that Giles and Brittles, who were considerably muddled by ale and excitement, stared at each other in a state of stupefaction. 'Pay attention to the reply, constable, will you?' said the doctor, shaking his forefinger with great solemnity of manner, and tapping the bridge of his nose with it, to bespeak the exercise of that worthy's utmost acuteness. 'Something may come of this before long.' The constable looked as wise as he could, and took up his staff of office: which had been recling indolently in the chimney-corner. 'It's a simple question of identity, you will observe,' said the doctor. 'That's what it is, sir,' replied the constable, coughing with great violence; for he had finished his ale in a hurry, and some of it had gone the wrong way. 'Here's the house broken into,' said the doctor, 'and a couple of men catch one moment's glimpse of a boy, in the midst of gunpowder smoke, and in all the distraction of alarm and darkness. Here's a boy comes to that very same house, next morning, and because he happens to have his arm tied up, these men lay violent hands upon him--by doing which, they place his life in great danger--and swear he is the thief. Now, the question is, whether these men are justified by the fact; if not, in what situation do they place themselves?' The constable nodded profoundly. He said, if that wasn't law, he would be glad to know what was. 'I ask you again,' thundered the doctor, 'are you, on your solemn oaths, able to identify that boy?' Brittles looked doubtfully at Mr. Giles; Mr. Giles looked doubtfully at Brittles; the constable put his hand behind his ear, to catch the reply; the two women and the tinker leaned forward to listen; the doctor glanced keenly round; when a ring was heard at the gate, and at the same moment, the sound of wheels. 'It's the runners!' cried Brittles, to all appearance much relieved. 'The what?' exclaimed the doctor, aghast
| 1 |
51 |
A Spell of Good Things.txt
| 23 |
Tickled by the whisper of his breath against her skin as he bent to press his lips against her shoulder blade, unsullied by what had happened before or all that might come after. No man had ever made her feel like this, not even Nonso. Ensconced in his attentiveness, she was the splendorous sun around which his life revolved. “Have you spoken to your mum today?” “I need to call her back.” Wúràọlá yawned. “I don’t have the energy yet.” “I saw her just before coming here.” “How?” “I went to her shop.” He rubbed her forearm. “It sounds as if your mother has been planning this introduction since you were born.” Wúràọlá laughed. “You people are best friends now, ehn?” “She has the colour coordination on lockdown, the menu, guest list. You won’t have to do a thing, just attend.” “I think we might even end up fighting if I try to do anything beyond choosing my own clothes.” “And I spoke to her about Mọ́tárá.” “For goodness sake, Kúnlé.” “We are practically family, Wúrà, I should be able to speak to your mum directly about these things. I just explained that I wanted Mọ́tárá to stop calling me by name, and she agreed immediately. Everything is okay, darling. She had even been thinking about how it would be best for Mọ́tárá to call me Brother Kúnlé. I’ve sorted that out.” Kúnlé let out a slow breath. “That is what I should have done instead of confronting you about it. I should have gone directly to your parents all along. That’s the mature way to handle things.” He was gone when Wúràọlá woke up around midnight. She stumbled into the living room to check the door and found that he had locked the door from the outside and slipped the key under the door. Kúnlé had also left a nylon bag on one of the ratty armchairs that had come with the apartment. It contained a bowl of asaro and foil-wrapped chicken lap. She sat in one of the chairs and ate the meal, crunching the chicken bones so she could suck out the marrow. * * * Kingsley picked Wúràọlá up before noon on Saturday. His car smelled as though the seats had been soaked in perfume overnight. It took a while before Wúràọlá adjusted to the musky scent and could notice that Kingsley was humming. “Can we just play some music?” “Let me sing for you instead.” Kingsley moved his shoulders to some internal rhythm. “Óyá, special request. You know you want it.” Wúràọlá chuckled and began fiddling with the radio. As Kingsley launched into Styl Plus’s “Call My Name,” she was reminded of the calming weeks they’d spent exchanging handwritten notes and giving each other novels as gifts. They enjoyed the same kind of books and would spend hours chatting about a plot twist. He sang to her when they were alone and sometimes rocked her to sleep while humming a lullaby. He’d been just what she needed after the possibility of something permanent with Nonso had flamed
| 0 |
13 |
Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt
| 16 |
He sighs. “I got an e-mail from Detective Clark. He wants to talk to you about that fucker Hyde.” “Really?” I sit back to gaze at Christian. “Yes. I told him you’re in Portland for the time being, so he’ll have to wait. But he says he’d like to interview you here.” “He’s coming here?” “Apparently so.” Christian looks bemused. I frown. “What’s so important that can’t wait?” “Exactly.” “When’s he coming?” “Today. I’ll e-mail him back.” “I have nothing to hide. I wonder what he wants to know?” “We’ll find out when he gets here. I’m intrigued, too.” Christian shifts again. “Breakfast will be here shortly. Let’s eat, then we can go and see your dad.” I nod. “You can stay here if you want. I can see you’re busy.” He scowls. “No, I want to come with you.” “Okay.” I grin, and wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. Ray is bad-tempered. It’s a joy. He’s itchy, scratchy, impatient, and uncomfortable. “Dad, you’ve been in a major car accident. It will take time to heal. Christian and I want to move you to Seattle.” “I don’t know why you’re bothering with me. I’ll be fine here on my own.” “Don’t be ridiculous.” I squeeze his hand fondly, and he has the grace to smile at me. “Do you need anything?” “I could murder a doughnut, Annie.” I grin indulgently at him. “I’ll get you a doughnut or two. We’ll go to Voodoo.” “Great!” “You want some decent coffee, too?” “Hell yeah!” “Okay, I’ll go get some.” 385/551 Christian is once more in the waiting room, talking on the phone. He really should set up office in here. Weirdly, he’s by himself, although the other ICU beds are occupied. I wonder if Christian’s frightened off the other visitors. He hangs up. “Clark will be here at four this afternoon.” I frown. What could be so urgent? “Okay. Ray wants coffee and doughnuts.” Christian laughs. “I think I would too if I’d been in an accident. Ask Taylor to go.” “No, I’ll go.” “Take Taylor with you.” His voice is stern. “Okay.” I roll my eyes and he glares. Then he smirks and cocks his head to one side. “There’s no one here.” His voice is deliciously low, and I know he’s threaten- ing to spank me. I am about to dare him, when a young couple enters the room. She is weeping softly. I shrug apologetically at Christian, and he nods. He picks up his laptop, takes my hand, and leads me out of the room. “They need the privacy more than we do,” Christian murmurs. “We’ll have our fun later.” Outside Taylor is waiting patiently. “Let’s all go get coffee and doughnuts.” At four o’clock precisely there’s a knock on the suite door. Taylor ushers in Detective Clark, who looks more bad-tempered than usual. He always seems to look bad-tempered. Perhaps it’s the way his face is set. “Mr. Grey, Mrs. Grey, thank you for seeing me.” 386/551 “Detective Clark.” Christian shakes his hand and directs him to
| 1 |
57 |
Cold People.txt
| 50 |
were building, carving and reshaping the ice shelf. A connection had been established and could never be broken. Part of her belonged to them and it would be a lie to pretend that she didn’t want to see Eitan again. Liza and Atto had remained calm in the face of this new refugee crisis. There would be enormous challenges with housing and a scarcity of resources, but perhaps it would be better for people to accept a simpler form of existence, with no laboratories or supercomputers, no audacious plans to repopulate the continent. Better to embrace a sense of humility, a life on the Peninsula defined by community and a heightened sense of comradeship that had developed over twenty years. Weren’t they better people now, better at caring for each other, better at sharing – more affectionate, more compassionate, fairer even under the most testing of circumstances? Maybe these virtues couldn’t ultimately save them from extinction, but they would make the last decades of people some of the best. The end might be their finest hour, a time of decency, a species ending not with intertribal warfare and savagery but at its most humane. These abstract notions were of no consolation to Tetu. He was heartbroken, a pain that felt physical as much as it did emotional – a searing wound inside his chest. He’d lost Echo, or perhaps he’d lost the dream of her since it now seemed absurd to imagine they’d ever stood a chance. The future he’d imagined in McMurdo City was gone. Romanticism and ambition had sustained him. He didn’t know how to live without them. The point of his life had been to create a home with Echo. Without this vision of a home, the kind of home he’d never experienced growing up, there was nothing, nothing to work for, nothing to strive for. Having barely spoken since the attack at the base, he felt Liza place a hand on his back. ‘Talk to her.’ ‘What do I say?’ ‘She loves you. I don’t know what form that love will take. But it’s still love.’ Tetu found Echo helping the arriving refugees into the Parliament building, where they were being greeted with cups of hot fish stew. She stepped aside from her work to talk to him. He asked: ‘You love him?’ Rarely taken by surprise, Echo was amazed by this question. ‘Love who?’ ‘That creature. I know what being in love looks like. And you’re in love with him, whatever he is. He asked you to walk up that hill with him and up you went. Just like that. You didn’t hesitate. He could’ve asked you to do anything, you would’ve gone with him.’ ‘I said no to him.’ ‘You said no to his plans. You didn’t say no to him.’ ‘Tetu, I don’t know him. I met him only once.’ ‘But like your parents, in Lisbon, you know.’ On this point she remained silent. He was right. That feeling, irrational and uncontrolled, that was love. Tetu declared, without a trace of hostility, coming to terms
| 0 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 29 |
in great distress, to keep off shore. Mercy on them, and on all poor sailors, said he, if we had another night like the last! I was very much depressed in spirits; very solitary; and felt an uneasiness in Ham's not being there, disproportionate to the occasion. I was seriously affected, without knowing how much, by late events; and my long exposure to the fierce wind had confused me. There was that jumble in my thoughts and recollections, that I had lost the clear arrangement of time and distance. Thus, if I had gone out into the town, I should not have been surprised, I think, to encounter someone who I knew must be then in London. So to speak, there was in these respects a curious inattention in my mind. Yet it was busy, too, with all the remembrances the place naturally awakened; and they were particularly distinct and vivid. In this state, the waiter's dismal intelligence about the ships immediately connected itself, without any effort of my volition, with my uneasiness about Ham. I was persuaded that I had an apprehension of his returning from Lowestoft by sea, and being lost. This grew so strong with me, that I resolved to go back to the yard before I took my dinner, and ask the boat-builder if he thought his attempting to return by sea at all likely? If he gave me the least reason to think so, I would go over to Lowestoft and prevent it by bringing him with me. I hastily ordered my dinner, and went back to the yard. I was none too soon; for the boat-builder, with a lantern in his hand, was locking the yard-gate. He quite laughed when I asked him the question, and said there was no fear; no man in his senses, or out of them, would put off in such a gale of wind, least of all Ham Peggotty, who had been born to seafaring. So sensible of this, beforehand, that I had really felt ashamed of doing what I was nevertheless impelled to do, I went back to the inn. If such a wind could rise, I think it was rising. The howl and roar, the rattling of the doors and windows, the rumbling in the chimneys, the apparent rocking of the very house that sheltered me, and the prodigious tumult of the sea, were more fearful than in the morning. But there was now a great darkness besides; and that invested the storm with new terrors, real and fanciful. I could not eat, I could not sit still, I could not continue steadfast to anything. Something within me, faintly answering to the storm without, tossed up the depths of my memory and made a tumult in them. Yet, in all the hurry of my thoughts, wild running with the thundering sea, - the storm, and my uneasiness regarding Ham were always in the fore-ground. My dinner went away almost untasted, and I tried to refresh myself with a glass or two of wine. In vain. I fell into a
| 1 |
91 |
The-One.txt
| 77 |
laughs again. Ethan takes a few steps back as her voice nears the bathroom door. “Thanks, Brody. I’ll let you know how it goes.” When the door opens, Ethan is standing beside their bed. She’s wearing a short satin robe and more makeup than usual. The light in Sloane’s eyes dims when she sees him. It’s the same look she’s given him countless times since she learned of his affair. A reminder of what a raging disappointment he is to her. His father looked at him the same way after Ethan told him he was becoming a cop. “Ethan. You’re home early.” Her eyes fall to the flowers in his hand. “I wanted to make sure I got here in plenty of time.” He extends the bouquet toward her. “I’m so proud of you.” She accepts the flowers, but her smile looks forced. “Who were you talking to?” “Hmm?” She sniffs the bouquet before setting it on the bed. “In the bathroom.” Ethan tries to stifle the jealousy that surges in his chest. “Oh.” She turns her back to him and strides toward the walk-in closet, phone still in hand. Ethan follows behind her, getting a whiff of a fruity perfume he’s never smelled before. “I was just practicing my acceptance speech for tonight.” She starts to untie her robe as she shuts the closet door behind her. Ethan presses his palm against the wall beside the doorway, fighting the urge to fling open the door and demand to know who she was talking to. Instead, he turns and sinks onto the end of the bed. She hates him. He can see it in her eyes. And he doesn’t blame her after what he did. But the last thing he expected was for her to seek comfort in another man. Maybe he was a fool to not consider this possibility. Some detective I am if I couldn’t see this coming. He flexes his jaw, hearing her humming from inside the closet. She says she’s forgiven him. But she hasn’t. And she won’t. Not until she can understand what it’s like to make a stupid mistake. She’s achieved so much, and without help from anyone, that she’s forgotten what it’s like to be human. Driven herself to perfection. Lately, he’s wondered if he’d be better off with someone else. A woman with hobbies instead of an all-encompassing, high-performance profession. One who loves Christmas and children. A woman whose perfectionism doesn’t illuminate all his own flaws. But he loves Sloane. Her drive, intellect, and beauty are incomparable to anyone else. Coming so close to losing her has made him realize it more than ever. And he’s not ready to give up. He thinks of what she told the man on the phone. I wish you could be there tonight, too. A lot of her physician coworkers were likely attending the gala. So, who is this guy? How did they meet? Ethan looks at the roses lying beside him. They aren’t enough. Neither is the hotel he booked tonight. Nothing will ever be enough until
| 0 |
0 |
1984.txt
| 63 |
happened to her. There was no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized, she might have committed suicide, she might have been transferred to the other end of Oceania: worst and likeliest of all, she might simply have changed her mind and decided to avoid him. The next day she reappeared. Her arm was out of the sling and she had a band of sticking-plaster round her wrist. The relief of seeing her was so great that he could not resist staring directly at her for several seconds. On the following day he very nearly succeeded in speaking to her. When he came into the canteen she was sitting at a table well out from the wall, and was quite alone. It was early, and the place was not very full. file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (61 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt The queue edged forward till Winston was almost at the counter, then was held up for two minutes because someone in front was complaining that he had not received his tablet of saccharine. But the girl was still alone when Winston secured his tray and began to make for her table. He walked casually towards her, his eyes searching for a place at some table beyond her. She was perhaps three metres away from him. Another two seconds would do it. Then a voice behind him called, 'Smith!' He pretended not to hear. 'Smith!' repeated the voice, more loudly. It was no use. He turned round. A blond-headed, silly-faced young man named Wilsher, whom he barely knew, was inviting him with a smile to a vacant place at his table. It was not safe to refuse. After having been recognized, he could not go and sit at a table with an unattended girl. It was too noticeable. He sat down with a friendly smile. The silly blond face beamed into his. Winston had a hallucination of himself smashing a pick-axe right into the middle of it. The girl's table filled up a few minutes later. But she must have seen him coming towards her, and perhaps she would take the hint. Next day he took care to arrive early. Surely enough, she was at a table in about the same place, and again alone. The person immediately ahead of him in the queue was a small, swiftly-moving, beetle-like man with a flat face and tiny, suspicious eyes. As Winston turned away from the counter with his tray, he saw that the little man was making straight for the girl's table. His hopes sank again. There was a vacant place at a table further away, but something in the little man's appearance suggested that he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort to choose the emptiest table. With ice at his heart Winston followed. It was no use unless he could get the girl alone. At this moment there was a tremendous crash. The little man was sprawling on all fours, his tray had gone flying, two streams of soup and coffee were flowing across the floor. He started to his
| 1 |
6 |
Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt
| 43 |
days went by. Whether Bartleby’s eyes improved or not, I could not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I asked him if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do no copying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he had permanently given up copying. “What!” exclaimed I; “suppose your eyes should get entirely well—better than ever before—would you not copy then?” “I have given up copying,” he answered, and slid aside. He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay—if that were possible—he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to be done? He would do nothing in the office: why should he stay there? In plain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as a necklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speak less than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned me uneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, I would instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellow away to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length, necessities connected with my business tyrannized over all other considerations. Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six days’ time he must unconditionally leave the office. I warned him to take measures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered to assist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first step towards a removal. “And when you finally quit me, Bartleby,” added I, “I shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days from this hour, remember.” At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo! Bartleby was there. I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him, touched his shoulder, and said, “The time has come; you must quit this place; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go.” “I would prefer not,” he replied, with his back still towards me. “You must.” He remained silent. Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man’s common honesty. He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs. The proceeding then which followed will not be deemed extraordinary. “Bartleby,” said I, “I owe you twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are yours.—Will you take it?” and I handed the bills towards him. But he made no motion. “I will leave them here then,” putting them under a weight on the table. Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door I tranquilly turned and added—”After you have removed your things from these offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the door—since every one is now gone for the day but you—and if you please, slip your key
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93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 86 |
the seat next to hers. ‘Thank you.’ He eased himself down, adjusting pale shorts over paler legs. ‘I’m so sorry…’ He was still shaking. ‘I’m David Ellis.’ He took off his hat, wiping a hand over his damp forehead. ‘Yes, please – I think I might join you in one of those. Margarita, is it?’ Josie nodded. The waiter was hovering and she ordered another cocktail. Then she put a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Do you feel better?’ ‘Yes, no… oh, I don’t know…’ David muttered. ‘I’ve been so silly, coming here by myself.’ Josie’s eyes were full of sympathy. ‘It’s hard when you’re on your own.’ ‘Are you alone?’ ‘I am.’ Josie smiled bravely. ‘I’m here for the glorious sunshine.’ David turned to her, bright blue eyes in a blank face. ‘It’s too hot for me. I’d be better off on a Baltic cruise…’ ‘Why did you choose the Caribbean?’ Josie frowned behind her sunglasses. ‘Research, I’d hoped,’ David muttered. ‘I’m writing a crime book set on the islands. I thought it would be good for me.’ ‘But it isn’t…’ Josie watched his face carefully to check if he was recovering, ‘…good for you?’ ‘Ah, a fortnight’s a long time by yourself on a boat.’ The waiter had arrived with the cocktail. David took it in trembling fingers and sipped eagerly. ‘I thought it would help me get over my problems, but it’s made them worse.’ Josie attempted to approach the conversation from a different angle. ‘You’re a writer?’ ‘I’m not published yet,’ David admitted. ‘I’ve been trying to write for years. You don’t think seventy is too old to be an author, do you?’ ‘You can do anything if you set your mind to it.’ Josie met his eyes. ‘You seem a determined woman.’ David nodded. ‘I admire your pluck.’ ‘What makes you say that?’ Josie asked. ‘You’re on a cruise by yourself… you’re very sociable.’ She was momentarily taken aback. ‘Sociable?’ David was alarmed. ‘Oh, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. No, what I mean is… I admire how you have the courage to enjoy your own company. I’m grieving, and I thought it would bring me out of myself being here, but it’s made me feel worse.’ Josie touched his hand. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ ‘My partner died last year. He always wanted to go on a Caribbean cruise but we never got round to it so… I’m here by myself.’ Josie understood too well the effort it took to do things by herself nowadays. For a moment, she was lost in thought. David brought the drink to his lips again and said, ‘Alan and I were together for thirty-five years – we lived in Aberystwyth. We always said we’d take this cruise, but we kept putting it off.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ Josie gave David her full attention. ‘So, your ambition is to write a novel?’ ‘It is.’ He smiled and Josie noticed how his eyes shone with tears. ‘I’m going to make my hero a gay Welsh detective by the name of
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47 |
Ulysses.txt
| 43 |
umbrella dangled to his stride. --Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. Watch! --Who is he if it's a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty? --His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said smiling. Watch! --He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these days. She broke off suddenly. --There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to Molly, won't you? --I will, Mr Bloom said. He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke earnestly. Meshuggah. Off his chump. Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have with him. U.P.: up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton's office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the gods. He passed the IRISH TIMES. There might be other answers Iying there. Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who made the world. The way they spring those questions on you. And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good fortune to meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo. Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of poetry. Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big deal on Coates's shares. Ca' canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the IRISH FIELD now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion
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87 |
The Foxglove King.txt
| 55 |
it. “You’re welcome to come look at them sometime. Just let me know beforehand, so I can make sure Anton isn’t going to be around. He’s picky about the Church library.” A scowl flickered at the corner of Gabe’s mouth, but he didn’t say anything. “I’ll take you up on that.” Lore turned in the direction she thought would take them toward the southeast turret. “Assuming I can find the time to unsew myself from Bastian’s ass.” Malcolm snorted. “Let me know if you need a seam ripper.” The sun was low in the sky by the time they made their circuitous way back through the shining halls of the Citadel to their suite. Gabe was quiet the whole time, his face drawn into pensive lines. Any attempt Lore made at a joke was rebuffed with silence. The silence did not alleviate when they got to their apartments. Gabe sighed when he entered the sitting room, hands hung on his hips, before turning right and entering the smaller study off the dining area. She heard a chair creak as he lowered himself into it. Lore went to the sidebar, found a bottle of wine, poured herself a glass. Still vinegary, but passable. She couldn’t find another wineglass, so she poured Gabe’s helping into a small mug clearly not meant for the purpose. A large oak desk dominated the study, empty except for a cut-glass paperweight housing a blood-red rose in its center. Bookshelves lined the walls, but they were mostly empty, too, holding only a dusty copy of the Compendium and a potted fern in desperate need of a good watering. The study was small enough that Lore didn’t have to enter all the way to hand him the cup. For a moment, he just looked at it, but then he took it from her. She leaned her shoulder against the jamb. “Your mood has taken a drastic turn for the dour.” He huffed, sipped the wine. “Being reminded of the excess in this place will do that.” Understandable. It had itched at her, too, wandering through the museumlike halls, seeing all the accumulated wealth while knowing firsthand the lack felt outside the Citadel. Lore had never worried about starving—Mari and Val made sure of that—but hunger was a sleeping wolf crouched at the door, a continuous threat that you learned to live with and did your best not to wake. Lore stared into the depths of her glass. “Our guilt isn’t helping anyone, Gabe.” He stiffened. Her foot tapped against the floor, a nervous rhythm to order her thoughts around. “I mean, part of me feels guilty for enjoying it, too. For wanting all this for myself, when I know how little most people have. But we don’t have time for the luxury of guilt. Not if there’s an actual war coming, and not while we’re stuck here either way.” Gabe still didn’t look at her. He slumped back in his chair, an inelegant pile of monk. “I didn’t think I missed it. But here, in a place where I was…
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75 |
Lisa-See-Lady-Tan_s-Circle-of-Women.txt
| 78 |
I am ailing. My mother-in-law has forbidden me to write to Meiling or help the women and girls in the household. I can survive most of these blows, but I will not give up who and what I am—even if that means hiding my actions by practicing medicine in secret. Go Back Home “How lucky we are to live during the age of the Great Ming,” Miss Chen, Master Yang’s concubine, comments. “Our country suffered through centuries of Mongol rule, but Zhu Yuanzhang drove them out, and became the first Ming emperor. Even the word itself—ming—tells of light, brightness, and the radiance of virtue. May the first hundred years of the Great Ming continue for a thousand years and gloriously on to the end of time.” I’m across the room, reclining on a kang, feeling so tired I could doze off, though it’s morning still. I force myself to a sitting position and pick up my embroidery. I send my needle down through the silk, pull it up and through the cloth, and drag the fuchsia-colored thread along the edge of my flower-petal design. I pretend not to listen, but my ears strain to hear the conversation between the concubines, who know so much more about the outer world than wives ever will. “The first Ming emperor asked the populace to embrace Chinese ways once again. Men have gone back to wearing traditional Han dynasty styles, while women like us”—Miss Chen’s hand flows through the air from her hair ornaments to her gown, her fingers trailing like silk gauze lifted by a breeze—“dress in styles that call to mind the elegance of centuries past.” Lady Kuo speaks from her circle of wives. “Life is not just about gowns and jewelry. We are fortunate not to know war—” “Yes, we have relative peace,” the concubine interrupts as she stretches toward a platter of dried fruit and nuts that have been painstakingly arranged into a pattern of butterfly wings. She pops a melon seed in her mouth, spits out the shell, and looks from face to face to confirm that cutting off my mother-in-law has escaped no one’s notice. “My husband has told me of marauders from the north,” Lady Kuo says, proving that Master Yang confides news of the world to her as well. “We can be grateful that the Hongzhi emperor continues construction on the Great Wall to keep out barbarians.” The conversation, which is taking an increasingly competitive turn, is suddenly interrupted by squealing laughter. “Yining!” Second Uncle’s first concubine calls out sharply. “Quiet!” “Yes, Mama,” the girl answers obediently, but she can barely contain her exuberance. She’s become the child I suspected she might be—full of sass and giggles. It will be a matter of only minutes before her boisterous ways get the better of her again. For now, though, the exchange between the concubine and her daughter has brought an end to what could have turned into another quarrel between Lady Kuo and Miss Chen. Oh, but I wish they’d continue their bickering, since the events of which they
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71 |
Kate-Alice-Marshall-What-Lies-in-the-Woods.txt
| 95 |
him for lying, but the EMTs got testy when I tried to talk and then they were putting me in a helicopter. “You’ve really got to stop doing this,” one of the EMTs joked, yelling over the sound of the blades. “Last time, I promise,” I mumbled, and he shushed me again. And then, despite my best efforts, I faded. Consciousness seeped back slowly, punctuated by the soft beeping of a monitor. With my eyes closed and my body cocooned in the half oblivion of morphine, I might have been eleven years old again. Except this time, my dad was there when I woke up. “Hey, kid,” he said when he saw me open my eyes. “Hey,” I replied weakly. It came out like a shoe scraping over asphalt. “I’m not dead.” “Go figure,” he said. I looked down at my right hand. Even with the thick bandages, the shape of it was obviously wrong, the last two fingers gone almost entirely, the middle finger ending at the second knuckle. “Thought I still had that one,” I said, irrationally irritated at its absence. “The surgeon wanted a souvenir,” Dad said. I gave him a blank look, unable to process the humor. He cleared his throat. “It was damaged. They had to amputate.” I hadn’t even noticed. “What about the rest of me?” “I hope you didn’t have an emotional attachment to your spleen. And a sizable piece of intestine. You’re basically a soup of antibiotics and narcotics with a few chunks of meat to provide texture, but you’ll live.” “That’s good,” I managed. I tried to wet my cracked lips, but my mouth was just as dried out. “What happened?” “You don’t remember?” “I mean after. Did they—is Cody—” “He’s been arrested,” Dad said. “Even these chuckleheads have managed to put two and two together. Plus you kept saying ‘Cody Benham shot me’ over and over again.” “That part I don’t remember,” I confessed. “Yeah, you were pretty loopy,” Dad said. He leaned forward and patted my good hand. “Anyway. Glad you’re not dead. You, ah. Should really stop getting hurt.” “Wasn’t planning on it,” I said. My eyelids were getting heavy. “Naomi, I—” I drifted. I dreamed of a gleaming snake slithering down my throat and a black-eyed woman biting down on my fingers, dull teeth grinding their way through my flesh. I woke alone. * * * I had plenty of visitors. Bishop, Sawant, other cops. Dad. Even Marcus and Kimiko. Ethan never came. I wasn’t sure if that was a disappointment or a relief. There were loose ends to wrap up. I told my story countless times, and after the hundredth repetition or so I finally got some information in return. Marcus Barnes, as it turned out, had indeed been worried about my mental state when I left the house. Worried enough that he called around trying to find out where I was and make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself. Bishop and Ethan were already on their way to the woods when I made the call—and a
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68 |
I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt
| 66 |
fracture wounds to the back of her skull plus bruising on her neck and damage to her carotid artery and thyroid cartilage, as if she’d been choked. She was a star in musical theater and tennis, a senior who’d been admitted to Amherst College. Suspicion soon settled on Omar Evans, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who worked as head athletic trainer at the prestigious boarding school. He was the only official suspect in the case. Evans falsely confessed under extraordinary pressure after fifteen hours of interrogation, a confession he recanted the next day. He was a victim of an inexperienced and racist small-town police force and a racist school that wanted to close the case quickly. Omar Evans was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to sixty years. He has now been imprisoned nearly twenty-three years for a murder he did not commit. This is the story of two stolen lives: those of Thalia Keith and Omar Evans.” Lola whistled. Alder said, with no apparent irony, “Oh, snap.” Jamila said, “You really just called us prestigious?” I said, “That was well done, Britt. I have a small correction, which is that the case was handed to the State Police. They might’ve been racist, I don’t know, but they weren’t inexperienced. I like how you’ve laid out not just the subject but a thesis statement, too. One danger with that—” I sipped my coffee, buying time. I felt adrenal, wondered what on earth I’d started. “One danger is that if you lay out your theories at the beginning, and then change your mind as you investigate, you’ll be stuck.” “I won’t change my mind,” Britt said. “I’ve already done a ton of research. The case was so flaky.” I assumed she meant flimsy. She asked if I’d seen the Diane Sawyer interview with Omar’s mother. I hadn’t; she told me she’d send it. “When you hear her speak you’ll understand,” she said. I was sure his mother believed with every cell of her body that he was innocent. I was sure that came through on camera. I said, “Maybe there were flaws in the case. But they had his DNA on her swimsuit. One of his hairs was in her mouth. They had him in the building when she died, and they can’t put anyone else there. They had a confession. They had the motive, at least according to her friends. They had that noose he drew in the directory. People get convicted on much less.” I heard myself, a parrot. But Britt was only parroting the Reddit boards. I didn’t want her to swing into obstinacy in either direction. I wanted her to do a good job, to wake all the sleeping tigers and ask all the questions I couldn’t wrap my own head around. Because there were things I could never quite reconcile. In real life, you don’t get the murderer telling you exactly what he did and why he did it. Even Omar’s confession, taken at face value, left major gaps. What I wanted, but could never get, was to go
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77 |
Maame.txt
| 3 |
it was only when Aiden took out his wallet to pay and I saw a condom in one of the slots did I remember that couples have sex. When I don’t answer, Sam turns around and says, “That means no.” “We’ve been dating for three weeks,” I say. “We’ve been on ten official dates and you pay for most of them.” He frowns. “And sex is my reward?” “No, of course not. I don’t know why I said that.” “Okay.” “I do want to have sex with you,” I say. “I just don’t want to have sex.” Sam dries his hands on a tea towel. “Why is that?” My instinct is to lie. The day I told Alex the truth was the last day I ever saw him. I want to keep seeing Sam and— “Maddie, stop having conversations with yourself in your head and tell me the truth.” Well, damn. “Sex is painful,” I answer. “For me. Painful and … distant, maybe. I just want to have the sex I’ve heard about, but I don’t know how.” He considers me. “Have you tried doing it alone?” I look away. “Maddie?” “It’s … it’s not really my thing.” “That’s fine. Are you always wet?” I chew my lip and try to think. “Maybe?” “Have you ever been on top?” he asks. “During sex? No, I tend to just lie there.” He steps forward and holds out his hand. “Would you like to try that?” I take his hand and slot my fingers through his. “Yes, I would.” * * * In Sam’s bedroom, my heart thumps in my ears when he closes the door. It’s a large room with the bed’s headboard under an alcove and a desk, covered in his artwork, situated in front of the window. I wipe my forehead when his back is turned. We undress and he’s very slow with me. He brushes his fingers against my skin and I shiver. He puts a condom on and there’s no shuffle under the duvet or asking if I’m on the pill. Sam starts to kiss me and, naturally, I relax because we kiss all the time, until he’s sat on his bed and gently pulls me in. I trip over my feet and fall onto him, my elbow hitting him in the cheek. “Sam, I’m so sorry.” “It’s okay.” He smiles, amused. “Maddie, it’s okay. Let’s try something else.” Sam lays me on my back and climbs off to push a pillow under my waist. He presses a palm to each of my thighs to pull them apart; I resist at first, like an elastic band that won’t pull any farther. “Is everything all right?” I lift my head. “Yes. Sorry.” “That’s okay. We can go slower.” He leans over me, balancing himself on his arms, and slowly kisses my neck. His lips are warm and his kisses bury deep into my throat when he uses his tongue, bites and pulls away. He does this along my chest and my nails dig into his arms when he sucks on
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17 |
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt
| 77 |
swam into view above him. "Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore. Harry stared at him. Then he remembered: "Sir! The Stone! It was Quirrell! He's got the Stone! Sir, quick -- " "Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," said Dumbledore. "Quirrell does not have the Stone." "Then who does? Sir, I -- " "Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out." Harry swallowed and looked around him. He realized he must be in the hospital wing. He was lying in a bed with white linen sheets, and next to him was a table piled high with what looked like half the candy shop. "Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, beaming. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it." "How long have I been in here?" "Three days. Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round, they have been extremely worried." "But sir, the Stone..." "I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Professor Quirrell did not manage to take it from you. I arrived in time to prevent that, although you were doing very well on your own, I must say." "You got there? You got Hermione's owl?" "We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you." "It was you." "I feared I might be too late." "You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off the Stone much longer -- " "Not the Stone, boy, you -- the effort involved nearly killed you. For one terrible moment there, I was afraid it had. As for the Stone, it has been destroyed." "Destroyed?" said Harry blankly. "But your friend -- Nicolas Flamel -- " "Oh, you know about Nicolas?" said Dumbledore, sounding quite delighted. "You did do the thing properly, didn't you? Well, Nicolas and I have had a little chat, and agreed it's all for the best." "But that means he and his wife will die, won't they?" "They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die." Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry's face. "To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all
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Things Fall Apart.txt
| 73 |
Umuru, was also at a loss. Ajofia laughed in his guttural voice. It was like the laugh of rusty metal. "They are strangers," he said, "and they are ignorant. But let that pass." He turned round to his comrades and saluted them, calling them the fathers of Umuofia. He dug his rattling spear into the ground and it shook with metallic life. Then he turned once more to the missionary and his interpreter. "Tell the white man that we will not do him any harm," he said to the interpreter. "Tell him to go back to his house and leave us alone. We liked his brother who was with us before. He was foolish, but we liked him, and for his sake we shall not harm his brother. But this shrine which he built must be destroyed. We shall no longer allow it in our midst. It has bred untold abominations and we have come to put an end to it." He turned to his comrades. "Fathers of Umuofia, I salute you." and they replied with one guttural voice. He turned again to the missionary. "You can stay with us if you like our ways. You can worship your own god. It is good that a man should worship the gods and the spirits of his fathers. Go back to your house so that you may not be hurt. Our anger is great but we have held it down so that we can talk to you." Mr. Smith said to his interpreter: "Tell them to go away from here. This is the house of God and I will not live to see it desecrated." Okeke interpreted wisely to the spirits and leaders of Umuofia: "The white man says he is happy you have come to him with your grievances, like friends. He will be happy if you leave the matter in his hands." "We cannot leave the matter in his hands because he does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his. We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, and perhaps he says we are foolish because we do not know his. Let him go away." Mr. Smith stood his ground. But he could not save his church. When the egwugwu went away the red-earth church which Mr. Brown had built was a pile of earth and ashes. And for the moment the spirit of the clan was pacified. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE For the first time in many years Okonkwo had a feeling that was akin to happiness. The times which had altered so unaccountably during his exile seemed to be coming round again. The clan which had turned false on him appeared to be making amends. He had spoken violently to his clansmen when they had met in the marketplace to decide on their action. And they had listened to him with respect. It was like the good old days again, when a warrior was a warrior. Although they had not agreed to kill the missionary or drive away the Christians, they had agreed
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Pride And Prejudice.txt
| 7 |
cannot consider your situation with much compassion.'' ``But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months!'' The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's interested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man so totally independent of every one. She represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. Jane's temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope, though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that Bingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart. They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct; but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen to go away, just as they were all getting so intimate together. After lamenting it however at some length, she had the consolation of thinking that Mr. Bingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration that, though he had been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two full courses. __ CHAPTER XXII (22) THE Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases, and again during the chief of the day, was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. ``It keeps him in good humour,'' said she, ``and I am more obliged to you than I can express.'' Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was very amiable, but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of; -- its object was nothing less than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so favourable that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost sure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very soon. But here, she did injustice to the fire and independence of his character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, from a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known till its success could be known likewise; for though feeling almost secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, he was comparatively diffident since the adventure
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80 |
Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt
| 22 |
Hollywood party, where he made the mistake of asking a very famous actor, And who are you? A failed attempt at a tofurkey that nearly burned his house down, which will include a deeper discussion of his vegetarianism. No dark secrets, but I wasn’t expecting them yet—it’s only our first real talk about the book. Even though I should be in my element, I can’t get over the fact that just a week ago, he was kissing me in front of a bookstore. “That wouldn’t be too much?” he’s asking, after I mention that I should probably watch as much of his work as possible, including the entirety of The Nocturnals. “I don’t want to work you too hard.” I quietly burst into flames. It’s criminal that he’s not seeing the innuendo. And that’s when I realize I cannot keep reacting to him like this. Because even if Finn is acting perfectly professional, the history between us is a swath of cotton in my throat, a fist wrapped tight around my lungs. Every time his eyes meet mine, an electric current rushes up my spine and I remember how he pressed me against the door. How his frantic fingers searched and searched and searched. Despite all the faux pas, he knows me, intimately, in a way only a few other people do. And now he’s right in front of me, pretending he doesn’t. If I can’t get past this anxiety, I’m not going to be able to write the book. “Everything okay?” he asks. “You look a little queasy.” I blink myself back to reality. “I feel like . . . we might need to talk about the thing we said we weren’t going to talk about?” I hate the way my voice tilts upward at the end, but I push forward. “I know we said we were going to forget about it, but I just want to make sure it’s not going to be an issue. That both of us are on the same page.” A nervous laugh slips out. “Literally, I guess.” I’m not prepared for the full force of his gaze, hazel eyes intently focused as he studies me. Cheekbones sharper than any of the swords I saw at the con today. I assume Finn wears contacts, but no wonder they had him wear glasses on The Nocturnals—otherwise, Caleb Rhodes, the werewolf protagonist played by former teen heartthrob Ethan Underwood, might have had some competition for leading man status. If my face is growing warm, it’s only because Friday night is now playing on repeat in my head. The way he took in my body. The weight of him on top of me. All that lube and oooh, there it is. “I don’t see why it has to affect our working relationship,” he finally says. “What’s one night of mind-blowing sex between coworkers?” A kalamata olive lodges itself in my windpipe as I lose myself to a coughing fit. In my rush to reach for my glass of water, I knock it over, sending ice cubes skidding across the
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6 |
Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt
| 36 |
his pale unmoving way, silently acquiesced. Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party; and headed by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the silent procession filed its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy of the roaring thoroughfares at noon. The same day I received the note I went to the Tombs, or to speak more properly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I stated the purpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I described was indeed within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was a perfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, however unaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew, and closed by suggesting the idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement as possible till something less harsh might be done—though indeed I hardly knew what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, the alms-house must receive him. I then begged to have an interview. Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in all his ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, and especially in the inclosed grass-platted yard thereof. And so I found him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his face towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jail windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers and thieves. “Bartleby!” “I know you,” he said, without looking round,—”and I want nothing to say to you.” “It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby,” said I, keenly pained at his implied suspicion. “And to you, this should not be so vile a place. Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is not so sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here is the grass.” “I know where I am,” he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I left him. As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron, accosted me, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder said—”Is that your friend?” “Yes.” “Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, that’s all.” “Who are you?” asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficially speaking person in such a place. “I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me to provide them with something good to eat.” “Is this so?” said I, turning to the turnkey. He said it was. “Well then,” said I, slipping some silver into the grub-man’s hands (for so they called him). “I want you to give particular attention to my friend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must be as polite to him as possible.” “Introduce me, will you?” said the grub-man, looking at me with an expression which seem to say he was all impatience for an opportunity to give a specimen of his breeding. Thinking it
| 1 |
33 |
The Age of Innocence.txt
| 58 |
to things nearest the heart. His joy was so deep that this blurring of the surface left its essence untouched; but he would have liked to keep the surface pure too. It was something of a satisfaction to find that May Welland shared this feeling. Her eyes fled to his beseechingly, and their look said: "Remember, we're doing this because it's right." No appeal could have found a more immediate response in Archer's breast; but he wished that the necessity of their action had been represented by some ideal reason, and not simply by poor Ellen Olenska. The group about Miss Welland made way for him with significant smiles, and after taking his share of the felicitations he drew his betrothed into the middle of the ball-room floor and put his arm about her waist. "Now we shan't have to talk," he said, smiling into her candid eyes, as they floated away on the soft waves of the Blue Danube. She made no answer. Her lips trembled into a smile, but the eyes remained distant and serious, as if bent on some ineffable vision. "Dear," Archer whispered, pressing her to him: it was borne in on him that the first hours of being engaged, even if spent in a ball-room, had in them something grave and sacramental. What a new life it was going to be, with this whiteness, radiance, goodness at one's side! The dance over, the two, as became an affianced couple, wandered into the conservatory; and sitting behind a tall screen of tree-ferns and camellias Newland pressed her gloved hand to his lips. "You see I did as you asked me to," she said. "Yes: I couldn't wait," he answered smiling. After a moment he added: "Only I wish it hadn't had to be at a ball." "Yes, I know." She met his glance comprehendingly. "But after all--even here we're alone together, aren't we?" "Oh, dearest--always!" Archer cried. Evidently she was always going to understand; she was always going to say the right thing. The discovery made the cup of his bliss overflow, and he went on gaily: "The worst of it is that I want to kiss you and I can't." As he spoke he took a swift glance about the conservatory, assured himself of their momentary privacy, and catching her to him laid a fugitive pressure on her lips. To counteract the audacity of this proceeding he led her to a bamboo sofa in a less secluded part of the conservatory, and sitting down beside her broke a lily-of-the-valley from her bouquet. She sat silent, and the world lay like a sunlit valley at their feet. "Did you tell my cousin Ellen?" she asked presently, as if she spoke through a dream. He roused himself, and remembered that he had not done so. Some invincible repugnance to speak of such things to the strange foreign woman had checked the words on his lips. "No--I hadn't the chance after all," he said, fibbing hastily. "Ah." She looked disappointed, but gently resolved on gaining her point. "You must, then,
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55 |
Blowback.txt
| 28 |
were trying to coalesce around someone who could stop him. In the meantime, Paul Ryan wanted House Republicans to distance themselves from the New York businessman, who they all expected would lose anyway. It wasn’t just that Trump was hostile to GOP orthodoxy; he was breathtakingly ignorant about the rule of law, the Constitution, and the democratic system. The select group of lawmakers and staff were tasked with developing a platform that was the antidote to Trumpism. Rarely does anyone other than the Republican nominee release a party strategy during an election year. Speaker Ryan’s “Better Way Agenda” was billed as a right-leaning response to eight years of a Democratic administration. In practice, though, we were drafting an alternative to the ideas Trump was spewing on the campaign trail, where he was badly hurting the GOP brand. We talked about what the document should say. It should repudiate the TV personality’s vitriolic rhetoric, isolationist tendencies, protectionist economic ideas, disparaging comments about our allies, affinity for America’s adversaries, and divisive anti-Muslim views, among other appalling comments. More broadly, it should reflect a party that was focused on the future and not relitigating the culture wars around guns, abortion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. I went to work, charged with co-drafting the national security portion of Ryan’s plan. For me, Donald Trump was number seventeen out of seventeen of the major candidates in the GOP primary race, a foulmouthed imbecile who was doomed to fail. I was happy to do anything to separate us from him. He wasn’t a part of our tribe; he was just trying to create a small faction to infiltrate the Republican Party for personal gain. I’d already seen the Tea Party movement do the same, and so far, we’d kept them at bay. In fact, I didn’t know any legislator on the GOP side who seriously supported Trump. Senator Ted Cruz called the man an “utterly amoral… narcissist.” Texas governor Rick Perry said the businessman was a “cancer on conservatism,” defining Trumpism as “a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense.” Senator Lindsey Graham equated the man to an “evil force,” and openly referred to him as a “jackass” and a “kook.” Representative Mick Mulvaney had an even simpler summation: Trump was “a terrible human being.” Then the unthinkable happened. Donald Trump surged forward in the primaries and effectively clinched the nomination. A schism erupted within the party. While most establishment conservatives begrudgingly decided to coalesce behind the nominee (who still seemed destined to lose in the general election), a “Never Trump” wing formed to sink him using any means necessary. Former mentors and colleagues from the Bush administration signed letters disavowing Trump, but because I was a GOP official, I rationalized that it would be inappropriate to add my name to a public list. Paul Ryan’s policy project took on greater urgency. He advised us not to openly attack Trump—and risk pushing him away from the GOP mainstream—but to quietly point him in the right direction by giving him a plan that sounded Republican, not reckless. We foolishly
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50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 65 |
me go. Papa—’ ‘Get her away. Take the Old Bridge,’ Lord Robart roared from horseback. ‘Archers, lancers – to me!’ Glorian hung like a broken puppet, head flopping. Her body had quelled the worst of the fear, but now it swept free, unhooking her joints. Horses screamed with their riders. Then a burning wind – a shattering – and black smoke, thick and searing hot, just as she breathed in. 52 North Einlek Óthling sat on the skull of a whale, gaunt and pale enough to be part of it. A circlet rested above his brow, and he wore a pelt over chainmail, sword resting at his side. Though he shared the same thick hair as his uncle, it was short and brown, his prominent eyes the grey of steel. He was fine of features, mild of voice – yet no one had dared cross him since he buckled on his iron arm, a replacement for the one he had personally severed, the night he and his younger uncle had been taken captive. Einlek had been seven at the time. He had cut a hand off to escape a shackle, then run to safety, preventing Verthing Bloodblade from using him against Bardholt. Bloodblade had soon been defeated. If Bardholt had been the Hammer of the North, Einlek was the knife. That burnished limb was not the only reason people called him Ironside. ‘You are certain.’ Wulf leaned on a padded crutch in the firelight. Even though he was bundled in thick furs and stood as close to the hearth as he could bear, he could still feel the killing cold of the sea. ‘Certain,’ he rasped. Einlek pinched the bridge of his nose, which tilted up a little at the tip. Like his mother, he had a broad white streak in his hair, licking down on to his brow. Wulf waited in silence. They had taken him to a healer first. His soles had been frostbitten, hands bloated with blisters, skin peeling and saltworn. For a time, he had not been able to speak. His lips had bled. His throat had scorched. The healer had worked hard to save his life. Shivering and sleepless in the night, he had listened to her whispering forbidden songs, asking the ice spirits to stop tormenting him. She had slowly warmed his hands until the blisters receded, leaving black scabs on the back of his fingers. She had wicked the wetness from his skin and treated the salt wounds. She could not treat the scars the wyrm had gouged across his mind. ‘I didn’t believe it,’ Einlek said. ‘Even as the corpses came ashore, I refused to believe. I still feared as soon as my arse touched this throne, he’d walk in and throttle me for daring to take his place before my time.’ He blinked hard. ‘Tell me what happened out there. Was it the Ments?’ Wulf tried to swallow past the dusty coal that burned in his craw. He had drunk his weight in fresh water on the journey, but days of gulping brine
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50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 99 |
beasts out, the battering ram was wedged into the gap, and the people found barrels, even brought corpses, stacking up as much as they could from the ruins of their capital. Wulf grabbed whatever he could throw: weapons, two oars, a rack that must once have held meat, a table with a broken leg. With so many hands working together, the pile was soon high enough to give the creatures trouble breaking through. Fire archers came to set it ablaze. ‘It’s coming,’ a voice cried. The wyvern was back, and it had them all caught like fish in a net. Wulf looked up, his knees turning to slurry as he remembered Fýredel. A harpoon ripped into it. The sound of its screech jolted him free. He stared as it rolled, like a foundering ship, and crashed down on a line of houses, blood spraying from under its wing. A rain from above should have smothered the fires, but where the blood struck, flame sizzled and abounded. On the city walls, a giant of a man took up another harpoon, lips skinned back. ‘Slay it,’ Einlek bellowed, as howls of triumph shook the street. He thrust up his iron arm. ‘For the Saint!’ ‘The Saint,’ came the answering roar. With that command, the Hróthi fell upon their foe, hitting with hammers and stabbing with staves and swords and pitchforks, drunk on their rage and the taste of revenge. They sawed and prised away its scales to reach the sweltering flesh beneath. They swarmed, like the bees that had haunted Wulf for a lifetime. Yet it was not the bees he recalled as he climbed on to the wyvern. It was a tale he had once heard of needlers, fish that ate flesh, which lurked in certain Southern rivers. A single needler was no threat – but together, they could strip a lion to bone. **** After that, the fight was over, for a time. When a wyrm fell, it seemed to strike panic into its followers. By dawn, they had all disappeared from Eldyng. In their wake, they had left hundreds dead, and thousands more grievously wounded. The wyvern was decapitated, its head paraded through the streets and mounted on the gate of Bithandun. The king summoned his housecarls that night, along with those Hróthi who had shown the highest courage during the attack, including the whaler whose harpoon had struck the killing blow. They ate beneath the broken roof of Bithandun. It might have collapsed altogether if not for a bold group of carpenters, who had climbed up to smother the blaze using the heavy banners from its walls, desperate to save the hall Bardholt built. It was disquieting to see it without the royal heraldry, but at least some of the roof remained. Ash wafted like snowflakes across the tables, which had seen endless feasting not so long ago. By the light of the low-burning fires, they shared tales of their deeds, raising their cups to those who had ascended to Halgalant. Hunger was the unwelcome guest. Where food had once
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3 |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt
| 50 |
flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along an- other piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree. I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I didn't hear nothing -- I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast. By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bank -- about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there all night when I hear a PLUNKETY- PLUNK, PLUNKETY-PLUNK, and says to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I hear a man say: "We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about beat out. Let's look around." I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe. I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't do me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm a-going to find out who it is that's here on
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55 |
Blowback.txt
| 65 |
for broke. I agreed to as many interviews as possible to talk about who Trump really was, detailing as much as I could to anyone who would listen. The growing media exposure led to a stream of angry messages from MAGA strangers. As a precaution, I went to the shooting range to practice with my concealed weapon. I didn’t think I was in imminent danger, but if someone broke in at night, the Sig Sauer pistol was the last line of defense. The firearm felt reassuring in my hand. Whenever I didn’t have it with me, I found myself imagining the weight of it and mentally arming the weapon as fast as I could. Inserting the loaded magazine into the grip… the satisfying click once it was locked in place… pulling back the slide to chamber a round. Now it was ready to fire. I used up my hollow-point ammunition at the range and found out that there wasn’t any left to buy. Anywhere. A pandemic shortage was affecting the whole country, which also meant Americans were armed to the teeth. A friend gave me a box of round-nose ammo as backup, the kind that might not be as effective at stopping an attacker. He didn’t want me guarding the house with an empty magazine. Better to have range ammo than nothing. I started drinking more to cope with the stress. Nothing too extreme, but I needed an escape from the mental noise. A bar down the street became my go-to spot for cocktails. Double gin martini, up, blue-cheese olives, filthy. The week I released my missives, a top Biden advisor texted. “Someone more senior than me is trying to reach you,” he wrote cryptically. The mystery caller could only be the Democratic candidate himself, Joe Biden. I told the advisor to pass along my number. I’d be waiting excitedly. Later that night, I saw the missed calls. I didn’t feel the ringing in my pocket while chatting with patrons at the neighborhood bar. At the end of August, a reporter called to say I was getting under Trump’s skin by not going away. Seeing me on TV was pissing him off. His associates were taking it up a notch. They started spreading rumors that I cheated on my wife the week of our wedding with a young personal assistant. Whoever was behind the whisper campaign clearly didn’t know that I had been in Latin America then, no one from work was there, and my DHS assistant was actually a man nearly the same age as me. No reporters took the bait. But it wouldn’t have mattered. My would-be tormentors were wasting their time if they wanted to start rumors or dig up dirt about my private life. I didn’t have one anymore. Amid the turmoil of the pandemic and the decision to come forward, Anabel and I had separated. “We cannot pretend they are not shouting from the rooftops.” Late August sun filled the living room, illuminating the dust suspended in dead air. The nondescript high-rise blended into a nondescript street
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The-Housekeepers.txt
| 27 |
studied Hephzibah. Winnie felt her skin growing suddenly warm. “I...” she began. As the Janes steered the boat to the riverbank, Mrs. King’s voice cut through the air. “Winnie,” she said. “Get out.” Shame rose within her. “Hephzibah...” “Out,” said Mrs. King again. “You know the rules. If you need to make someone feel small, so that you can feel tall...” Mrs. Bone recited the rest. “Then, my goodness, my dear, you’re no person at all. Quite right. I taught you that myself. You should all listen to that, my girls.” Winnie rose from the boat. It rocked dangerously beneath her. It would have been better if she had fallen in the water. 20 The night before the ball 10:00 p.m. Shepherd had left orders for everyone to get to bed early, in anticipation of the ball. Hurry up, hurry up, Mrs. Bone thought, urging the house to go to sleep. Her first tranche of men were coming in tonight, an advance guard, ready for the main action. They’d be winched up to the roof, fully installed in the attics by dawn, their movements padded by Winnie’s Turkish carpets. She glanced at the ceiling and imagined how it would smell, forty men crouched and waiting: sweaty feet, the air thick with whisky, piss warming gently in buckets. She would have gone up there herself, if only they didn’t lock the doors at night. Mrs. Bone liked to inspect her troops before battle. It gave them a good kick. Sue was at the washbasin, picking dirt out of her nails. She did this in secret, when she assumed Mrs. Bone wasn’t looking, as if a little coal was something of which to be ashamed. “Hurry along, Sue,” Mrs. Bone said for the third time. “It’s hot,” whispered Sue. She was wiping her face with a damp flannel, over and over. “Better than the cold, my girl,” said Mrs. Bone. “Better than your toes falling off. Get into bed.” Sue was taking an age, and the air was curdling like milk. When the knock came, it startled her. A hard thump, fist against wood, not friendly. Sue froze, hands on the basin. “Who’s that, then?” said Mrs. Bone as she hurried to the door, swung it open. That boy was there, that weasel-faced little rat. “Whatchoo doing?” said Mrs. Bone. “Get away with you. Coming up here. These are the ladies’ quarters.” “You’re wanted, Sue,” he said, not looking at Mrs. Bone. And in that moment Mrs. Bone understood, and she was revolted. She had lived long enough to understand that look. Whether from an old man or a young one, a rich man or a poor one, there was a certain sort of summons you gave a girl that wasn’t right at all. Here, in Danny’s house? It wasn’t disbelief. It was something clicking into place. Here, same as everywhere. Mrs. Bone was always a very pragmatic sort of lady. She assessed trades coolly, dispassionately: she weighed them on the scales and picked the most lucrative ones every time. But there was one
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A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 64 |
with resolve. ‘I have left a warning for our sisters in the archives, telling them to be wary of strangers.’ ‘What of the Inysh matter?’ Tunuva asked. ‘Will you leave word of that in the archives, too?’ ‘Yes.’ Her gaze turned distant. ‘I will leave a tablet there, stating that the Queen of Inys is always to have a mage as her protector; that this is my ruling as Prioress of the Orange Tree – but I will allow our future sisters to interpret my reasons as they see fit.’ ‘Thank you,’ Tunuva said. ‘I do it to protect a part of you that will live on,’ Esbar told her, ‘but also because a position in Inys will always be of value to us. We can see into the land of the Deceiver.’ ‘I agree. Let our sisters know what he did to the Mother, so they might always guard the truth.’ The Red Damsels needed no flame to fight. Each sister was a living blade. They would hunt the wyrms now, to the same places they had forced humans into for almost a year. They would stalk them to the deepest caves, the highest roosts and farthest wastes, to ensure they never rose again. An ichneumon pup snuffled towards them. Esbar nudged Tunuva with her shoulder. ‘Go to the Mother,’ she said. ‘She must miss your voice.’ With her old smile, she took Tunuva by the chin and drew her in for a kiss. ‘And then come to my bed, my love, and warm me until dawn.’ **** The blood had been scrubbed off the floor, and the coffin sealed with a new lid. On top of it, a statue had been placed, watching over the burial chamber. Kediko had sent it himself, as a gift to the Priory – a standing effigy of Cleolind, based on a carving in his palace. It was, Tunuva had to admit, a reasonably close likeness. Still, the High Ruler would have to work for several more years – possibly for the rest of his life – before Esbar warmed to his overtures. Tunuva lit a tiny flame. She used it to light the lamps in the chamber, all one hundred and twenty of them. There were not enough candles in Lasia to mourn all those who had fallen in the slaughter that did not yet have a name. She knelt before the tomb of Cleolind, and she sang, as she had many times. She sang in love and worship. She sang of grief and fear and loss. She sang as if the Mother could hear every word – and perhaps she could, in her bed of stone. Perhaps she would smile in her sleep. When she could sing no more, Tunuva Melim rose and placed a kiss upon the coffin. ‘Mother, we are your daughters,’ she said softly. ‘We remember. We remain.’ Wulf A rooster crowed beyond the windows of Langarth. Unlike many Inysh buildings, the manor had withstood the devastation. The plague had never breached its walls; no flame had ever caught the
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Hell Bent.txt
| 15 |
Tripp was in armor, but the kind that looked like it had never seen battle, enamel white, an ermine cape fastened over his left shoulder with an emerald brooch the size of a peach pit. The scholar, the priest, and the prince. Alex held out her arms. She was wearing armor too, but it was forged steel, made for warfare. The armor of a soldier. It should have felt heavy, but she might as well have been wearing a T-shirt for all she felt the weight of it. “Are we dead?” Tripp asked, his eyes so wide she could see a perfect white ring around his irises. “We have to be, right?” He wasn’t quite looking at her; in fact, no one was. None of them were making eye contact. They’d fallen through each other’s lives, seen the crimes they’d committed, big and small. No one should know another person that way, Alex thought. It’s too much. “Where are we?” Turner asked. “What is this place?” Dawes’s eyes were red, her mouth swollen from crying. She reached up to touch one of the branches, then thought better of it. “I don’t know. Some people think the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was a pomegranate.” Turner raised a brow. “That doesn’t look like any pomegranate I ever saw.” “It looks pretty good,” said Tripp. “Do not eat anything,” Dawes snapped. Tripp scowled. “I’m not stupid.” Then his expression changed. He looked caught between wonder and fear. “Holy shit, Alex, you’re…” Dawes bit deep into her lip and Turner’s grim mouth flattened even more. “Alex,” whispered Dawes. “You’re … you’re on fire.” Alex looked down. Blue flame had ignited over her body, a low, shifting blaze, like the forest floor in a controlled burn. She touched her fingers to it, saw it move as if caught up by her touch. She remembered this flame. She’d seen it when she faced Belbalm. All worlds are open to us. If we are bold enough to enter. She reached beneath her breastplate, felt the cold shell of the Arlington Rubber Boots box tucked against her ribs. All she wanted was to lie down and grieve for Hellie, for Babbit Rabbit. She was crouched over a stranger’s body as the rain fell outside. She was perched at the rail of a ship, the sea rising and falling beneath her. She was standing at the top of the stairs at Il Bastone, feeling the weight of stone in her hands, the terrible power of decision. Alex gripped the box tighter. She hadn’t come this far to cry for past mistakes or tend to old wounds. She forced herself to meet their gazes— Turner, Tripp, Dawes. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go find Darlington.” Again the world shifted and Alex braced to be thrown into someone else’s head, into some other awful memory, like the world’s worst playlist. She hadn’t been a passenger or an observer. She had been Dawes, Tripp, Turner, and Hellie. Her Hellie. Who should have been the one to survive. But this time it was just
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64 |
Happy Place.txt
| 57 |
was apprenticing for a designer.” In the scheme of things, it’s not a salacious reveal, but it is disorienting. To realize the rift between us began even longer ago than I realized. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “I don’t know. I was embarrassed.” “Embarrassed,” I repeat, like it’s my first introduction to the word. It might as well be. “What could possibly be embarrassing about this?” “I’ve never been like you,” he says. “I wasn’t brilliant. I wasn’t someone with a ton of goals. I’ve spent my first thirty years tripping through life.” “That’s not true,” I say. “Harriet.” He looks at me through his lashes, every variety of green and gray in his eyes on full display in the sunlight reflecting off the water below. “I barely got into college, and I barely graduated. And then I followed you out to San Francisco, and even with a degree, I managed to botch every interview I went to for jobs that would actually pay. If I fucked up the apprenticeship, I didn’t want you to watch it happen. Saying it was another upholstery job took the pressure off, because if I lost it, I could find another.” My nose burns. I drop my eyes back to the phone, the screen blurring. “He actually didn’t think I was any good,” he says. I look up. “The designer I apprenticed for,” he says. “He said I had no instincts.” I snort. “What, like you’re some kind of birding dog? What an asshole.” Wyn smiles faintly. “When I left that job and went home, I was pretty sure I was done even trying. Figured I’d stick with the repairs.” “What made you change your mind?” He eases onto the hot metal of the hood beside me. “It’s hard to explain.” We’re back to the push and pull, the little drips of him and then the droughts that follow. I’ve never known how to take him in small doses. One taste only ever makes the thirst worse. “Well, I’m proud of you,” I say thickly, folding my arms, barricading myself from him the same way he’s done to me. His eyes return to mine. “I could make you one, if you want.” “A table?” I ask. He nods. “I don’t have that kind of money, Wyn.” “I know,” he says. “That’s not what I meant.” “I couldn’t take something like that for free,” I say. “It’s going really well, Harriet,” he says. “And I hardly have any expenses right now—maybe you’ve heard: I live with my mom?” I laugh. “I think I remember reading that on TMZ.” He touches my hand against the hood, and god help me, I turn my palm up to his. I need to hold on to him right now, need to feel the calluses I’ve memorized on his palm. “I would love to make you one,” he murmurs. “I’ve got time, and I don’t need money.” Reading my expression, Wyn says, “Or if you don’t want one . . .” “It’s not that.” I shake my head. “It’s amazing. Seeing you
| 0 |
42 |
The Silmarillion.txt
| 15 |
naught of it; for Manw had not revealed it to them. Bat Melkor spoke to them in secret of Mortal Men, seeing how the silence of the Valar might be twisted to evil. Little he knew yet concerning Men, for engrossed with his own thought in the Music he had paid small heed to the Third Theme of Ilvatar; but now the whisper went among the Elves that Manw held them captive, so that Men might come and supplant them in the kingdoms of Middle-earth, for the Valar saw that they might more easily sway this short-lived and weaker race, defrauding the Elves of the inheritance of Ilvatar. Small truth was there in this, and little have the Valar ever prevailed to sway the wills of Men; but many of the Noldor believed, or half believed, the evil words. Thus ere the Valar were aware, the peace of Valinor was poisoned. The Noldor began to murmur against them, and many became filled with pride, forgetting how much of what they had and knew came to them in gift from the Valar. Fiercest burned the new flame of desire for freedom and wider realms in the eager heart of Fanor; and Melkor laughed in his secrecy, for to that mark his lies had been addressed, hating Fanor above all, and lusting ever for the Silmarils. But these he was not suffered to approach; for though at great feasts Fanor would wear them, blazing on his brow, at other times they were guarded close, locked in the deep chambers of his hoard in Tirion. For Fanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save to his father and his seven sons; he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own. High princes were Fanor and Fingolfin, the elder sons of Finw, honoured by all in Aman; but now they grew proud and jealous each of his rights and his possessions. Then Melkor set new lies abroad in Eldamar, and whispers came to Fanor that Fingolfin and his sons were plotting to usurp the leadership of Finw and of the elder line of Fanor, and to supplant them by the leave of the Valar; for the Valar were ill-pleased that the Silmarils lay in Tirion and were not committed to their keeping. But to Fingolfin and Finarfin it was said: 'Beware! Small love has the proud son of Mriel ever had for the children of Indis. Now he has become great, and he has his father in his hand. It will not be long before he drives you forth from Tna!' And when Melkor saw that these lies were smouldering, and that pride and anger were awake among the Noldor, he spoke to them concerning weapons; and in that time the Noldor began the smithying of swords and axes and spears. Shields also they made displaying the tokens of many houses and kindreds that vied one with another; and these only they wore abroad, and of other weapons they did not
| 1 |
22 |
Lord of the Flies.txt
| 61 |
the same--" "We don't want you," said Jack, flatly. "Three's enough." Piggy's glasses flashed. "I was with him when he found the conch. I was with him before anyone else was." Jack and the others paid no attention. There was a general dispersal. Ralph, Jack and Simon jumped off the platform and walked along the sand past the bathing pool. Piggy hung bumbling behind them. "If Simon walks in the middle of us," said Ralph, "then we could talk over his head." The three of them fell into step. This meant that every now and then Simon had to do a double shuffle to catch up with the others. Presently Ralph stopped and turned back to Piggy. "Look." Jack and Simon pretended to notice nothing. They walked on. "You can't come." Piggy's glasses were misted again--this time with humiliation. "You told 'em. After what I said." His face flushed, his mouth trembled. "After I said I didn't want--" "What on earth are you talking about?" "About being called Piggy. I said I didn't care as long as they didn't call me Piggy; an' I said not to tell and then you went an' said straight out--" Stillness descended on them. Ralph, looking with more understanding at Piggy, saw that he was hurt and crushed. He hovered between the two courses of apology or further insult. "Better Piggy than Fatty," he said at last, with the directness of genuine leadership, "and anyway, I'm sorry if you feel like that. Now go back, Piggy, and take names. That's your job. So long." He turned and raced after the other two. Piggy stood and the rose of indignation faded slowly from his cheeks. He went back to the platform. The three boys walked briskly on the sand. The tide was low and there was a strip of weed-strewn beach that was almost as firm as a road. A kind of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it. They turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening. The air was bright. Ralph, faced by the task of translating all this into an explanation, stood on his head and fell over. When they had done laughing, Simon stroked Ralph's arm shyly; and they had to laugh again. "Come on," said Jack presently, "we're explorers." "We'll go to the end of the island," said Ralph, "and look round the corner." "If it is an island--" Now, toward the end of the afternoon, the mirages were settling a little. They found the end of the island, quite distinct, and not magicked out of shape or sense. There was a jumble of the usual squareness, with one great block sitting out in the lagoon. Sea birds were nesting there. "Like icing," said Ralph, "on a pink cake." "We shan't see round this corner," said Jack, "because there isn't one. Only a slow curve--and you can see, the rocks get worse--" Ralph shaded his eyes and followed the jagged outline of the crags up toward the mountain.
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39 |
The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt
| 15 |
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, St. Aubert to pursue his way to Languedoc, and Valancourt to explore new scenes among the mountains, on his return home. During this evening he was often silent and thoughtful; St. Aubert's manner towards him was affectionate, though grave, and Emily was serious, though she made frequent efforts to appear cheerful. After one of the most melancholy evenings they had yet passed together, they separated for the night. CHAPTER VI I care not, Fortune! what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shews her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave: Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. THOMSON In the morning, Valancourt breakfasted with St. Aubert and Emily, neither of whom seemed much refreshed by sleep. The languor of illness still hung over St. Aubert, and to Emily's fears his disorder appeared to be increasing fast upon him. She watched his looks with anxious affection, and their expression was always faithfully reflected in her own. At the commencement of their acquaintance, Valancourt had made known his name and family. St. Aubert was not a stranger to either, for the family estates, which were now in the possession of an elder brother of Valancourt, were little more than twenty miles distant from La Vallee, and he had sometimes met the elder Valancourt on visits in the neighbourhood. This knowledge had made him more willingly receive his present companion; for, though his countenance and manners would have won him the acquaintance of St.
| 1 |
11 |
Emma.txt
| 16 |
Nobody else would come so early.' `Well,' said she, `it must be borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.' But then Patty came in, and said it was you. `Oh!' said I, `it is Miss Woodhouse: I am sure you will like to see her.'-- `I can see nobody,' said she; and up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. `If you must go, my dear,' said I, `you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the bed.'" Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for Miss Fairfax's advantage and comfort as possible. "It must be a severe trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel Campbell's return." "So very kind! " replied Miss Bates. "But you are always kind." There was no bearing such an "always;" and to break through her dreadful gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of-- "Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?" "To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps, Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's; but Mrs. Smallridge is intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove." "Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--" "Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, `No;' for when Jane first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel Campbell's return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane's answer; but she positively declared she would not
| 1 |
37 |
The Hunger Games.txt
| 19 |
and staying in school, I turn to my mother and grip her arm, hard. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?” She nods, alarmed by my intensity. She must know what’s coming. “You can’t leave again,” I say. My mother’s eyes find the floor. “I know. I won’t. I couldn’t help what—” “Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” My voice has risen to a shout. In it is all the anger, all the fear I felt at her abandonment. 36 She pulls her arm from my grasp, moved to anger herself now. “I was ill. I could have treated myself if I’d had the medi- cine I have now.” That part about her being ill might be true. I’ve seen her bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since. Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford. “Then take it. And take care of her!” I say. “I’ll be all right, Katniss,” says Prim, clasping my face in her hands. “But you have to take care, too. You’re so fast and brave. Maybe you can win.” I can’t win. Prim must know that in her heart. The competi- tion will be far beyond my abilities. Kids from wealthier dis- tricts, where winning is a huge honor, who’ve been trained their whole lives for this. Boys who are two to three times my size. Girls who know twenty different ways to kill you with a knife. Oh, there’ll be people like me, too. People to weed out before the real fun begins. “Maybe,” I say, because I can hardly tell my mother to carry on if I’ve already given up myself. Besides, it isn’t in my nature to go down without a fight, even when things seem insur- mountable. “Then we’d be rich as Haymitch.” “I don’t care if we’re rich. I just want you to come home. You will try, won’t you? Really, really try?” asks Prim. “Really, really try. I swear it,” I say. And I know, because of Prim, I’ll have to. And then the Peacekeeper is at the door, signaling our time is up, and we’re all hugging one another so hard it hurts and all I’m saying is “I love you. I love you both.” And they’re say- 37 ing it back and then the Peacekeeper orders them out and the door closes. I bury my head in one of the velvet pillows as if this can block the whole thing out. Someone else enters the room, and when I look up, I’m sur- prised to see it’s the baker, Peeta Mellark’s father. I can’t be- lieve he’s come to visit me. After all, I’ll be trying to kill his son soon. But we do know each other a bit, and he knows Prim even better. When she sells her goat cheeses at
| 1 |
81 |
Riley-Sager-The-Only-One-Left.txt
| 32 |
as if she’s an art scholar. “And this painting does make her look capable of murder, doesn’t it?” “So why wasn’t she arrested and put on trial?” “There wasn’t enough evidence,” Jessie says. “They dusted for fingerprints, but there were so many from every family member and servant that it was impossible to tell who was responsible. With the murder weapon missing, there was no way to prove Lenora was guilty.” “Or that she was innocent,” I say, fully understanding the hypocrisy of my counterargument. Lack of evidence is the only reason I wasn’t arrested and put on trial. “True. Then there’s the idea that maybe she lied to cover for someone else. Like him.” Jessie points to a signature in the bottom righthand corner of the portrait. I lean in and read the name scrawled in white paint. “Peter Ward?” “The artist. That’s Mary’s wild guess. She’s full of theories. Another one is that Hope’s End is haunted. She claims to have seen the ghost of Virginia Hope roaming the second floor.” The chill I’d felt the first time I was in this hallway returns. Definitely not a draft. It’s too cold, too unnatural. Even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I can understand why Mary thought one haunted Hope’s End. “Is that why she left?” “Yes,” Jessie says, her voice going quiet. “I think she was scared. Hope’s End isn’t a normal house. There’s a darkness here. I can feel it. Mary did. And I think she couldn’t take it anymore.” We head back down the hall, Jessie checking over her shoulder, as if something is lurking just behind us. At the Grand Stairs, I can’t help but take another morbid peek at the bloodstains in the carpet. From there, we move through the other side of the house, stopping at the set of double doors before the hall makes a right toward the kitchen. “The ballroom,” Jessie says solemnly before pushing open the doors. “Where Virginia Hope died.” She turns on the lights, which include sconces set between large mirrors on the walls and three chandeliers that droop from the ceiling. They’re enormous, with more than three dozen bulbs each. Half have burned out. Others buzz and flicker, giving the room a jittery feel. While Jessie roams freely, I remain on the edge of the parquet dance floor, knowing that wherever I step might be the spot where Virginia Hope’s body once lay. “Don’t worry,” Jessie says. “Virginia died up there.” She points to the chandelier in the center of the ballroom. It hangs lower than the others and at a slight angle, like the weight of Virginia’s body partially tugged it from the ceiling. “So the rhyme was right about that.” “Yup,” Jessie says. “Hung her sister with a rope.” I take a few cautious steps toward the center of the room to get a closer look at the chandelier. While it’s low enough to possibly reach with a rope while standing on a chair, I can’t picture a girl of seventeen doing it and then hoisting her
| 0 |
49 |
treasure island.txt
| 79 |
as when I rose, I could see it was in vain for me I could now see that he was a white man like myself and to contend in speed with such an adversary. From trunk to that his features were even pleasing. His skin, wherever it was trunk the creature flitted like a deer, running manlike on two exposed, was burnt by the sun; even his lips were black, and legs, but unlike any man that I had ever seen, stooping almost his fair eyes looked quite startling in so dark a face. Of all the double as it ran. Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in beggar-men that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for doubt about that. raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship’s canvas I began to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was and old sea-cloth, and this extraordinary patchwork was all within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he held together by a system of the most various and incongru- was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and ous fastenings, brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, gaskin. About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled leather therefore, and cast about for some method of escape; and as I belt, which was the one thing solid in his whole accoutre- was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my ment. mind. As soon as I remembered I was not defenceless, cour- “Three years!” I cried. “Were you shipwrecked?” age glowed again in my heart and I set my face resolutely for “Nay, mate,” said he; “marooned.” this man of the island and walked briskly towards him. I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible He was concealed by this time behind another tree trunk; kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers, but he must have been watching me closely, for as soon as I in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder and began to move in his direction he reappeared and took a step shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island. to meet me. Then he hesitated, drew back, came forward “Marooned three years agone,” he continued, “and lived again, and at last, to my wonder and confusion, threw himself on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man Contents on his knees and held out his clasped hands in supplication. is, says I, a man can do for himself. But, mate, my heart is At that I once more stopped. sore for Christian diet. You mightn’t happen to have a piece Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 122 123 of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many’s the long night further’n that; and so my mother told me, and predicked the I’ve dreamed of cheese—toasted, mostly—and woke up again, whole, she did, the pious woman! But it
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58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 85 |
distracted by their conversations to take note of the passersby, all of whom hurried past with stricken looks on their faces. We drove through the city center toward Genial’s mansion, Dexter doing something unknown and complex looking on his phone, Brianna watching with me as the city rolled past. Last time I’d been to Rezopol, it had been with Orson, so that Orson’s presence seemed somehow welded to its beauty—with him gone, there was no reason for the city to keep functioning. We stopped for a light on a corner where one of the fifteen NuLife centers had been built. This one had clearly been Molotov cocktailed, though not so much that it had lost its structural integrity, and draped over its sagging facade was a banner bearing a photorealistic drawing of Orson. He was looking upward and waving as though saying hello to angels. The Urmanese above his portrait had been translated into English below it: “Urmau, welcome to the New Life!” I was thinking about the fact that Genial was planning to kill his father, and that to get back in Dexter’s jet and return to America, which was what I wanted to do, would likely anger Genial, seriously jeopardize the health of NuLife in Urmau, and leave us to default on a $2 billion loan. There didn’t seem to be a correct way to proceed. Or there was, technically speaking, but I would lose money if I proceeded that way. When we had reached the outskirts of the city, Dexter looked up from his phone like a diver coming up for air and craned his neck to see out the window, which happened to frame an empty lot in which a group of shoeless and a few shirtless children were playing a game that involved pitching pebbles back and forth using palm fronds. “Stop here,” Dexter called to Genial’s driver. “Can you pull over?” “Is there a problem, Dexter?” Genial asked. “It’s just a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Dexter said, running his hand through his mealy hair. He turned to me and Brianna. “Do you guys want to get out with me?” We pulled over to the curb and Dexter emerged from the limo, followed by the rest of us. Genial surveyed the children with a sour look on his face, and when they caught sight of us and came running, he turned his chin up in disgust. They were screaming something that sounded like deener pourfair. They opened their palms at us, jockeying among themselves for the spots on the faded grass closest to us. The larger ones pushed the smaller ones down only for the smaller ones to stand right back up, their palms out again, completely undeterred. “They want money,” Genial said, looking defeated. “My apologies, really.” Brianna nodded at me pointedly so I opened my wallet, placing an Urmanese dynere in each child’s hand. They pocketed the money, murmuring a few eager fragments of thanks in English, and then outstretched their hands again. Genial groaned and spat on the ground. “Insatiable.” Dexter had extracted one of his
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53 |
After Death.txt
| 34 |
could have expected nothing else but what was befallen her. For a long while, she holds terror at bay by remembering what previous darkness she has endured and what truths have sustained her. Her seduction by Aleem, when she was sixteen, was not one sorry misstep by a girl who otherwise followed a safe and sensible path. She had begun to rebel against her parents when she was thirteen. Her father and mother, both gainfully employed, worked hard and lived frugally, paid their taxes, went to church, drank little, and were satisfied with simple pleasures like television, library books, and board games. They lived without complaint and by the rules, but to what avail? Money was a constant worry. Their only assets were a twenty-year-old Ford and a tiny blue house in a neighborhood where no one dwelt by choice. In the fever of adolescence, Nina came to see them as kindhearted fools whose contentment with their lot was in fact surrender to the meanness of the world. She saw others who were not so weak, who refused to accept what was ladled out to them, who went after what they wanted by whatever means necessary. They drove flashy cars and wore the latest styles, both men and women, some of them only a few years older than she was. She knew what they did, what they dealt in, and she knew it was wrong. But if poverty was the reward for doing right and success was the reward for doing wrong, then Earth had become so grievously distorted in its turning that no one possessed the power to restore it to its intended shape. In her daydreams, she became one of the fast crowd. And in her daily life, she indulged in petty rebellions—using language her parents would have found shocking if they’d heard it, taking a few tokes of a girlfriend’s joint, leaving home buttoned to the neck but showing cleavage when she got to school. All these years later, she can’t remember how all those little insubordinations abruptly became a revolution against the future that she saw her parents crafting for her, but it seemed to happen in a moment, and the moment’s name was Aleem. Her moral fiber had stretched with elastic ease, but it had not broken, and it snapped back into proper form when at last she came to understand the cruelty inherent in the life that the fast crowd lived. Aleem’s reaction to her pregnancy was cold, uncaring. Marry you? Only pussy-whipped feebs get married. Any fool gets married, he’s puttin’ some pump like you above his homeys. That don’t go down good. Not good at all. I got no time for daddyhood, sugar. Aleem Sutter, he’s on his way up. Ain’t nobody gonna hold me down. That thing in you, it just a tumor, that all it is to me. Your problem. Douche it out, use a coat hanger, whatever you got to do, just don’t come round to me no more. We done, you hear? The way you cling, a man got a
| 0 |
9 |
Dracula.txt
| 46 |
apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, les t I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him, the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say. . . "I am here to do your bidding, Master. I am your slave, and you will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped you long and afar off. Now that you are near, I await your commands, and you will not pass me by, will you, dear Master, in your distribution of good things?" He is a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes his is in a real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before, and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now, at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn't get free from the strait waistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he's chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time. "I shall be patient, Master. It is coming, coming, coming!" So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep tonight. CHAPTER 9 LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA Buda-Pesth, 24 August. "My dearest Lucy, "I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. "Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could. I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has
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6 |
Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt
| 0 |
ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. “Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.” “I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared. “Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind. Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, and a desk there; that he copied for me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty being transferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment doubtless to their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never on any account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally understood that he would prefer not to—in other words, that he would refuse pointblank. As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great, stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was this,—he was always there;—first in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands. Sometimes to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities, privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby’s part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence. Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legal gentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, there were several keys
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Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.txt
| 14 |
as available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. book i. ( folio), chapter iv. ( hump back). --this whale is often seen on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm whale also has a hump, though a smaller one. His oil is not very valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of all .. <p 137 > the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any other of them. BOOK I. ( Folio), CHAPTER V. ( Razor Back). --Of this whale little is known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody else. BOOK I. ( Folio), CHAPTER VI. ( Sulphur Bottom). -- Another retiring gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. Thus ends BOOK I. ( Folio), and now begins BOOK II. ( octavo). OCTAVOES. These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which at present may be numbered: --I., the Grampus; II., the Black Fish; III., the Narwhale; IV., the Thrasher; V., the Killer. BOOK II. ( Octavo), CHAPTER I. ( Grampus). --Though this fish, whose loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable .. <p 138 > in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. BOOK II. ( Octavo), CHAPTER II. ( Black Fish).
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Katherine-Center-Hello-Stranger.txt
| 63 |
it comes to Parker.” But Joe was still indignant. “I wasn’t messing around with the stepsister who ruined your life,” he said. “I was feeding her cat.” Confirmation. “You were feeding Parker’s evil cat? The one that keeps peeing in our hallway?” Joe nodded. “Yep. Its name is Elvira.” I took that in. “But you were wearing your pajamas.” “Exactly!” Joe said. “People don’t do walks of shame in their pajamas.” He had a point. “Parker wasn’t even there! She left at three A.M. on a flight to Amsterdam!” he said—and now it was his turn to be mad. “You think that I kissed you last night and then turned around to have some kind of illicit tryst with your worst enemy?” I mean, yes. Worse things happened all the time with Parker. But his outrage was humbling. “It wasn’t a real kiss,” I finally said. “It was real enough.” I shrugged, still half thinking I was right. “How could you think that?” Joe said. “I don’t know. People are terrible.” “People may be terrible,” Joe said. “But I’m not.” He really felt kind of hurt. Maybe it was time to level with him a little. “I’m sorry,” I said then, “I’m having a very weird month.” “Okay,” Joe said, listening. But how much to say, standing here in the doorway of his empty apartment? Maybe just the basics. I took a breath and went for it. “About a month ago,” I said, “I had what they call a nonconvulsive seizure in the crosswalk in front of our building. And apparently a Good Samaritan pushed me to safety just before I got mowed down by a Volkswagen Beetle. At the hospital, they did a brain scan for the cause of the seizure and found a little malformed blood vessel. They said I needed surgery to correct it, so I had surgery.” Joe shook his head, like What? “You had brain surgery?” “Yeah,” I said. “A month ago?” I nodded to confirm. Then, like a kid showing someone a boo-boo, I leaned forward and pulled my hair aside so he could see the scar behind my ear. He peered in at it. “Wow.” I hadn’t shown anybody my scar yet. Not even Sue. “Yeah,” I said. “And it’s been”—here, a tremble found its way into my voice—“a weirdly hard month. Nothing’s quite right. Things that used to be easy are now … not. Especially painting.” Joe nodded. “The day of the seizure, I’d just had my first big career break. And I was all set to win it.” I looked down at my hands. “But I’m having trouble painting now.” “That’s why you’re trying new techniques.” I nodded. I was not, not, not going to tell him about the face blindness. But maybe I could tell him about what it felt like. “My whole life, my brain was always just so … reliable. But now, not as much. I keep getting things wrong. I can’t trust myself. The whole world looks different. And so the version of me that you’re getting right now
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Tess of the d'Urbervilles.txt
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of!--no, she says she wo--o--on't!" they wailed, with square mouths. "And we shan't have a nice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings! And Tess won't look pretty in her best cloze no mo--o--ore!" Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument. Her father alone preserved an attitude of neutrality. "I will go," said Tess at last. Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial Vision conjured up by the girl's consent. "That's right! For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine chance!" Tess smiled crossly. "I hope it is a chance for earning money. It is no other kind of chance. You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish." Mrs Durbeyfield did not promise. She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitor's remarks, to say a good deal. Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required. She was duly informed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start. Mrs d'Urberville's handwriting seemed rather masculine. "A cart?" murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly. "It might have been a carriage for her own kin!" Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation which would not be onerous. She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise. Being mentally older than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield's matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment. The light-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter almost from the year of her birth. VII On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before dawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken. She remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box. Her mother expostulated. "You will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the dand than that?" "But I am going to work!" said Tess. "Well, yes," said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, "at first there mid be a little pretence o't.... But I think it will be wiser of 'ee to put your best side outward," she added. "Very well; I suppose you know
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The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt
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his face in the cushions, as if he was praying. "This is your doing, Harry," said Hallward, bitterly. [20] "My doing?" "Yes, yours, and you know it." Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray,-- that is all," he answered. "It is not." "If it is not, what have I to do with it?" "You should have gone away when I asked you." "I stayed when you asked me." "Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and color? I will not let it come across our three lives and mar them." Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and looked at him with pallid face and tear-stained eyes, as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the large curtained window. What was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had found it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas. With a stifled sob he leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried. "It would be murder!" "I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said Hallward, coldly, when he had recovered from his surprise. "I never thought you would." "Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself, I feel that." "Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself." And he walked across the room and rang the bell for tea. "You will have tea, of course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Tea is the only simple pleasure left to us." "I don't like simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "And I don't like scenes, except on the stage. What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after all: though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn't really want it, and I do." "If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I will never forgive you!" cried Dorian Gray. "And I don't allow people to call me a silly boy." "You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it existed." "And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you don't really mind being called a boy." "I should have minded very much this
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The-Scorched-Throne-1-Sara-Hashe.txt
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wearing a thin black shirt and pants, light fare compared to his usual layers of black and violet. Silver hair fell around his jaw, highlighting the fading bruise on his cheekbone. His ability to intimidate wasn’t softened by his relaxed attire. Vaun fell to a kneeling position, lowering his head. “Forgive me, my liege. I acted without consulting you.” “Yes, that much seems apparent,” Arin said. “Leave. We will discuss this at a more appropriate juncture.” Vaun glanced up. “What should I do with the girl?” “You should do what I ask and only that.” Again, Arin remained perfectly pleasant, but Vaun paled like the Heir had personally called for his beheading. “Go.” I massaged the roots of my hair with a wince. First the Nizahl soldier in the woods, now Vaun. My scalp had taken a beating in the last two weeks. I remained close to the door, carefully avoiding glancing at Arin. I didn’t want to risk exiting into the hall with Vaun still nearby, so I took my time studying the Heir’s room. There wasn’t much to see. A tall wardrobe, a bed only slightly bigger than my own, a tiny square table no wider than a book, and a much larger table covered in inkwells and partially unrolled maps. I wondered what he thought of the tiny table. They were once a staple in every Jasadi household, folded and tucked behind the furniture until a guest arrived. The host would place a saucer and an aromatic, palm-size cup of ahwa on that table, maybe slide a plate of biscuits or kunafa beside it. I’d loved the smell of ahwa, though the one time I’d tasted it I’d spat it right out. But Soraya would still sneak me empty cups from the kitchen so I could sniff the leftover dark sludge like a candle. I couldn’t seem to get Jasad out of my head lately. Surrounded by Nizahlans wasn’t the optimal setting to be dwelling on my former home. A small box at the corner of the small table held the Nizahl royal seal and a bottle of wax. I picked it up. The seal was untainted iron, heavy in my palm. Molded into the bottom were two swords clashing. A raven emerged where the swords met, its wings unfurling on each side. I traced its contours, mesmerized. “Careful,” Arin said. “Wax burns.” The seal fumbled in my grip. I dropped it, trying to claw at the fog over my senses. Navigating a conversation with the Heir drained me on a good day, and today was far from good. “What do you use this for?” I held up the seal, expecting him to wrench it from my grip and toss me from the room. “My maps.” He satisfied a part of my prediction and held his hand out for the seal. I dropped it into his palm, careful to maintain distance from his bare skin. “Can I see them?” Arin regarded me for a long minute. I squared my chin, anticipating some remark on my literacy or intelligence. He
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Happy Place.txt
| 91 |
matters is that we broke. What matters is that Wyn’s happy with his new life. We’ll make it through tomorrow, then go our separate ways. When we tell everyone we’ve broken up, we’ll be able to say it was amicable, that it won’t cost them anything. But I can’t let it go. I’ve been trying for months, and I’m no closer to peace. Here’s my opportunity—my last chance. It might be a mistake to get answers, but if I don’t, I’ll spend my life regretting it. This is what I need from this week, the thing that will justify the torture. I leave the bedroom, march down the hall past the hiss of running showers and old pipes creaking in the walls. Everything feels strange, dreamlike: the time-smoothed wooden stairs soft against my soles, the prickle of cool air as I step out back, the rushing sound of the tide sliding over the rocks beneath the bluff. I cross the patio to the side gate, still open from Cleo’s sudden flight of fancy the other night, and follow the path beyond it, into the dense evergreens beyond. The sun hasn’t fully set, but the foliage overhead coats the footbridge in shadow, pinpricks of mounted solar lights illuminating the path to the guesthouse. It’s like I’m moving through jelly, every step slow and heavy. Then the wood-shingled guesthouse appears, and I round the corner toward the cedarwood shower. When I see him, it surprises me. As if I didn’t come here expressly for him. Only the back of his head, neck, and shoulders peek over the top of the cedar walls, the breeze pulling steam out in silver wisps. A feeling of loss, heavy as a sandbag, hits me in the gut. I can’t do this, I think. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to make things worse. I turn. My sleeve catches on a low-hanging branch, and all the moisture accumulated there spatters to the hollow forest floor. Wyn turns, his brow arching with amusement. “Can I help you?” He looks and sounds happy to see me. Somehow it’s another blow. I waver. “I doubt it.” “May I help you,” he amends. “I just wanted to talk!” I step back. “But it can wait. Until you’re less . . .” “Busy?” he guesses. “Naked,” I say. “One and the same,” he says. “For you, I guess,” I say. His brow scrunches. “What’s that mean?” “I honestly don’t know,” I say. He rests his forearms atop the wall, waiting. For me to come closer or to bolt. Now that the opportunity’s in front of me, having an answer I don’t like seems eminently worse than never having an answer at all. “It’s nothing,” I say. “Forget it.” “I won’t.” He wipes water from his eye. “But if you want me to pretend, I can try.” I take another half step back. His gaze stays pinned on me. As always, something about his face coaxes the words out of me before my brain has decided to say them: “It’s killing me not
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THE SCARLET LETTER.txt
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uncompleted, unaccomplished; (adj) unrecognised: (adj) globally, ally, everywhere, totally, partial unacknowledged, not recognized Catholicly, cosmically, ubiquitously, unpicturesque: (adj) ugly unredeemed: (adj) cursed, lost, prevalently, regularly, usually. unpremeditated: (adj) spontaneous, damned, fated, goddam, ANTONYMS: (adv) narrowly, unintentional, involuntary, goddamned, everlasting, infernal, locally impromptu, casual, offhand, unlucky, unsaved, goddamn unkind: (adj) cruel, harsh, unfeeling, impulsive, extemporaneous, unrelenting: (adj, n) harsh, hard, inconsiderate, pitiless, heartless, unintended, unguarded, severe; (adj) stern, relentless, inhuman, hard, thoughtless, brutal, unconscious. ANTONYMS: (adj) implacable, austere, cruel, grim, mean. ANTONYMS: (adj) kind, premeditated, intentional, prepared unforgiving, persistent. considerate, pleasant, friendly, unprofitable: (adj) profitless, ANTONYMS: (adj) feeble, thoughtful, tactful, mild, gentle, fruitless, futile, inutile, inexorable, sympathetic, temporary, generous, flattering, compassionate disadvantageous, unfruitful, barren, merciful, compassionate, finite, unkindly: (adv) cruelly, brutally, idle, vain, uneconomic, gentle badly, maliciously, meanly, unproductive. ANTONYMS: (adj) unreserved: (adj) open, unqualified, heartlessly, inconsiderately, fruitful, lucrative candid, unconditional, sincere, pitilessly, nastily, unprosperous: (adj) unfortunate, complete, expansive, absolute, total, unsympathetically; (adj) unkind. improsperous, disadventurous, outgoing, familiar. ANTONYMS: ANTONYMS: (adv) needy, impecunious, failing, poor (adj) qualified, reserved, uncertain, understandingly, pleasantly, unprovoked: (adj) wanton, unenthusiastic, shy, rather, partial, innocently, gently, compassionately, motiveless, unwarranted, inhibited, restrained benevolently, thoughtfully, gratuitous, sluttish, groundless, unreservedly: (adj, adv) freely; (adv) mercifully light, loose, meaningless, needless, candidly, frankly, absolutely, unlocked: (adj) unbarred, unlatched, reckless. ANTONYMS: (adj) sincerely, liberally, ingenuously, unbolted, not closed, loose, provoked, reasonable, necessary, entirely, categorically, fully, plainly. unsecured, ajar, wide open, justifiable ANTONYMS: (adv) hardly, unguaranteed unquestionable: (adj) parsimoniously, unenthusiastically, unmanageable: (adj) unwieldy, incontrovertible, indisputable, sure, unwillingly intractable, uncontrollable, incontestable, indubitable, certain, unripe: (adj) green, raw, premature, awkward, cumbersome, stubborn, unequivocal, irrefutable, undoubted, crude, young, uncooked, juvenile, clumsy, bulky, recalcitrant, definite; (v) unimpeachable. half grown, callow, inexperienced, ungovernable, obstinate. ANTONYMS: (adj) dubious, unfledged. ANTONYMS: (adj) 336 The Scarlet Letter mature, ripe, ready desired. ANTONYM: (adj) welcome unsalted, young, unverified, unsavoury: (adj) unsavory, offensive, unspeakable: (adj) ineffable, untouched; (v) undetermined. unpalatable, nasty, repellent, foul, dreadful, awful, terrible, ANTONYMS: (adj) proven, noisome, disgusting, sour, revolting, inexpressible, nasty, horrible, seasoned, familiar, experienced loathsome. ANTONYM: (adj) savory atrocious, indefinable, shocking; untrue: (adj) erroneous, unfaithful, unscrupulous: (adj) dishonest, (adj, v) unutterable. ANTONYMS: disloyal, incorrect, sham, mistaken, unprincipled, unethical, immoral, (adj) nice, wonderful, pleasant, fallacious, treacherous, wrong, dishonorable, crooked, unfair, good, lovely, bearable faithless, inaccurate. ANTONYMS: unconscionable, sharp, unspotted: (adj) unblemished, (adj) faithful, true, valid, factual, unconscientious, sly. ANTONYMS: unstained, unsoiled, stainless, pure, honest, reliable, correct, truthful, (adj) scrupulous, principled, ethical, blameless, immaculate, undefaced, loyal, real honest, moral undeformed, spotless, untarnished untutored: (adj) unschooled, unsearchable: (adj) unstrung: (adj) nervous, asthenic, uneducated, illiterate, uncultivated, incomprehensible, mysterious, discomposed, overwrought, artless, simple, naive, unaffected, investigable, admitting research, adynamic; (v) weakly rude, rough, pure. ANTONYMS: obscure unsubstantial: (adj) unreal, airy, thin, (adj) trained, educated unseasonable: (adj) inopportune, imaginary, shadowy, light, empty, unutterable: (adj) indescribable, inappropriate, premature, ill timed, immaterial, insignificant, vaporous; unspeakable, inexpressible, improper, immature, inconvenient, (adj, v) flimsy unpronounceable, indefinable, ill-timed, inept, unchancy; (v) unsuitable: (adj) improper, untellable, unnameable, illtimed inapplicable, unfit, incorrect, unapproachable, beyond unseasonably: (adv) inconveniently, unbecoming, inopportune, description, incommunicable, untimeously, inopportunely, undesirable, inapt, wrong, terrible intempestively, not opportunely, inconvenient, incompatible. unutterably: (adv) ineffably, prematurely, timelessly, ANTONYMS: (adj) appropriate, inexpressibly, indescribably, beyond incommodiously.
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt
| 41 |
was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.' Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself. `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying.' So she began: `O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!' The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.' `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?' `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool,
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Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt
| 16 |
interested in adjusting her sunbed. “Not exactly,” she says. “I, um, took on two new clients?” “Noemie.” Her sad smile reminds me of how she looked when she told me she wasn’t going to study journalism anymore. That public relations was a better fit for her, and the journalism job market terrified her. “I know. I’m going to do it. After this project. I swear.” She takes a sip of her margarita. “So. Spill it. I know you didn’t ask me to fly out here just because you miss me.” I wait a moment, worrying the frayed edge of my towel before dropping it in the sand beneath us. The beach has emptied out a bit, families collecting their sunburned children and twentysomethings trading the ocean for Miami nightlife. “It’s complicated.” All day, this secret has felt too heavy, and suddenly I feel like I might collapse with the weight of it. A few deep, cleansing breaths, the kind we learned how to do when Noemie dragged me to aerial yoga last year. “Do you remember the guy I hooked up with in September? Right before I met Finn and took this job?” “The worst sex of your life.” “Right. And remember how I had no idea who Finn was at first . . .” I trail off, hoping she’ll connect the dots so I don’t have to say it out loud. Her eyes grow wide as she twists in her chair. “No. No. That’s not—tell me they weren’t the same person, Chandler.” I drape my towel over my head. “He gave me a fake name. Neither of us knew who the other was until that lunch in Seattle.” “You slept with Oliver Huxley,” she says slowly. “Holy. Shit.” “There was absolutely nothing holy about it,” I say, my voice half muffled by the towel. She reaches forward, snatching the towel away and shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m sorry, my brain is rewriting everything it’s ever assumed about Finn Walsh, cinnamon roll nerd of my dreams. This is absolutely devastating.” “It’s been killing me, not telling anyone.” “And you still wanted to work on this book? It’s been okay? Because as much as I’ve missed you, I’ve been really, really happy that you’re doing this.” I chew on my straw, wondering what that means specifically. “We agreed we weren’t going to talk about it, that it was firmly in the past. But then I wound up telling him what that night was like for me, and it evolved into this joke that maybe wasn’t a joke at all, about me helping him improve his technique in bed. And, well . . .” “You’re giving Finnegan Walsh sex tips?” Noemie nearly falls off her sunbed. “I’ve never been happier or more shocked to be related to you.” “And I’ve never been thirstier in my entire life. It’s like the more we’re together, the more I want to be with him. It’s a terrible, horny paradox. Is this the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?” “Aside from the questionable ethics of the two of
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The Hunger Games.txt
| 27 |
my leg in front of me. I almost faint at the sight of my calf. The flesh is a brilliant red covered with blisters. I force myself to take deep, slow breaths, feeling quite certain the cameras are on my face. I can’t show weakness at this injury. Not if I want help. Pity does not get you aid. Admiration at your refusal to give in does. I cut the remains of the pant leg off at the knee and ex- amine the injury more closely. The burned area is about the size of my hand. None of the skin is blackened. I think it’s not too bad to soak. Gingerly I stretch out my leg into the pool, propping the heel of my boot on a rock so the leather doesn’t get too sodden, and sigh, because this does offer some relief. I know there are herbs, if I could find them, that would speed the healing, but I can’t quite call them to mind. Water and time will probably be all I have to work with. Should I be moving on? The smoke is slowly clearing but still too heavy to be healthy. If I do continue away from the fire, won’t I be walking straight into the weapons of the Ca- reers? Besides, every time I lift my leg from the water, the pain rebounds so intensely I have to slide it back in. My hands are slightly less demanding. They can handle small breaks from the pool. So I slowly put my gear back in order. First I fill my bottle with the pool water, treat it, and when enough time has passed, begin to rehydrate my body. After a time, I force myself to nibble on a cracker, which helps settle my stomach. I roll up my sleeping bag. Except for a few black marks, it’s rela- 178 tively unscathed. My jacket’s another matter. Stinking and scorched, at least a foot of the back beyond repair. I cut off the damaged area leaving me with a garment that comes just to the bottom of my ribs. But the hood’s intact and it’s far better than nothing. Despite the pain, drowsiness begins to take over. I’d take to a tree and try to rest, except I’d be too easy to spot. Besides, abandoning my pool seems impossible. I neatly arrange my supplies, even settle my pack on my shoulders, but I can’t seem to leave. I spot some water plants with edible roots and make a small meal with my last piece of rabbit. Sip water. Watch the sun make its slow arc across the sky. Where would I go anyway that is any safer than here? I lean back on my pack, overcome by drowsiness. If the Careers want me, let them find me, I think before drifting into a stupor. Let them find me. And find me, they do. It’s lucky I’m ready to move on be- cause when I hear the feet, I have less than a minute head start. Evening has begun to fall.
| 1 |
76 |
Love Theoretically.txt
| 75 |
seat. “Jacky, you can ask Elsie all those things you wanted to know. Hey, Elsie.” He attempts to whisper in my ear, though it comes out slurred and very loud. “Jacky has a thing for you. Like, he stares all the time. And he asks so many questions about you.” “Oh, Greg.” This is mortifying. “That’s . . . really not what’s happening.” In the front seat, Jack’s silence is quietly, painfully loud. “Full disclosure, Jacky,” Greg continues with a loopy grin, “I made up all the answers. I dunno if she likes to travel, if she wants kids, if she’s into movies. Like, how’m I s’posed to know?” Jack’s expression through the rearview mirror is sealed. “She has a thing for Twilight, I’ve discovered.” Greg is delighted. “The vampire or the wolf—” “Greg, how was the retreat?” I interrupt him with a smile. “Sooo mandatory. But then my tooth exploded in my mouth, and I got to leave early. Hey, you know how sometimes there are shoes on the power lines? Who puts them there?” “Um, not sure. Listen, do you remember if you got a chance to check your texts on your way to the dentist? Or your email? Or listen to your voicemails?” He stares at me with an intense, solemn expression. I tense with anticipation as his eyes go wide. Then he says, “Oh my God. We should play I Spy!” I sigh. Fifteen minutes later, after Greg claims to spy a bear, P. Diddy, and a can of garbanzo beans, we park outside a pretty Roxbury house carved into two apartments. “Where are your keys, Greg?” I ask. “I’ve got a spare,” Jack says, finishing in twenty seconds a parallel parking job that would have taken me twenty minutes and my whole dignity. “Just make sure he doesn’t wander into traffic.” I’d like to think that Greg’s place is what mine and Cece’s would be like if we managed to lift our credenza, could afford non-bedbugged furniture, and were less prone to frolicking in our own filth. It’s simple and cozy, covered in knickknacks that remind me of Greg’s personality and his quirky sense of humor. Jack dwarfs the entrance, but he doesn’t seem out of place. He obviously spends time here, because he knows exactly where to find the light switch, how to raise the thermostat, which shelf to set the mail on. “Cutlet!” Greg yells, fisting Jack’s shirt. “Cutlet—where is she?” I look around, expecting to see a cat slinking closer, but it’s just us in the apartment—me idling, Jack relentlessly inching Greg toward a bedroom. “On my desk at work. Let’s go take a nap, G. Sounds nice, right?” “Did you water her? Has she changed? Does she still remember me?” “I watered it. Her. She looks the same. Not sure she remembers you, since she’s nonsentient—like most cactuses. How ’bout that nap?” “Can I have a drink first, please?” “Elsie, could you get him some water while I put him to bed?” “Milk! Did you know that milk comes from nipples?” Jack and
| 0 |
70 |
Kalynn-Bayron-Youre-Not-Supposed.txt
| 71 |
forward, I take a step back from the gate. This is wrong. There’s someone else in the game, and it’s not someone I recognize. My heart kicks up. “What’s going on?” the blond guy asks. Suddenly, the floodlights in the parking lot come up. They bathe the entire area in a brilliant white haze. The Halloween theme music begins to play, and the other staff and guests emerge from their holding areas. “I want my damn money back!” yells one of the guests as he stalks up to the gate. “Supposed to be a serial killer out here, right? Whose grandma is this?” He gestures to the other side of the gate, and I realize the person approaching is an older woman in dingy coveralls and a flannel shirt. Her wispy gray hair is loose and falls over her face like a veil. In her right hand is something long and slender and double-barreled—a shotgun. Every muscle in my body tenses. I want to run, but I feel like I can’t move. Kyle suddenly ducks deeper into the woods and emerges behind us a few moments later, his mask now situated on top of his head. With trembling fingers, I touch my earpiece. “Bezi?” “Yeah.” Her voice crackles in my ear. “Who is that at the entrance? Is that a player? Wait. Oh my god, Charity! She has a gun!” “Open the mics and tell everybody to get inside and lock the doors,” I say. “Now!” Bezi’s voice commands anyone not already at the front gate to get to the Western Lodge and lock themselves in. There’s a flurry of panicked footsteps and shouts from behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off the woman. She raises the gun and cradles it in the crook of her arm with the barrel pointing up to the sky. “You think this is a game?” she asks, her voice low and gravelly. She narrows her eyes at me; then she turns and glances over her shoulder as if she’s looking for someone behind her. My mouth is suddenly dry. I try to stifle the fear that is pooling in my chest, but I can barely move. I force myself to take another step back. “Everybody get inside the office!” I shout. The guests, Porter, and Tasha retreat to the office. Kyle stays beside me, gripping his machete as if its rubber blade will do either one of us any good. “This is my place. My land. All of it.” The woman turns her head and spits on the ground. “You damn kids think you can do whatever you want out here? You think there won’t be consequences?” As the woman rambles on, she keeps the shotgun in the crook of her arm. She touches her face with her free hand, then tilts her head back and laughs. “It’s all fun and games, right? Pay to play? You should be ashamed. If you knew what I know . . .” She trails off, and her eyes glaze over. “What are you talking about?” Kyle asks.
| 0 |
56 |
Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt
| 55 |
He takes a sip as I nod. “I don’t have one.” “Come on.” I make a buzzer sound. “Really? I see you as an Isaac fan.” “They all seem like nice blokes. It’s why I cast them.” “Well, so far I like Nick, Dax, and Isaac. Jude is great but I’m not sure we click.” “Not Evan?” “It didn’t work the first time, but who knows?” “Okay. Just keep an open mind.” “Oh, I will,” I say, waving this off. “But if you’re asking me right now who I’m most attracted to, that’s my answer. That’s all.” Connor looks like he’s debating something before he finally opens his mouth. “So, this brings us to my one piece of feedback, which is perhaps to tone down the come-to-bed eyes a little.” I feel my smile slip from my face. “The—What?” “Viewers want to see you forging a real connection.” “And that doesn’t start with flirting? Have I been doing dating wrong this whole time!” “It’s the way you flirt,” he says, unamused by my humor. “The way I flirt,” I repeat flatly, and set my bottle a safe distance away. I may need both hands to throttle him. “Only thirty-three percent of Bachelor viewers tune in for The Bachelorette. Do you know why that is?” Oh, I know this one. “The patriarchy.” “Yes. Viewers are far more accepting of a man dating multiple women than they are of a woman dating multiple men. It’s not right, but that’s the way it is.” “Look who’s suddenly an expert on pop culture TV.” “I told you, I’m taking this seriously.” “So you want me to play harder to get? Romance has fought long and hard to get away from the ideal of virginal ingenue heroines. If you think I’m going to play into that stereotype on this show, you’re going to be disappointed.” “I didn’t say that.” “Then what did you say?” He shifts on his feet, neck red. “I don’t mean you can’t—Listen,” he says, trying again. “Never mind. You’re fine just the way you are.” “Oh, well. Thank you.” A quiet falls then, and it’s like a match blown out, the way the energy evaporates from the room. “Why are you suddenly mad at me?” I ask him. “What did I do?” “I’m not.” He shakes his head, looking briefly miserable. “I’m sorry.” “I said yes to this show because I wanted to take care of the audience in your clumsy hands—” He laughs dryly. “You’ve made me well aware.” “—but it’s fun because I’m doing it with you,” I finish, reaching for his hand. Finally, he looks up. And I think I get what’s happening. God, I am so dumb sometimes. “I have fun with you,” I tell him, tugging him closer. “This first week on set was great because I’m comfortable with you. I insisted you do confessionals because I like being with you. I risked my life talking to River because I believe in your amazing ideas. You are doing your job so well, and I’m sorry if—” My words
| 0 |
28 |
THE SCARLET LETTER.txt
| 17 |
sophisticated, idle: (adj) lazy, indolent, inactive, (adj) hidden, unilluminating, responsible, sensible, ready free, unfounded, fruitless, baseless, secretive immaturity: (n) immatureness, groundless, frivolous, empty, illumination: (n) brightness, childhood, babyhood, adolescence, disengaged. ANTONYMS: (adj) illuminance, lighting, light, puerility, crudity, youth, juvenility, active, employed, industrious, explanation, elucidation, edification, callowness, state, viridity. energetic, meaningful, productive, luminousness, luminosity, ANTONYMS: (n) maturity, worthwhile, diligent; (v) change, illustration; (adj, n) irradiation. adulthood, experience run, work ANTONYMS: (n) education, immeasurable: (adj) endless, idleness: (n) lethargy, laziness, knowledge, confusion immense, infinite, huge, enormous, torpor, inactivity, idling, illusive: (adj) deceptive, false, illimitable, unmeasurable, unemployment, sloth, inaction, delusive, imaginary, fallacious, incalculable, inestimable, inertia, faineance, idlesse. unreal, seeming, ostensible, innumerable, interminable. ANTONYMS: (n) energy, activity, apparent, fanciful, fantastic ANTONYMS: (adj) limited, minute, bustle, liveliness, responsibility illustrious: (adj, n) glorious, finite, shallow, slight, negligible, idler: (n) lazybones, laggard, bum, celebrated, excellent, grand; (adj) tiny, few, minor, small loafer, loiterer, loon, shirker, famous, bright, eminent, famed, immemorial: (adj) ancient, layabout, lounger, vagabond; (v) distinguished, brilliant, well-known. prescriptive, pristine, primaeval, dawdle ANTONYMS: (adj) unknown, primeval, traditional, old, eternal, idly: (adj, adv) foolishly; (adv) vainly, obscure, ordinary, undistinguished, customary vaguely, listlessly, forgetfully, lowly immensity: (n) greatness, distractedly; (adj) thoughtlessly. ill-will: (n) enmity enormousness, immenseness, ANTONYM: (adv) energetically imaginary: (adj) fictitious, unreal, infinity, bulk, largeness, infiniteness, idolise: (v) venerate, worship, revere, false, mythical, illusory, ideal, infinitude, vastness, grandeur, glorify, fear, adore hypothetical, visionary, fictional, grandness. ANTONYM: (n) idolized: (adj) adored, beloved, notional, chimerical. ANTONYMS: lightness loved, precious, worshipped (adj) real, palpable, actual, concrete, imminent: (adj) forthcoming, coming, ignominious: (adj) dishonorable, prosaic, normal, true close, future, near, pending, shameful, disreputable, infamous, imagining: (n) conception, approaching, at hand, menacing, base, discreditable, dishonourable, daydream, fantasy, opinion; (v) threatening, prospective. inglorious, black, despicable, imagine; (adj) imaginant ANTONYMS: (adj) remote, past degrading. ANTONYMS: (adj) imbecility: (n) folly, foolishness, immortal: (adj) eternal, enduring, honorable, glorious idiocy, fatuity, weakness, stupidity, undying, endless, monumental; (adj, ignominiously: (adv) disgracefully, feeblemindedness, lunacy; (adj, n) v) deathless, imperishable, shamefully, discreditably, debility, feebleness; (adj) infirmity celebrated; (n) deity, God, divinity. dishonorably, scandalously, imbibing: (n) drinking, absorption, ANTONYMS: (adj) obscure, earthly, dishonourably, opprobriously, intake, swillings, drink, potation, forgettable, perishable, temporary infamously, basely, vilely, foully drunkenness, gulping, boozing, immortality: (n) sempiternity, ignominy: (n) disgrace, dishonor, crapulence; (adj) absorbent perpetuity, athanasia, glory, aye, shame, reproach, contempt, imbue: (v) infuse, saturate, permeate, fame, everness, immortal, disrepute, degradation, discredit, tinge, steep, dye, fill, impregnate, permanency, deathlessness, scandal; (adj, n) odium; (adj) pervade, instill, inoculate undying. ANTONYM: (n) mortality opprobrium. ANTONYMS: (n) imbued: (adj) addicted, alive, immortally: (adv) undyingly, success, glorification, pride instinct, full everlastingly, deathlessly, ill-defined: (adj) unclear, ambiguous, imitated: (adj) mimical perpetually, eternally, perennially, vague, indistinct, obscure, fuzzy, imitative: (adj) mock, counterfeit, lastingly, abidingly, timelessly, loose, general, faint, hazy derivative, fake, false, fictitious, enduringly, permanently ill-fated: (adj) hapless, unfortunate, bogus, bastard, onomatopoeic, base, immunity: (n) freedom, franchise, unhappy, poor, accursed, cursed, sham. ANTONYMS: (adj) genuine, dispensation, privilege, exception, fatal, infelicitous, unchancy, real, nonimitative relief, invulnerability, exoneration, disastrous, inauspicious immaterial: (adj) insignificant, excuse, safety, liberty. ANTONYMS: ill-fitted: (adj) ill-suited, inapt inconsequential, irrelevant, (n) susceptibility, liability, inclusion ill-omened: (adj) ill-fated, ominous, disembodied, incorporeal, trivial, impalpable: (adj) imperceptible,
| 1 |
58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 53 |
stop,” I told him. “Do this for as long as we live.” When we were finished, we roused ourselves for the 40 Under 40 Gala. He threaded his tie into a half Windsor while I watched him in the bathroom mirror, pretending to be busy un-messing my hair when really all I wanted was to see him compose himself, transition from a person who’d just had hours of sex to a person who could sit scrubbed clean and civil looking at a dinner table. He arranged himself in stages: the tie, the hair, the jacket. It was intoxicating. “What is it, little dude?” he asked. I shook my head and went into the bedroom to retrieve my own jacket, which I’d had tailored in secret imitation of his, from the shoulders of which I rubbed dust that hung in the air like a sleepy djinn. I slid my jacket on and held my shoulders back. I looked good, or at least good enough. The gala was held in the hotel’s ballroom, billed as a “celebration of America’s best and brightest young people.” It was supposedly a chance to network but it was really an opportunity to dick-measure intelligence and wealth, to drop the names of the schools we’d attended and the people we’d met. We’d gotten our invite after a short Forbes profile of NuLife called “Bliss for Beginners,” which identified Orson as the maverick inventor of an “unlikely product” and me as his “front-end developer.” The piece was more a profile of Orson than of NuLife, describing his angular jaw and his all-juice diet and his sleeping and running habits. He’d mentioned in-person Synthesis a few times to the reporter, who’d quoted him as saying that it was the “Bliss-Mini on a cosmic level.” Orson had insisted on accepting the invites to the gala because there would be real money there, people who, even if we couldn’t get them involved in NuLife, would at the very least provide object lessons in how to act rich and successful. It was more his kind of thing than mine, but who was I to object? It would be good for NuLife, and more important, it would be good for him. At the ballroom’s entrance he told me we should split up so each of us could cover more territory. “You just find people to socialize with, okay? And then back in the room we confab.” “Back in the room we confab,” I said, dropping my voice in imitation of his. He poked me in the ribs. I laughed. “This is important,” he said. “Aye-aye.” He looked at me with mock severity. “I mean, colonel—I’ll do the best I can, sir,” I said. He went left and I went right, in the direction of a small circle of what turned out to be tall and toned women engaged in a very technical conversation about thermodynamics. When they saw me coming, they awkwardly opened the circle to welcome me in. “You’re the NuLife guy,” one of them said, her upturned nose like an electrical socket in
| 0 |
34 |
The Call of the Wild.txt
| 46 |
day, for days unending, Buck toiled in the traces. Always, they broke camp in the dark, and the first gray of dawn found them hitting the trail with fresh miles reeled off behind them. And always they pitched camp after dark, eating their bit of fish, and crawling to sleep into the snow. Buck was ravenous. The pound and a half of sun-dried salmon, which was his ration for each day, seemed to go nowhere. He never had enough, and suffered from perpetual hunger pangs. Yet the other dogs, because they weighed less and were born to the life, received a pound only of the fish and managed to keep in good condition. He swiftly lost the fastidiousness which had characterized his old life. A dainty eater, he found that his mates, finishing first, robbed him of his unfinished ration. There was no defending it. While he was fighting off two or three, it was disappearing down the throats of the others. To remedy this, he ate as fast as they; and, so greatly did hunger compel him, he was not above taking what did not belong to him. He watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he was unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting caught, was punished for Buck's misdeed. This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a 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
| 1 |
98 |
Yellowface.txt
| 84 |
hand,” she’s said. “It helps me think better, to identify themes and linkages. I think it’s because the act of physical writing forces my mind to slow down, to examine the potential of every word I’m scribbling out. Then, when I’ve filled up six or seven notebooks this way, I pull out the typewriter and start drafting properly.” I don’t know why I never thought of taking the notebooks as well. They were right there on the desk—at least three of them, two lying open next to the manuscript. I was so panicked that night. I suppose I thought they’d go into storage with the rest of her belongings. But a public archive? I mean, fuck. The first person who goes in to write a paper about her—and there will be many, I’m sure—will see the notes for The Last Front right away. I’m sure they’re extensive, detailed. That’ll be a dead giveaway. Then this whole artifice unravels. I don’t have time to calm myself, to think things through. I need to nip this in the bud. Heart racing, I reach for my phone and call Athena’s mother. MRS. LIU IS GORGEOUS. IT’S TRUE WHAT THEY SAY—ASIAN WOMEN don’t age. She must be in her midfifties by now, but she doesn’t look a day over thirty. You can see, in that elegant, petite frame and sharp cheekbones, the wispy beauty Athena would have grown into. Mrs. Liu’s face had been so puffy from crying at the funeral, I hadn’t noticed how striking she was; now, up close, she looks so much like her daughter that it’s disorienting. “Junie. So good to see you.” She embraces me on her doorstep. She smells like dried flowers. “Come in.” I sit down at her kitchen table, and she pours and places a steaming cup of a very fragrant tea before me before sitting down. Her slender fingers curl around her own cup. “I understand you wanted to talk about Athena’s things.” She’s so direct, I wonder for a moment if she’s onto me. She’s nothing like the warm, welcoming woman I’d met at the funeral. But then I notice the tired sag of her mouth, the shadows beneath her eyes, and I realize she’s only trying to get through the day. I had a whole arsenal of small talk planned: stories about Athena, stories about Yale, observations on grief and how hard it is to make it through every minute of every day when one of your pillars has vanished overnight. I know loss. I know how to talk to people about loss. Instead I cut straight to the chase. “I read that you’re going to donate Athena’s notebooks to the Marlin Archive?” “I am.” She cocks her head. “You don’t think that’s a good idea?” “No, no, Mrs. Liu, I don’t mean that, I’m just . . . I’m wondering if you mind telling me how you made that decision?” My cheeks are burning. I can’t hold her gaze. I drop my eyes. “I mean, only if you want to talk about it. I
| 0 |
16 |
Great Expectations.txt
| 12 |
help, but I made up the fire, which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still flowing towards us. "When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheerfully, "look out for us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!" Chapter 54 It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. We had out pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever. We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course I had taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about high-water - half-past eight. Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we could choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by, all night. The steamer for Hamburg, and the steamer for Rotterdam, would start from London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first; so that if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel. The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose, was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself - the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathize with us, animate us, and encourage us on - freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of
| 1 |
61 |
Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt
| 55 |
of this bloom or that. The senior florist, a small woman with eyes like black ink and a dress made entirely of ice-glazed petals, frowned down at the trees. “It is winter, Your Highness,” she said. “Yes,” I said through my teeth. “But it seems there is rather more winter than there was before.” She exchanged a nervous look with another florist, a narrow man holding an armful of black and grey roses. “The king has returned,” he said slowly, as if he didn’t understand my question at all and was merely taking a shot in the dark. A little bead of fear slid down my back at that. When I next saw the king —I believe it was at supper, though it’s entirely possible I saw him before then—I raised the question with him. “Yes, it will be a winter the likes of which has never been seen in Ljosland,” he said cheerily, helping himself to more fish. The Folk pulled their fish from a frozen mountain lake and served them raw on a bed of ice or swimming in a sweet, creamy sauce that tasted faintly of apples. Several varieties were spread before us, the smallest ones—vibrantly striped grey and green—retaining their head and bones, which were meant to be eaten together. We were seated in a cavernous banquet hall with walls of black stone and another floor of ice cobbles, this time with leaves and fir boughs prisoned inside, so that you felt as if you were walking atop a forest canopy. The table was crowded with Folk—what seemed like a mixture of courtly and common, though their faces often blended together in the bone-coloured light. I caught a sneer here, a beseeching look there; the minstrels were playing their flutes, and although the king had ordered them not to enchant me, their songs often made my head swim. “But what will become of the mortal villages?” I said. “You can’t bury them in snow!” He touched my hand reassuringly, his beautiful face full of adoration. “The mortals here are used to winter, my dear.” “They are not used to fifty feet of it being deposited on their doorsteps,” I said, fists clenched on my skirts. “It will last only as long as my coronation festivities,” he promised, and that really worried me, for it suggested that he planned to extend the winter until he had finished revelling in his triumph—and anyone who knows a thing about the Folk will easily guess that this would be a substantial period of time. “You must pull back the snows from the mortal world,” I said. “Their animals will die. Their children will starve.” He was only half listening—he motioned to one of the minstrels, and they switched to a song he liked better. “Children!” he said, smiling. “I’m glad you mentioned them. Children adore winter—do you know they used to leave offerings for us at the centre of frozen lakes at the solstice, to ask us for heaps of snow on Christmas. As if we know anything about Christmas, the silly
| 0 |
14 |
Five On A Treasure Island.txt
| 37 |
I'm sure your cousins must think you are a queer girl never to want your mother to go with you." George said nothing. She hardly ever did say a word when she was scolded. The other children said nothing too. They knew perfectly well that it wasn't that George didn't want her mother to go- it was just that she wanted Timothy with her! "Anyway, I couldn't come," went on Aunt Fanny. "I've some gardening to do. You'll be quite safe with George. She can handle a boat like a man." The three children looked eagerly at the weather the next day when they got up. The sun was shining, and everything seemed splendid. "Isn't it a marvellous day?"said Anne to George,as they dressed. "I'm so looking forward to going to the island." "Well, honestly, I think really we oughtn't to go," said George, unexpectedly. "Oh, but why?" cried Anne, in dismay. "I think there's going to be a storm or something," said George, looking out to the south-west. "But, George, why do you say that?" said Anne, impatiently. "Look at the sun- and there's hardly a cloud in the sky!" "The wind is wrong," said George. "And can't you see the little white tops to the waves out there by my island? That's always a bad sign." "Oh George- it will be the biggest disappointment of our lives if we don't go today," said Anne, who couldn't bear any disappointment, big or small. "And besides," she added, artfully, "if we hang about the house, afraid of a storm, we shan't be able to have dear old Tim with us." "Yes, that's true," said George. "All right- we'll go. But mind, if a storm does come, you're not to be a baby. You're to try and enjoy it and not be frightened." "Well, I don't much like storms," began Anne, but stopped when she saw George's scornful look. They went down to breakfast, and George asked her mother if they could take their dinner as they had planned. "Yes," said her mother. "You and Anne can help to make the sandwiches. You boys can go into the garden and pick some ripe plums.to take with you. Julian, you can go down to the village when you've done that and buy some bottles of lemonade or ginger-beer, whichever you like." "Ginger-pop for me, thanks!" said Julian, and everyone else said the same. They all felt very happy. It would be marvellous to visit the queer little island. George felt happy because she would be with Tim all day. They set off at last, the food in two kit-bags. The first thing they did was to fetch Tim. He was tied up in the fisher-boy's back yard. The boy himself was there, and grinned at George. "Morning, Master George," he said. It seemed so queer to the other children to hear Georgina called 'Master George'! 'Tim's been barking his head off for you. I guess he knew you were coming for him today." "Of course he did," said George, untying him. He at once
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36 |
The House of the Seven Gables.txt
| 87 |
it is safe to assume that none existed Tradition,--which sometimes brings down truth that history has let slip, but is oftener the wild babble of the time, such as was formerly spoken at the fireside and now congeals in newspapers,--tradition is responsible for all contrary averments. In Colonel Pyncheon's funeral sermon, which was printed, and is still extant, the Rev. Mr. Higginson enumerates, among the many felicities of his distinguished parishioner's earthly career, the happy seasonableness of his death. His duties all performed, --the highest prosperity attained,--his race and future generations fixed on a stable basis, and with a stately roof to shelter them for centuries to come,--what other upward step remained for this good man to take, save the final step from earth to the golden gate of heaven! The pious clergyman surely would not have uttered words like these had he in the least suspected that the Colonel had been thrust into the other world with the clutch of violence upon his throat. The family of Colonel Pyncheon, at the epoch of his death, seemed destined to as fortunate a permanence as can anywise consist with the inherent instability of human affairs. It might fairly be anticipated that the progress of time would rather increase and ripen their prosperity, than wear away and destroy it. For, not only had his son and heir come into immediate enjoyment of a rich estate, but there was a claim through an Indian deed, confirmed by a subsequent grant of the General Court, to a vast and as yet unexplored and unmeasured tract of Eastern lands. These possessions--for as such they might almost certainly be reckoned--comprised the greater part of what is now known as Waldo County, in the state of Maine, and were more extensive than many a dukedom, or even a reigning prince's territory, on European soil. When the pathless forest that still covered this wild principality should give place--as it inevitably must, though perhaps not till ages hence--to the golden fertility of human culture, it would be the source of incalculable wealth to the Pyncheon blood. Had the Colonel survived only a few weeks longer, it is probable that his great political influence, and powerful connections at home and abroad, would have consummated all that was necessary to render the claim available. But, in spite of good Mr. Higginson's congratulatory eloquence, this appeared to be the one thing which Colonel Pyncheon, provident and sagacious as he was, had allowed to go at loose ends. So far as the prospective territory was concerned, he unquestionably died too soon. His son lacked not merely the father's eminent position, but the talent and force of character to achieve it: he could, therefore, effect nothing by dint of political interest; and the bare justice or legality of the claim was not so apparent, after the Colonel's decease, as it had been pronounced in his lifetime. Some connecting link had slipped out of the evidence, and could not anywhere be found. Efforts, it is true, were made by the Pyncheons, not only then, but at various
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt
| 15 |
had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink. "I want -- " he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot. "See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up." "I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon." "Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him. *** On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom. Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises. *** On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor. "Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement. *** On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. "No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -- " Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one. "Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor. "That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying
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44 |
Their Eyes Were Watching God.txt
| 86 |
no guarantee. The lake was coming. They had to reach the six-mile bridge. It was high and safe perhaps. Everybody was walking the fill. Hurrying, dragging, falling, crying, calling out names hopefully and hopelessly. Wind and rain beating on old folks and beating on babies. Tea Cake stumbled once or twice in his weariness and Janie held him up. So they reached the bridge at Six Mile Bend and thought to rest. But it was crowded. White people had preempted that point of elevation and there was no more room. They could climb up one of its high sides and down the other, that was all. Miles further on, still no rest. They passed a dead man in a sitting position on a hum- mock, entirely surrounded by wild animals and snakes. Common danger made common friends. Nothing sought a conquest over the other. Another man clung to a cypress tree on a tiny island. A tin roof of a building hung from the branches by electric wires and the wind swung it back and forth like a mighty ax. The man dared not move a step to his right lest this crush- ing blade split him open. He dared not step left for a large rattlesnake was stretched full length with his head in the Their Eyes Were Watching God 193 wind. There was a strip of water between the island and the fill, and the man clung to the tree and cried for help. “De snake won’t bite yuh,” Tea Cake yelled to him. “He skeered tuh go intuh uh coil. Skeered he’ll be blowed away. Step round dat side and swim off!” Soon after that Tea Cake felt he couldn’t walk anymore. Not right away. So he stretched long side of the road to rest. Janie spread herself between him and the wind and he closed his eyes and let the tiredness seep out of his limbs. On each side of the fill was a great expanse of water like lakes—water full of things living and dead. Things that didn’t belong in water. As far as the eye could reach, water and wind playing upon it in fury. A large piece of tar-paper roofing sailed through the air and scudded along the fill until it hung against a tree. Janie saw it with joy. That was the very thing to cover Tea Cake with. She could lean against it and hold it down. The wind wasn’t quite so bad as it was anyway. The very thing. Poor Tea Cake! She crept on hands and knees to the piece of roofing and caught hold of it by either side. Immediately the wind lifted both of them and she saw herself sailing off the fill to the right, out and out over the lashing water. She screamed terribly and released the roofing which sailed away as she plunged down- ward into the water. “Tea Cake!” He heard her and sprang up. Janie was try- ing to swim but fighting water too hard. He saw a cow swimming slowly towards the fill
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52 |
A-Living-Remedy.txt
| 70 |
But there was much that proved beyond his power to control. The medication he’d been prescribed was expensive without insurance and also upset his stomach, so he stopped taking it, saying that he couldn’t work and serve food all day while feeling nauseated. As restaurant manager, he was usually the last one who got to take a break or eat lunch, and when he did get a meal, the food most readily available were the pizzas he helped make. He had little free time for regular exercise, no extra money to give to a gym or a nutritionist, and unless he felt very ill, he did not go to the doctor. During the long years when he could trace no significant or debilitating issues to his condition, I doubt he had either the luxury or the inclination to worry much about his health—or his lack of health care. Even when both my parents found themselves unemployed in their late fifties, their initial worry was not for Dad’s missed checkups but whether they would be able to pay their bills, cover their rent, buy groceries and gas. That is, until my father grew very sick, the sickest he had ever been, and we had no way of figuring out what was wrong with him. * * * We had been living in North Carolina for five years and Dan was close to finishing his dissertation when I gave birth to our second child. With her dark brown eyes, full-moon cheeks, and impressive rolls, she looked so much like her older sister that everyone in the family would mix up their baby pictures for years. We found the transition from one to two kids challenging, though in infancy our younger child seemed easier and less particular than our first had been, content to be curled up sleeping on one of us or carted around the house as we played with our busy three-year-old, who gabbed to her little sister as if hoping for a response. I bargained with God over the kids’ opposing sleep schedules; Dan went from one cup of coffee per day to two. But we knew how to take care of a baby this time, and we also knew that newborn days were fleeting, and we’d miss them when they were over. My parents were supposed to arrive for a visit not long after the birth. A couple of days before their trip, Mom called to tell me that Dad wasn’t feeling well enough to travel. I hadn’t realized he was feeling that poorly, but when I questioned my parents, neither wanted to discuss his health at length. Mom would make the trip alone, she said, though she was anxious about leaving my father. She decided to shorten her visit from two weeks to one. My father’s last steady job had been at a cell carrier call center, where, extrovert that he was, well trained in customer service thanks to his years working in restaurants, he’d enjoyed the work and found it easier than many of his previous jobs. After the
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25 |
Oliver Twist.txt
| 43 |
Oliver was placed. But he was sick and weary; and he soon fell sound asleep. CHAPTER XVII OLIVER'S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually. Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference. The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous. As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship: an author's skill in his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter: this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary. If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver Twist was born; the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition. Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the High Street. He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood; his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun; he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power. Mr. Bumble always carried his head high; but this morning it was higher than usual. There was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing
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The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt
| 43 |
no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses. Soul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were! There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also. He began to wonder whether we should ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name we gave to our mistakes. Men had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain moral efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy. It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the boy himself to be remote from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves. While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered, and reminded him it was time to dress
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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt
| 77 |
was delighted. He knew that when a Dentrassi looked that pleased with itself there was something going on somewhere on the ship that he could get very angry indeed about. Ford and Arthur stared about them. "Well, what do you think?" said Ford. "It's a bit squalid, isn't it?" Ford frowned at the grubby mattress, unwashed cups and unidentifiable bits of smelly alien underwear that lay around the cramped cabin. "Well, this is a working ship, you see," said Ford. "These are the Dentrassi sleeping quarters." "I thought you said they were called Vogons or something." "Yes," said Ford, "the Vogons run the ship, the Dentrassis are the cooks, they let us on board." "I'm confused," said Arthur. "Here, have a look at this," said Ford. He sat down on one of the mattresses and rummaged about in his satchel. Arthur prodded the mattress nervously and then sat on it himself: in fact he had very little to be nervous about, because all mattresses grown in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta are very thoroughly killed and dried before being put to service. Very few have ever come to life again. Ford handed the book to Arthur. "What is it?" asked Arthur. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a sort of electronic book. It tells you everything you need to know about anything. That's its job." Arthur turned it over nervously in his hands. "I like the cover," he said. "Don't Panic. It's the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody's said to me all day." "I'll show you how it works," said Ford. He snatched it from Arthur who was still holding it as if it was a two-week-dead lark and pulled it out of its cover. "You press this button here you see and the screen lights up giving you the index." A screen, about three inches by four, lit up and characters began to flicker across the surface. "You want to know about Vogons, so I enter that name so." His fingers tapped some more keys. "And there we are." The words Vogon Constructor Fleets flared in green across the screen. Ford pressed a large red button at the bottom of the screen and words began to undulate across it. At the same time, the book began to speak the entry as well in a still quiet measured voice. This is what the book said. "Vogon Constructor Fleets. Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy -- not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters. "The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is
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Divine Rivals.txt
| 55 |
her mother and Forest. As her eyes traced over the familiarity—the threadbare rug, the wallpaper that was hanging in strips, the sideboard with Nan’s radio—they caught on one person she never thought she’d see again. “Little Flower,” her mother said, perched on the sofa. A cigarette was smoking in her fingertips. “Where have you been, sweetheart?” “Mum?” Iris’s voice felt rusted. “Mum, what are you doing here?” “I’m here because you’re here, Iris.” “Where are we?” “Home for now. Did you think I’d ever leave you?” Iris’s breath caught. She felt confused, trying to remember something that was slipping from her memory. “I’m writing again, Mum,” she said, her throat narrow. “On Nan’s typewriter.” “I know, my love,” Aster said with a smile. The smile that had thrived before the wine and the addiction. The smile that Iris loved most. “You’ll be a famous writer someday. Mark my words. You’ll make me so proud.” Iris tilted her head. “You’ve said that to me before, haven’t you, Mum? Why can’t I remember?” “Because this is a dream and I wanted to see you again,” Aster said, smile fading. Her wide-set eyes—hazel eyes that Forest and Iris had both stolen from her—were bright with piercing sadness. “It’s been so long since I looked at you and truly saw you, Iris. And I realize how much I missed. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I see you now.” The words cleaved Iris’s chest in two. She was doubling over from the pain, the rawness, and she realized she was weeping, as if her tears could wash away what had happened. Because her mother was dead. “Iris.” A familiar voice began to melt the edges of the room. The bunker. The tendril of darkness. “Iris, wake up.” It was the voice of a boy who had arrived at her flat on the worst day of her life. Who had brought her abandoned coat to her, as if he were worried she would catch cold. The voice of a boy who had followed her to war and thrown paper wads at her face and set a newspaper in her hands with her article on the front page and challenged her to run up a hill to see the view beyond it. The dream broke. Iris was curled into herself, quietly weeping. Roman sat beside her. The moonlight was bright, and his hand was on her shoulder. She could feel the heat of his palm through her jumpsuit. “It’s all right,” he whispered. She covered her face, to hide her emotion. But terrible sounds slipped through her fingers, and she shuddered, trying to swallow everything down to where she had once kept it hidden in her bones. She could deal with this later. She was mortified that she was sobbing in a trench, and the Sycamores were no doubt listening to it, and they must think she was so weak and pathetic and— Roman gently removed her helmet. He caressed her hair; it was matted and gross and she longed for a proper shower and yet his touch was comforting.
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I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt
| 51 |
own podcast research. In the library, the light sliding yellow through those tall, warped windows to illuminate the circulating dust, I sat doing homework once again. This was the place where I’d looked up vocab words at ten p.m., the place I’d smuggled magazines out from, under my shirt. There were fewer books now and more tables, more kids with laptops and headphones. But a boy near me held a covert bag of chips in his lap; that hadn’t changed. During World War II, Rita Hayworth was the most popular pinup for GIs. (There’s a reason that’s her poster on the wall in The Shawshank Redemption.) She’d been forced into show business (by her vaudevillian mother, her dancer father), and she was introverted, reluctant, dogged by her public persona. She was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, with dark hair. They turned her into a redhead. They did electrolysis to raise a hairline they considered too ethnic. They posed her in her underwear. She gave good face. Lance wanted to center each episode on a man in her life—her father, then each of her five husbands. In one sense, it was fitting, since her life was defined by men. Almost always terrible men, ones who took her money or asked her to leave Hollywood or used her children as pawns. Her fourth husband hit her in the face at the Cocoanut Grove. But it seemed unfair to organize her life around the people who controlled it. I said I’d consider it. Research has always been my happy place. It might be related to my sometime collecting of facts about my peers, an attempt to feel safer by mapping the world. If I can chart everything around me as far as I can see, then I must be in the middle of it all, real and in one piece. You are here. Rita was a pinball, bounced from one spot to the next. I related; what had my childhood been but a constant ricochet from one place and one disaster to the next? But to be fair, that’s many childhoods. I have to resist the urge to self-mythologize, to paint my own journey as harder than everyone else’s just so I can give myself credit for getting out. I’m allowed to take that credit regardless. So declareth my shrink. There were kids who came to Granby from housing projects, kids who came as a custody compromise. I wasn’t the only one with a less-than-romantic origin story. Jerome texted, asking if I’d gotten the email from Leo’s class mom about tomorrow being the hundredth day of second grade. It seemed impossible, but the year had flown by. The kids were to bring one hundred of something, and to dress like old people. Lest any twenty-first-century mother find a moment not devoted to proving maternal devotion through crafts. Jerome wrote: Leo on his own or you want me going over the top? I was torn. Teach Leo independence and thereby give the middle finger to a school that demanded this, in addition to Heritage Week and Crazy
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The Silmarillion.txt
| 12 |
voices and were more skilled in music, save only Maglor son of Fanor, and they loved the woods and the riversides; and some of the Grey-elves still wandered far and wide without settled abode, and they sang as they went. Chapter 14 Of Beleriand and Its Realms This is the fashion of the lands into which the Noldor came, in the north of the western regions of Middle-earth, in the ancient days; and here also is told of the manner in which the chieftains of the Eldar held their lands and the leaguer upon Morgoth after the Dagor Aglareb, the third battle in the Wars of Beleriand. In the north of the world Melkor had in the ages past reared Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, as a fence to his citadel of Utumno; and they stood upon the borders of the regions of everlasting cold, in a great curve from east to west. Behind the walls of Ered Engrin in the west, where they bent back northwards, Melkor built another fortress, as a defence against assault that might come from Valinor; and when he came back to Middle-earth, as has been told, he took up his abode in the endless dungeons of Angband, the Hells of Iron, for in the War of the Powers the Valar, in their haste to overthrow him in his great stronghold of Utumno, did not wholly destroy Angband nor search out all its deep places. Beneath Ered Engrin he made a great tunnel, which issued south of the mountains; and there he made a mighty gate. But above this gate, and behind it even to the mountains, he piled the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim, that were made of the ash and slag of his subterranean furnaces, and the vast refuse of his tunnellings. They were black and desolate and exceedingly lofty; and smoke issued from their tops, dark and foul upon the northern sky. Before the gates of Angband filth and desolation spread southward for many miles over the wide plain of Ard-galen; but after the coming of the Sun rich grass arose there, and while Angband was besieged and its gates shut there were green things even among the pits and broken rocks before the doors of hell. To the west of Thangorodrim lay Hsilme, the Land of Mist, for so it was named by the Noldor in their own tongue because of the clouds that Morgoth sent thither during their first encampment; Hithlum it became in the tongue of the Sindar that dwelt in those regions. It was a fair land while the Siege of Angband lasted, although its air was cool and winter there was cold. In the west it was bounded by Ered Lmin, the Echoing Mountains that marched near the sea; and in the east and south by the great curve of Ered Wethrin, the Shadowy Mountains, that looked across Ard-galen and the Vale of Sirion. Fingolfin and Fingon his son held Hithlum, and the most part of Fingolfin's folk dwelt in Mithrim about the shores of the great lake; to Fingon
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To Kill a Mockingbird.txt
| 71 |
Francis. "Francis, come out of there! Jean Louise, if I hear another word out of you I'll tell your father. Did I hear you say hell a while ago?" "Nome." "I thought I did. I'd better not hear it again." Aunt Alexandra was a back-porch listener. The moment she was out of sight Francis came out head up and grinning. "Don't you fool with me," he said. He jumped into the yard and kept his distance, kicking tufts of grass, turning around occasionally to smile at me. Jem appeared on the porch, looked at us, and went away. Francis climbed the mimosa tree, came down, put his hands in his pockets and strolled around the yard. "Hah!" he said. I asked him who he thought he was, Uncle Jack? Francis said he reckoned I got told, for me to just sit there and leave him alone. "I ain't botherin' you," I said. Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly, "Nigger-lover..." This time, I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. My left impaired, I sailed in with my right, but not for long. Uncle Jack pinned my arms to my sides and said, "Stand still!" Aunt Alexandra ministered to Francis, wiping his tears away with her handkerchief, rubbing his hair, patting his cheek. Atticus, Jem, and Uncle Jimmy had come to the back porch when Francis started yelling. "Who started this?" said Uncle Jack. Francis and I pointed at each other. "Grandma," he bawled, "she called me a whore-lady and jumped on me!" "Is that true, Scout?" said Uncle Jack. "I reckon so." When Uncle Jack looked down at me, his features were like Aunt Alexandra's. "You know I told you you'd get in trouble if you used words like that? I told you, didn't I?" "Yes sir, but-" "Well, you're in trouble now. Stay there." I was debating whether to stand there or run, and tarried in indecision a moment too long: I turned to flee but Uncle Jack was quicker. I found myself suddenly looking at a tiny ant struggling with a bread crumb in the grass. "I'll never speak to you again as long as I live! I hate you an' despise you an' hope you die tomorrow!" A statement that seemed to encourage Uncle Jack, more than anything. I ran to Atticus for comfort, but he said I had it coming and it was high time we went home. I climbed into the back seat of the car without saying good-bye to anyone, and at home I ran to my room and slammed the door. Jem tried to say something nice, but I wouldn't let him. When I surveyed the damage there were only seven or eight red marks, and I was reflecting upon relativity when someone knocked on the door. I asked who it was; Uncle Jack answered. "Go away!" Uncle Jack said if I talked like that he'd lick me again, so I was quiet. When he entered the room I retreated to a corner
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73 |
Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt
| 92 |
if I had the choice, I would still choose you. We are a good team, you and I, and we could be so much more.” She closed her eyes and let her sorrow ascend, a balloon loosed from a child’s hand. “But if this is not your choice, I will cut the thread,” Io continued. “I mean it, Edei. I will cut the thread, and I will be your friend instead. Maybe not straightaway, but eventually. I don’t know. But I do know that I will be fine.” And she would be, wouldn’t she? She had been surviving loss all her life: her parents, her childhood, Thais. It would hurt and she would mourn, but she had thought this was her penance, and instead it felt like . . . freedom. This is your penance. Her thoughts paused. Her heartbeat spiked, her mind numbed by the echo of the past speaking back to her. Slaughter? the rogue gang leader had said on the bridge. Oh, no, girl. This is your penance. These past few days tumbled into Io’s head, line after line after line. I will rise from the ashes a daughter of flame. Drina Savva’s words. Revenge is for the wicked. My purpose is justice. I am its servant, and it is mine. I’m neither crazy, nor dying. I am ascended. Drina Savva. I was made to know your crimes. I don’t deal in mercy. I deliver justice. I can see the taint of crime on you, too, sister. Raina. There are crimes that cannot go unpunished. Emmeline Segal, Drina Savva, Raina. I cannot punish you. Your crimes are not truly yours. Drina again. And from the Nine: They are daughters of the night, chosen for their honor, made to whip vengeance into the backs of wicked men. Shit. Oh shit. She had to find Nina—now. She pulled up the Quilt around her and approached Nina’s apartment. The boy—her son—was standing behind the door, probably nervously watching them through the peephole. A dozen threads sprouted from his chest, and one of them was brighter, vibrating toward the direction of the exit. His mother, most likely, nearing the apartment building. Io shot off in an instant, Edei dashing after her. “Io,” he called, “what’s wrong?” She had a theory, and if she was right about it, everything was wrong. They were barely down the first flight of stairs when Nina rounded the corner, carrying bags with groceries on both shoulders. Her white-blond hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and her cheeks looked gaunt, as though she hadn’t eaten in days. A gun was stuffed down her waistband, and her hand shot to it when she saw them. “Wait, wait.” Io raised both palms. “We mean no harm.” “I remember you. That night when Jarl . . .” Nina looked around herself, at the narrow walls of the staircase, calculating her exit strategy. She had survived the Riots, Io reminded herself, and probably just had to fight other looters for that food she was carrying. Her defensiveness was justified. “Why the
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45 |
Things Fall Apart.txt
| 67 |
as three or four markets, making music and feasting. Unoka loved the good hire and the good fellowship, and he loved this season of the year, when the rains had stopped and the sun rose every morning with dazzling beauty. And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down from the north. Some years the harmattan was very severe and a dense haze hung on the atmosphere. Old men and children would then sit round log fires, warming their bodies. Unoka loved it all, and he loved the first kites that returned with the dry season, and the children who sang songs of welcome to them. He would remember his own childhood, how he had often wandered around looking for a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky. As soon as he found one he would sing with his whole being, welcoming it back from its long, long journey, and asking it if it had brought home any lengths of cloth. That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing more, and piling up his debts. One day a neighbour called Okoye came in to see him. He was reclining on a mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk. "I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest. "Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it," replied Okoye, passing back the disc. "No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honour of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe. As he broke the kola, Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health, and for protection against their enemies. When they had eaten they talked about many things: about the heavy rains which were drowning the yams, about the next ancestral feast and about the impending war with the village of Mbaino. Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood. And so he changed the subject and talked about music, and his face beamed. He could hear in his mind's ear the blood-stirring and intricate rhythms of the ekwe and the udu and the ogene, and he could hear his own
| 1 |
22 |
Lord of the Flies.txt
| 43 |
no mercy. He looked round fiercely, daring them to contradict. Then they broke out into the sunlight and for a while they were busy finding and devouring food as they moved down the scar toward the platform and the meeting. CHAPTER TWO Fire on the Mountain By the time Ralph finished blowing the conch the platform was crowded. There were differences between this meeting and the one held in the morning. The afternoon sun slanted in from the other side of the platform and most of the children, feeling too late the smart of sunburn, had put their clothes on. The choir, less of a group, had discarded their cloaks. Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass. Silence now. Ralph lifted the cream and pink shell to his knees and a sudden breeze scattered light over the platform. He was uncertain whether to stand up or remain sitting. He looked sideways to his left, toward the bathing pool. Piggy was sitting near but giving no help. Ralph cleared his throat. "Well then." All at once he found he could talk fluently and explain what he had to say. He passed a hand through his fair hair and spoke. "We're on an island. We've been on the mountain top and seen water all round. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We're on an uninhabited island with no other people on it." Jack broke in. "All the same you need an army--for hunting. Hunting pigs--" "Yes. There are pigs on the island." All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing struggling in the creepers. "We saw--" "Squealing--" "It broke away--" "Before I could kill it--but--next time!" Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly. The meeting settled down again. "So you see," said Ralph, "We need hunters to get us meat. And another thing." He lifted the shell on his knees and looked round the sun-slashed faces. "There aren't any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves." The meeting hummed and was silent. "And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school." He held the conch before his face and glanced round the mouth. "Then I'll give him the conch." "Conch?" "That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." "But--" "Look--" "And he won't be interrupted: Except by me." Jack was on his feet. "We'll have rules!" he cried excitedly. "Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks 'em--" "Whee--oh!" "Wacco!" "Bong!" "Doink!" Ralph felt the conch lifted from his lap. Then Piggy was standing cradling the great cream shell and the shouting died down. Jack, left on his feet, looked uncertainly at Ralph who smiled and patted the
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18 |
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt
| 56 |
"The couple of guys we picked up." "Oh, yeah," said Zaphod, "those couple of guys." "We picked them up in sector ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha." "Yeah?" said Zaphod and blinked. Trillian said quietly, "Does that mean anything to you?" "Mmmmm," said Zaphod, "ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha. ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha?" "Well?" said Trillian. "Er ... what does the Z mean?" said Zaphod. "Which one?" "Any one." One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so - but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He proffered people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about it. She sighed and punched up a star map on the visiscreen so she could make it simple for him, whatever his reasons for wanting it to be that way. "There," she pointed, "right there." "Hey ... Yeah!" said Zaphod. "Well?" she said. "Well what?" Parts of the inside of her head screamed at other parts of the inside of her head. She said, very calmly, "It's the same sector you originally picked me up in." He looked at her and then looked back at the screen. "Hey, yeah," he said, "now that is wild. We should have zapped straight into the middle of the Horsehead Nebula. How did we come to be there? I mean that's nowhere." She ignored this. "Improbability Drive," she said patiently. "You explained it to me yourself. We pass through every point in the Universe, you know that." "Yeah, but that's one wild coincidence isn't it?" "Yes." "Picking someone up at that point? Out of the whole of the Universe to choose from? That's just too ... I want to work this out. Computer!" The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Shipboard Computer which controlled and permeated every particle of the ship switched into communication mode. "Hi there!" it said brightly and simultaneously spewed out a tiny ribbon of ticker tape just for the record. The ticker tape said, Hi there! "Oh God," said Zaphod. He hadn't worked with this computer for long but had already learned to loathe it. The computer continued, brash and cheery as if it was selling detergent. "I want you to know that whatever your problem, I am here to help you solve it." "Yeah yeah," said Zaphod. "Look, I think I'll just use a piece of paper." "Sure thing," said the computer, spilling out its message into a waste bin at the same time, "I understand. If you ever want ..." "Shut up!" said Zaphod, and snatching up a
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18 |
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt
| 98 |
'em. Frankie baby, we are made!" They performed a scampering dance in their excitement. Near them on the floor lay several rather ugly men who had been hit about the head with some heavy design awards. Half a mile away, four figures pounded up a corridor looking for a way out. They emerged into a wide open-plan computer bay. They glanced about wildly. "Which way do you reckon Zaphod?" said Ford. "At a wild guess, I'd say down here," said Zaphod, running off down to the right between a computer bank and the wall. As the others started after him he was brought up short by a Kill-O-Zap energy bolt that cracked through the air inches in front of him and fried a small section of adjacent wall. A voice on a loud hailer said, "OK Beeblebrox, hold it right there. We've got you covered." "Cops!" hissed Zaphod, and span around in a crouch. "You want to try a guess at all, Ford?" "OK, this way," said Ford, and the four of them ran down a gangway between two computer banks. At the end of the gangway appeared a heavily armoured and space- suited figure waving a vicious Kill-O-Zap gun. "We don't want to shoot you, Beeblebrox!" shouted the figure. "Suits me fine!" shouted Zaphod back and dived down a wide gap between two data process units. The others swerved in behind him. "There are two of them," said Trillian. "We're cornered." They squeezed themselves down in an angle between a large computer data bank and the wall. They held their breath and waited. Suddenly the air exploded with energy bolts as both the cops opened fire on them simultaneously. "Hey, they're shooting at us," said Arthur, crouching in a tight ball, "I thought they said they didn't want to do that." "Yeah, I thought they said that," agreed Ford. Zaphod stuck a head up for a dangerous moment. "Hey," he said, "I thought you said you didn't want to shoot us!" and ducked again. They waited. After a moment a voice replied, "It isn't easy being a cop!" "What did he say?" whispered Ford in astonishment. "He said it isn't easy being a cop." "Well surely that's his problem isn't it?" "I'd have thought so." Ford shouted out, "Hey listen! I think we've got enough problems on our own having you shooting at us, so if you could avoid laying your problems on us as well, I think we'd all find it easier to cope!" Another pause, and then the loud hailer again. "Now see here, guy," said the voice on the loud hailer, "you're not dealing with any dumb two-bit trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no conversation, we're a couple of intelligent caring guys that you'd probably quite like if you met us socially! I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it afterwards in seedy space-rangers bars, like some cops I could mention! I go around shooting people gratuitously and then I agonize about it afterwards for hours to my girlfriend!" "And
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt
| 19 |
has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. "The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair. "I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly." She left the chamber. Harry swallowed. "How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron. "Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking." Harry's heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet -- what on earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need. Harry tried hard not to listen to her. He'd never been more nervous, never, not even when he'd had to take a school report home to the Dursleys saying that he'd somehow turned his teacher's wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall would come back and lead him to his doom. Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air -- several people behind him screamed. "What the -- ?" He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance -- " "My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost -- I say, what are you all doing here?" A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years. Nobody answered. "New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people nodded mutely. "Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know." "Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start." Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.
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3 |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt
| 44 |
about it, and was out with 'em on the ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after mid- night with a couple of mighty hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing." "Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody guit thinking the nigger done it?" "Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him." "Why, are they after him yet?" "Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger ain't far from here. I'm one of them -- but I hain't talked it around. A few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't any- body live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's going over to see -- him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago." I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my hands; so I took up a needle off
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3 |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt
| 2 |
down through the leaves, and the freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me very friendly. I was powerful lazy and comfortable -- didn't want to get up and cook breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying on the water a long ways up -- about abreast the ferry. And there was the ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my carcass come to the top. I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire, because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there, and it always looks pretty on a summer morning -- so I was having a good enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore -- I knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quick- silver, and set my teeth in. It was "baker's bread" -- what the quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone. I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching the bread and watching the ferry- boat, and very well satisfied. And then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone and done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing -- that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind. I lit a pipe
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79 |
Quietly-Hostile.txt
| 34 |
and bum-rushed me, stripping me out of my clothes in less than a second and throwing a gown over me as I climbed up on the table. On my right side, I heard a woman’s voice say, “BIG POKE,” as she stuck me to put an IV port into the crook of my arm, and then a woman next to her said, “ANOTHER POKE,” as she jammed an EpiPen into my thigh. A nurse behind my head was reaching over me to affix a bunch of heart-monitoring electrodes to my chest. On my left side was a doctor in black scrubs (fancy!) who was trying to look in my eyes with a penlight and a doctor in green scrubs with a clipboard who kept repeating, “What did you take? What did you take? What did you take?” while I tried to choke out the word “Zyrtec” in a way he could understand around my enormous tongue. Black Scrubs instructed me to “scooch [my] butt down and open [my] mouth as wide as possible,” and I tried to make a joke like “(HEE HAW) sure but (gasp) you gotta take me (HEE HAW) to dinner first (gasp),” and Black Scrubs looked at me with such kind pity that it broke my heart. He very solemnly said, “Samantha, you are funny, but you are also in anaphylactic shock. I am trying to clear your airway, please stop joking and tilt your head back.” That was not my first time being booed offstage, but it was certainly the most jarring, especially since he didn’t even give me a chance to workshop the one about how my throat was tighter than new leather shoes, so he should use his meat tube to intubate me. “Clear my airway”? “Anaphylactic shock”? Those are death sentences! I think the most upsetting realization I had that night was that when faced with imminent doom, these-could-be-the-last-few-snorting-breaths-you-ever-take kind of doom, I naturally defaulted to joking. I will die, eventually, being a fucking clown. A clown who is desperate to coax even a hint of a smile from the very serious people tasked with making sure she lives to honk her big red nose another day. I think about dying all the time; 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
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The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt
| 69 |
as the supper of the preceding night; but their musing was at length interrupted by the sound of the carriage wheels, which were to bear away St. Aubert and Emily. Valancourt started from his chair, and went to the window; it was indeed the carriage, and he returned to his seat without speaking. The moment was now come when they must part. St. Aubert told Valancourt, that he hoped he would never pass La Vallee without favouring him with a visit; and Valancourt, eagerly thanking him, assured him that he never would; as he said which he looked timidly at Emily, who tried to smile away the seriousness of her spirits. They passed a few minutes in interesting conversation, and St. Aubert then led the way to the carriage, Emily and Valancourt following in silence. The latter lingered at the door several minutes after they were seated, and none of the party seemed to have courage enough to say--Farewell. At length, St. Aubert pronounced the melancholy word, which Emily passed to Valancourt, who returned it, with a dejected smile, and the carriage drove on. The travellers remained, for some time, in a state of tranquil pensiveness, which is not unpleasing. St. Aubert interrupted it by observing, 'This is a very promising young man; it is many years since I have been so much pleased with any person, on so short an acquaintance. He brings back to my memory the days of my youth, when every scene was new and delightful!' St. Aubert sighed, and sunk again into a reverie; and, as Emily looked back upon the road they had passed, Valancourt was seen, at the door of the little inn, following them with his eyes. Her perceived her, and waved his hand; and she returned the adieu, till the winding road shut her from his sight. 'I remember when I was about his age,' resumed St. Aubert, 'and I thought, and felt exactly as he does. The world was opening upon me then, now--it is closing.' 'My dear sir, do not think so gloomily,' said Emily in a trembling voice, 'I hope you have many, many years to live--for your own sake-- for MY sake.' 'Ah, my Emily!' replied St. Aubert, 'for thy sake! Well- I hope it is so.' He wiped away a tear, that was stealing down his cheek, threw a smile upon his countenance, and said in a cheering voice, 'there is something in the ardour and ingenuousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. It is cheering and reviving, like the view of spring to a sick person; his mind catches somewhat of the spirit of the season, and his eyes are lighted up with a transient sunshine. Valancourt is this spring to me.' Emily, who pressed her father's hand affectionately, had never before listened with so much pleasure to the praises he bestowed; no, not even when he had bestowed them on herself. They travelled on, among vineyards, woods, and
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The Da Vinci Code.txt
| 12 |
skidded to a stop outside the gaping hangar door, the police poured out, guns drawn. Edwards jumped out too. The noise was deafening. 225 The Hawker's engines were still roaring as the jet finished its usual rotation inside the hangar, positioning itself nose-out in preparation for later departure. As the plane completed its 180-degree turn and rolled toward the front of the hangar, Edwards could see the pilot's face, which understandably looked surprised and fearful to see the barricade of police cars. The pilot brought the plane to a final stop, and powered down the engines. The police streamed in, taking up positions around the jet. Edwards joined the Kent chief inspector, who moved warily toward the hatch. After several seconds, the fuselage door popped open. Leigh Teabing appeared in the doorway as the plane's electronic stairs smoothly dropped down. As he gazed out at the sea of weapons aimed at him, he propped himself on his crutches and scratched his head. "Simon, did I win the policemen's lottery while I was away?" He sounded more bewildered than concerned. Simon Edwards stepped forward, swallowing the frog in his throat. "Good morning, sir. I apologize for the confusion. We've had a gas leak and your pilot said he was coming to the terminal." "Yes, yes, well, I told him to come here instead. I'm late for an appointment. I pay for this hangar, and this rubbish about avoiding a gas leak sounded overcautious." "I'm afraid your arrival has taken us a bit off guard, sir." "I know. I'm off my schedule, I am. Between you and me, the new medication gives me the tinkles. Thought I'd come over for a tune-up." The policemen all exchanged looks. Edwards winced. "Very good, sir." "Sir," the Kent chief inspector said, stepping forward. "I need to ask you to stay onboard for another half hour or so." Teabing looked unamused as he hobbled down the stairs. "I'm afraid that is impossible. I have a medical appointment." He reached the tarmac. "I cannot afford to miss it." The chief inspector repositioned himself to block Teabing's progress away from the plane. "I am here at the orders of the French Judicial Police. They claim you are transporting fugitives from the law on this plane." Teabing stared at the chief inspector a long moment, and then burst out laughing. "Is this one of those hidden camera programs? Jolly good!" The chief inspector never flinched. "This is serious, sir. The French police claim you also may have a hostage onboard." Teabing's manservant Rmy appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs. "I feel like a hostage working for Sir Leigh, but he assures me I am free to go." Rmy checked his watch. "Master, we really are running late." He nodded toward the Jaguar stretch limousine in the far corner of the hangar. The enormous automobile was ebony with smoked glass and whitewall tires. "I'll bring the car." Rmy started down the stairs. "I'm afraid we cannot let you leave," the chief inspector said. "Please return to your aircraft.
| 1 |
52 |
A-Living-Remedy.txt
| 11 |
feelings about faith, life, and death—he had pastored him, counseled him, heard his confessions for years—but if what he said was true, why had he seen it when my mother and I had not? Had Dad truly spent the past weeks, maybe even months, preparing to die? If he’d known it was imminent, why didn’t he warn my mother? Why didn’t he tell me, his only child, so I could try to say goodbye? I stared at my father in his handmade casket, and the sudden flare of anger I felt was so unlike sorrow that I let myself take momentary refuge in it. If you really knew and didn’t tell us, that was a real dick move, Dad. He did look peaceful, as if he had welcomed death, or at least been ready for it. When we approached to say our final goodbyes, Mom, mostly cried out by then, put her arm around my shoulders, her solid warmth a familiar comfort as always. “Don’t despair,” she told me. “This is our hope in the Resurrection.” The words might have upset me coming from anyone else in that church, anyone else in the world. But I felt her sorrow as something deeper and more powerful than my own, a great river spilling its banks. I couldn’t help but feel awed by her abiding faith in what she saw as my father’s victory over death. She was a warrior, even in grief. Though it was the middle of winter, she had asked that the traditional Paschal Troparion be sung at his grave. Everyone in attendance took a turn with the shovel, dropping earth over his casket with the Easter song of triumph resounding in our ears: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. I was no longer a regular Sunday Mass goer. There were too many things that I felt ambivalent about or disagreed with altogether, though when I did make it to church, I still found some reassurance in the rhythm of the liturgy, the prayers I’d known since childhood, the echo of moments when I’d felt a whisper of something like grace. I knew it would always be a link to my parents and how they raised me; now, if I wanted, I could go to Mass and try to believe what I had been taught—that I was touching eternity while earthbound, in communion with my father and everyone I would ever love or lose. As I get older, I’ve found there are some answers I don’t need. I can’t say whether I’ll ever again feel as certain of anything as my parents were of the prevailing mercy of God or the promise of heaven. But it’s also true that the faith you’re raised in can still move fathoms below the surface, even when your relationship to it has changed beyond recognition. As I held my mother’s hand, watching my father’s casket disappear beneath a layer of earth, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to feel the old belief
| 0 |
2 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 28 |
--Hold out! cried the prefect of studies. Fleming held out his hand. The pandybat came down on it with a loud smacking sound: one, two, three, four, five, six. --Other hand! The pandybat came down again in six loud quick smacks. --Kneel down! cried the prefect of studies. Fleming knelt down, squeezing his hands under his armpits, his face contorted with pain; but Stephen knew how hard his hands were because Fleming was always rubbing rosin into them. But perhaps he was in great pain for the noise of the pandybat was terrible. Stephen's heart was beating and fluttering. --At your work, all of you! shouted the prefect of studies. We want no lazy idle loafers here, lazy idle little schemers. At your work, I tell you. Father Dolan will be in to see you every day. Father Dolan will be in tomorrow. He poked one of the boys in the side with his pandybat, saying: --You, boy! When will Father Dolan be in again? --Tomorrow, sir, said Tom Furlong's voice. --Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, said the prefect of studies. Make up your minds for that. Every day Father Dolan. Write away. You, boy, who are you? Stephen's heart jumped suddenly. --Dedalus, sir. --Why are you not writing like the others? --I...my... He could not speak with fright. --Why is he not writing, Father Arnall? --He broke his glasses, said Father Arnall, and I exempted him from work. --Broke? What is this I hear? What is this your name is! said the prefect of studies. --Dedalus, sir. --Out here, Dedalus. Lazy little schemer. I see schemer in your face. Where did you break your glasses? Stephen stumbled into the middle of the class, blinded by fear and haste. --Where did you break your glasses? repeated the prefect of studies. --The cinder-path, sir. --Hoho! The cinder-path! cried the prefect of studies. I know that trick. Stephen lifted his eyes in wonder and saw for a moment Father Dolan's white-grey not young face, his baldy white-grey head with fluff at the sides of it, the steel rims of his spectacles and his no-coloured eyes looking through the glasses. Why did he say he knew that trick? --Lazy idle little loafer! cried the prefect of studies. Broke my glasses! An old schoolboy trick! Out with your hand this moment! Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He felt the prefect of studies touch it for a moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to
| 1 |
7 |
Casino Royale.txt
| 99 |
smiled with the first hint of conspiracy she had shown. 'I would like to very much,' she said, 'and then perhaps you would chaperon me to the Casino where Monsieur Mathis tells me you are very much at home. Perhaps I will bring you luck.' With Mathis gone, her attitude towards him showed a sudden warmth. She seemed to acknowledge that they were a team and, as they discussed the time and place of their meeting, Bond realized that it would be quite easy after all to plan the details of his project with her. He felt that after all she was interested and excited by her role and that she would work willingly with him. He had imagined many hurdles before establishing a rapport, but now he felt he could get straight down to professional details. He was quite honest to himself about the hypocrisy of his attitude towards her. As a woman, he wanted to sleep with her but only when the job had been done. When Mathis came back to the table Bond called for his bill. He explained that he was expected back at his hotel to have lunch with friends. When for a moment he held her hand in his he felt a warmth of affection and understanding pass between them that would have seemed impossible half an hour earlier. The girl's eyes followed him out on to the boulevard. Mathis moved his chair close to hers and said softly: 'That is a very good friend of mine. I am glad you have met each other. I can already feel the ice-floes on the two rivers breaking up.' He smiled, 'I don't think Bond has ever been melted. It will be a new experience for him. And for you.' She did not answer him directly. 'He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless in his . . .' The sentence was never finished. Suddenly a few feet away the entire plate-glass window shivered into confetti. The blast of a terrific explosion, very near, hit them so that they were rocked back in their chairs. There was an instant of silence. Some objects pattered down on to the pavement outside. Bottles slowly toppled off the shelves behind the bar. Then there were screams and a stampede for the door. 'Stay there,' said Mathis. He kicked back his chair and hurtled through the empty window-frame on to the pavement. CHAPTER 6 - TWO MEN IN STRAW HATS When Bond left the bar he walked purposefully along the pavement flanking the tree-lined boulevard towards his hotel a few hundred yards away. He was hungry. The day was still beautiful, but by now the sun was very hot and the plane-trees, spaced about twenty feet apart on the grass verge between the pavement and the broad tarmac, gave a cool shade. There were few people abroad and the two men standing quietly under a tree on the opposite side of the boulevard looked out of place. Bond noticed them when he
| 1 |
36 |
The House of the Seven Gables.txt
| 0 |
this death to a former one, which was attended with such disastrous consequences to Clifford, they have had no idea but of removing themselves from the scene. How miserably unfortunate! Had Hepzibah but shrieked aloud,--had Clifford flung wide the door, and proclaimed Judge Pyncheon's death,--it would have been, however awful in itself, an event fruitful of good consequences to them. As I view it, it would have gone far towards obliterating the black stain on Clifford's character." "And how" asked Phoebe, "could any good come from what is so very dreadful?" "Because," said the artist, "if the matter can be fairly considered and candidly interpreted, it must be evident that Judge Pyncheon could not have come unfairly to his end. This mode of death had been an idiosyncrasy with his family, for generations past; not often occurring, indeed, but, when it does occur, usually attacking individuals about the Judge's time of life, and generally in the tension of some mental crisis, or, perhaps, in an access of wrath. Old Maule's prophecy was probably founded on a knowledge of this physical predisposition in the Pyncheon race. Now, there is a minute and almost exact similarity in the appearances connected with the death that occurred yesterday and those recorded of the death of Clifford's uncle thirty years ago. It is true, there was a certain arrangement of circumstances, unnecessary to be recounted, which made it possible nay, as men look at these things, probable, or even certain--that old Jaffrey Pyncheon came to a violent death, and by Clifford's hands." "Whence came those circumstances?" exclaimed Phoebe. "He being innocent, as we know him to be!" "They were arranged," said Holgrave,--"at least such has long been my conviction,--they were arranged after the uncle's death, and before it was made public, by the man who sits in yonder parlor. His own death, so like that former one, yet attended by none of those suspicious circumstances, seems the stroke of God upon him, at once a punishment for his wickedness, and making plain the innocence of Clifford, But this flight,--it distorts everything! He may be in concealment, near at hand. Could we but bring him back before the discovery of the Judge's death, the evil might be rectified," "We must not hide this thing a moment longer!" said Phoebe. "It is dreadful to keep it so closely in our hearts. Clifford is innocent. God will make it manifest! Let us throw open the doors, and call all the neighborhood to see the truth!" "You are right, Phoebe," rejoined Holgrave. "Doubtless you are right." Yet the artist did not feel the horror, which was proper to Phoebe's sweet and order-loving character, at thus finding herself at issue with society, and brought in contact with an event that transcended ordinary rules. Neither was he in haste, like her, to betake himself within the precincts of common life. On the contrary, he gathered a wild enjoyment,--as it were, a flower of strange beauty, growing in a desolate spot, and blossoming in the wind, --such a flower of momentary happiness he gathered
| 1 |
12 |
Fahrenheit 451.txt
| 80 |
Beatty chuckled. "And you said, quoting, `Truth will come to light, murder will not be hid long!' And I cried in good humour, 'Oh God, he speaks only of his horse!' And `The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.' And you yelled, 'This age thinks better of a gilded fool, than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school!' And I whispered gently, 'The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.' And you screamed, 'Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer!' And I said, patting your hand, 'What, do I give you trench mouth?' And you shrieked, 'Knowledge is power!' and 'A dwarf on a giant's shoulders of the furthest of the two!' and I summed my side up with rare serenity in, 'The folly of mistaking a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself as an oracle, is inborn in us, Mr. Valery once said.'" Montag's head whirled sickeningly. He felt beaten unmercifully on brow, eyes, nose, lips, chin, on shoulders, on upflailing arms. He wanted to yell, "No! shut up, you're confusing things, stop it!" Beatty's graceful fingers thrust out to seize his wrist. "God, what a pulse! I've got you going, have I, Montag. Jesus God, your pulse sounds like the day after the war. Everything but sirens and bells! Shall I talk some more? I like your look of panic. Swahili, Indian, English Lit., I speak them all. A kind of excellent dumb discourse, Willie!" "Montag, hold on! " The moth brushed Montag's ear. "He's muddying the waters!" "Oh, you were scared silly," said Beatty, "for I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And at the very end of my dream, along I came with the Salamander and said, Going my way? And you got in and we drove back to the firehouse in beatific silence, all -dwindled away to peace." Beatty let Montag's wrist go, let the hand slump limply on the table. "All's well that is well in the end." Silence. Montag sat like a carved white stone. The echo of the final hammer on his skull died slowly away into the black cavern where Faber waited for the echoes to subside. And then when the startled dust had settled down about Montag's mind, Faber began, softly, "All right, he's had his say. You must take it in. I'll say my say, too, in the next few hours. And you'll take it in. And you'll try to judge them and make your decision as to which way to jump, or fall. But I want it to be your decision, not mine, and not the Captain's. But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy of
| 1 |
65 |
Hedge.txt
| 0 |
“Ella was having a panic attack. I’ll be back to check on her again. I agree about the genital exam.” “What genital exam?” Maud said. Her knees filled with air. “It seems prudent,” the doctor said. “Given the concerns that have been raised. If there was any abuse, we need to check for it now.” He flipped a paper on his clipboard. “Do you know if your daughter is sexually active?” “She isn’t,” Maud said. An orderly wheeled a meal cart by, letting off the smells of stringy meat and plastic wrap. The hallway had become a funnel. The doctor’s head gleamed. Peter grimaced. “Are you sure this is necessary?” “It’s protocol.” “Isn’t there a woman doctor?” Maud said. “I’ll have a female nurse with me,” the doctor said. “Will you have to use a speculum?” Ella had never been examined before, never had her legs parted into stirrups, the piercing bluntness of the speculum, that invasion, handing over your body to someone who could see places of yourself that you would never see. “Not unless I find signs,” the doctor said. “What signs?” “Swelling, lacerations, petechiae.” “What’s that?” “Broken blood vessels.” “I want to be there,” Maud said. In the small room, Ella’s shoulders were lifted, hands knotted in her armpits, eyes bleary and unfocused. A nurse spoke soothingly as she checked the IV. “You’re dehydrated,” she told Ella, “so we’re giving you fluids.” Maud sat in a chair next to the bed. She took Ella’s hand. The doctor told Ella that he was going to take a quick look at her privates. He sat on a rolling stool and put on a pair of gloves. Maud hated his calm, measured face, the way he sniffed as he turned on the examination lamp. He looked at the nurse, who, in a caramel voice, asked Ella to fold her knees, then open them. “No,” Ella said. When the nurse touched her thigh, Ella let out a low, guttural howl. Maud started at the noise, then squeezed Ella’s hand as bile climbed into her throat. “Let’s give this a little more time,” the doctor said. He turned off the light and took off his gloves. He told the nurse to increase the dosage of sedative. “What was that noise?” Peter said in the hallway. “She didn’t want to be examined,” Maud stuttered. Her mouth and throat were ice-dry, her tongue stuck to her teeth. That noise had been wretched. What was Ella hiding? What would they see when they looked between her legs? What had Gabriel done to her? “We should check on Louise,” Peter said. Maud swallowed hard. “Can you?” She waited for him to go before hurrying down the hall to a restroom. She locked the door and with a trembling finger dialed Gabriel’s phone number. “What did you do to her?” she said when he picked up. “Jesus,” Gabriel said. “Maud. Nothing. She came over to my place to use the Wi-Fi. I worked in the other room.” “How many times?” “Just a few afternoons. I was going to tell
| 0 |
62 |
Fiona-Davis-The-Spectacular.txt
| 45 |
her neighbor’s behind with it. Marion glanced at the clock. Forty-five more minutes to go. She’d been working as an instructor at the Broadway Ballet and Dance Studio for two years now, after having studied here herself since the age of five. Miss Stanwich, the kindly owner and founder, had asked her to teach the beginners part-time when Marion was a senior in high school, and most days she had a knack for corralling even the feistiest of children. The studio was like her second home, and if anyone asked, she’d say that she enjoyed her job immensely. Although, to be honest, she’d enjoyed it much more before Miss Stanwich retired and moved to North Carolina. Marion had been asked to stay on by the studio’s new owner, Miss Beaumont, who, unfortunately, was difficult to please on the best of days. Marion put her fingers into her mouth and let out a whistle loud enough that the taxis gliding on Broadway three floors below might have pulled over in hope of a fare. It also served to bring Tabitha’s mother to the glass viewing window that connected the studio to the waiting room, where she stood peering with disapproval over her reading glasses, a copy of Woman’s Day clutched to her chest. At the sound of Marion’s whistle, all ten girls miraculously fell into place, making two rows of five. Marion signaled for the accompanist to begin playing and led her tiny dancers through another round of pliés. “Imagine you’re surrounded by marshmallows.” Marion faced them, demonstrating. “Use your knees to gently push the marshmallows out, and then they gently push back, until your legs are straight. Necks long, like you’re wearing a dangly pair of earrings and want to show them off.” For a glorious few minutes, she had their rapt attention, until Tabitha plunked down on the floor. “I want a marshmallow,” she demanded. “Me too!” chimed in Dottie. Whenever her students became fidgety, Marion couldn’t bring herself to resort to what some of the newly hired instructors did, namely, snap at them and scare them back into focusing on her. While the other teachers had no problem wrenching a student’s feet into the proper turnout with a forceful hand or humiliating a struggling dancer in front of her classmates, Marion vowed to never stoop to such behaviors. After all, dancing was supposed to be joyful. Although right then no one in the room was feeling much joy at all, including Marion. She walked over to the accompanist and whispered in her ear. The students, sensing that something was up, quieted, and even Tabitha rose to her feet, curious. “It’s time for freestyle,” said Marion, and was rewarded with cheers. The accompanist broke into Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes” as the girls assembled against the side wall in a line. Marion pointed at the first dancer, who sailed across the studio floor, performing a mad jumble of moves that involved a great deal of shimmying, jumping, and twirling. One child rolled around on the floor, finishing off with a crablike
| 0 |
63 |
Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt
| 1 |
decided to burn hotter for a heartbeat. Appreciative murmurs rose; maybe it was just a bit of stagecraft, something else to make the Sun Prince’s Consecration as dramatic as possible. But across the dais, August looked stricken. “Behold, Bastian Leander Arceneaux, the scion of House Arceneaux and future Sainted King of Auverraine, who has today been consecrated in the sight of our Bleeding God!” Anton sounded nearly jubilant. The golden knife still dripped with scarlet in his hand. “Hail!” called the crowd, and the word dissolved into thunderous applause. Bastian laughed, giving another sweeping bow, then purposefully wiped his bleeding hand on his white doublet. “Come on,” Gabriel grumbled next to her. “Let’s get out of here.” The courtiers mobbed the dais, laughing and trying to get as close to Bastian as possible; he let them. Someone handed him a glass of wine, and he took a long, hearty gulp to the sound of more cheering. August said that he suspected Bastian of betraying Auverrani secrets because he didn’t want the weight of rulership. But it looked to Lore like he was just fine with being the center of attention. She stuck close behind Gabriel as he made his way back to the Citadel doors, trusting Bastian to hold the courtiers’ attention. The only other people moving away from the dais were Anton, the other clergymen, and August. The Sainted King still held tight to his chalice as he walked, flanked by bloodcoats. He raised it to take another drink, a slight tremor in his hand. Dark wine spilled from the cup as Lore and Gabriel passed him, splashing onto the ground and barely missing Lore’s hem. Lore glanced over her shoulder before following Gabriel inside. Bastian stood on the dais still, surrounded by beautiful people in colorful clothing, leaning in close to whisper in the ear of a young man who looked thrilled to be the object of his attention. But his eyes were on her. She wasn’t sure how she could tell, across so much space, but she knew with a pull in her gut and no hint of a doubt that the Sun Prince was staring right at her. CHAPTER EIGHT The Night Witch said she’d watch the tomb But lost her mind instead She tried to let the goddess out But the goddess got in her head —Auverrani children’s rhyme Think they left any wine in here?” Their apartments felt cavernous with only the two of them inside. Lore toed off her slippers by the door—they pinched something awful, which meant in all the years the Presque Mort had been watching her, they’d still managed to get her shoe size wrong—and sat heavily down on the couch. “I need some, after all that.” “If they did, it will be in the sidebar.” Gabriel waved toward a small table next to the empty fireplace. He leaned against the wall by the door, one hand reaching up to readjust the leather patch on his eye. “Hopefully August tells someone to send us food.” “He can’t expect me to spy on
| 0 |
7 |
Casino Royale.txt
| 16 |
and wins. Otherwise he is faced with the same problems as I was. But he is helped in his decision to draw or not to draw a third card by my actions. If I have stood, he must assume that I have a five, six, or seven: if I have drawn, he will know that I had something less than a six and I may have improved my hand or not with the card he gave me. And this card was dealt to me face up. On its face value and a knowledge of the odds, he will know whether to take another card or to stand on his own. 'So he has a very slight advantage over me. He has a tiny help over his decision to draw or to stand. But there is always one problem card at this game - shall one draw or stand on a five and what will your opponent do with a five? Some players always draw or always stand. I follow my intuition. 'But in the end,' Bond stubbed out his cigarette and called for the bill, 'it's the natural eights and nines that matter, and I must just see that I get more of them than he does.' CHAPTER 10 - THE HIGH TABLE While telling the story of the game and anticipating the coming fight, Bond's face had lit up again. The prospect of at least getting to grips with Le Chiffre stimulated him and quickened his pulse. He seemed to have completely forgotten the brief coolness between them, and Vesper was relieved and entered into his mood. He paid the bill and gave a handsome tip to the sommelier. Vesper rose and led the way out of the restaurant and out on to the steps of the hotel. The big Bentley was waiting and Bond drove Vesper over, parking as close to the entrance as he could. As they walked through the ornate ante-rooms, he hardly spoke. She looked at him and saw that his nostrils were slightly flared. In other respects he seemed completely at ease, acknowledging cheerfully the greetings of the Casino functionaries. At the door to the salle prive they were not asked for their membership cards. Bond's high gambling had already made him a favoured client and any companion of his shared in the glory. Before they had penetrated very far into the main room, Felix Leiter detached himself from one of the roulette tables and greeted Bond as an old friend. After being introduced to Vesper Lynd and exchanging a few remarks, Leiter said: 'Well, since you're playing baccarat this evening, will you allow me to show Miss Lynd how to break the bank at roulette? I've got three lucky numbers that are bound to show soon, and I expect Miss Lynd has some too. Then perhaps we could come and watch you when your game starts to warm up.' Bond looked inquiringly at Vesper. 'I should love that,' she said, 'but will you give me one of your lucky numbers to play on?' 'I have
| 1 |
80 |
Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt
| 91 |
He taps a finger to his lips, and I strain to hear what the bartenders are saying. “Those guinea pigs are not my responsibility. If you’re going to insist on keeping them in our apartment, you need to clean up after them.” “You could at least call them by their names.” “I refuse to call those little beasts Ricardo and Judith.” “Just like you refused to do the dishes after that party you threw last week? The one with a build-your-own-chili-dog bar?” “I want to call you out for eavesdropping, but I can’t blame you,” I say. “This is quality entertainment.” “Right? Now I can’t leave until I know how it ends.” Then he raises an eyebrow, squinting at the water bottle I stupidly placed on the bar next to me. “Is there a reason your water bottle says . . . ‘Live Laugh Girlboss’?” He holds up his hands. “Not judging, just curious.” “Oh, this? I’m part of a hydration-based MLM. I’m in really deep. They’ll be running the docuseries any day now.” Without missing a beat, he calmly places his glass back down. Flicks his eyes around the bar. When he speaks again, it’s in a whisper. “Do I need to call someone for you?” “Afraid it’s too late.” I give the water bottle a shake. “But if I can sell you a thousand of these babies, I might be able to get off with minimal prison time.” “The thing is,” he says, drumming a couple fingertips on the bar, “I could probably find a use for three hundred. Maybe four. But I don’t know what I’d do with the rest of them.” “You’d just have to find other people to sell them to. I could hook you up, give you all the training you need to become your very own boss.” “I’m not falling for that one.” He’s grinning at me, his teeth a brilliant white. The longer I study him, the cuter he is. It’s all in the details—a dusting of reddish facial hair, the warmth of his rich hazel eyes, the freckles spiraling across his knuckles, up onto his left wrist where his shirt is unbuttoned and bare skin peeks through. And the way he’s looking at me might feel better than I’ve felt all day. All week. All month since Wyatt. “I’m Drew,” he says. “I completely understand if you can’t tell me your name, though. For legal reasons. What with the show and all.” I try and fail to hold in another smile. God, he’s charming. “Chandler,” I say. “I was at the book signing over there.” I drag out the book, as though the introduction necessitates some additional shred of truth. “What do you do? When you’re not trying to rescue women from MLMs drinking at bookstore bars?” “I mean, jeez, that’s practically a full-time job.” Then he takes another sip of his drink before tenting his fingers together. “I’m in sales. Not very interesting, unfortunately.” “I disagree. That depends entirely on what you’re selling. For example, tiny rain boots for dogs? Fascinating, and
| 0 |
19 |
Hound of the Baskervilles.txt
| 93 |
unable to trace cut sheet of Times. CARTWRlGHT. "There go two of my threads, Watson. There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you. We must cast round for another scent." "We have still the cabman who drove the spy." "Exactly. I haw wired to get his name and address from the Official Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an answer to my question." The ring at the bell proved to be something even more satis- factory than an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking fellow entered who was evidently the man himself. "I got a message from the head office that a gent at this address had been inquiring for No. 2704," said he. "I've driven my cab this seven years and never a word of complaint. I came here straight from the Yard to ask you to your face what you had against me." "I have nothing in the world against you, my good man," said Holmes. "On the contrary, I have half a sovereign for you if you will give me a clear answer to my questions." "Well, I've had a good day and no mistake," said the cabman with a grin. "What was it you wanted to ask, sir?" "First of all your name and address, in case I want you again." "John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. My cab is out of Shipley's Yard, near Waterloo Station." Sherlock Holmes made a note of it. "Now, Clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched this house at ten o'clock this morning and afterwards followed the two gentlemen down Regent Street." The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. "Why there's no good my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as I do already," said he. "The truth is that the gentleman told me that he was a detective and that I was to say nothing about him to anyone." "My good fellow; this is a very serious business, and you may find yourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide anything from me. You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?" "Yes, he did." "When did he say this?" "When he left me." "Did he say anything more?" "He mentioned his name." Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. "Oh, he men- tioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?" "His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes." Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the cabman's reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "A touch, Watson -- an undeniable touch!" said he. "I feel a foil as quick and supple as my own. He got home upon me very prettily that time. So his name was Sherlock Holmes, was it?" "Yes, sir, that was the gentleman's name." "Excellent! Tell me where you picked him up and all that
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50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 1 |
at those words. It burst its thin restraints and went skittering along her arms, raising the fine hairs beneath her sleeves. They saw her body as another document to sign. ‘You would be wise to set your mind to motherhood now, and to not exert yourself before your marriage,’ Lord Robart said, tidying his papers. ‘The entire Virtues Council is here to guard the queendom for you. Leave everything to us, Lady Glorian.’ 47 North Throughout the cruel winters of Hróth, the light died at midday. With its cloak of sea mist fallen, the high cliff known as Hólrhorn could be seen for leagues off the western coast, though few ships ever sailed nearby. Only gulls and rock crabs moved, and even they were quiet. Below was a black beach, miles long. The waves pared thick snow from its sand and withdrew with a roar, leaving a lace of foam. The coast they washed became a mirror in their wake, reflecting the grim cliffs, the birds, and a bank of grey cloud, all tarnished with copper. Rock stacks towered from the spindrift. Most called them the Six Virtues of the Sea, but those who still cleaved to the past, who lullabied the frozen lakes, knew them by a far older name. Thousands of years they had stood guard. Now they watched the dead appear. For days, only the rocks witnessed the corpses washing in, charred and broken, released from the sea. Only they saw the entangled pair – one in the holdfast of the other – come ashore to rest at last. The red sun took its leave. When darkness fell, it fell entire. So it was until the sky lights woke. Colours sketched the sky, flowed tall and bright, and billowed like sails through clear water, ghosting in shades of blue and green. They picked out the remains on the long beach and reflected in the eyes of a young woman with brown hair. Like the other corpses, she was burnt, the skin and flesh torched from her arms – though her face remained whole, white as ice. Whether it was the water or the fire that had killed her, no one could have told. Beside her lay the last survivor. A strong wave rolled in and broke across his back. He coughed seawater, his nose stinging. When he peeled his eyes open and saw the lights, he knew this was not Halgalant. His fingers were swollen and blistered. The sea had almost wrung him of all strength, but he found the will for one last crawl, to gather the dead woman close and drag her up the beach. Each inch opened his salt sores. Each one unlocked the agony the bitter cold had kept at bay, drawing raw, tearless groans. When he had gone as far as he could, he collapsed beside her, the woman who had never feared him. With cracked lips, he kissed her brow. He had fought hard to get her home, and it was done. Her bones were safe. He had only one regret – that
| 0 |
70 |
Kalynn-Bayron-Youre-Not-Supposed.txt
| 34 |
his arms fall to his sides as his mouth forms a little O. “Fall in line,” Mr. Lamont orders. Kyle raises his hands in front of him. “Please. Please don’t hurt me.” Mr. Lamont flicks the gun, gesturing for Kyle to move. He stumbles over to me and stays behind me as we all go into the lodge single file. Mr. Lamont gestures to the couch, and I help Bezi take a seat while Kyle settles next to her. I go to sit down when the tip of my sneaker bumps up against something partially hidden under the couch. It’s dark. I’m having trouble seeing, but as my eyes adjust, I realize it’s a hand, clenched into a bloody fist, and on the wrist is a bright pink hair tie. I stumble back and fall hard onto the ground. From the floor, I have a clear view of Tasha’s and Javier’s bloodied faces. Their bodies lie tangled together under the couch. A scream claws its way up my throat and erupts from behind my lips. My cries split the air, and Mr. Lamont delivers a swift kick to my leg. “Get up,” he growls. I pull myself onto the couch, and I can feel the soft bulges of Tasha’s and Javier’s corpses through the thin fabric. Bezi leans against me, sobbing. The orange glow from the fireplace washes the room in a gauzy light, and Mr. Lamont stands backlit by the flames, like a monster emerging from the depths of hell. “You killed them,” I say through a blur of tears. “You’re with those people from the woods.” Mr. Lamont narrows his eyes at me. “No. Not with them.” He keeps the gun trained on me as he speaks. “Do you know where you are right now?” I exchange glances with Kyle. “I don’t know what you mean,” I say. “Of course you don’t,” Mr. Lamont says dismissively. “This particular piece of land has been used for generations by those Owl Society folks.” Mr. Lamont points the gun at me and clenches his jaw, then smiles. “That’s what they call themselves,” Mr. Lamont says. “They’ve always been here. They stole this land from the folks who were here before. Been conducting their meetings and rituals in the forest around here ever since. Seeding the land with blood and giving the flesh over to the lake.” My mind goes in circles. “The man in the owl mask told me.” Mr. Lamont tilts his head. “Did he now?” He seems irritated. “He was a regular chatty Cathy with you, huh? I couldn’t get him to tell me a damn thing. Did he tell you about the ritual too?” He drags his hand across his gut in the same spot where Porter was sliced open. “Spill the blood on the ground, dump the corpse in the lake, recite the words. Not necessarily in that order.” He shakes his head and toes at the floor with the tip of his boot. “They could have anything they want, but the price—the price always has to be paid
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