What book are you currently reading?
Apr 24, 2020 21:17:53 GMT
theravenking, sadsaak, and 1 more like this
Post by Prime etc. on Apr 24, 2020 21:17:53 GMT
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
Actually it's a re-read.
I did read this short story by Saki yesterday.
It's short so here it is:
THE OPEN WINDOW by Saki
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed
young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly
flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that
was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal
visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping
the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to
migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not
speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from
moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people
I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was
presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice
division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she
judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the
rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of
introduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the
self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering
whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An
undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine
habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that
would be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot
tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October
afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened
on to a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that
window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her
two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came
back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they
were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that
dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years
gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered.
That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its
self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always
thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown
spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they
used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is
quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her
husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her
youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to
tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes
on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that
they will all walk in through that window—”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the
aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in
making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my
husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always
come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so
they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk,
isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds,
and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely
horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to
turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his
hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes
were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.
It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his
visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental
excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical
exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread
delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the
least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.
“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the
last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but not
to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t
they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look
intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out
through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock
of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same
direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn
towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of
them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders.
A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared
the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I
said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the
gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong
retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to
avoid an imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming
in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that
who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could
only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye
or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had
a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the
banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night
in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming
just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
Actually it's a re-read.
I did read this short story by Saki yesterday.
It's short so here it is:
THE OPEN WINDOW by Saki
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed
young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly
flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that
was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal
visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping
the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to
migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not
speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from
moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people
I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was
presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice
division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she
judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the
rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of
introduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the
self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering
whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An
undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine
habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that
would be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot
tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October
afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened
on to a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that
window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her
two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came
back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they
were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that
dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years
gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered.
That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its
self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always
thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown
spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they
used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is
quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her
husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her
youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to
tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes
on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that
they will all walk in through that window—”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the
aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in
making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my
husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always
come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so
they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk,
isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds,
and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely
horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to
turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his
hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes
were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.
It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his
visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental
excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical
exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread
delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the
least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.
“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the
last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but not
to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t
they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look
intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out
through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock
of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same
direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn
towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of
them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders.
A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared
the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I
said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the
gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong
retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to
avoid an imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming
in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that
who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could
only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye
or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had
a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the
banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night
in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming
just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
Romance at short notice was her speciality.