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Section one of Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad. This is
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a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Reading by Bologna Times. Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad Kennedy
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is a country doctor and lives in Colebrook, on the
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shores of East Bay. The high ground, rising abruptly behind
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the red roofs of the little town, crowds the quaint
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high street against the wall which defends it from the sea.
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Beyond the sea wall there curves for miles in a
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vast and regular sweep, the barren beach of Shingle, with
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the village of Brenzett standing out darkly across the water,
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a spire and a clump of trees, and still further out,
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the perpendicular column of a lighthouse, looking in the distance,
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no bigger than a lead pencil, marks the vanishing point
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of the land. The country at the back of Brinstt
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is low and flat, but the bay is fairly well
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sheltered from the seas, and occasionally a big ship, wind
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bound or through stress of weather, makes use of the
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anchoring ground. A mile and a half due north from you,
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as you stand at the back door of the ship's
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inn in Brinzet a dilapidated windmill near by, lifting its
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shattered arms from a mound no loftier than a rubbish heap,
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and a martello tower squatting at the water's edge half
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a mile to the south of the Coastguard cottages are
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familiar to the skippers of small craft. These are the
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official sea marks for the patch of trustworthy Bottom, represented
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on the Admiralty charts by an irregular oval of dots,
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enclosing several figures six with a tiny anchor engraved among them,
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and the legend mud and shells over all the brow
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of the upland over tops the square tower of the
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Colbrook Church. The slope is green and looped by a
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white road. Ascending along this road you open a valley
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broad and shallow, a wide green trough of pastures and hedges,
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merging inland
Load full transcript
into a fista of purple tents and flowing lines.
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Closing the view in this valley down to Brinsitt and
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Coalbrook and up to Darnford, the market town fourteen miles away,
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lies the practice of my friend Kennedy. He had begun
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life as surgeon in the navy, and afterwards had been
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the companion of a famous traveler in the days when
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there were continents with unexplored interiors. His papers on the
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fauna and flora made him known to scientific societies. And
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now he had come to a country practice from choice.
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The penetrating power of his mind, acting like a corrosive fluid,
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had destroyed his ambition. I fancy his intelligence is of
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a scientific order, of an investigating habit, and of that
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unappeasable curiosity which believes that there is a particle of
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a general truth in every mystery. A good many years
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ago now, on my return from abroad, he invited me
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to stay with him. I came readily enough, and as
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he could not neglect his patience to keep me company,
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he took me on his rounds thirty miles or so
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of an afternoon. Sometimes I waited for him on the
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roads the horse reached after the leafy twigs, and sitting
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in the dog cart, I could hear Kennedy's laugh through
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the half open door left open of some cottage. He
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had a big, hearty laugh that would have fitted a
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man twice his size. A brisk manner, a bronzed face,
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and a pair of gray, profoundly attentive eyes. He had
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the talent of making people talk to him freely, and
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an inexhaustible patience in listening to their tails. One day,
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as we trotted out of a large village into a shady,
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bitter road, I saw on our left hand a low
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black cottage with diamond panes in the windows, a creeper
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on the end wall, a roof of shingle, and some
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roses climbing on the rickety trelliswork of the tiny porch.
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Kennedy pulled up to a walk. A woman in full
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sunlight was throwing a dripping blanket over a line stretched
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between two old apple trees. And as the bob tailed,
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long necked chestnut trying to get his head jerked the
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left hand covered by a thick dogskin glove, the doctor
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raised his voice over the hedge, how's your child, Amy?
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I had the time to see her dull face red,
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not with a mantling blush, but as if her flat
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cheeks had been vigorously slapped, and to take in the
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squat figure, the scanty, dusty brown hair drawn into a
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tight knot at the back of the head. She looked
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quite young, with a distinct catch in her breath. Her
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voice sounded low and timid. He's well, thank you, we
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trotted again, a young patient of yours, I said, and
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the doctor, flicking the chestnut, absently muttered her husband used
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to be. She seems a dull creature, I remarked, listlessly. Precisely,
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said Kennedy, She is very passive. It's enough to look
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at the red hands hanging at the end of those
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short arms, at those slow, prominent brown eyes, to know
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the inertness of her mind, an inertness that one would
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think made it everlastingly safe from all the surprises of imagination.
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And yet we, each of us, is safe at any
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rate such as you see her. She had enough imagination
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to fall in love. She is the daughter of one
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Isaac Foster, who, from a small farmer, has sunk into
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a shepherd, the beginning of his misfortunes dating from his
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runaway marriage with the cook of his widowed father, a
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well to do, apoplectic grazier who passionately struck his name
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off his will, and has been heard two utter threats
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against his life. But this old affair scandalous enough to
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serve as a motive for a Greek tragedy, arose from
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the similarity of their characters. There are other tragedies, less scandalous,
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and of a subtler poignancy, arising from irreconcilable differences, and
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from that fear of the incomprehensible that hangs over all
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our heads, over all our heads. The tired chestnut dropped
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into a walk, and the rim of the sun, all
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red in a
speckless sky, touched familiarly the smooth top
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of a plowed rise near the road, as I had
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seen at times innumerable touched the distant horizon of the sea.
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The uniform brownness of the harrowed field glowed with a
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rosy tinge, as though the powdered clods had sweated out
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in minute pearls of blood, the toil of uncounted plowmen.
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From the edge of a copse, A wagon with two
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horses was rolling gently along the ridge, raised above our heads.
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Upon the skyline. It loomed up against the red sun, triumphantly,
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big enormous, like a chariot of giants, drawn by two
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slow stepping steeds of legendary proportions. And the clumsy figure
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of the man plodding at the head of the leading
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horse projected itself on the background of the infinite with
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a heroic uncouthness. The end of his carter's whip quivered
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high up in the blue. Kennedy discoursed she is the
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eldest of a large family. At the age of fifteen,
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they put her out to service at the new Barnes Farm.
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I attended Missus Smith, the tenant's wife, and saw that
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girl there for the first time. Missus Smith, a genteel
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person with a sharp nose, made her put on a
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black dress every afternoon. I don't know what induced me
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to notice her at all. There are faces that call
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your attention by a curious want of definiteness in their
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whole aspect. As walking in a mist, you peer attentively
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at a vague shape, which, after all, may be nothing
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more curious or strange than a sign post. The only
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peculiarity I perceived in her was a slight hesitation in
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her utterance, a sort of preliminary stammer which passes away
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with the first word when sharply spoken to. She was
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apt to lose her head at once, but her heart
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was of the kindest. She had never been heard to
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express a dislike for a single human being, and she
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was tender to every living creature. She was devoted to
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Missus Smith, to mister Smith, to their dogs, cats, canaries,
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--> 00:09:18.639
and as to Missus Smith's gray parrot. Its peculiarities exercised
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upon her a positive fascination. Nevertheless, when that outlandish bird
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attacked by the cat, shrieked for help in human accents,
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she ran out into the yard, stopping her ears, and
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did not prevent the crime. For Missus Smith, this was
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another evidence of her stupidity. On the other hand, her
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want of charm, in view of Smith's well known frivolousness,
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was a great recommendation. Her short sighted eyes would swim
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with pity for a poor mouse in a trap, and
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she had been seen once by some boys on her
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knees in the wet grass helping a toad in difficulties.
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If it's true, as some German fellow has said that
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without phosphorus there is no thought, it is still more
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true that there is no kindness of heart without a
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certain amount of imagination. She had some. She had even
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more than is necessary to understand suffering and to be
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moved by pity. She fell in love under circumstances that
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leave no room for doubt in the matter. For you
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need imagination to form a notion of beauty at all,
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and still more to discover your ideal in an unfamiliar shape.
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How this aptitude came to her, what it did feed
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upon is an inscrutable mystery. She was born in the
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village and had never been further away from it than Colebrook,
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or perhaps Darnford. She lived for four years with the Smiths.
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Newborns is an isolated farmhouse a mile away from the road,
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and she was content to look day after day at
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the same fields, hollows rises, at the trees, and the
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hedge rows, at the faces of the four men about
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the farm, always the same, day after day, month after month,
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year after year. She never showed a desire for conversation,
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and as it seemed to me, she did not know
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how to smile. Sometimes of a fine Sunday afternoon she
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would put on her best dress, a pair of stout boots,
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a large gray hat trimmed with a black feather.
I've
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seen her in that finery seas an absurdly slender parasol
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climb over two stiles, tramp over three fields, and along
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two hundred yards of road. Never further there stood Foster's cottage.
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She would help her mother to give their tea to
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the younger children, wash up the crockery, kiss the little ones,
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and go back to the farm. That was all, all
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the rest, all the change, all the relaxation. She never
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seemed to wish for anything more. And then she fell
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in love. She fell in love silently, obstinately, perhaps helplessly.
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It came slowly, but when it came, it worked like
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a powerful spell. It was love, as the ancients understood it,
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an irresistible and fatal impulse, a possession, Yes, it was
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in her, to become haunted and possessed by a face,
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by a presence, fatally, as though she had been a
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pagan worshiper of form under a joyous sky, and to
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be awakened at last from that mysterious forgetfulness of self,
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from that enchantment, from that transport by a fear resembling
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the unaccountable terror of a brute. With the sun hanging
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low on its western limit, the expanse of the grass lands,
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framed in the counter scarps of the rising ground, took
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on a gorgeous and somber aspect, a sense of penetrating sadness,
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like that inspired by a grave strand of music disengaged
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itself from the silence of the fields. The men we
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met walked past, slow, unsmiling, with downcast eyes, as if
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the melancholy of an overburdened earth had weighted their feet,
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bowed their shoulders, borne down their glances. Yes, said the
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doctor to my remark, one would think the earth is
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under a curse, since of all her children, these that
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cling to her the closest are uncouth in body, and
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as leaden of gait, as if their very hearts were
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loaded with chains. But here, on the same road you
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might have seen amongst these heavy men, a being lithe
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and supple and long limbed, straight like a pine, with
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something striving upwards in his appearance, as though the heart
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within him had been buoyant. Perhaps it was only the
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force of the contrast. But when he was passing one
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of these villagers here, the soles of his feet did
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not seem to me to touch the dust of the road.
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He vaulted over the stiles, paced these slopes with a long,
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elastic stride that made him noticeable at a great distance,
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and had lustrous black eyes. He was so different from
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the mankind around that, with his freedom of movement, his soft,
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a little startled glance, his olive complexion and graceful bearing,
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his humanity suggested to me the nature of a woodland creature.
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He came from there, the doctor pointed with his whip,
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and from the summit of the descent, seen over the
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rolling tops of the trees in a park by the
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side of the road, appeared the level sea far below us,
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like the floor of an immense edifice, inlaid with bands
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of dark ripple, with still trails of glitter, ending in
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a belt of glassy water. At the foot of the sky.
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The light blur of smoke from an invisible steamer faded
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on the great clearness of the horizon, like the mist
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of a breath on a mirror, and inshore, the white
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sails of a coaster, with the appearance of disentangling themselves
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slowly from under the branches, floated clear the foliage of
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the trees. Shipwrecked in the bay, I said, yes, he
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was a castaway, a poor emigrant from Central Europe, bound
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to America, and washed ashore here in a storm, and
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for him who knew nothing of the earth, England was
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an undiscovered country. It was some time before he learned
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its name, and for all I know, he might have
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expected to find wild beasts or wild men here. When
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crawling in the dark over the sea wall, he rolled
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down the other side into a dike, where it was
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another miracle he didn't get drowned, but he struggled instinctively
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like an animal under a
net, and this blind struggle
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threw him out into a field. He must have been
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indeed of a tougher fiber than he looked to with
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and without expiring such buffetings, the violence of his exertions,
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and so much fear. Later on, in his broken English
241
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that resembled curiously the speech of a young child, he
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told me himself that he put his trust in God,
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believing he was no longer in this world. And truly,
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he would add, how was he to know? He fought
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his way against the rain and the gale on all fours,
246
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and crawled at last among some sheep huddled close under
247
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the lee of a hedge. They ran off in all directions,
248
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bleeding in the darkness, and he welcomed the first familiar
249
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sound he heard on these shores. It must have been
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two in the morning then, and this is all we
251
00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:46.679
know of the manner of his landing. Though he did
252
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not arrive unattended by any means, only his grisly company
253
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did not begin to come ashore till much later in
254
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the day. The doctor gathered the reins, clicked his tongue.
255
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We trotted down the hill, then, turning almost directly a
256
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sharp corner into the high street. We rattled over the
257
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stones and were home late in the evening. Kennedy, breaking
258
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a spell of moodiness that had come over him, returned
259
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to the story. Smoking his pipe. He paced the long
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room from end to end, a reading lamp, concentrated all
261
00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:25.960
its light upon the papers on his desk, and sitting
262
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by the open window, I saw, after the windless, scorching day,
263
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the frigid splendor of a hazy sea lying motionless under
264
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the moon. Not a whisper, not a splash, not a
265
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stir of the shingle, not a footstep, not a sigh
266
00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:45.000
came up from the earth below. Never a sign of life,
267
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but the scent of climbing jasmine, and Kennedy's voice speaking
268
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behind me. Passed through the white casement to vanish outside
269
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in a chill and sumptuous stillness. The relations of shipwrecks
270
00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:02.440
in the olden time tell us of much suffering. Often
271
00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:05.880
the castaways were only saved from drowning, to die miserably
272
00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:10.759
from starvation on a barren coast. Others suffered violent death,
273
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or else slavery passed through years of precarious existence with
274
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people to whom their strangeness was an object of suspicion, dislike,
275
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or fear. We read about these things, and they are
276
00:18:24.039 --> 00:18:27.440
very pitiful. It is indeed hard upon a man to
277
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find himself a lost stranger, hopeless, incomprehensible, and of a
278
00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:37.599
mysterious origin, in some obscure corner of the earth. Yet
279
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amongst all the adventurers shipwrecked in all the wild parts
280
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of the world, there is not one, it seems to me,
281
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that ever had to suffer a fate so simply tragic
282
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as the man. I am speaking of, the most innocent
283
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of adventurers, cast out by the sea in the bite
284
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of this bay, almost within sight from this very window,
285
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:03.119
did not know the name of his ship. Indeed, in
286
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:06.079
the course of time we discovered he did not even
287
00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:10.359
know that ships had names like Christian people. And when
288
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one day, from the top of the Telford Hill he
289
00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:17.400
beheld the sea lying open to his view, his eyes
290
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roamed afar, lost in an air of wild surprise, as
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00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:24.200
though he had never seen such a sight before, and
292
00:19:24.279 --> 00:19:27.599
probably he had not, as far as I could make out.
293
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He had been hustled, together with many others, on board
294
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an emigrant ship lying at the mouth of the elbow.
295
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Too bewildered to take note of his surroundings, too weary
296
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to see anything, too anxious to care, they were driven
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below into the tween deck and battened down from the
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very start. It was a low timber dwelling, he would say,
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with wooden beams overhead, like the houses in his country.
300
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But she went into it down a ladder. It was
301
00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:01.759
very large, very cold, damp and somber, with places in
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00:20:01.799 --> 00:20:05.359
the manner of wood boxes where people had to sleep,
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00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:09.400
one above another, and it kept on rocking all ways
304
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at once, all the time. He crept into one
of
305
00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:15.839
these boxes and lay down there in the clothes in
306
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:19.240
which he had left his home many days before, keeping
307
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his bundle and his stick by his side. People groaned,
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children cried, water dripped, the lights went out. The walls
309
00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:32.680
of the place creaked, and everything was being shaken, so
310
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that in one's little box one dared not lift one's head.
311
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He had lost touch with his only companion, a young
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man from the same valley, he said, And all the
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time a great noise of wind went on outside, and
314
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heavy blows fell boom boom, and awful sickness overcame him,
315
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even to the point of making him neglect his prayers. Besides,
316
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one could not tell whether it was morning or even.
317
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It seemed always to be night in that place. Before that,
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00:21:05.799 --> 00:21:08.960
he had been traveling a long long time on the
319
00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:12.359
iron track. He looked out of the window, which had
320
00:21:12.440 --> 00:21:16.160
a wonderfully clear glass in it, and the trees, the houses,
321
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the fields, and the long roads seemed to fly round
322
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and round about him till his head swam. He gave
323
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me to understand that he had, on his passage beheld
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uncounted multitudes of people, whole nations, all dressed in such
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clothes as the rich ware. Once he was made to
326
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:38.079
get out of the carriage and slept through a night
327
00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:40.599
on a bench and a house of bricks, with his
328
00:21:40.680 --> 00:21:43.759
bundle under his head. And once for many hours he
329
00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:46.880
had to sit on a floor of flat stones, dozing
330
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with his knees up and with his bundle between his feet.
331
00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:54.640
There was a roof over him which seemed made of glass,
332
00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:58.079
and was so high that the tallest mountain pine he
333
00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:01.559
had ever seen would have had room to grow under it.
334
00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:05.920
Steam machines rolled in at one end and out at
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the other. People swarmed more than you can see on
336
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a feast day round the miraculous Holy Image in the
337
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yard of the Carmelite convent down in the plains, where
338
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before he left his home he drove his mother in
339
00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:22.400
a wooden cart, a pious old woman who wanted to
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offer prayers and make a vow for his safety. He
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00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:28.279
could not give me an idea of how large and
342
00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.680
lofty and full of noise and smoke and gloom and
343
00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:34.839
clang of iron the place was, but some one had
344
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told him it was called Berlin. Then they rang a bell,
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and another steam machine came in, And again he was
346
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taken on and on through a land that wearied his
347
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eyes by its flatness, without a single bit of a
348
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:52.880
hill to be seen anywhere. One more night he spent
349
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:55.920
shut up in a building like a good stable, with
350
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a litter of straw on the floor, guarding his bundle,
351
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amongst a l of men, of whom not one could
352
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understand a single word he said. In the morning, they
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were all led down to the stony shores of an
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extremely broad, muddy river, flowing not between hills, but between
355
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.000
houses that seemed immense. There was a steam machine that
356
00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:22.039
went on the water, and they all stood upon it,
357
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packed tight. Only now there were with them many women
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and children, who made much noise. A cold rain fell,
359
00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.240
the wind blew in his face. He was wet through
360
00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:36.680
and his teeth chattered. He and the young man from
361
00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:40.359
the same valley took each other by the hand. They
362
00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:43.880
thought they were being taken to America straight away. But
363
00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:46.759
suddenly the steam machine bumped against the side of a
364
00:23:46.799 --> 00:23:50.839
thing like a house on the water. The walls were
365
00:23:51.119 --> 00:23:54.799
smooth and black, and there uprose growing from the roof,
366
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as it were bare trees in the shape of crosses,
367
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extremely high. That's how it appeared to him then, for
368
00:24:02.119 --> 00:24:05.680
he had never seen a ship before. This was the
369
00:24:05.720 --> 00:24:08.720
ship that was going to swim all the way to America.
370
00:24:09.680 --> 00:24:13.680
Voices shouted, everything swayed. There was a ladder dipping up
371
00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:16.680
and down. He went up on his hands and knees
372
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in mortal fear of falling into the water below, which
373
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:24.480
made a great splashing. He got separated from his companion,
374
00:24:24.759 --> 00:24:27.279
and when he descended into the
bottom of that ship,
375
00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:32.319
his heart seemed to melt suddenly within him. It was then, also,
376
00:24:32.680 --> 00:24:35.440
as he told me, that he had lost contact for
377
00:24:35.480 --> 00:24:38.039
good and all with one of those three men, who
378
00:24:38.079 --> 00:24:41.160
the summer before had been going about through all the
379
00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:44.599
little towns in the foothills of his country. They would
380
00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:48.359
arrive on market days driving in a peasant's cart, and
381
00:24:48.400 --> 00:24:51.000
would set up an office in an inn or some
382
00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:54.559
other jew's house. There were three of them, of whom
383
00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:57.759
one with a long beard, looked venerable, and they had
384
00:24:57.839 --> 00:25:01.200
red cloth collars round their necks and gold lace on
385
00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:05.319
their sleeves. Like government officials. They sat proudly behind a
386
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:08.519
long table, and in the next room, so that the
387
00:25:08.599 --> 00:25:12.839
common people shouldn't hear, they kept a cunning telegraph machine
388
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:16.200
through which they could talk to the Emperor of America.
389
00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:19.960
The fathers hung about the door, but the young men
390
00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:23.319
of the mountains would crowd up to the table, asking
391
00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.559
many questions, for there was work to be got all
392
00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:29.440
the year round. At three dollars a day in America
393
00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:34.759
and no military service to do. But the American Kaiser
394
00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:38.920
would not take everybody. Oh No, he himself had a
395
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:42.880
great difficulty in getting accepted, and the venerable man in
396
00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:45.839
uniform had to go out of the room several times
397
00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:49.759
to work the telegraph on his behalf. The American kaiser
398
00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:54.279
engaged him at last at three dollars, he being young
399
00:25:54.400 --> 00:25:59.119
and strong. However, many able young men backed out, afraid
400
00:25:59.160 --> 00:26:02.680
of the great distance. Besides those only who had some
401
00:26:02.839 --> 00:26:05.599
money could be taken. There were some who sold their
402
00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:08.440
huts and their land because it cost a lot of
403
00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:12.400
money to get to America. But then once there you
404
00:26:12.519 --> 00:26:15.160
had three dollars a day, and if you were clever,
405
00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:18.519
you could find places where true gold could be picked
406
00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:22.599
up from the ground. His father's house was getting over full.
407
00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:27.319
Two of his brothers were married and had children. He
408
00:26:27.400 --> 00:26:31.440
promised to send money home from America by post twice
409
00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:35.519
a year. His father sold an old cow, a pair
410
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.839
of piebald mountain ponies of his own raising, and a
411
00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:42.480
cleared plot of fair pasture land on the sunny slope
412
00:26:42.519 --> 00:26:46.240
of a pine clad pass to a jew innkeeper in
413
00:26:46.440 --> 00:26:48.799
order to pay the people of the ship that took
414
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:51.559
men to America to get rich in a short time.
415
00:26:55.240 --> 00:27:00.839
End of Section one,