Stories

Chapter XVI. The Problem Suddenly Works in Silence

The hurricane had just stopped short. There was no longer in the air sou’-wester or nor’-wester. The fierce clarions of space were mute. The whole of the waterspout had poured from the sky without any warning of diminution, as if it had slided perpendicularly into a gulf beneath. None...

Chapter XVII. The Last Resource

There was a hole in the keel. A leak had been sprung. When it happened no one could have said. Was it when they touched the Caskets? Was it off Ortach? Was it when they were whirled about the shallows west of Aurigny? It was most probable that they had touched some rock there. They […]

Chapter XVIII. The Highest Resource

The wreck being lightened, was sinking more slowly, but none the less surely. The hopelessness of their situation was without resource – without mitigation; they had exhausted their last expedient. “Is there anything else we can throw overboard?” The doctor, whom every one had...

Chapter I. Chesil

The storm was no less severe on land than on sea. The same wild enfranchisement of the elements had taken place around the abandoned child. The weak and innocent become their sport in the expenditure of the unreasoning rage of their blind forces. Shadows discern not, and things inanimate have not...

Chapter II. The Effect of Snow

He journeyed some time along this course. Unfortunately the footprints were becoming less and less distinct. Dense and fearful was the falling of the snow. It was the time when the hooker was so distressed by the snow-storm at sea. The child, in distress like the vessel, but after another fashion,...

Chapter III. A Burden Makes a Rough Road Rougher

It was little more than four hours since the hooker had sailed from the creek of Portland, leaving the boy on the shore. During the long hours since he had been deserted, and had been journeying onwards, he had met but three persons of that human society into which he was, perchance, about to enter...

Chapter IV. Another Form of Desert

It was Weymouth which he had just entered. Weymouth then was not the respectable and fine Weymouth of to-day. Ancient Weymouth did not present, like the present one, an irreproachable rectangular quay, with an inn and a statue in honour of George III. This resulted from the fact that George III....

Chapter V. Misanthropy Plays Its Pranks

A strange and alarming grinding of teeth reached him through the darkness. It was enough to drive one back: he advanced. To those to whom silence has become dreadful a howl is comforting. That fierce growl reassured him; that threat was a promise. There was there a being alive and awake, though it...

Chapter VI. The Awaking

The beginning of day is sinister. A sad pale light penetrated the hut. It was the frozen dawn. That wan light which throws into relief the mournful reality of objects which are blurred into spectral forms by the night, did not awake the children, so soundly were they sleeping. The caravan was warm....

Chapter I. Lord Clancharlie

I There was, in those days, an old tradition. That tradition was Lord Linnæus Clancharlie. Linnæus Baron Clancharlie, a contemporary of Cromwell, was one of the peers of England – few in number, be it said – who accepted the republic. The reason of his acceptance of it might, indeed,...

Chapter II. Lord David Dirry-Moir

I. Lord Linnæus Clancharlie had not always been old and proscribed; he had had his phase of youth and passion. We know from Harrison and Pride that Cromwell, when young, loved women and pleasure, a taste which, at times (another reading of the text “Woman”), betrays a seditious man....

Chapter III. The Duchess Josiana

I Towards 1705, although Lady Josiana was twenty-three and Lord David forty-four, the wedding had not yet taken place, and that for the best reasons in the world. Did they hate each other? Far from it; but what cannot escape from you inspires you with no haste to obtain it. Josiana wanted to remain...

Chapter IV. The Leader of Fashion

Josiana was bored. The fact is so natural as to be scarcely worth mentioning. Lord David held the position of judge in the gay life of London. He was looked up to by the nobility and gentry. Let us register a glory of Lord David’s. He was daring enough to wear his own hair. The […]

Chapter V. Queen Anne

Above this couple there was Anne, Queen of England. An ordinary woman was Queen Anne. She was gay, kindly, august – to a certain extent. No quality of hers attained to virtue, none to vice. Her stoutness was bloated, her fun heavy, her good-nature stupid. She was stubborn and weak. As a wife...

Chapter I. Wherein we see the Face of Him of whom we have hitherto seen only the Acts

Nature had been prodigal of her kindness to Gwynplaine. She had bestowed on him a mouth opening to his ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a shapeless nose to support the spectacles of the grimace maker, and a face that no one could look upon without laughing. We have just said that nature had...

Chapter II. Dea

That boy was at this time a man. Fifteen years had elapsed. It was in 1705. Gwynplaine was in his twenty-fifth year. Ursus had kept the two children with him. They were a group of wanderers. Ursus and Homo had aged. Ursus had become quite bald. The wolf was growing gray. The age of wolves […]

Chapter III. “Oculos non Habet, et Videt”

Only one woman on earth saw Gwynplaine. It was the blind girl. She had learned what Gwynplaine had done for her, from Ursus, to whom he had related his rough journey from Portland to Weymouth, and the many sufferings which he had endured when deserted by the gang. She knew that when an infant dying...

Chapter IV. Well-matched Lovers

Ursus being a philosopher understood. He approved of the fascination of Dea. He said, The blind see the invisible. He said, Conscience is vision. Then, looking at Gwynplaine, he murmured, Semi-monster, but demi-god. Gwynplaine, on the other hand, was madly in love with Dea. There is the invisible...

Chapter V. The Blue Sky through the Black Cloud

Thus lived these unfortunate creatures together – Dea, relying; Gwynplaine, accepted. These orphans were all in all to each other, the feeble and the deformed. The widowed were betrothed. An inexpressible thanksgiving arose out of their distress. They were grateful. To whom? To the obscure...

Chapter VI. Ursus as Tutor, and Ursus as Guardian

Ursus added, – “Some of these days I will play them a nasty trick. I will marry them.” Ursus taught Gwynplaine the theory of love. He said to him, – “Do you know how the Almighty lights the fire called love? He places the woman underneath, the devil between, and the...

Chapter VII. Blindness Gives Lessons in Clairvoyance

At times Gwynplaine reproached himself. He made his happiness a case of conscience. He fancied that to allow a woman who could not see him to love him was to deceive her. What would she have said could she have suddenly obtained her sight? How she would have felt repulsed by what had previously...

Chapter VIII. Not only Happiness, but Prosperity

What true things are told in stories! The burnt scar of the invisible fiend who has touched you is remorse for a wicked thought. In Gwynplaine evil thoughts never ripened, and he had therefore no remorse. Sometimes he felt regret. Vague mists of conscience. What was this? Nothing. Their happiness...

Chapter IX. Absurdities which Folks without Taste call Poetry

The pieces written by Ursus were interludes – a kind of composition out of fashion nowadays. One of these pieces, which has not come down to us, was entitled “Ursus Rursus.” It is probable that he played the principal part himself. A pretended exit, followed by a reappearance, was...

Chapter X. An Outsider’s View of Men and Things

Man has a notion of revenging himself on that which pleases him. Hence the contempt felt for the comedian. This being charms me, diverts, distracts, teaches, enchants, consoles me; flings me into an ideal world, is agreeable and useful to me. What evil can I do him in return? Humiliate him. Disdain...