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a complex
nature. Three weeks ago he had innocently thought that you had only to
order a dress-suit and there you were! He now knew that a dress-suit is
merely the beginning of anxiety. Shirt! Collar! Tie! Studs! Cuff-links!
Gloves! Handkerchief! (He was very glad to learn authoritatively from
Shillitoe that handkerchiefs were no longer worn in the waistcoat
opening, and that men who so wore them were barbarians and the truth was
not in them. Thus, an everyday handkerchief would do.) Boots!... Boots
were the rock on which he had struck. Shillitoe, in addition to being a
tailor was a hosier, but by some flaw in the scheme of the universe
hosiers do not sell boots. Except boots, Denry could get all he needed
on credit; boots he could not get on credit, and he could not pay cash
for them. Eventually he decided that his church boots must be dazzled up
to the level of this great secular occasion. The pity was that he
forgot--not that he was of a forgetful disposition in great matters; he
was simply over-excited--he forgot to dazzle them up until after he had
fairly put his collar on and his necktie in a bow. It is imprudent to
touch blacking in a dress-shirt, so Denry had to undo the past and begin
again. This hurried him. He was not afraid of being late for the first
waltz with Miss Ruth Earp, but he was afraid of not being out of the
house before his mother returned. Mrs Machin had been making up a lady's
own materials all day, naturally--the day being what it was! If she had
had twelve hands instead of two, she might have made up the own
materials of half-a-dozen ladies instead of one, and earned twenty-four
shillings instead of four. Denry did not want his mother to see him ere
he departed. He had lavished an enormous amount of brains and energy to
the end of displaying himself in this refined and novel attire to the
gaze of two hundred persons, and yet his secret wish was to deprive his
mother of the beautiful spectacle.
However, she slipped in, with her bag and her seamy fingers and her
rather sardonic expression, at the very moment when Denry was putting on
his overcoat in the kitchen (there being insufficient room in the
passage). He did what he could to hide his shirt-front (though she knew
all about it), and failed.
"Bless us!" she exclaimed briefly, going to the fire to warm her hands.
A harmless remark. But her tone seemed to strip bare the vanity of human
greatness.
"I'm in a hurry," said Denry, importantly, as if he was going forth to
sign a treaty involving the welfare of the nations.
"Well," said she, "happen ye are, Denry. But th' kitchen table's no
place for boot-brushes."
He had one piece of luck. It froze. Therefore no anxiety about the
condition of boots.
VI
The Countess was late; some trouble with a horse. Happily the Earl had
been in Bursley all day, and had dressed at the Conservative Club; and
his lordship had ordered that the programme of dances should be begun.
Denry learned this as soon as he emerged, effulgent, from the
gentlemen's cloak-room into the broad red-carpeted corridor which runs
from end to end of the ground-floor of the Town Hall. Many important
townspeople were chatting in the corridor--the innumerable Swetnam
family, the Stanways, the great Etches, the Fearnses, Mrs Clayton
Vernon, the Suttons, including Beatrice Sutton. Of course everybody knew
him for Duncalf's shorthand clerk and the son of the flannel-washer; but
universal white kid gloves constitute a democracy, and Shillitoe could
put more style into a suit than any other tailor in the Five Towns.
"How do?" the eldest of the Swetnam boys nodded carelessly.
"How do, Swetnam?" said Denry, with equal carelessness.
The thing was accomplished! That greeting was like a Masonic initiation,
and henceforward he was the peer of no matter whom. At first he had
thought that four hundred eyes would be fastened on him, their glance
saying, "This youth is wearing a dress-suit for the first time, and it
is not paid for, either!" But it was not so. And the reason was that the
entire population of the Town Hall was heartily engaged in pretending
that never in its life had it been seen after seven o'clock of a night
apart from a dress-suit. Denry observed with joy that, while numerous
middle-aged and awkward men wore red or white silk handkerchiefs in
their waistcoats, such people as Charles Fearns, the Swetnams, and
Harold Etches did not. He was, then, in the shyness of his handkerchief,
on the side of the angels.
He passed up the double staircase (decorated with white or pale frocks
of unparalleled richness), and so into the grand hall. A scarlet
orchestra was on the platform, and many people strolled about the floor
in attitudes of expectation. The walls were festooned with flowers. The
thrill of being magnificent seized him, and he was drenched in a vast
desire to be truly magnificent himself. He dreamt of magnificence and
boot-brushes kept sticking out of this dream like black mud out of snow.
In his reverie he looked about for Ruth Earp, but she was invisible.
Then he went downstairs again, idly; gorgeously feigning that he spent
six evenings a week in ascending and descending monumental staircases,
appropriately clad. He was determined to be as sublime as any one.
There was a stir in the corridor, and the sublimest consented to be
excited.
The Countess was announced to be imminent. Everybody was grouped round
the main portal, careless of temperatures. Six times was the Countess
announced to be imminent before she actually appeared, expanding from
the narrow gloom of her black carriage like a magic vision. Aldermen
received her--and they did not do it with any excess of gracefulness.
They seemed afraid of her, as though she was recovering from influenza
and they feared to catch it. She had precisely the same high voice, and
precisely the same efficient smile, as she had employed to Denry, and
these instruments worked marvels on aldermen; they were as melting as
salt on snow. The Countess disappeared upstairs in a cloud of shrill
apologies and trailing aldermen. She seemed to have greeted everybody
except Denry. Somehow he was relieved that she had not drawn attention
to him. He lingered, hesitating, and then he saw a being in a long
yellow overcoat, with a bit of peacock's feather at the summit of a
shiny high hat. This being held a lady's fur mantle. Their eyes met.
Denry had to decide instantly. He decided.
"Hello, Jock!" he said.
"Hello, Denry!" said the other, pleased.
"What's been happening?" Denry inquired, friendly.
Then Jock told him about the antics of one of the Countess's horses.
He went upstairs again, and met Ruth Earp coming down. She was glorious
in white. Except that nothing glittered in her hair, she looked the very
equal of the Countess, at a little distance, plain though her features
were.
"What about that waltz?" Denry began informally.
"That waltz is nearly over," said Ruth Earp, with chilliness. "I suppose
you've been staring at her ladyship with all the other men."
"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "I didn't know the waltz was----"
"Well, why didn't you look at your programme?"
"Haven't got one," he said naïvely.
He had omitted to take a programme. Ninny! Barbarian!
"Better get one," she said cuttingly, somewhat in her _rôle_ of
dancing mistress.
"Can't we finish the waltz?" he suggested, crestfallen.
"No!" she said, and continued her solitary way downwards.
She was hurt. He tried to think of something to say that was equal to
the situation, and equal to the style of his suit. But he could not. In
a moment he heard her, below him, greeting some male acquaintance in the
most effusive way.
Yet, if Denry had not committed a wicked crime for her, she could never
have come to the dance at all!
He got a programme, and with terror gripping his heart he asked sundry
young and middle-aged women whom he knew by sight and by name for a
dance. (Ruth had taught him how to ask.) Not one of them had a dance
left. Several looked at him as much as to say: "You must be a goose to
suppose that my programme is not filled up in the twinkling of my eye!"
Then he joined a group of despisers of dancing near the main door.
Harold Etches was there, the wealthiest manufacturer of his years
(barely twenty-four) in the Five Towns. Also Shillitoe, cause of another
of Denry's wicked crimes. The group was taciturn, critical, and very
doggish.
The group observed that the Countess was not dancing. The Earl was
dancing (need it be said with Mrs Jos Curtenty, second wife of the
Deputy Mayor?), but the Countess stood resolutely smiling, surrounded by
aldermen. Possibly she was getting her breath; possibly nobody had had
the pluck to ask her. Anyhow, she seemed to be stranded there, on a
beach of aldermen. Very wisely she had brought with her no members of a
house-party from Sneyd Hall. Members of a house-party, at a municipal
ball, invariably operate as a bar between greatness and democracy; and
the Countess desired to participate in the life of the people.
"Why don't some of those johnnies ask her?" Denry burst out. He had
hitherto said nothing in the group, and he felt that he must be a man
with the rest of them.
"Well, _you_ go and do it. It's a free country," said Shillitoe.
"So I would, for two pins!" said Denry.
Harold Etches glanced at him, apparently resentful of his presence
there. Harold Etches was determined to put the extinguisher on
_him_.
"
|
countess
|
How many times does the word 'countess' appear in the text?
| 2
|
rapidly; then
they rose, and the brunette, nodding her head and tapping Duroy's arm
with her fan, said to him: "Thank you, my dear! However, you are not
very talkative."
As they disappeared, Forestier laughed and said: "Tell, me, old man,
did you know that you had a charm for the weaker sex? You must be
careful."
Without replying, Duroy smiled. His friend asked: "Shall you remain any
longer? I am going; I have had enough."
Georges murmured: "Yes, I will stay a little longer: it is not late."
Forestier arose: "Very well, then, good-bye until to-morrow. Do not
forget: 17 Rue Fontaine at seven thirty."
"I shall not forget. Thank you."
The friends shook hands and the journalist left Duroy to his own
devices.
Forestier once out of sight, Duroy felt free, and again he joyously
touched the gold pieces in his pocket; then rising, he mingled with the
crowd.
He soon discovered the blonde and the brunette. He went toward them,
but when near them dared not address them.
The brunette called out to him: "Have you found your tongue?"
He stammered: "Zounds!" too bashful to say another word. A pause
ensued, during which the brunette took his arm and together they left
the hall.
CHAPTER II.
MADAME FORESTIER
"Where does M. Forestier live?"
"Third floor on the left," said the porter pleasantly, on learning
Duroy's destination.
Georges ascended the staircase. He was somewhat embarrassed and
ill-at-ease. He had on a new suit but he was uncomfortable. He felt
that it was defective; his boots were not glossy, he had bought his
shirt that same evening at the Louvre for four francs fifty, his
trousers were too wide and betrayed their cheapness in their fit, or
rather, misfit, and his coat was too tight.
Slowly he ascended the stairs, his heart beating, his mind anxious.
Suddenly before him stood a well-dressed gentleman staring at him. The
person resembled Duroy so close that the latter retreated, then
stopped, and saw that it was his own image reflected in a pier-glass!
Not having anything but a small mirror at home, he had not been able to
see himself entirely, and had exaggerated the imperfections of his
toilette. When he saw his reflection in the glass, he did not even
recognize himself; he took himself for some one else, for a
man-of-the-world, and was really satisfied with his general appearance.
Smiling to himself, Duroy extended his hand and expressed his
astonishment, pleasure, and approbation. A door opened on the
staircase, He was afraid of being surprised and began to ascend more
rapidly, fearing that he might have been seen posing there by some of
his friend's invited guests.
On reaching the second floor, he saw another mirror, and once more
slackened his pace to look at himself. He likewise paused before the
third glass, twirled his mustache, took off his hat to arrange his
hair, and murmured half aloud, a habit of his: "Hall mirrors are most
convenient."
Then he rang the bell. The door opened almost immediately, and before
him stood a servant in a black coat, with a grave, shaven face, so
perfect in his appearance that Duroy again became confused as he
compared the cut of their garments.
The lackey asked:
"Whom shall I announce, Monsieur?" He raised a portiere and pronounced
the name.
Duroy lost his self-possession upon being ushered into a world as yet
strange to him. However, he advanced. A young, fair woman received him
alone in a large, well-lighted room. He paused, disconcerted. Who was
that smiling lady? He remembered that Forestier was married, and the
thought that the handsome blonde was his friend's wife rendered him
awkward and ill-at-ease. He stammered out:
"Madame, I am--"
She held out her hand. "I know, Monsieur--Charles told me of your
meeting last night, and I am very glad that he asked you to dine with
us to-day."
Duroy blushed to the roots of his hair, not knowing how to reply; he
felt that he was being inspected from his head to his feet. He half
thought of excusing himself, of inventing an explanation of the
carelessness of his toilette, but he did not know how to touch upon
that delicate subject.
He seated himself upon a chair she pointed out to him, and as he sank
into its luxurious depths, it seemed to him that he was entering a new
and charming life, that he would make his mark in the world, that he
was saved. He glanced at Mme. Forestier. She wore a gown of pale blue
cashmere which clung gracefully to her supple form and rounded
outlines; her arms and throat rose in, lily-white purity from the mass
of lace which ornamented the corsage and short sleeves. Her hair was
dressed high and curled on the nape of her neck.
Duroy grew more at his ease under her glance, which recalled to him, he
knew not why, that of the girl he had met the preceding evening at the
Folies-Bergeres. Mme. Forestier had gray eyes, a small nose, full lips,
and a rather heavy chin, an irregular, attractive face, full of
gentleness and yet of malice.
After a short silence, she asked: "Have you been in Paris a long time?"
Gradually regaining his self-possession, he replied: "a few months,
Madame. I am in the railroad employ, but my friend Forestier has
encouraged me to hope that, thanks to him, I can enter into journalism."
She smiled kindly and murmured in a low voice: "I know."
The bell rang again and the servant announced: "Mme. de Marelle." She
was a dainty brunette, attired in a simple, dark robe; a red rose in
her black tresses seemed to accentuate her special character, and a
young girl, or rather a child, for such she was, followed her.
Mme. Forestier said: "Good evening, Clotilde."
"Good evening, Madeleine."
They embraced each other, then the child offered her forehead with the
assurance of an adult, saying:
"Good evening, cousin."
Mme. Forestier kissed her, and then made the introductions:
"M. Georges Duroy, an old friend of Charles. Mme. de Marelle, my
friend, a relative in fact." She added: "Here, you know, we do not
stand on ceremony."
Duroy bowed. The door opened again and a short man entered, upon his
arm a tall, handsome woman, taller than he and much younger, with
distinguished manners and a dignified carriage. It was M. Walter,
deputy, financier, a moneyed man, and a man of business, manager of "La
Vie Francaise," with his wife, nee Basile Ravalade, daughter of the
banker of that name.
Then came Jacques Rival, very elegant, followed by Norbert de Varenne.
The latter advanced with the grace of the old school and taking Mme.
Forestier's hand kissed it; his long hair falling upon his hostess's
bare arm as he did so.
Forestier now entered, apologizing for being late; he had been detained.
The servant announced dinner, and they entered the dining-room. Duroy
was placed between Mme. de Marelle and her daughter. He was again
rendered uncomfortable for fear of committing some error in the
conventional management of his fork, his spoon, or his glasses, of
which he had four. Nothing was said during the soup; then Norbert de
Varenne asked a general question: "Have you read the Gauthier case? How
droll it was!"
Then followed a discussion of the subject in which the ladies joined.
Then a duel was mentioned and Jacques Rival led the conversation; that
was his province. Duroy did not venture a remark, but occasionally
glanced at his neighbor. A diamond upon a slight, golden thread
depended from her ear; from time to time she uttered a remark which
evoked a smile upon his lips. Duroy sought vainly for some compliment
to pay her; he busied himself with her daughter, filled her glass,
waited upon her, and the child, more dignified than her mother, thanked
him gravely saying, "You are very kind, Monsieur," while she listened
to the conversation with a reflective air. The dinner was excellent and
everyone was delighted with it.
The conversation returned to the colonization of Algeria. M. Walter
uttered several jocose remarks; Forestier alluded to the article he had
prepared for the morrow; Jacques Rival declared himself in favor of a
military government with grants of land to all the officers after
thirty years of colonial service.
"In that way," said he, "you can establish a strong colony, familiar
with and liking the country, knowing its language and able to cope with
all those local yet grave questions which invariably confront
newcomers."
Norbert de Varenne interrupted: "Yes, they would know everything,
except agriculture. They would speak Arabic, but they would not know
how to transplant beet-root, and how to sow wheat. They would be strong
in fencing, but weak in the art of farming. On the contrary, the new
country should be opened to everyone. Intelligent men would make
positions for themselves; the others would succumb. It is a natural
law."
A pause ensued. Everyone smiled. Georges Duroy, startled at the sound
of his own voice, as if he had never heard it, said:
"What is needed the most down there is good soil. Really fertile land
costs as much as it does in France and is bought by wealthy Parisians.
The real colonists, the poor, are generally cast out into the desert,
where nothing grows for lack of water."
All eyes turned upon him. He colored. M. Walter asked: "Do you know
Algeria, sir?"
He replied: "Yes, sir, I was there twenty-eight months." Leaving the
subject of colonization, Norbert de Varenne questioned him as to some
of the Algerian customs. Georges spoke with animation;
|
then
|
How many times does the word 'then' appear in the text?
| 3
|
</b> Max checks the peephole on His front door. No one is there. He
unbolts the five lock and slides into the hall.
<b> INT. APARTMENJ HALLWAY - DAY
</b>
As he secures his apartment, a Young girl named JENNA runs up
to him. Her MOM, down the hall, looks apologetic.
Jenna's eyes light up and she pulls out her Fisher Price
calculator.
<b> JENNA
</b> Max, Max! Can we do one?
<b>
</b><b> MOM
</b> (Over and over again)
Jenna! Jenna!
<b>
</b><b> MAX
</b> Oh, no.
<b>
</b><b> JENNA
</b> What's three hundred
and twenty-two times four
hundred and ninety-one.
<b>
</b> Jenna types it into her calculator. Max finishes locking his
door.
<b> MAX
</b> (instantly)
One hundred fifty-eight thousand,
a hundred two. Right?
<b> JENNA
</b> (Eyes light up)
Right.
<b>
</b> Max heads down the staircase.
<b> MOM
</b> Jenna...
<b>
</b> Jenna screams after him.
<b> JENNA
</b> Okay, seventy-three
divided by twenty-two.
<b> MAX
</b> (instantly again)
Three point three one eight one
eight one eight...
<b> EXT. CHINATOWN - DAY
</b> Max watches people bustle through the busy intersections of
Chinatown. The streets are clogged with people.
<b> MAX (V.O.)
</b> Somewhere in there.
Somewhere. I know it's right
in front of me. The pattern.
They say it's chaos, it can't
be understood, too much
complexity.
<b> EXT. ELECTRONIC MEGADUMP - DAY
</b> Max scavenges electronic parts as he carefully navigates an
endless dump for old and rotting computers.
<b> MAX (V.O.)
</b> History it's there.
Lurking, shaping.
structuring, hiding, right
beneath the surface.
He unscrews a random IBM Board from a keyboard and slides it
into his pocket.
<b> EXT PLAYGROUND DAY
</b><b> MOVE IN
</b> on Max looking up at something as he reclines on a public
bench.
<b> MAX (V.0.)
</b> The cycling of disease epidemics,
the wax and wane of Caribou populations
in the Arctic, sunspot cycles,
the rise and fall of the
Nile and yes! the New York Stock
Exchange, they are all the
same.
<b>
</b><b> MOVE IN
</b> on a tree branch - shaking gently in the wind.
<b> SLOW DISSOLVE TO EXTREME CLOSE-UP OF STOCK TICKER
</b> Bright stock quotes drift across the screen.
<b> MAX (V.O.)
</b> I'll find this structure,
this order, this perfection.
<b> INT. MAX'S APARTMENT - DAY
</b> Max stares intensely at the ticker on the small TV that sits
next to his monitors.
<b> MAX (V.O.)
</b> Turn lead into gold.
The first. Right here. Right
here. With math. The numbers
of the stock market are my
lead. When I find the
pattern, then I will find
gold.
<b>
</b> Max watches the right edge of the screen where the numbers
appear. He wants to see what's before that edge...
Max slaps the RETURN button on his computer.
The phone starts ringing.
Max eyes it suspiciously.
Just then, Euclid starts printing results on an old dot-
matrix printer.
Max suspiciously answers The phone.
<b> MAX
</b> Hello?
<b>
</b><b> WOMAN'S VOICE
</b> Maximilian Cohen, please.
<b>
</b><b> MAX
</b> Yeah?
<b>
</b><b> WOMAN'S VOICE
</b> Mr. Cohen?
<b>
</b><b> MAX
</b> Who's this?
<b>
</b><b> WOMAN'S VOICE
</b> Hi. my name is Marcy Dawson.
I'm a partner with the predictive
strategy firm Lancet-Percy. Can I
speak with Mr. Cohen, please?
<b> MAX
</b> I told you...
<b>
</b> The printer finishes printing.
<b> MARCY DAWSON
</b> Mr. Cohen! How
are you? It's been a long
time. Sorry I haven't been in
touch. But I was hoping you
would allow me to take you to
lunch tomorrow, say one
o'clock?
<b>
</b><b> MAX
</b> Sorry, I can't.
<b>
</b><b> MARCY DAWSON
</b> We're very anxious to talk
with you, sir
<b> MAX
</b> I can't.
<b>
</b><b> MARCY DAWSON
</b> I'm prepared to
make you a generous...
Max hurries to wrap up the conversation.
<b> MAX
</b> I don't take offers for
my research. You know that.
Sorry, I Couldn't help you.
<b>
</b><b> MARCY DAWSON
</b> Mr. Cohen, give
me a moment...
But before Marcy finishes, Max hangs up. He rips off the
printout and heads to the front door.
He checks the peephole, His landlady. MRS. OVADIA, is sweeping
the hallway stairs humming a turn-of-the century (the last
one, not this one) tune.
Max waits a moment. He tousles his hair. Then he checks again.
She's gone. He opens his locks and releases several bolts.
<b> INT.MAX'S BUILDING HALLWAY - DAY
</b>
Max locks his front door. Meanwhile, his next-door neighbor,
DEVI MINSTRY, a sexy young Indian woman, is just getting home.
Max looks away and tries to get his door locked.
She's weighted down by a bunch of bags filled with food.
<b> DEVI
</b> Max, good!
<b>
</b><b> MAX
</b> Hi, Devi.
<b>
</b><b> DEV1
</b> I grabbed you some
somosas.
<b> MAX
</b> Great.
<b>
</b> Devi heads over to Max with her bags of food. She looks up at
Max.
<b> DEVI
</b> Your hair.
<b>
</b> Devi hands the bags to Max. Then she goes to pat down his
Hair. Max retreats.
<b> MAX
</b> What are you doing?
<b>
</b><b> DEVI
</b> Your hair, you can't go
out like that. Don't worry.
<b> MAX
</b> It's fine. It's fine.
<b>
</b> Devi pats down his hair. Max is humiliated.
<b> DEVI
</b> You need a mom.
<b>
</b> Max hands back the bags and heads quickly for the stairs.
<b> MAX
</b> I have to go.
<b>
</b><b> DEVI
</b> Your somosas!
<b>
</b> An embarrassed Max takes the bag.
<b> MAX
</b> Thanks.
<b>
</b><b> INT. COFFEE
|
devi
|
How many times does the word 'devi' appear in the text?
| 3
|
, another of
Bob in black & white,looking distinguished with a bottle of
whiskey in a Suntory ad... more signs, a huge TV with perky
Japanese pop stars singing.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> EXT. PARK HYATT - NIGHT
</b>
Bob's black Presidential (looks like a 60's diplomat's car)
pulls up at the entrance of the Park Hyatt, a modern sky
rise.
The automatic doors open on the car, as Bob gets out. Eager
BELLHOPS with white gloves approach at the sight of the car,
welcoming Bob and helping him with his bags.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> INT. PARK HYATT - NIGHT
</b>
Bob stands in the back of a crowded elevator surrounded by
Japanese businessmen below his shoulders.
The elevator stops at the 50th floor and the doors open onto
the massive, streamline lobby of the Park Hyatt.
Bob follows the JAPANESE BUSINESSMEN out into the marble and
glass lobby that frames the view of Tokyo.
The CONCIERGE and several eager HOTEL MANAGERS greet Bob. He
just wants to sleep, but more STAFF continue to greet him,
ask him about his fright. They lead him to reception.
<b> INT. HOTEL RECEPTION - NIGHT
</b>
At the reception area four JAPANESE BUSINESSMEN and two WOMEN
quickly sit up from their seats on sight of Bob, and extend
handshakes and gifts. They bow and introduce themselves from
the commercial company, extend name cards and welcome him
enthusiastically.
More staff welcomes him and offer their service during his
stay.
One of them presents a fax that has come for him.
<b> INSERT -
</b>
<b> "TO: BOB HARRIS
</b>
<b> FROM: LYDIA HARRIS
</b>
<b> YOU FORGOT ADAM'S BIRTHDAY.
</b>
<b> I'M SURE HE'LL UNDERSTAND.
</b>
<b> HAVE A GOOD TRIP, L"
</b>
He doesn't know what to do with it, and stuffs it in his
pocket.
The commercial people tell him when they'll be picking him
up, and ask if he needs anything else.
Some JAPANESE ROCK STARS with shag haircuts and skinny leather
pants pass by. Each commercial person has to shake Bob's
hand before leaving.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> INT. BOB'S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT
</b>
Bob sits on the end of the bed in a too small hotel kimono.
<b> INT. PARK HYATT BAR - NIGHT
</b>
Bob sits at the bar. A few minutes pass as he sits in silence
looking around, drinking a scotch. Chet Baker sings "The
Thrill is Gone" over the stereo.
We see Bob's POV of tables of people talking. JAPANESE WOMEN
SMOKING, AMERICAN BUSINESSMEN tying one on, talking about
software sales. A WAITER carefully setting down a coaster,
and pouring a beer very, very slowly. It's all very foreign.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> INT. BOB'S HOTEL ROOM - MORNING
</b>
The automatic hotel curtains open, pouring light into the
room.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> INT.HOTEL BATHROOM - DAY
</b>
Bob gets in the shower overlooking the view of Tokyo. The
shower head is at his elbows, he raises it as high as it
goes, and leans down to have a shower. This hotel was not
designed with him in mind.
<b> CUT TO:
</b>
<b> INT. STUDIO - DAY
</b>
Whiskey commercial shoot.
The set is full of activity as the JAPANESE CREW work. Bob,
in a shawl collared tuxedo sits at a European style bar set
with a cut crystal glass of whiskey. A JAPANESE GIRL quickly
powders his face as they adjust lights and the DIRECTOR and
crew speak in hurried Japanese.
The Director (with blue contact lenses) says a few long
sentences in Japanese.
TRANSLATOR, a middle-aged woman in a coordinated outfit,
|
with
|
How many times does the word 'with' appear in the text?
| 2
|
guess that was what was in her mind.
'Well, I guess it ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I; 'but I guess it
IS a paint-mine. I'm going to have it analysed, and if it turns out
what I think it is, I'm going to work it. And if father hadn't had
such a long name, I should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint.
But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg, and every bottle, and
every package, big or little, has got to have the initials and figures
N.L.f. 1835, S.L.t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and I tried
it in 1855.'"
"'S.T.--1860--X.' business," said Bartley.
"Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of Plantation Bitters then, and
I hadn't seen any of the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got a
man down from Boston; and I carried him out to the farm, and he
analysed it--made a regular Job of it. Well, sir, we built a kiln, and
we kept a lot of that paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept the
Kanuck and his family up, firing. The presence of iron in the ore
showed with the magnet from the start; and when he came to test it, he
found out that it contained about seventy-five per cent. of the
peroxide of iron."
Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with a sort of reverent
satisfaction, as if awed through his pride by a little lingering
uncertainty as to what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were
purr-ox-EYED; and Bartley had to get him to spell it.
"Well, and what then?" he asked, when he had made a note of the
percentage.
"What then?" echoed Lapham. "Well, then, the fellow set down and told
me, 'You've got a paint here,' says he, 'that's going to drive every
other mineral paint out of the market. Why' says he, 'it'll drive 'em
right into the Back Bay!' Of course, I didn't know what the Back Bay
was then, but I begun to open my eyes; thought I'd had 'em open before,
but I guess I hadn't. Says he, 'That paint has got hydraulic cement in
it, and it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named over a lot of
things. Says he, 'It'll mix easily with linseed oil, whether you want
to use it boiled or raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any;
and it ain't a-going to scale. When you've got your arrangements for
burning it properly, you're going to have a paint that will stand like
the everlasting hills, in every climate under the sun.' Then he went
into a lot of particulars, and I begun to think he was drawing a
long-bow, and meant to make his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty
cool; but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything hardly--said I
might pay him after I got going; young chap, and pretty easy; but every
word he said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up my paint; I
don't suppose you came here to hear me blow."
"Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what I want. Tell all there is
to tell, and I can boil it down afterward. A man can't make a greater
mistake with a reporter than to hold back anything out of modesty. It
may be the very thing we want to know. What we want is the whole
truth; and more; we've got so much modesty of our own that we can
temper almost any statement."
Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this tone, and he resumed a
little more quietly. "Oh, there isn't really very much more to say
about the paint itself. But you can use it for almost anything where a
paint is wanted, inside or out. It'll prevent decay, and it'll stop
it, after it's begun, in tin or iron. You can paint the inside of a
cistern or a bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it; and you can
paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't. You can cover a brick
wall with it, or a railroad car, or the deck of a steamboat, and you
can't do a better thing for either."
"Never tried it on the human conscience, I suppose," suggested Bartley.
"No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. "I guess you want to keep that as
free from paint as you can, if you want much use of it. I never cared
to try any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his bulk up out of
his swivel-chair, and led the way out into the wareroom beyond the
office partitions, where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegs
stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and diffused an
honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and paint. They were labelled
and branded as containing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral
Paint, and each bore the mystic devices, N.L.f. 1835--S.L.t. 1855.
"There!" said Lapham, kicking one of the largest casks with the toe of
his boot, "that's about our biggest package; and here," he added,
laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very small keg, as if
it were the head of a child, which it resembled in size, "this is the
smallest. We used to put the paint on the market dry, but now we grind
every ounce of it in oil--very best quality of linseed oil--and warrant
it. We find it gives more satisfaction. Now, come back to the office,
and I'll show you our fancy brands."
It was very cool and pleasant in that dim wareroom, with the rafters
showing overhead in a cloudy perspective, and darkening away into the
perpetual twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley had found
an agreeable seat on the head of a half-barrel of the paint, which he
was reluctant to leave. But he rose and followed the vigorous lead of
Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long summer afternoon was
just beginning to glare in at the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's
desk were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering cylinders,
and showing, in a pattern diminishing toward the top, the same label
borne by the casks and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely waved
his hand toward these; but when Bartley, after a comprehensive glance
at them, gave his whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars, where
different tints of the paint showed through flawless glass, Lapham
smiled, and waited in pleased expectation.
"Hello!" said Bartley. "That's pretty!"
"Yes," assented Lapham, "it is rather nice. It's our latest thing, and
we find it takes with customers first-rate. Look here!" he said, taking
down one of the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label.
Bartley read, "THE PERSIS BRAND," and then he looked at Lapham and
smiled.
"After HER, of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first of
it on the market her last birthday. She was pleased."
"I should think she might have been," said Bartley, while he made a
note of the appearance of the jars.
"I don't know about your mentioning it in your interview," said Lapham
dubiously.
"That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham, if nothing else does.
Got a wife myself, and I know just how you feel." It was in the dawn of
Bartley's prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles with
Marcia had seriously begun.
"Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a smile another of the vast
majority of married Americans; a few underrate their wives, but the
rest think them supernal in intelligence and capability. "Well," he
added, "we must see about that. Where'd you say you lived?"
"We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13 Canary Place."
"Well, we've all got to commence that way," suggested Lapham
consolingly.
"Yes; but we've about got to the end of our string. I expect to be
under a roof of my own on Clover Street before long. I suppose," said
Bartley, returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass grow
under your feet much after you found out what was in your paint-mine?"
"No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his eyes from a long stare at
Bartley, in which he had been seeing himself a young man again, in the
first days of his married life. "I went right back to Lumberville and
sold out everything, and put all I could rake and scrape together into
paint. And Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang back about
HER. I tell you she was a WOMAN!"
Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us marry."
"No, we don't," said Lapham. "Most of us marry silly little girls
grown up to LOOK like women."
"Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley, as if upon second
thought.
"If it hadn't been for her," resumed Lapham, "the paint wouldn't have
come to anything. I used to tell her it wa'n't the seventy-five per
cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in the ORE that made that paint go; it
was the seventy-five per cent. of purr-ox-eyed of iron in HER."
"Good!" cried Bartley. "I'll tell Marcia that."
"In less'n six months there wa'n't a board-fence, nor a bridge-girder,
nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor a face of rock in that whole region
that didn't have 'Lapham's Mineral Paint--Specimen' on it in the three
colours we begun by making." Bartley had taken his seat on the
window-sill, and Lapham, standing before him, now put up his huge foot
close to
|
back
|
How many times does the word 'back' appear in the text?
| 2
|
from the rifle. A second
later in the distance, the
<b> RED SWEATER'S HEAD
</b>
Seems to vanish from his shoulders into a crimson mist. His
body crumples to the green.
<b> MARTIN
</b>
Returns the rifle to the bag, pulls out a driver, moves to
the tee and whacks the ball. He watches its path and whispers
absently...
<b> MARTIN
</b> Hooked it.
<b> INT. CLUB HOUSE PATIO - LATER
</b>
The outdoor post-golf luncheon area of an elite Texas golf
club. Martin sits in on the fringes of a conversation between
a group of executive types. CLUB MEMBER #1 has a Buddha-like
peace in his eyes through the philosophical talk.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> I'd come to the realization that
everything I'd based my life on was
false. And that my life had no
meaning.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #2
</b> (to Martin)
He gets this way when he hits over
eighty-five.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> It seemed like my life was slipping
away, somehow. I was a knot in the
middle of a wet rope. Everything was
futile and nothing had value.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #3
</b> That's the way life is. The only
meaning and value is what we create.
Through structure, and discipline.
Though they seem to limit our freedom,
they actually give us great comfort.
Your problem is you're looking for
some great answer. Some ultimate
truth. When what you really should
do is go to work and go home.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #2
</b> And take golf lessons.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> That's a tragedy. Can I finish my
story please? I began my search for
meaning. I was a Catholic, Jew,
Scientologist, Sufi, Buddhist. I
went to a Psychologist, psychiatrist,
herbalist, nutritionist, a shaman,
and a psychic. And they all pretty
much say the same stuff.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #2
</b> A Jew, a shaman, and a herbalist are
telling you the same thing? You're
insane.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> Basically the same thing. In a very
evolved, esoteric way.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #2
</b> Insane.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> To make a long story short...
<b> CLUB MEMBER #3
</b> --Thank God--
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> ...at last I found the holistic system
of systems that opened up the doors
of heaven for me right here on earth.
And everyday I see the world through
the eyes of a child. A world of
creation and wonder.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #2
</b> Jesus...
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> Overflowing with love.
<b> MARTIN
</b> Tell me about it.
Club Member #1 turns to Martin.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> P.P.P. Personal Pan Power. All the
secrets of your universe are divided
up into eight easily digestible
slices.
Club Member #1 pulls a laminated card from his wallet and
hands it over to Martin. In the distance, sirens begin to
wail.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> See, see. It's in the accessible and
everyday shape of a pan pizza. Each
day you have a little slice of
peace...
<b> INSERT - WALLET-SIZE P.P.P. CARD
</b>
A pizza-shaped diagram showing six "sections".
<b> MARTIN
</b> Oh I see. You got your individual
slices of hope, dignity, confidence,
self-love, justice, and harmony.
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> You open 'em up and there's the
sayings, stories, little bites of
insight. It's the P.P.P. Six Day
Week.
<b> MARTIN
</b> So you eat-- read it everyday?
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> Yes.
<b> MARTIN
</b> And these pan pizzas have opened up
the doors to heaven?
<b> CLUB MEMBER #1
</b> Correct.
(re: the card)
That's for you. Keep it.
Sirens are getting louder, closer to the club.
<b> EXT. COUNTRY CLUB - DAY
</b>
The source of the sirens are almost upon us. Martin walks
toward his rented Town Car as the VALET pulls it up. He meets
the Valet by the trunk, where he trades tip for keys.
<b> MARTIN AT CAR
</b> He fishes out the laminated "Personal
Pan Power" card, looks at it, and
tosses it onto the ground. Police
cars, now visible in the distance,
wind into the long club driveway.
Martin gets into his car and pulls
away.
<b> LAMINATED CARD
</b>
As it lays on the asphalt. The wheel of a police car rolls
to a stop on it.
<b> INT. AIRLINER - DAY
</b>
Martin sits in a first class seat, the tray table flipped
down. On the left side of the tray is a stack of magazines
of all kinds - Sports Illustrated, Mademoiselle, Wired,
Rolling Stone, National Review, Spin, National Geographic,
and on. He draws one off the top, and flips through it,
impassively taking in images and reading nothing. When he is
done with one, he discards it into the empty seat next to
him and draws another-- Martin's way of instantly and
massively uploading the world around him:
Toothless hockey player in triumph, Sony product parade,
crouched starving child with vulture in the background,
supermodel in suede, Tic Tacs, living former Presidents, arm
in arm, smiling, etc.
<b> INT. HIRED CAR, NEW YORK - DAY
</b>
The livery weaves out of the arrival lanes at Kennedy airport.
Martin reclines in the back seat, a conversation having
already begun.
<b> DRIVER
</b> How was your day, today, sir?
<b> MARTIN
</b> Effective. But to tell you the truth,
I've lost my passion for work.
<b> DRIVER
</b> Do you like the people you work with?
<b> MARTIN
</b> I work alone.
<b> DRIVER
</b> That's it then. That's it. I've always
been alone. That's why I'm a good
driver. I can handle it. See, I can
think on my feet. I survive, I'm a
thinker. And I can sit there in front
of your house for two hours and it
don't bother me. Some people can't
do it! Some people are ranting and
raving, "Tell them fuckin' people to
get out here and get in this car, I
can't-- I want a go!" Where you gonna
go? You're gonna wind up back in
your garage at seven o'clock at night.
You ain't going nowhere. You leave
your house in the morning you get
back to your house in the evening.
What's the big deal, right?
<b> MARTIN
</b> You understand the psychology of the
job.
<b> DRIVER
</b> I do. Some guys can't adjust to it;
they can't handle it.
<b> INT. CAR - MANHATTAN STREETS - LATER
</b>
The car cuts through the upper east side. Martin and the
Driver exchange looks through the rear-view mirror.
<b> DRIVER
</b> You look like you're far away. Far
|
martin
|
How many times does the word 'martin' appear in the text?
| 3
|
; so she was
often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of
the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.
That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his
appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that
there was no refuge for her in her father's house; and so, after some
sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had
passed, things went on no better. She WOULD convert the laird in spite
of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She WOULD have the
laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would
neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and
kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he
converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of
religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every
assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by
drawing him into argument.
The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore
out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization,
and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He
also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute
predestination, which put the crown on the lady's Christian resentment.
She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom
no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate
establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the
arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or
third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her
residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate
garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird's; so that
one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own
parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though the laird
never once chafed himself about the lady's companies, it was not long
before she began to intermeddle about some of his.
"Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and
always by herself?" said she to her maid Martha one day.
"Oh dear, mem, how can I ken? We're banished frae our acquaintances
here, as weel as frae the sweet gospel ordinances."
"Find me out who that jolly dame is, Martha. You, who hold communion
with the household of this ungodly man, can be at no loss to attain
this information. I observe that she always casts her eye up toward our
windows, both in coming and going; and I suspect that she seldom
departs from the house emptyhanded."
That same evening Martha came with the information that this august
visitor was a Miss Logan, an old and intimate acquaintance of the
laird's, and a very worthy respectable lady, of good connections, whose
parents had lost their patrimony in the civil wars.
"Ha! very well!" said the lady; "very well, Martha! But, nevertheless,
go thou and watch this respectable lady's motions and behaviour the
next time she comes to visit the laird--and the next after that. You
will not, I see, lack opportunities."
Martha's information turned out of that nature that prayers were said
in the uppermost story of Dalcastle house against the Canaanitish
woman, every night and every morning; and great discontent prevailed
there, even to anathemas and tears. Letter after letter was dispatched
to Glasgow; and at length, to the lady's great consolation, the Rev.
Mr. Wringhim arrived safely and devoutly in her elevated sanctuary.
Marvellous was the conversation between these gifted people. Wringhim
had held in his doctrines that there were eight different kinds of
FAITH, all perfectly distinct in their operations and effects. But the
lady, in her secluded state, had discovered another five, making twelve
[sic] in all: the adjusting of the existence or fallacy of these five
faiths served for a most enlightened discussion of nearly seventeen
hours; in the course of which the two got warm in their arguments,
always in proportion as they receded from nature, utility, and common
sense. Wringhim at length got into unwonted fervour about some disputed
point between one of these faiths and TRUST: when the lady, fearing
that zeal was getting beyond its wonted barrier, broke in on his
vehement asseverations with the following abrupt discomfiture: "But,
Sir, as long as I remember, what is to be done with this case of open
and avowed iniquity?"
The minister was struck dumb. He leaned him back on his chair, stroked
his beard, hemmed--considered, and hemmed again, and then said, in an
altered and softened tone: "Why, that is a secondary consideration; you
mean the case between your husband and Miss Logan?"
"The same, Sir. I am scandalized at such intimacies going on under my
nose. The sufferance of it is a great and crying evil."
"Evil, madam, may be either operative, or passive. To them it is an
evil, but to us none. We have no more to do with the sins of the wicked
and unconverted here than with those of an infidel Turk; for all
earthly bonds and fellowships are absorbed and swallowed up in the holy
community of the Reformed Church. However, if it is your wish, I shall
take him to task, and reprimand and humble him in such a manner that he
shall be ashamed of his doings, and renounce such deeds for ever, out
of mere self-respect, though all unsanctified the heart, as well as the
deed, may be. To the wicked, all things are wicked; but to the just,
all things are just and right."
"Ah, that is a sweet and comfortable saying, Mr. Wringhim! How
delightful to think that a justified person can do no wrong! Who would
not envy the liberty wherewith we are made free? Go to my husband, that
poor unfortunate, blindfolded person, and open his eyes to his
degenerate and sinful state; for well are you fitted to the task."
"Yea, I will go in unto him, and confound him. I will lay the strong
holds of sin and Satan as flat before my face as the dung that is
spread out to fatten the land."
"Master, there's a gentleman at the fore-door wants a private word o'
ye."
"Tell him I'm engaged: I can't see any gentleman to-night. But I shall
attend on him to-morrow as soon as he pleases."
"'He's coming straight in, Sir. Stop a wee bit, Sir, my master is
engaged. He cannot see you at present, Sir."
"Stand aside, thou Moabite! My mission admits of no delay. I come to
save him from the jaws of destruction!"
"An that be the case, Sir, it maks a wide difference; an', as the
danger may threaten us a', I fancy I may as weel let ye gang by as
fight wi' ye, sin' ye seem sae intent on 't.--The man says he's comin'
to save ye, an' canna stop, Sir. Here he is."
The laird was going to break out into a volley of wrath against Waters,
his servant; but, before he got a word pronounced, the Rev. Mr.
Wringhim had stepped inside the room, and Waters had retired, shutting
the door behind him.
No introduction could be more mal-a-propos: it was impossible; for at
that very moment the laird and Arabella Logan were both sitting on one
seat, and both looking on one book, when the door opened. "What is it,
Sir?" said the laird fiercely.
"A message of the greatest importance, Sir," said the divine, striding
unceremoniously up to the chimney, turning his back to the fire, and
his face to the culprits. "I think you should know me, Sir?" continued
he, looking displeasedly at the laird, with his face half turned round.
"I think I should," returned the laird. "You are a Mr.
How's--tey--ca'--him, of Glasgow, who did me the worst turn ever I got
done to me in my life. You gentry are always ready to do a man such a
turn. Pray, Sir, did you ever do a good job for anyone to
counterbalance that? For, if you have not, you ought to be--"
"Hold, Sir, I say! None of your profanity before me. If I do evil to
anyone on such occasions, it is because he will have it so; therefore,
the evil is not of my doing. I ask you, Sir, before God and this
witness, I ask you, have you kept solemnly and inviolate the vows which
I laid upon you that day? Answer me!"
"Has the partner whom you bound me to kept hers inviolate? Answer me
that, Sir! None can better do so than you, Mr. How's--tey--ca'--you."
"So, then, you confess your backslidings, and avow the profligacy of
your life. And this person here is, I suppose, the partner of your
iniquity--she whose beauty hath caused you to err! Stand up, both of
you, till I rebuke you, and show you what you are in the eyes of God
and man."
"In the first place, stand you still there, till I tell you what you
are in the eyes of God and man. You are, Sir, a presumptuous,
self-conceited pedagogue, a stirrer up of strife and commotion in
church, in state, in families, and communities. You are one, Sir, whose
righteousness consists in splitting the doctrines of Calvin into
thousands of undistinguishable films, and in setting up a system of
justifying-grace against all breaches of all laws, moral or divine. In
short, Sir, you are a mildew--a canker-worm in the bosom of the
Reformed Church, generating a disease of which she will never be
purged, but by the shedding of blood. Go thou in peace, and do these
abominations no more; but humble thyself, lest a worse reproof come
upon thee."
Wringhim heard all this without flinching. He now and then twisted his
mouth in disdain, treasuring up, meantime, his vengeance against the
two aggressors;
|
would
|
How many times does the word 'would' appear in the text?
| 2
|
BLACK-
</b>
<b> OUTER SPACE, 600 KILOMETERS ABOVE-
</b>
<b> PLANET EARTH.
</b>
Like all images of Earth seen from space, this image of our
planet is mythical and majestic.
The globe seems almost tangible, slowly spinning, floating in
the endless void of space. It is a blue planet, and bright white
clouds twirl and stretch in capricious patterns across the deep
blue of the oceans and the jigsaw of continents: green, yellow
and brown.
It is noon in Cape Town and early night in India.
The sphere is almost a perfect orb except for the darkened
sliver on its Eastern edge.
It is beautiful! And so full of life.
But not here.
Here it is completely silent.
<b> SILENCE-
</b>
<b> IN THE DISTANCE-
</b>
A small metal object crosses the empty space surrounding Earth.
If it appears to be a small satellite that is only because it is
far away from us. It is the size of one football field. It is-
The INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS).
It resembles a dragonfly. Its solar panels stretch out, like
wings, from the long body made of connected pressurized modules.
It floats with a sense of proud achievement.
It orbits at an altitude of 500 km above sea level. It moves at
an average of 27,700 kilometers per hour, completing 15.7 laps
around the Earth per day.
It is cruising over Zimbabwe. To the East, the island of
Madagascar. Up to the North, the expansive dry lands of Somalia
and Ethiopia.
Soon, the ISS curves around the spherical planet, and it becomes
smaller, almost indistinguishable, no more than a small bright
spec grazing over the blue atmosphere.
<b> CLOSER TO US-
</b>
Orbiting at an altitude of 600 km-
The EXPLORER SPACE SHUTTLE becomes visible.
This icon of space exploration has played a key role in all of
NASA's missions since the late 90's.
Faintly we hear static, voices murmuring over radio frequences.
As the babble bulds we might hear one conversation amongst the
<b> REST:
</b>
<b> MISSION CONTROL
</b> (On radio, faint)
Explorer, please verify that the P1
ATA removal on replacement cap part 1
and 2 are complete.
<b> EXPLORER CAP
</b> (On radio, faint)
DMA M1, M2, M3 and M4 are complete.
<b> MISSION CONTROL
</b> (On radio, faint)
Copy that Explorer. Dr Stone-Houston,
requesting status update...
A fizz of static and then the voice continues with sudden,
starling clarity.
<b> RYAN
</b> Installation ninety-five percent
complete. Running level one
diagnostics on circuits, sensors, and
power. Standby.
<b> MISSION CONTROL
</b><b> (ON RADIO)
</b> Standing by. Looks like we're on
schedule. Dr. Stone, Medical is
concerned about your ECG readings.
<b> RYAN
</b> I'm fine Houston.
<b> MISSION CONTROL
</b><b> (RADIO)
</b> Well, medical doesn't agree doctor.
Are you feeling nauseous?
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lock Holmes Discourses
It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It
would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited
by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in
his singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long
overstimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual
perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the
horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face
showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who sees
the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated solution.
"Remarkable!" said he. "Remarkable!"
"You don't seem surprised."
"Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised. Why should I be surprised?
I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which I know to be
important, warning me that danger threatens a certain person. Within
an hour I learn that this danger has actually materialized and that
the person is dead. I am interested; but, as you observe, I am not
surprised."
In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts about
the letter and the cipher. MacDonald sat with his chin on his hands and
his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.
"I was going down to Birlstone this morning," said he. "I had come to
ask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here. But from
what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London."
"I rather think not," said Holmes.
"Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!" cried the inspector. "The papers will be full
of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the mystery
if there is a man in London who prophesied the crime before ever it
occurred? We have only to lay our hands on that man, and the rest will
follow."
"No doubt, Mr. Mac. But how do you propose to lay your hands on the
so-called Porlock?"
MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him. "Posted
in Camberwell--that doesn't help us much. Name, you say, is assumed. Not
much to go on, certainly. Didn't you say that you have sent him money?"
"Twice."
"And how?"
"In notes to Camberwell post office."
"Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?"
"No."
The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. "Why not?"
"Because I always keep faith. I had promised when he first wrote that I
would not try to trace him."
"You think there is someone behind him?"
"I know there is."
"This professor that I've heard you mention?"
"Exactly!"
Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced
towards me. "I won't conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in
the C.I.D. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over this
professor. I made some inquiries myself about the matter. He seems to be
a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man."
"I'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent."
"Man, you can't but recognize it! After I heard your view I made it my
business to see him. I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the talk got
that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a globe,
and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book; but I don't mind
saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good Aberdeen
upbringing. He'd have made a grand meenister with his thin face and gray
hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put his hand on my shoulder
as we were parting, it was like a father's blessing before you go out
into the cold, cruel world."
Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. "Great!" he said. "Great! Tell me,
Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I suppose,
in the professor's study?"
"That's so."
"A fine room, is it not?"
"Very fine--very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes."
"You sat in front of his writing desk?"
"Just so."
"Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?"
"Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my face."
"It would be. Did you happen to observe a picture over the professor's
head?"
"I don't miss much, Mr. Holmes. Maybe I learned that from you. Yes, I
saw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at
you sideways."
"That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze."
The inspector endeavoured to look interested.
"Jean Baptiste Greuze," Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and
leaning well back in his chair, "was a French artist who flourished
between the years 1750 and 1800. I allude, of course to his working
career. Modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion formed
of him by his contemporaries."
The inspector's eyes grew abstracted. "Hadn't we better--" he said.
"We are doing so," Holmes interrupted. "All that I am saying has a
very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone
Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it."
MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. "Your thoughts
move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two,
and I can't get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the
connection between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?"
"All knowledge comes useful to the detective," remarked Holmes. "Even
the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled
La Jeune Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand
francs--more than forty thousand pounds--at the Portalis sale may start
a train of reflection in your mind."
It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.
"I may remind you," Holmes continued, "that the professor's salary can
be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is seven
hundred a year."
"Then how could he buy--"
"Quite so! How could he?"
"Ay, that's remarkable," said the inspector thoughtfully. "Talk away,
Mr. Holmes. I'm just loving it. It's fine!"
Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration--the
characteristic of the real artist. "What about Birlstone?" he asked.
"We've time yet," said the inspector, glancing at his watch. "I've a cab
at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But about
this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you had never
met Professor Moriarty."
"No, I never have."
"Then how do you know about his rooms?"
"Ah, that's another matter. I have been three times in his rooms, twice
waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.
Once--well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective.
It was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his
papers--with the most unexpected results."
"You found something compromising?"
"Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have now seen
the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy man. How
did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a station
master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven hundred a year.
And he owns a Greuze."
"Well?"
"Surely the inference is plain."
"You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an
illegal fashion?"
"Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of
exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web
where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention
the Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own
observation."
"Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's more
than interesting--it's just wonderful. But let us have it a little
clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where does the
money come from?"
"Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?"
"Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I
don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things
and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not
business."
"Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a
master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts."
"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man."
"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would
be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day
at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles--even Professor
Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,
to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent.
commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all
been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things
about Moriarty which may interest you."
"You'll interest me, right enough."
"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with
this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,
pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every
sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran,
as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself. What do you
think he pays him?"
"I'd like to hear."
"Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see--the American
business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It's more
than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains
and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my business
to hunt down some of Moriarty's checks lately--just common innocent
checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn on six
different banks. Does that make
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How many times does the word 'said' appear in the text?
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><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 4. ANOTHER TOMCAT FLIES OVER THE RAMP
</b><b>
</b> It slams in. The pilot hits full power, catches the wire, slams
to a stop, cuts his engines.
<b>
</b><b> 5. OMITTED
</b><b>
</b><b> 6. AIR OPS - BELOW DECK
</b><b>
</b> Lots of scopes and electronic gear. The CARRIER CONTROL APPROACH
OFFICER (CCA) watches a blip on radar, reaches for his mike key.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 7. EXT. THE TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING - (AERIAL)
</b><b>
</b> We float like gods, above the storm, above the cloud cover,
looking down. From overhead, a probe slides into frame, then
a graceful nose. The cockpit sides by, Pilot, then Radar
Intercept Officer (RIO) barely illuminated by the orange glow
of their instruments. The fuselage gracefully swells to two
enormous air intakes, then variable angle wings, swept back
for high speed flight. Twin tailbooms cant outward,
horizontal stabilizers make constant adjustments. Enormous
twin jet exhaust ports glow red in the moonlight.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 8. INT. COCKPIT - (AERIAL)
</b><b>
</b> We become aware of WIND WHISTLE, JET ENGINE SOUNDS, RADIO
STATIC. The pilot, COUGAR, is calm, steady. The Radar
Intercept Officer in the backseat, GOOSE, is a wildman,
always an edge of humor in his voice. A UHF transmission
breaks in..
<b>
</b> STRIKE (V.O. filtered)
<b> GHOST RIDER, THIS IS STRIKE... WE
</b><b> HAVE UNKNOWN CONTACT INBOUND,
</b><b> MUSTANG. YOUR VECTOR ZERO NINE ZERO
</b><b> FOR BOGEY.
</b><b>
</b> Almost immediately the RIO picks up a target and responds.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b><b> CONTACT 20 LEFT AT 25, 900 KNOTS
</b><b> CLOSURE.
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 8A. ANGLE - SECOND F-14 - 115 - COUGAR'S WINGMAN
</b><b>
</b> Come in on the cockpit with stenciled name and call signs: LT.
EVAN MITCHELL is the pilot, MAVERICK. In flight suit and oxygen
mask, we can only see his eyes. they are confident. In his
mid-twenties, he is lean, hard, athletic...the archetype fighter
pilot. His rear-seater is LTJG. WALTER MERLIN; WIZARD.
<b>
</b><b> MAVERICK
</b><b> I'LL I.D. HIM, YOU HOOK 'EM.
</b><b>
</b> Maverick peels off to right, to high cover position; 5 o'clock.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 9. INT. GHOST RIDER 117 - COUGAR'S POV
</b><b>
</b> HEADS UP DISPLAY (HUD) glows dimly on the windscreen. Directly
in front of the stick, two CRT screens display data. The bottom
screen shows a radar sweep. Wedged between the instruments is a
snapshot of a pretty young woman with a 2 month-old baby.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> Closing fast. MUSTANG, THIS IS
<b> GHOST RIDER ONE ONE SEVEN. CONTACT
</b><b> ONE BOGEY, 090 AT 15 MILES, 900
</b><b> KNOTS OF CLOSURE.
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> Look for the trailer.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> I don't see anything. MAVERICK,
<b> YOU HAVE A TRAILER?
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 10. MAVERICK'S F-14
</b><b>
</b> Flying in combat spread, 1 mile abeam, higher.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b><b> NEGATIVE, COUGAR. LOOKS LIKE HE'S
</b><b> SINGLE.
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 11. INT. 117 - COUGAR'S COCKPIT
</b><b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b><b> HANG BACK AND WATCH FOR HIM. HERE
</b><b> COMES...MIG ONE.
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 12. EXT. SKY
</b><b>
</b> Closing at 900 knots, The MiG is a speck, then a flash and a
ROAR, a knife-edge pass at 300 feet. It rockets past his left
wing tip and disappears. Cougar kicks rudder, whips the stick,
screams into a tight turning roll and dives after him. He slams
the throttle forward to ZONE 5 AFTERBURNER.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 13. EXT. - MAVERICK'S F-14
</b><b>
</b> Maverick sees a SECOND MiG drop from above onto Cougar's tail.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> MAVERICK
</b><b> BOGEY ON YOUR SIX. I'M ON HIS.
</b><b>
</b> Maverick swings after him, lights it.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 13A. ALL FOUR JETS SCREAM DOWN IN A POWER DIVE.
</b><b>
</b> They punch through cloud cover into the soup.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 14. EXT. COUGAR'S F-14
</b><b>
</b> He is closing on the first MiG when a shocking BLIPBLIPBLIPBLIP
tone breaks into their headsets.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> I've got a six strobe. I think
he's locked on us.
<b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> It's a MiG 21. They don't have
radar missiles!
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> Let's hope you're right!
<b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> What is he doing?
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> He's pissing me off!
<b>
</b> Cougar swings mad gyrations, cutting back and forth across the
front MiG's tailpipe, trying to break the lock-on. The TONE grows
more insistant.
<b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> Can't shake him.
<b>
</b><b> MAVERICK (V.O.)
</b><b> WHAT'S MIG ONE DOING?
</b><b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> Maintaining course. Straight for
Mustang.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> Stay with him.
<b>
</b> The tone grows steady, BLIPBLIPBLIPBLIP.
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> (alarmed)
That's missile lock!
<b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b> He better be kidding!
<b>
</b><b> GOOSE
</b> Lordy! Eyeball to Asshole.
Hope nobody burps!
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b>
</b><b> 14A. INT. MAVERICK'S F-14
</b><b>
</b><b> MAVERICK
</b> I'LL LOCK ON THEM, COUGAR. (to himself)
Gotcha covered, don't nobody move.
<b>
</b><b> COUGAR
</b><b> I'M UP HERE TOO, MAVERICK.
</b><b>
</b><b> MAVERICK
</b> ROGER, COUGAR. (to himself and his RIO)
Okay boys, pull out with your hands up
and nobody'll get hurt.
<b>
</b><b>
</b><b>
|
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|
How many times does the word 'with' appear in the text?
| 1
|
getting them framed, with the water-coloured drawings you have already
done, and trying to dispose of them to some liberal picture-dealer, who
has the sense to discern their merits?â
âMamma, I should be delighted if you think they _could_ be sold; and for
anything worth while.â
âItâs worth while trying, however, my dear: do you procure the drawings,
and Iâll endeavour to find a purchaser.â
âI wish _I_ could do something,â said I.
âYou, Agnes! well, who knows? You draw pretty well, too: if you choose
some simple piece for your subject, I daresay you will be able to produce
something we shall all be proud to exhibit.â
âBut I have another scheme in my head, mamma, and have had long, only I
did not like to mention it.â
âIndeed! pray tell us what it is.â
âI should like to be a governess.â
My mother uttered an exclamation of surprise, and laughed. My sister
dropped her work in astonishment, exclaiming, â_You_ a governess, Agnes!
What can you be dreaming of?â
âWell! I donât see anything so _very_ extraordinary in it. I do not
pretend to be able to instruct great girls; but surely I could teach
little ones: and I should like it so much: I am so fond of children. Do
let me, mamma!â
âBut, my love, you have not learned to take care of _yourself _yet: and
young children require more judgment and experience to manage than elder
ones.â
âBut, mamma, I am above eighteen, and quite able to take care of myself,
and others too. You do not know half the wisdom and prudence I possess,
because I have never been tried.â
âOnly think,â said Mary, âwhat would you do in a house full of strangers,
without me or mamma to speak and act for youâwith a parcel of children,
besides yourself, to attend to; and no one to look to for advice? You
would not even know what clothes to put on.â
âYou think, because I always do as you bid me, I have no judgment of my
own: but only try meâthat is all I askâand you shall see what I can do.â
At that moment my father entered and the subject of our discussion was
explained to him.
âWhat, my little Agnes a governess!â cried he, and, in spite of his
dejection, he laughed at the idea.
âYes, papa, donât _you_ say anything against it: I should like it so
much; and I am sure I could manage delightfully.â
âBut, my darling, we could not spare you.â And a tear glistened in his
eye as he addedââNo, no! afflicted as we are, surely we are not brought
to that pass yet.â
âOh, no!â said my mother. âThere is no necessity whatever for such a
step; it is merely a whim of her own. So you must hold your tongue, you
naughty girl; for, though you are so ready to leave us, you know very
well we cannot part with _you_.â
I was silenced for that day, and for many succeeding ones; but still I
did not wholly relinquish my darling scheme. Mary got her drawing
materials, and steadily set to work. I got mine too; but while I drew, I
thought of other things. How delightful it would be to be a governess!
To go out into the world; to enter upon a new life; to act for myself; to
exercise my unused faculties; to try my unknown powers; to earn my own
maintenance, and something to comfort and help my father, mother, and
sister, besides exonerating them from the provision of my food and
clothing; to show papa what his little Agnes could do; to convince mamma
and Mary that I was not quite the helpless, thoughtless being they
supposed. And then, how charming to be entrusted with the care and
education of children! Whatever others said, I felt I was fully
competent to the task: the clear remembrance of my own thoughts in early
childhood would be a surer guide than the instructions of the most mature
adviser. I had but to turn from my little pupils to myself at their age,
and I should know, at once, how to win their confidence and affections:
how to waken the contrition of the erring; how to embolden the timid and
console the afflicted; how to make Virtue practicable, Instruction
desirable, and Religion lovely and comprehensible.
âDelightful task!
To teach the young idea how to shoot!
To train the tender plants, and watch their buds unfolding day by day!
Influenced by so many inducements, I determined still to persevere;
though the fear of displeasing my mother, or distressing my fatherâs
feelings, prevented me from resuming the subject for several days. At
length, again, I mentioned it to my mother in private; and, with some
difficulty, got her to promise to assist me with her endeavours. My
fatherâs reluctant consent was next obtained, and then, though Mary still
sighed her disapproval, my dear, kind mother began to look out for a
situation for me. She wrote to my fatherâs relations, and consulted the
newspaper advertisementsâher own relations she had long dropped all
communication with: a formal interchange of occasional letters was all
she had ever had since her marriage, and she would not at any time have
applied to them in a case of this nature. But so long and so entire had
been my parentsâ seclusion from the world, that many weeks elapsed before
a suitable situation could be procured. At last, to my great joy, it was
decreed that I should take charge of the young family of a certain Mrs.
Bloomfield; whom my kind, prim aunt Grey had known in her youth, and
asserted to be a very nice woman. Her husband was a retired tradesman,
who had realized a very comfortable fortune; but could not be prevailed
upon to give a greater salary than twenty-five pounds to the instructress
of his children. I, however, was glad to accept this, rather than refuse
the situationâwhich my parents were inclined to think the better plan.
But some weeks more were yet to be devoted to preparation. How long, how
tedious those weeks appeared to me! Yet they were happy ones in the
mainâfull of bright hopes and ardent expectations. With what peculiar
pleasure I assisted at the making of my new clothes, and, subsequently,
the packing of my trunks! But there was a feeling of bitterness mingling
with the latter occupation too; and when it was doneâwhen all was ready
for my departure on the morrow, and the last night at home approachedâa
sudden anguish seemed to swell my heart. My dear friends looked so sad,
and spoke so very kindly, that I could scarcely keep my eyes from
overflowing: but I still affected to be gay. I had taken my last ramble
with Mary on the moors, my last walk in the garden, and round the house;
I had fed, with her, our pet pigeons for the last timeâthe pretty
creatures that we had tamed to peck their food from our hands: I had
given a farewell stroke to all their silky backs as they crowded in my
lap. I had tenderly kissed my own peculiar favourites, the pair of
snow-white fantails; I had played my last tune on the old familiar piano,
and sung my last song to papa: not the last, I hoped, but the last for
what appeared to me a very long time. And, perhaps, when I did these
things again it would be with different feelings: circumstances might be
changed, and this house might never be my settled home again. My dear
little friend, the kitten, would certainly be changed: she was already
growing a fine cat; and when I returned, even for a hasty visit at
Christmas, would, most likely, have forgotten both her playmate and her
merry pranks. I had romped with her for the last time; and when I
stroked her soft bright fur, while she lay purring herself to sleep in my
lap, it was with a feeling of sadness I could not easily disguise. Then
at bed-time, when I retired with Mary to our quiet little chamber, where
already my drawers were cleared out and my share of the bookcase was
emptyâand where, hereafter, she would have to sleep alone, in dreary
solitude, as she expressed itâmy heart sank more than ever: I felt as if
I had been selfish and wrong to persist in leaving her; and when I knelt
once more beside our little bed, I prayed for a blessing on her and on my
parents more fervently than ever I had done before. To conceal my
emotion, I buried my face in my hands, and they were presently bathed in
tears. I perceived, on rising, that she had been crying too: but neither
of us spoke; and in silence we betook ourselves to our repose, creeping
more closely together from the consciousness that we were to part so
soon.
But the morning brought a renewal of hope and spirits. I was to depart
early; that the conveyance which took me (a gig, hired from Mr. Smith,
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How many times does the word 'would' appear in the text?
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is almost nothing. The merchant in town,
in whose hands your money was lodged, has gone off, to avoid a statute
of bankruptcy, and is thought not to have left a shilling in the pound.
I was unwilling to shock you or the family with the account till
after the wedding: but now it may serve to moderate your warmth in the
argument; for, I suppose, your own prudence will enforce the necessity
of dissembling at least till your son has the young lady's fortune
secure.'--'Well,' returned I, 'if what you tell me be true, and if I am
to be a beggar, it shall never make me a rascal, or induce me to
disavow my principles. I'll go this moment and inform the company of my
circumstances; and as for the argument, I even here retract my former
concessions in the old gentleman's favour, nor will I allow him now to
be an husband in any sense of the expression.'
It would be endless to describe the different sensations of both
families when I divulged the news of our misfortune; but what others
felt was slight to what the lovers appeared to endure. Mr Wilmot, who
seemed before sufficiently inclined to break off the match, was by
this blow soon determined: one virtue he had in perfection, which was
prudence, too often the only one that is left us at seventy-two.
CHAPTER 3
A migration. The fortunate circumstances of our lives are
generally found at last to be of our own procuring
The only hope of our family now was, that the report of our misfortunes
might be malicious or premature: but a letter from my agent in town soon
came with a confirmation of every particular. The loss of fortune to
myself alone would have been trifling; the only uneasiness I felt was
for my family, who were to be humble without an education to render them
callous to contempt.
Near a fortnight had passed before I attempted to restrain their
affliction; for premature consolation is but the remembrancer of sorrow.
During this interval, my thoughts were employed on some future means of
supporting them; and at last a small Cure of fifteen pounds a year was
offered me in a distant neighbourhood, where I could still enjoy my
principles without molestation. With this proposal I joyfully closed,
having determined to encrease my salary by managing a little farm.
Having taken this resolution, my next care was to get together the
wrecks of my fortune; and all debts collected and paid, out of fourteen
thousand pounds we had but four hundred remaining. My chief attention
therefore was now to bring down the pride of my family to their
circumstances; for I well knew that aspiring beggary is wretchedness
itself. 'You cannot be ignorant, my children,' cried I, 'that no
prudence of ours could have prevented our late misfortune; but prudence
may do much in disappointing its effects. We are now poor, my fondlings,
and wisdom bids us conform to our humble situation. Let us then, without
repining, give up those splendours with which numbers are wretched, and
seek in humbler circumstances that peace with which all may be happy.
The poor live pleasantly without our help, why then should not we learn
to live without theirs. No, my children, let us from this moment give up
all pretensions to gentility; we have still enough left for happiness
if we are wise, and let us draw upon content for the deficiencies of
fortune.' As my eldest son was bred a scholar, I determined to send him
to town, where his abilities might contribute to our support and his
own. The separation of friends and families is, perhaps, one of the most
distressful circumstances attendant on penury. The day soon arrived on
which we were to disperse for the first time. My son, after taking leave
of his mother and the rest, who mingled their tears with their kisses,
came to ask a blessing from me. This I gave him from my heart, and
which, added to five guineas, was all the patrimony I had now to bestow.
'You are going, my boy,' cried I, 'to London on foot, in the manner
Hooker, your great ancestor, travelled there before you. Take from me
the same horse that was given him by the good bishop Jewel, this staff,
and take this book too, it will be your comfort on the way: these two
lines in it are worth a million, I have been young, and now am old; yet
never saw I the righteous man forsaken, or his seed begging their bread.
Let this be your consolation as you travel on. Go, my boy, whatever be
thy fortune let me see thee once a year; still keep a good heart, and
farewell.' As he was possest of integrity and honour, I was under no
apprehensions from throwing him naked into the amphitheatre of life; for
I knew he would act a good part whether vanquished or victorious. His
departure only prepared the way for our own, which arrived a few days
afterwards. The leaving a neighbourhood in which we had enjoyed so many
hours of tranquility, was not without a tear, which scarce fortitude
itself could suppress. Besides, a journey of seventy miles to a family
that had hitherto never been above ten from home, filled us with
apprehension, and the cries of the poor, who followed us for some miles,
contributed to encrease it. The first day's journey brought us in safety
within thirty miles of our future retreat, and we put up for the night
at an obscure inn in a village by the way. When we were shewn a room, I
desired the landlord, in my usual way, to let us have his company,
with which he complied, as what he drank would encrease the bill next
morning. He knew, however, the whole neighbourhood to which I was
removing, particularly 'Squire Thornhill, who was to be my landlord, and
who lived within a few miles of the place. This gentleman he described
as one who desired to know little more of the world than its pleasures,
being particularly remarkable for his attachment to the fair sex. He
observed that no virtue was able to resist his arts and assiduity, and
that scarce a farmer's daughter within ten miles round but what had
found him successful and faithless. Though this account gave me some
pain, it had a very different effect upon my daughters, whose features
seemed to brighten with the expectation of an approaching triumph, nor
was my wife less pleased and confident of their allurements and virtue.
While our thoughts were thus employed, the hostess entered the room to
inform her husband, that the strange gentleman, who had been two days in
the house, wanted money, and could not satisfy them for his reckoning.
'Want money!' replied the host, 'that must be impossible; for it was no
later than yesterday he paid three guineas to our beadle to spare an
old broken soldier that was to be whipped through the town for
dog-stealing.' The hostess, however, still persisting in her first
assertion, he was preparing to leave the room, swearing that he would be
satisfied one way or another, when I begged the landlord would introduce
me to a stranger of so much charity as he described. With this he
complied, shewing in a gentleman who seemed to be about thirty, drest in
cloaths that once were laced. His person was well formed, and his face
marked with the lines of thinking. He had something short and dry in his
address, and seemed not to understand ceremony, or to despise it. Upon
the landlord's leaving the room, I could not avoid expressing my concern
to the stranger at seeing a gentleman in such circumstances, and offered
him my purse to satisfy the present demand. 'I take it with all my
heart, Sir,' replied he, 'and am glad that a late oversight in giving
what money I had about me, has shewn me that there are still some men
like you. I must, however, previously entreat being informed of the
name and residence of my benefactor, in order to repay him as soon as
possible.' In this I satisfied him fully, not only mentioning my name
and late misfortunes, but the place to which I was going to remove.
'This,' cried he, 'happens still more luckily than I hoped for, as I
am going the same way myself, having been detained here two days by the
floods, which, I hope, by to-morrow will be found passable.' I testified
the pleasure I should have in his company, and my wife and daughters
joining in entreaty, he was prevailed upon to stay supper. The
stranger's conversation, which was at once pleasing and instructive,
induced me to wish for a continuance of it; but it was now high time to
retire and take refreshment against the fatigues of the following day.
The next morning we all set forward together: my family on horseback,
while Mr Burchell, our new companion, walked along the foot-path by
the road-side, observing, with a smile, that as we were ill mounted, he
would be too generous to attempt leaving us behind. As the floods
were not yet subsided, we were obliged to hire a guide, who trotted
on before, Mr Burchell and I bringing up the rear. We lightened the
fatigues of the road with philosophical disputes, which he seemed to
understand perfectly. But what surprised me most was, that though he was
a money-borrower, he defended his opinions with as much obstinacy as
if he had been my patron. He now and then also informed me to whom the
different seats belonged that lay in our view as we travelled the road.
'That,' cried he, pointing to a very magnificent house which stood at
some distance, 'belongs to Mr Thornhill, a young gentleman who enjoys a
large fortune, though entirely dependent on the will of his uncle,
Sir William Thornhill, a gentleman, who content with a little himself,
permits his nephew to enjoy the rest, and chiefly resides in town.'
'What!' cried I, 'is my young landlord then the nephew of a man whose
virtues, generosity, and singularities are so universally known? I have
heard Sir William Thornhill represented as one of the most generous,
yet whimsical, men in the kingdom; a man of consumate
benevolence'--'Something, perhaps, too much so,' replied Mr Burchell,
'at least he carried benevolence to an excess when young; for his
passions were then strong, and as they all were upon the side of virtue,
they led it up to a romantic extreme. He early began to aim at the
qualifications of the soldier and scholar; was soon distinguished in
the army and had some reputation among men of learning. Adulation
ever follows the ambitious; for such alone receive most pleasure from
flattery. He was surrounded with crowds,
|
from
|
How many times does the word 'from' appear in the text?
| 2
|
fast-food, strip-mall science --
<b> REED
</b> This wasn't our first stop, in case
you forgot NASA. And Victor's not
that bad. He's just a little...
(seeing the statue)
Larger than life.
<b> INT. VON DOOM INDUSTRIES TOWER - DAY
</b>
They move past the statue, into the sprawling atrium.
<b> REED
</b> He's financed some of the biggest
breakthroughs of this century.
<b> BEN
</b> You'd never know it.
He motions to a high-tech ORB, showing FOOTAGE of VDI's
accomplishments: a safe and clean nuclear facility, the first
private Space Station.
All images have VICTOR front and center, glad-handling George
Bush, Tony Blair, shady International Leaders. The last
image is Victor holding the AMERICA'S CUP.
<b> BEN (CONT'D)
</b> Jesus. That too?
They reach three stern RECEPTIONISTS.
<b> REED
</b> Reed Richards and Ben Grimm to see --
A receptionist cuts him off, handing them each a pass.
<b> FEMALE RECEPTIONIST
</b> Executive elevator, top floor.
<b> BEN
</b> What's the price for a smile round here?
They head for the elevator. Reed carries a small, black box.
As they enter the elevator, steel doors shut and we CUT TO --
<b> INT. VON DOOM INDUSTRIES TOWER - OFFICE - DAY
</b>
A large, dark office. Ben in the corner. He yawns,
watches...
BRIGHT HOLOGRAMS: Stars. Planets. They hover in the air,
making the room feel like a majestic portal into outer space.
<b> REED (O.S.)
</b> My research suggests that exposure to
a high-energy cosmic storm born on
solar winds might have triggered the
evolution of early planetary life.
REED stands among the holograms, speaking to a MYSTERIOUS
FIGURE in shadow behind a desk. An ominous, PULSATING RED
CLOUD covers the stars. It washes over a hologram of EARTH.
<b> REED (CONT'D)
</b> In six weeks another cloud with the
same elemental profile will pass
Earth's orbit. A study in space could
advance our knowledge about the
structure of the human genome, and
help cure countless diseases, extend
human life --
The SHADOW clears his throat. Reed speeds up, emotional.
<b> REED (CONT'D)
</b> Give kids the chance to be stronger,
healthier, less prone to --
<b> SHADOWED FIGURE
</b> Turn it off. Please.
The figure's DEEP VOICE pierces the darkness.
<b> REED
</b> But I haven't fully explained my --
<b> SHADOWED FIGURE
</b> Yes you have... Imagination.
Creativity. Passion. Those were
always your trademarks.
Lights brighten, revealing the face behind the voice: VICTOR
VON DOOM. 35, handsome, commanding. He looks almost...
airbrushed. He drops a WIRED magazine to the desk. REED is
on the cover over the words: RICHARDS BANKRUPT, GRANT
<b> CUTBACKS.
</b>
<b> VICTOR
</b
|
cont
|
How many times does the word 'cont' appear in the text?
| 0
|
RAMIUS
</b> It is cold.
<b> (BEAT)-
</b> And hard.
Turning his back on the icy coast, Ramius smi-I fondly at the man
who just spoke to him
<b> CAPTAIN SECOND., RANK VASILY BORODIN
</b> Ramius' executive officer, also in black uniform. Borodin's rigged
with a mike. , Brass .buttons gambol in his Nubian cap like money.
<b> RAMIUS (CONT'D)
</b> e your head a bit. No need to
crowd him.
<b> BORODIN
</b>
<b> (INTO MIKE)
</b> Come left three degrees. Make your
course three-four-zero. Sonar, let
me know when we pass fifty, fathoms.
A HELMSMAN responds on a SPEAKER in the SAIL. Nautical CROSS
TALK. Orders GIVEN and AFFIRMED. Pulling back, Ramius and
Borodin are revealed standing atop
<b> THE RED OCTOBER
</b> a huge submarine, trading a gigantic rudder a hundred yards aft
her sail. A patrol BOAT and ICEBREAKER escort her to sea. On
SPEAKERS in the SAIL:
<b> HELMSMAN (VO)
</b> Captain, political off=er Putin requests
permission to come to the bridge.
<b> RAMIUS
</b>
<b> (GLANCING AT
</b>
<b> BORODIN)
</b> Granted.
<b> BORODIN
</b> (under his breath)
Think of it, Comrade.. .son of only a
humble mM worker...
<b> RAMIUS
</b> Quiet as grass, Vastly. Quiet as grass.
(louder, turning)
Good morning, Comrade political off=er
<b> IVAN YURIEVICH PUTIN
</b> block-faced, forties, pink-necked, political officer assigned to Red
October, clambers through the hatch into the air, wheezing:
<b> PUTIN
</b> Ah,, Captain, every time I climb that
ladder, I realize what an over-fed
ox rve become.
Put in smiles. Ramius smiles back, but his eyes are cold. Suddenly,
there's not a lot of Lave on the bridge:
<b> PUTIN (CONT'D)
</b>
<b> (EXPANSIVELY)
</b> Such a glorious day. So exciting to
h t ally put the land behind us and
be on our way.
<b> (TO RAMIUS)
</b> Bourgeois of me, I know, but my
enthusiasm at being chosen polidcica].
officer on this historic mission Its
me with pride.
<b> (BEAT)
</b> Me, a man of such humble birth, whose
father was only a mill. worker. Think
of it, comrades, a mill worker.
Borodin CHUCKLES. Putin stares at him. Borodin covers with a
COUGH. Putin keeps starring. Flushed, Borodin looks away. Putin
turns porcine eyes on Ramius:
<b> PUTIN (CONT'D)
</b>
<b> (TURNING)
</b> Your father was a Lithuanian, was
he not, Captain?
<b> RAMIUS
</b> You know he was.
<b> PU TIN
</b> I knew a Lithuanian once...
His words hang like rotten fru
<b> PUTIN (CONT'D)
</b> ...though I'm sure your father was
nothing like him. Pefmisrdon to go
below?
Smirking, Putin leaves. Ramius watches him go. SPEAKERS in the
<b> SAI :
</b>
<b> HELMSMAN (VO)
</b> Conn to bridge, sonar reports we are
crossing sixty fathoms.
<b> BORODIN
</b> it's time, Captain.
St M dealing with Putin's exit, Ramius turns away from the hatch,
contemplating the shore. After a beat, softly:.
<b> RAMIUS
</b> We go.
<b> BORO DIN
</b> (into the headset)
|
putin
|
How many times does the word 'putin' appear in the text?
| 3
|
with his rod. It fell in the brook, and before I could scrabble
down he was off. You wretch, give it back this moment or I'll box your
ears,' cried Josie, laughing and scolding in the same breath.
Escaping from Tom, Ted struck a sentimental attitude, and with tender
glances at the wet, torn young person before him, delivered Claude
Melnotte's famous speech in a lackadaisical way that was irresistibly
funny, ending with 'Dost like the picture, love?' as he made an object
of himself by tying his long legs in a knot and distorting his face
horribly.
The sound of applause from the piazza put a stop to these antics, and
the young folks went up the avenue together very much in the old style
when Tom drove four in hand and Nan was the best horse in the team.
Rosy, breathless, and merry, they greeted the ladies and sat down on
the steps to rest, Aunt Meg sewing up her daughter's rags while Mrs
Jo smoothed the Lion's mane, and rescued the book. Daisy appeared in a
moment to greet her friend, and all began to talk.
'Muffins for tea; better stay and eat 'em; Daisy's never fail,' said Ted
hospitably.
'He's a judge; he ate nine last time. That's why he's so fat,' added
Josie, with a withering glance at her cousin, who was as thin as a lath.
'I must go and see Lucy Dove. She has a whitlow, and it's time to lance
it. I'll tea at college,' answered Nan, feeling in her pocket to be sure
she had not forgotten her case of instruments.
'Thanks, I'm going there also. Tom Merryweather has granulated lids,
and I promised to touch them up for him. Save a doctor's fee and be good
practice for me. I'm clumsy with my thumbs,' said Tom, bound to be near
his idol while he could.
'Hush! Daisy doesn't like to hear you saw-bones talk of your work.
Muffins suit us better'; and Ted grinned sweetly, with a view to future
favours in the eating line.
'Any news of the Commodore?' asked Tom.
'He is on his way home, and Dan hopes to come soon. I long to see my
boys together, and have begged the wanderers to come to Thanksgiving, if
not before,' answered Mrs Jo, beaming at the thought.
'They'll come, every man of them, if they can. Even Jack will risk
losing a dollar for the sake of one of our jolly old dinners,' laughed
Tom.
'There's the turkey fattening for the feast. I never chase him now, but
feed him well; and he's "swellin' wisibly", bless his drumsticks!' said
Ted, pointing out the doomed fowl proudly parading in a neighbouring
field.
'If Nat goes the last of the month we shall want a farewell frolic for
him. I suppose the dear old Chirper will come home a second Ole Bull,'
said Nan to her friend.
A pretty colour came into Daisy's cheek, and the folds of muslin on her
breast rose and fell with a quick breath; but she answered placidly:
'Uncle Laurie says he has real talent, and after the training he will
get abroad he can command a good living here, though he may never be
famous.'
'Young people seldom turn out as one predicts, so it is of little use
to expect anything,' said Mrs Meg with a sigh. 'If our children are good
and useful men and women, we should be satisfied; yet it's very natural
to wish them to be brilliant and successful.'
'They are like my chickens, mighty uncertain. Now, that fine-looking
cockerel of mine is the stupidest one of the lot, and the ugly,
long-legged chap is the king of the yard, he's so smart; crows loud
enough to wake the Seven Sleepers; but the handsome one croaks, and is
no end of a coward. I get snubbed; but you wait till I grow up, and
then see'; and Ted looked so like his own long-legged pet that everyone
laughed at his modest prediction.
'I want to see Dan settled somewhere. "A rolling stone gathers no moss",
and at twenty-five he is still roaming about the world without a tie to
hold him, except this'; and Mrs Meg nodded towards her sister.
'Dan will find his place at last, and experience is his best teacher.
He is rough still, but each time he comes home I see a change for the
better, and never lose my faith in him. He may never do anything great,
or get rich; but if the wild boy makes an honest man, I'm satisfied,'
said Mrs Jo, who always defended the black sheep of her flock.
'That's right, mother, stand by Dan! He's worth a dozen Jacks and Neds
bragging about money and trying to be swells. You see if he doesn't do
something to be proud of and take the wind out of their sails,'
added Ted, whose love for his 'Danny' was now strengthened by a boy's
admiration for the bold, adventurous man.
'Hope so, I'm sure. He's just the fellow to do rash things and come
to glory--climbing the Matterhorn, taking a "header" into Niagara, or
finding a big nugget. That's his way of sowing wild oats, and perhaps
it's better than ours,' said Tom thoughtfully; for he had gained a good
deal of experience in that sort of agriculture since he became a medical
student.
'Much better!' said Mrs Jo emphatically. 'I'd rather send my boys off
to see the world in that way than leave them alone in a city full of
temptations, with nothing to do but waste time, money, and health, as
so many are left. Dan has to work his way, and that teaches him courage,
patience, and self-reliance. I don't worry about him as much as I do
about George and Dolly at college, no more fit than two babies to take
care of themselves.'
'How about John? He's knocking round town as a newspaper man, reporting
all sorts of things, from sermons to prize-fights,' asked Tom, who
thought that sort of life would be much more to his own taste than
medical lectures and hospital wards.
'Demi has three safeguards--good principles, refined tastes, and a wise
mother. He won't come to harm, and these experiences will be useful to
him when he begins to write, as I'm sure he will in time,' began Mrs
Jo in her prophetic tone; for she was anxious to have some of her geese
turn out swans.
'Speak of Jenkins, and you'll hear the rustling of his paper,' cried
Tom, as a fresh-faced, brown-eyed young man came up the avenue, waving a
newspaper over his head.
'Here's your Evening Tattler! Latest Edition! Awful murder! Bank clerk
absconded! Powder-mill explosion, and great strike of the Latin School
boys!' roared Ted, going to meet his cousin with the graceful gait of a
young giraffe.
'The Commodore is in, and will cut his cable and run before the wind
as soon as he can get off,' called Demi, with 'a nice derangement of
nautical epitaphs', as he came up smiling over his good news.
Everyone talked together for a moment, and the paper passed from hand to
hand that each eye might rest on the pleasant fact that the Brenda, from
Hamburg, was safe in port.
'He'll come lurching out by tomorrow with his usual collection of marine
monsters and lively yarns. I saw him, jolly and tarry and brown as a
coffee-berry. Had a good run, and hopes to be second mate, as the other
chap is laid up with a broken leg,' added Demi.
'Wish I had the setting of it,' said Nan to herself, with a professional
twist of her hand.
'How's Franz?' asked Mrs Jo.
'He's going to be married! There's news for you. The first of the
flock, Aunty, so say good-bye to him. Her name is Ludmilla Heldegard
Blumenthal; good family, well-off, pretty, and of course an angel. The
dear old boy wants Uncle's consent, and then he will settle down to be a
happy and an honest burgher. Long life to him!'
'I'm glad to hear it. I do so like to settle my boys with a good wife
and a nice little home. Now, if all is right, I shall feel as if Franz
was off my mind,' said Mrs Jo, folding her hands contentedly; for she
often felt like a distracted hen with a large brood of mixed chickens
and ducks upon her hands.
'So do I,' sighed Tom, with a sly glance at Nan. 'That's what a fellow
needs to keep him steady; and it's the duty of nice girls to marry as
soon as possible, isn't it, Demi?'
'If there are enough nice fellows to go round. The female population
exceeds the male, you know, especially in New England; which accounts
for the high state of culture we are in, perhaps,' answered John, who
was leaning over his mother's chair, telling his day's experiences in a
whisper.
'It is a merciful provision, my dears; for it takes three or four women
to get each man into, through, and out of the world. You are costly
creatures, boys; and it is well that mothers, sisters, wives, and
daughters love their duty and do it so well, or you would perish off the
face of the earth,' said Mrs Jo solemnly, as she took up a basket filled
with dilapidated hose; for the good Professor was still hard on his
socks, and his sons resembled him in that respect.
'Such being the case, there is plenty for the "superfluous women" to do,
in taking care of these helpless men and their families. I see that more
clearly every day, and am very glad and grateful that my profession will
make me a useful, happy, and independent spinster.'
Nan's emphasis on the last word caused Tom to groan, and the rest to
laugh.
'I take great pride and solid satisfaction in you, Nan, and hope to
see you very successful; for we do need just such helpful women in the
world. I sometimes feel as if I've missed my vocation and ought to
have remained single; but my duty seemed to point this way, and I
|
better
|
How many times does the word 'better' appear in the text?
| 1
|
that?
<b> CYPHER (V.O.)
</b> Hear what?
<b> SCREEN
</b> Trace complete. Call origin:
<b> #312-555-0690
</b>
<b> TRINITY (V.O.)
</b> Are you sure this line is clean?
<b> CYPHER (V.O.)
</b> Yeah, course I'm sure.
We MOVE STILL CLOSER, the ELECTRIC HUM of the green
numbers GROWING INTO an OMINOUS ROAR.
<b> TRINITY (V.O.)
</b> I better go.
<b> CYPHER (V.O.)
</b> Yeah. Right. See you on the other side.
She hangs up as we PASS THROUGH the numbers, entering the
netherworld of the computer screen.
Where gradually the sound of a police radio grows around
us.
<b> RADIO (V.O.)
</b> Attention all units. Attention
all units.
Suddenly, a flashlight cuts open the darkness and we find
ourselves in --
<b> INT. CHASE HOTEL - NIGHT
</b>
The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way
across the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms
as it spooled soot up the walls and ceiling leaving
patterns of permanent shadow.
We FOLLOW four armed POLICE officers using flashlights as
they creep down the blackened hall and ready themselves
on either side of room 303.
The biggest of them violently kicks in the door --
The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before
them.
<b> BIG COP
</b> Police! Freeze!
The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-
up table and chair with a phone, a modern, and a powerbook
computer. The only light in the room is the glow of the
computer.
Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is
TRINITY; a woman in black leather.
<b> BIG COP
</b> Get your hands behind your head!
Trinity rises.
<b> BIG COP
</b> Hands behind your head! Now! Do
it!
She slowly puts her hands behind her head.
<b> EXT. CHASE HOTEL - NIGHT
</b>
A black sedan with tinted windows glides in through the
police cruisers.
AGENT SMITH and AGENT BROWN get out of the car.
They wear dark suits and sunglasses even at night. They
are also always hardwired; small Secret Service earphones
in one ear, its cord coiling back into their shirt
collars.
<b> AGENT SMITH
</b> Lieutenant?
<b> LIEUTENANT
</b> Oh shit.
<b> AGENT SMITH
</b> Lieutenant, you were given
specific orders --
<b> LIEUTENANT
</b> I'm just doing my job. You gimme
that Juris-my dick-tion and you
can cran it up your ass.
<b> AGENT SMITH
</b> The orders were for your protection.
The Lieutenant laughs.
<b> LIEUTENANT
</b> I think we can handle one little
girl.
Agent Smith nods to Agent Brown as they start toward the
hotel.
<b> LIEUTENANT
</b> I sent two units. They're
bringing her down now.
<b> AGENT SMITH
</b> No, Lieutenant, your men are dead.
<b> INT. CHASE HOTEL
</b>
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding
a bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know
they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuff
and Trinity moves --
It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly
fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity's palm. snaps up and the nose
explodes, blood erupting. The cop is dead before he
begins to fall.
And Trinity is moving again --
Seizing a wrist, misdirecting a gun, as a startled cop
<b> FIRES --
</b>
A head explodes.
In blind panic, another airs his gun, the barrel, a fixed
black hole --
And FIRES --
Trinity twists out of the way, the bullet missing as she
reverses into a roundhouse kick, knocking the gun away.
The cop begins to scream when a jump kick crushes his
windpipe, killing the scream as he falls to the ground.
She looks at the four bodies.
<b> TRINITY
</b> Shit.
<b> EXT. CHASE HOTEL
</b>
Agent Brown enters the hotel, while Agent Smith heads for
the alley.
<b> INT. CHASE HOTEL
</b>
Trinity is on the phone, pacing. The other end is
answered.
<b> MAN (V.O.)
</b> Operator.
<b> TRINITY
</b> Morpheus! The link was traced! I
don't know how.
<b> MORPHEUS (V.O.)
</b> I know. Stay calm.
<b> TRINITY
</b> Are there any agents?
<b> MORPHEUS (V.O.)
</b> Yes.
<b> TRINITY
</b> Goddamnit!
<b> MORPHEUS (V.O.)
</b> You have to focus. There is a
phone. Wells and Laxe. You can
make it.
She takes a deep breath, centering herself.
<b> TRINITY
</b> All right --
<b> MORPHEUS (V.O.)
</b> Go.
She drops the phone.
<b> INT. HALL
</b>
She bursts out of the room as Agent Brown enters the hall,
leading another unit of police. Trinity races to the
opposite end, exiting through a broken window onto the
fire escape.
<b> EXT. FIRE E5CAPE
</b>
In the alley below, Trinity sees Agent Smith staring at
her. She can only go up.
<b> EXT. ROOF
</b>
On the roof, Trinity is running as Agent Brown rises over
the parapet, leading the cops in pursuit.
Trinity begins to jump from one roof to the next, her
moverents so clean, gliding in and out of each jump,
contrasted to the wild jumps of the cops.
Agent Brown, however, has the same unnatural grace.
The METAL SCREAM of an EL TRAIN is heard and Trinity
turns to it, racing for the back of the building.
The edge falls away into a wide back alley. The next
building is over 40 feet away, but Trinity's face is
perfectly calm, staring at some point beyond the other
roof.
The cops slow, realizing they are about to see something
ugly as Trinity drives at the edge, launching herself
into the air.
From above, the ground seems to flow beneath her as she
hangs in flight
Then hitting, somersaulting up, still running hard.
<b> COP
</b> Motherfucker -- that's impossible!
They stare, slack-jawed, as Agent Brown duplicates the
move exactly, landing, rolling over a shoulder, up onto
one knee.
Just below the building are the runbling tracks of
riveted steel. The TRAIN SCREECHES beneath her, a
rattling blur of gray metal. Trinity junps, landing
easily.
She looks back just as Agent Brown hurls through the air
barely reaching the last car
Agent Brown stands, yanking out a gun.
Trinity is running hard as BULLETS WHISTLE past her head.
Ahead she sees her only chance, 50 feet beyond the point
where the train has begun to turn, there is --
A window; a yellow glow in the midst of a dark brick
building.
Trinity zeroes in on it, running as hard as she can, her
speed compounded by the train. The SCREAM of the STEEL
rises as she nears the edge where the train rocks into the
turn.
Trinity hurtles into the empty night space, her body
leveling into a dive. She falls, arms covering her head
as --
The whole world seems to spin on its axis --
And she crashes with
|
they
|
How many times does the word 'they' appear in the text?
| 3
|
nine south. When I say a man--"
"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.
The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the
ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had
been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense
mirror.
"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my
double, distinctly.
"You're a Conway boy?"
"I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly... "Perhaps you too--"
It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before he
joined. After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell; and I thought
suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless my
soul--you don't say so" type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling
of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see
me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself I can't see the
necessity. There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not
that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time
with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business
to live at all. He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do
theirs. But what's the good of talking! You know well enough the sort of
ill-conditioned snarling cur--"
He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as
our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a
character where there are no means of legal repression. And I knew well
enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not
think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in
brusque, disconnected sentences. I needed no more. I saw it all going on
as though I were myself inside that other sleeping suit.
"It happened while we were setting a reefed foresail, at dusk. Reefed
foresail! You understand the sort of weather. The only sail we had left
to keep the ship running; so you may guess what it had been like for
days. Anxious sort of job, that. He gave me some of his cursed insolence
at the sheet. I tell you I was overdone with this terrific weather that
seemed to have no end to it. Terrific, I tell you--and a deep ship. I
believe the fellow himself was half crazed with funk. It was no time for
gentlemanly reproof, so I turned round and felled him like an ox. He up
and at me. We closed just as an awful sea made for the ship. All hands
saw it coming and took to the rigging, but I had him by the throat, and
went on shaking him like a rat, the men above us yelling, 'Look out!
look out!' Then a crash as if the sky had fallen on my head. They
say that for over ten minutes hardly anything was to be seen of the
ship--just the three masts and a bit of the forecastle head and of the
poop all awash driving along in a smother of foam. It was a miracle that
they found us, jammed together behind the forebitts. It's clear that I
meant business, because I was holding him by the throat still when they
picked us up. He was black in the face. It was too much for them.
It seems they rushed us aft together, gripped as we were, screaming
'Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy. And the ship
running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute her last in
a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it. I understand that
the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them. The man had been
deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have this sprung on him
at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him out of his mind. I
wonder they didn't fling me overboard after getting the carcass of their
precious shipmate out of my fingers. They had rather a job to separate
us, I've been told. A sufficiently fierce story to make an old judge and
a respectable jury sit up a bit. The first thing I heard when I came to
myself was the maddening howling of that endless gale, and on that the
voice of the old man. He was hanging on to my bunk, staring into my face
out of his sou'wester.
"'Mr. Leggatt, you have killed a man. You can act no longer as chief
mate of this ship.'"
His care to subdue his voice made it sound monotonous. He rested a hand
on the end of the skylight to steady himself with, and all that time did
not stir a limb, so far as I could see. "Nice little tale for a quiet
tea party," he concluded in the same tone.
One of my hands, too, rested on the end of the skylight; neither did
I stir a limb, so far as I knew. We stood less than a foot from each
other. It occurred to me that if old "Bless my soul--you don't say so"
were to put his head up the companion and catch sight of us, he would
think he was seeing double, or imagine himself come upon a scene of
weird witchcraft; the strange captain having a quiet confabulation
by the wheel with his own gray ghost. I became very much concerned to
prevent anything of the sort. I heard the other's soothing undertone.
"My father's a parson in Norfolk," it said. Evidently he had forgotten
he had told me this important fact before. Truly a nice little tale.
"You had better slip down into my stateroom now," I said, moving off
stealthily. My double followed my movements; our bare feet made no
sound; I let him in, closed the door with care, and, after giving a call
to the second mate, returned on deck for my relief.
"Not much sign of any wind yet," I remarked when he approached.
"No, sir. Not much," he assented, sleepily, in his hoarse voice, with
just enough deference, no more, and barely suppressing a yawn.
"Well, that's all you have to look out for. You have got your orders."
"Yes, sir."
I paced a turn or two on the poop and saw him take up his position face
forward with his elbow in the ratlines of the mizzen rigging before I
went below. The mate's faint snoring was still going on peacefully.
The cuddy lamp was burning over the table on which stood a vase with
flowers, a polite attention from the ship's provision merchant--the
last flowers we should see for the next three months at the very least.
Two bunches of bananas hung from the beam symmetrically, one on each
side of the rudder casing. Everything was as before in the ship--except
that two of her captain's sleeping suits were simultaneously in use, one
motionless in the cuddy, the other keeping very still in the captain's
stateroom.
It must be explained here that my cabin had the form of the capital
letter L, the door being within the angle and opening into the short
part of the letter. A couch was to the left, the bed place to the right;
my writing desk and the chronometers' table faced the door. But anyone
opening it, unless he stepped right inside, had no view of what I call
the long (or vertical) part of the letter. It contained some lockers
surmounted by a bookcase; and a few clothes, a thick jacket or two,
caps, oilskin coat, and such like, hung on hooks. There was at the
bottom of that part a door opening into my bathroom, which could be
entered also directly from the saloon. But that way was never used.
The mysterious arrival had discovered the advantage of this particular
shape. Entering my room, lighted strongly by a big bulkhead lamp swung
on gimbals above my writing desk, I did not see him anywhere till he
stepped out quietly from behind the coats hung in the recessed part.
"I heard somebody moving about, and went in there at once," he
whispered.
I, too, spoke under my breath.
"Nobody is likely to come in here without knocking and getting
permission."
He nodded. His face was thin and the sunburn faded, as though he had
been ill. And no wonder. He had been, I heard presently, kept under
arrest in his cabin for nearly seven weeks. But there was nothing sickly
in his eyes or in his expression. He was not a bit like me, really; yet,
as we stood leaning over my bed place, whispering side by side, with our
dark heads together and our backs to the door, anybody bold enough to
open it stealthily would have been treated to the uncanny sight of a
double captain busy talking in whispers with his other self.
"But all this doesn't tell me how you came to hang on to our side
ladder," I inquired, in the hardly audible murmurs we used, after he had
told me something more of the proceedings on board the Sephora once the
bad weather was over.
"When we sighted Java Head I had had time to think all those matters out
several times over. I had six weeks of doing nothing else, and with only
an hour or so every evening for a tramp on the quarter-deck."
He whispered, his arms folded on the side of my bed place, staring
through the open port. And I could imagine perfectly the manner of this
thinking out--a stubborn if not a steadfast operation; something of
which I should have been perfectly incapable.
"I reckoned it would be dark before we closed with the land," he
continued, so low that I had to strain my hearing near as we were to
each other, shoulder touching shoulder almost. "So I asked to speak to
the old man. He always seemed very sick when he came to see me--as if he
could not look me in the face. You know, that foresail saved the ship.
She was too deep to have run long under bare poles. And it was I
that managed to set it for him. Anyway, he came. When I had him in my
cabin--he stood by the door looking at me as if I had the halter round
my neck already--I asked him right away to leave my cabin door unlocked
at night while the ship was going through Sunda Straits. There would
be the Java coast within two or three miles, off Angier Point. I wanted
nothing more. I've had a prize for swimming my second year in
|
ship
|
How many times does the word 'ship' appear in the text?
| 3
|
, eroded earth. The three men file past camera to
stop in the immediate F.g. and look down into the valley.
They exchange glances and start down.
<b> DISSOLVE
</b>
<b> EXT. FORSTER CAMP - DAWN
</b>
MED. SHOT - ANGLED THROUGH willows. A bearded man, Cal
Forster, and two young fellows in their late teens squat
beside a campfire eating breakfast. O.s. there is the SOUND
of movement. Lednov moves cautiously into the scene. He has
a revolver in his hand.
Forster turns toward camera and fear comes into his
expression. Lednov fires. Forster crumples near the fire.
The two boys jump to their feet and reach for rifles. Lednov
fires again and again. McCall and Peters come into the scene,
both firing revolvers.
<b> DISSOLVE
</b>
<b> EXT. FORSTER CAMP - DAWN
</b>
MED SHOT - ANGLED ACROSS campfire. On the fire smoulders the
prison clothes the convicts had worn. Smoke spirals up. In
the B.B. Lednov, Peters and McCall, now wearing the clothes
of the three Forsters, saddle the horses. CAMERA PANS AROUND
and ANGLES DOWN. The bodies of Forster and his sons, now
clad in underwear are sprawled by the fire. Forster's arm
lies close to the smouldering clothing.
<b> DISSOLVE
</b>
<b> EXT. CREEK - DAWN
</b>
MED. LONG SHOT. Smoke climbs above the trees. Into the
clearing ride the three convicts, to cross it and move
westward. They disappear over the hill. A dust cloud marks
their passage. CAMERA HOLDS ON the scene and over the shot
comes the MAIN TITLE CARD:
<b> ROUGHSHOD
</b>
<b> EXT. DESERT ROAD - DAY
</b>
LONG SHOT. A buckboard drawn by two horses comes along the
road. Graham, a middle-aged rancher, is driving. As the horses
trot forward and dust rises above the road, the NEXT TITLE
CARD is shown.
<b> DISSOLVE
</b>
<b> EXT. CREEK - DAY
</b>
LONG SHOT - DOWN ANGLE. Graham's buckboard moves down the
road toward the clearing, as the TITLE CARDS follow and
change. When the buckboard reaches the creek, the LAST TITLE
CARD is ended.
<b> EXT. MEADOW - DAY
</b>
MED. SHOT. Graham drives the horses through the creek and
into the meadow. Through the trees the Forster camp can be
seen. Graham glances over, then suddenly pulls on the reins.
As the horses stop, he twists the reins around the whip stock,
grabs his rifle from under the seat, leaps out and hurries
forward toward the camp.
<b> EXT. FORSTER CAMP - DAY
</b>
MED. SHOT. Graham hurries through the trees to stop in horror
near the dead men. Then very slowly he moves forward to the
smouldering fire. Stooping he lifts Forster's arm away from
the fire, then picks up one of the prison coats and looks at
it.
<b> DISSOLVE
</b>
<b> EXT. DESERT ROAD - DAY
</b>
MED. LONG SHOT. The surrounding hills are covered with scrub
pinon pine and mesquite. Graham's buckboard, moving slowly
up a hill, passes camera, which PANS WITH it. In the bed,
covered by a tarp, are the three bodies. The narrow, one-way
road climbs easily up the gentle hill. Beyond, a dust cloud
rises. As Graham's buckboard nears the crest, a surrey appears
and starts down. Graham pulls his team into the bank, trying
to make room for the surrey.
<b> MED. SHOT
</b>
There are four women in the two-seated surrey, which is
heavily loaded with trunks, hatboxes, etc. Mary Wells, the
loveliest of the four, is driving. She is more poised, more
self-assured than the others. Her clothes, though a trifle
showy, are attractive. She wears a large spectacular hat.
Helen Carter, showier, harder and more cynical, sits beside
her. In the seat behind are Marcia Paine, placid, younger
looking than her years, and Elaine Ross, a striking blonde
with a pale
|
shot
|
How many times does the word 'shot' appear in the text?
| 3
|
her after the holidays
from a veritable castel in Auvergne. It seemed to our own young woman
that these attributes made her friend more at home in the world than if
she had been the daughter of even the most prosperous grocer. A certain
aristocratic impudence Mademoiselle de Mauves abundantly possessed,
and her raids among her friend's finery were quite in the spirit of her
baronial ancestors in the twelfth century--a spirit regarded by
Euphemia but as a large way of understanding friendship, a freedom from
conformities without style, and one that would sooner or later express
itself in acts of surprising magnanimity. There doubtless prevailed
in the breast of Mademoiselle de Mauves herself a dimmer vision of the
large securities that Euphemia envied her. She was to become later in
life so accomplished a schemer that her sense of having further heights
to scale might well have waked up early. The especially fine appearance
made by our heroine's ribbons and trinkets as her friend wore them
ministered to pleasure on both sides, and the spell was not of a nature
to be menaced by the young American's general gentleness. The concluding
motive of Marie's writing to her grandmamma to invite Euphemia for a
three weeks' holiday to the castel in Auvergne involved, however, the
subtlest considerations. Mademoiselle de Mauves indeed, at this time
seventeen years of age and capable of views as wide as her wants, was as
proper a figure as could possibly have been found for the foreground
of a scene artfully designed; and Euphemia, whose years were of like
number, asked herself if a right harmony with such a place mightn't
come by humble prayer. It is a proof of the sincerity of the latter's
aspirations that the castel was not a shock to her faith. It was neither
a cheerful nor a luxurious abode, but it was as full of wonders as a
box of old heirlooms or objects "willed." It had battered towers and
an empty moat, a rusty drawbridge and a court paved with crooked
grass-grown slabs over which the antique coach-wheels of the lady with
the hooked nose seemed to awaken the echoes of the seventeenth century.
Euphemia was not frightened out of her dream; she had the pleasure of
seeing all the easier passages translated into truth, as the learner
of a language begins with the common words. She had a taste for old
servants, old anecdotes, old furniture, faded household colours and
sweetly stale odours--musty treasures in which the Chateau de Mauves
abounded. She made a dozen sketches in water-colours after her
conventual pattern; but sentimentally, as one may say, she was for ever
sketching with a freer hand.
Old Madame de Mauves had nothing severe but her nose, and she seemed to
Euphemia--what indeed she had every claim to pass for--the very image
and pattern of an "historical character." Belonging to a great order of
things, she patronised the young stranger who was ready to sit all day
at her feet and listen to anecdotes of the bon temps and quotations from
the family chronicles. Madame de Mauves was a very honest old woman; she
uttered her thoughts with ancient plainness. One day after pushing back
Euphemia's shining locks and blinking with some tenderness from behind
an immense face-a-main that acted as for the relegation of the girl
herself to the glass case of a museum, she declared with an energetic
shake of the head that she didn't know what to make of such a little
person. And in answer to the little person's evident wonder, "I should
like to advise you," she said, "but you seem to me so all of a piece
that I'm afraid that if I advise you I shall spoil you. It's easy to see
you're not one of us. I don't know whether you're better, but you
seem to me to have been wound up by some key that isn't kept by your
governess or your confessor or even your mother, but that you wear by
a fine black ribbon round your own neck. Little persons in my day--when
they were stupid they were very docile, but when they were clever they
were very sly! You're clever enough, I imagine, and yet if I guessed all
your secrets at this moment is there one I should have to frown at? I
can tell you a wickeder one than any you've discovered for yourself. If
you wish to live at ease in the doux pays de France don't trouble too
much about the key of your conscience or even about your conscience
itself--I mean your own particular one. You'll fancy it saying things it
won't help your case to hear. They'll make you sad, and when you're sad
you'll grow plain, and when you're plain you'll grow bitter, and when
you're bitter you'll be peu aimable. I was brought up to think that a
woman's first duty is to be infinitely so, and the happiest women I've
known have been in fact those who performed this duty faithfully. As
you're not a Catholic I suppose you can't be a devote; and if you don't
take life as a fifty years' mass the only way to take it's as a game of
skill. Listen to this. Not to lose at the game of life you must--I don't
say cheat, but not be too sure your neighbour won't, and not be shocked
out of your self-possession if he does. Don't lose, my dear--I beseech
you don't lose. Be neither suspicious nor credulous, and if you find
your neighbour peeping don't cry out; only very politely wait your own
chance. I've had my revenge more than once in my day, but I really think
the sweetest I could take, en somme, against the past I've known, would
be to have your blest innocence profit by my experience."
This was rather bewildering advice, but Euphemia understood it too
little to be either edified or frightened. She sat listening to it very
much as she would have listened to the speeches of an old lady in a
comedy whose diction should strikingly correspond to the form of her
high-backed armchair and the fashion of her coif. Her indifference was
doubly dangerous, for Madame de Mauves spoke at the instance of coming
events, and her words were the result of a worry of scruples--scruples
in the light of which Euphemia was on the one hand too tender a victim
to be sacrificed to an ambition and the prosperity of her own house on
the other too precious a heritage to be sacrificed to an hesitation. The
prosperity in question had suffered repeated and grievous breaches and
the menaced institution been overmuch pervaded by that cold comfort in
which people are obliged to balance dinner-table allusions to feudal
ancestors against the absence of side-dishes; a state of things the
sorrier as the family was now mainly represented by a gentleman whose
appetite was large and who justly maintained that its historic glories
hadn't been established by underfed heroes.
Three days after Euphemia's arrival Richard de Mauves, coming down from
Paris to pay his respects to his grandmother, treated our heroine to her
first encounter with a gentilhomme in the flesh. On appearing he kissed
his grandmother's hand with a smile which caused her to draw it away
with dignity, and set Euphemia, who was standing by, to ask herself
what could have happened between them. Her unanswered wonder was but the
beginning of a long chain of puzzlements, but the reader is free to know
that the smile of M. de Mauves was a reply to a postscript affixed by
the old lady to a letter addressed to him by her granddaughter as
soon as the girl had been admitted to justify the latter's promises.
Mademoiselle de Mauves brought her letter to her grandmother for
approval, but obtained no more than was expressed in a frigid nod. The
old lady watched her with this coldness while she proceeded to seal the
letter, then suddenly bade her open it again and bring her a pen.
"Your sister's flatteries are all nonsense," she wrote; "the young
lady's far too good for you, mauvais sujet beyond redemption. If you've
a particle of conscience you'll not come and disturb the repose of an
angel of innocence."
The other relative of the subject of this warning, who had read these
lines, made up a little face as she freshly indited the address; but she
laid down her pen with a confident nod which might have denoted that by
her judgement her brother was appealed to on the ground of a principle
that didn't exist in him. And "if you meant what you said," the young
man on his side observed to his grandmother on his first private
opportunity, "it would have been simpler not to have sent the letter."
Put out of humour perhaps by this gross impugnment of her sincerity, the
head of the family kept her room on pretexts during a greater part of
Euphemia's stay, so that the latter's angelic innocence was left all to
her grandson's mercy. It suffered no worse mischance, however, than to
be prompted to intenser communion with itself. Richard de Mauves was the
hero of the young girl's romance made real, and so completely accordant
with this creature of her imagination that she felt afraid of him almost
as she would have been of a figure in a framed picture who should have
stepped down from the wall. He was now thirty-three--young enough to
suggest possibilities of ardent activity and old enough to have formed
opinions that a simple woman might deem it an intellectual privilege to
listen to. He was perhaps a trifle handsomer than Euphemia's rather grim
Quixotic ideal, but a very few days reconciled her to his good looks as
effectually they would have reconciled her to a characterised want of
them. He was quiet, grave, eminently distinguished. He spoke little,
but his remarks, without being sententious, had a nobleness of tone that
caused them to re-echo in the young girl's ears at the end of the day.
He paid her very little direct attention, but his chance words--when he
only asked her if she objected to his cigarette--were accompanied by a
smile of extraordinary kindness.
It happened that shortly after his arrival, riding an unruly horse which
Euphemia had with shy admiration watched him mount in the castle-yard,
he was thrown with a violence which, without disparaging his skill, made
him for a fortnight an interesting invalid lounging in the library
with a bandaged knee. To beguile his confinement the accomplished young
stranger was repeatedly induced to sing for him, which she did with a
small natural tremor that might have passed for the finish of vocal
art. He
|
this
|
How many times does the word 'this' appear in the text?
| 2
|
heathen systems. Several systems of religion essentially the same in
character and spirit as that religion now known as Christianity, and
setting forth the same doctrines, principles and precepts, and several
personages filling a chapter in history almost identical with that of
Jesus Christ, it is now known to those who are up with the discoveries
and intelligence of the age, were venerated in the East centuries before
a religion called Christian, or a personage called Jesus Christ were
known to history.
Will you not, then, give it up that your religion is merely a human
production, reconstructed from heathen materials--from oriental systems
several thousand years older than yours--or will you continue, in spite
of the unanimous and unalterable verdict of history, science, facts and
logic, to proclaim to the world the now historically demonstrated
error which you have so long preached, that God is the author of your
religion, and Jesus Christ a Deity-begotten Messiah? Though you may have
heretofore honestly believed these doctrines to be true, you can now no
longer plead ignorance as an excuse for propagating such gigantic
and serious errors, as they are now overwhelmingly demonstrated by a
thousand facts of history to be untrue. You must abandon such exalted
claims for your religion, or posterity will mark you as being "blind
leaders of the blind." They will heap upon your honored names their
unmitigated ridicule and condemnation. They will charge you as being
either deplorably ignorant, or disloyal to the cause of truth. And shame
and ignominy will be your portion.
The following propositions (fatal to your claims for Christianity) are
established beyond confutation by the historical facts cited in this
work, viz:--
1. There were many cases of the miraculous birth of Gods reported in
history before the case of Jesus Christ.
2 Also many other cases of Gods being born of virgin mothers.
3. Many of these Gods, like Christ, were (reputedly) born on the 25th of
December.
4. Their advent into the world, like that of Jesus Christ, is in many
cases claimed to have been foretold by "inspired prophets."
5. Stars figured at the birth of several of them, as in the case of
Christ.
6. Also angels, shepherds, and magi, or "wise men."
7. Many of them, like Christ, were claimed to be of royal or princely
descent.
8. Their lives, like his, were also threatened in infancy by the ruler
of the country.
9. Several of them, like him, gave early proof of divinity.
10. And, like him, retired from the world and fasted.
11. Also, like him, declared, "My kingdom is not of this world."
12. Some of them preached a spiritual religion, too, like his.
13. And were "anointed with oil," like him.
14. Many of them, like him, were "crucified for the sins of the world."
15. And after three days' interment "rose from the dead."
16. And, finally, like him, are reported as ascending back to heaven.
17. The same violent convulsions of nature at the crucifixion of several
are reported.
18. They were nearly all called "Saviors," "Son of God," "Messiah,"
"Redeemer," "Lord," &c.
19. Each one was the second member of the trinity of "Father, Son and
Holy Ghost."
20. The doctrines of "Original Sin," "Fall of Man," "The Atonement,"
"The Trinity," "The Word," "Forgiveness," "An Angry God," "Future
Endless Punishment," etc., etc. (see the author's "Biography of Satan,")
were a part of the religion of each of these sin-atoning Gods, as
found set forth in several oriental bibles and "holy books," similar in
character and spirit to the Christian's bible, and written, like it,
by "inspired and holy men" before the time of either Christ or Moses
(before Moses, in some cases, at least). All these doctrines and
declarations, and many others not here enumerated, the historical
citations of this work abundantly prove, were taught in various
oriental heathen nations centuries before the birth of Christ, or before
Christianity, as a religion, was known in the world.
Will you, then, after learning these facts, longer dare assert that
Christianity is of divine emanation, or claim a special divine paternity
for its author. Only the priest, who loves his _salary_ more than
the cause of _truth_ (and I fear this class are numerous,) or who is
deplorably ignorant of history, will have the effrontery or audacity to
do so. For the historical facts herein set forth as clearly prove such
assumptions to be false, as figures can demonstrate the truth of any
mathematical problem. And no logic can overthrow, and no sophistry can
set aside these facts.
They will stand till the end of time in spite of your efforts either to
evade, ignore, or invalidate them.
We will here briefly state:--
WHY ALL THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS WERE ALIKE.
Two causes are obviously assignable for Christianity in all its
essential features and phases, being so strikingly similar to the
ancient pagan systems which preceded it, as also the close analogies of
all the principal systems, whose doctrines and practical teachings have
found a place on the pages of history.
1. The primary and constituent elements and properties of human nature
being essentially the same in all countries and all centuries, and the
feeling called Religion being a spontaneous outgrowth of the devotional
elements of the human mind, the coincidence would naturally produce
similar feelings, similar thoughts, similar views and similar doctrines
on the subject of religion in different countries, however widely
separated. This accounts in part for the analogous features observable
in all the primary systems of religious faith, which have flourished in
the past ages.
2. A more potent cause, however, for the proximate identity extending
to such an elaborate detail, as is evinced by the foregoing schedule,
is found in the historical incident which brought the disciples of the
various systems of worship together, face to face, in the then grand
religious emporium of the world--the royal and renowned city of
Alexandria, the capital of Egypt Here, drawn together by various motives
and influences, the devotee of India (the devout disciple of
Buddhism), the ever-prayerful worshipper of "Mithra, the Mediator," the
representatives of the crucified Quexalcoate of Mexico, the self-denying
Essene, the superstitious Egyptian, the godly Chaldean, the imitative
Judean founders of Christianity, and the disciples of other sin-atoning
Gods, met and interchanged ideas, discussed their various dogmas,
remolded their doctrines, and recast and rehabilitated their systems
of religious faith by borrowing from each other, and from other systems
there represented. In this way all became remarkably similar and alike
in all their doctrines and details. And thus the mystery is solved,
and the singular resemblance of all the ancient systems of religion
satisfactorily accounted for. (For a fuller explanation of this matter,
see Chapters XXX. and XXXI. of this work.)
In conclusion, please note the following points:--
1. The religious conceptions of the Old Testament are as easily traced
to heathen sources as those of the New Testament. But we are compelled
to exclude such an exposition from this work.
2. The comparative exhibition of the doctrines and teachings of twenty
bibles which proves them to be in their leading features essentially
alike (originally designed for this volume), is found to be, when
completed, of sufficient magnitude to constitute a volume of itself.
3. Here I desire to impress upon the minds of my clerical brethren the
important fact, that the gospel histories of Christ were written by men
who had formerly been Jews (see Acts xxi. 20), and probably possessing
the strong proclivity to imitate and borrow which their bible shows
was characteristic of that nation; and being written many years after
Christ's death, according to that standard Christian author, Dr.
Lardner, it was impossible, under such circumstances, for them to
separate (if they had desired to) the real facts and events of his life
from the innumerable fictions and fables then afloat everywhere relative
to the heathen Gods who had pre-enacted a similar history. Two reasons
are thus furnished for their constructing a history of Christ almost
identical with that of other Gods, as shown in chapters XXX., XXXI. and
XXXII. of this work.
4. The singular and senseless defense of your now tottering system
we have known to be attempted by members of your order, by the
self-complacent soliloquy "Christianity, whether divine or human, is
good enough for me." But such a subterfuge betrays both a weak mind
and a weak cause. The disciples of all the oriental systems cherished
a similar feeling and a similar sentiment. And the deluded followers
of Brigham Young exclaimed in like manner, "I want nothing better than
Mormonism." "Snakes, lizards and frogs are good enough for me," a South
Sea Islander once exclaimed to a missionary, when a reform diet was
proposed. Such logic, if universally adopted, would keep the world
eternally in barbarism. No progress can be made where such sentiments
prevail. The truth is, no system of religion, whatever its ostensible
marks of perfection, can long remain "good enough" for aspiring
and progressive minds, unless occasionally improved, like other
institutions. And then it should be borne in mind, that our controversy
does not appertain so much to the character as to the origin of the
Christian religion. Our many incontrovertible proofs, that it is
of human and heathen origin, proves at the same time that it is an
imperfect system, and as such, needing occasional improvement, like
other institutions. And its assumed perfection and divine origin which
have always guarded it from improvement, amply accounts for its present
corrupt, immoral, declining and dying condition. And it will ere long
die with paralysis, unless its assumption of divine perfection is soon
exchanged for the principles of improvement and reconstruction. This
policy alone can save it.
5. We will here notice another feeble, futile and foolish expedient we
have known resorted to by persons of your order to save your sinking
cause when the evidence is presented with such cogency as to admit of no
disproof, that all the important doctrines of Christianity were taught
by older heathen systems before the era of Christ The plea is, that
those systems were mere types, or ante-types, of the Christian religion.
But this plea is of itself a borrowed subter
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that
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How many times does the word 'that' appear in the text?
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al, as not well knowing what was to be their
position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands
affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed
state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might fairly be
dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly concluded when the
door opened, and Zenobia--whom I had never before seen, important as
was her place in our enterprise--Zenobia entered the parlor.
This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography,
need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had assumed it, in
the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded well
with something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's
figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it in their
familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in good part,
and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was thus far
appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new
philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what
to do with.
III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS
Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave each
of us her hand, which was very soft and warm. She had something
appropriate, I recollect, to say to every individual; and what she said
to myself was this:--"I have long wished to know you, Mr. Coverdale,
and to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which I have
learned by heart; or rather it has stolen into my memory, without my
exercising any choice or volition about the matter. Of course--permit
me to say you do not think of relinquishing an occupation in which you
have done yourself so much credit. I would almost rather give you up
as an associate, than that the world should lose one of its true poets!"
"Ah, no; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially
after this inestimable praise from Zenobia," said I, smiling, and
blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. "I hope, on the contrary,
now to produce something that shall really deserve to be called
poetry,--true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which we are
going to lead,--something that shall have the notes of wild birds
twittering through it, or a strain like the wind anthems in the woods,
as the case may be."
"Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked Zenobia,
with a gracious smile. "If so, I am very sorry, for you will certainly
hear me singing them sometimes, in the summer evenings."
"Of all things," answered I, "that is what will delight me most."
While this passed, and while she spoke to my companions, I was taking
note of Zenobia's aspect; and it impressed itself on me so distinctly,
that I can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the
life but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed as simply as
possible, in an American print (I think the dry-goods people call it
so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was
one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good
fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair, which was
dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and
primly--without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It
was an exotic of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hothouse gardener
had just clipt it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into
my memory. I can both see it and smell it, at this moment. So
brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have been, and yet enduring
only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had
a luxuriant growth in Zenobia's character than if a great diamond had
sparkled among her hair.
Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to
have, or than they could afford to have, though not a whit too large in
proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia's entire development. It
did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its
natural tendency lay in another direction than towards literature) so
fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on
the hither verge of her richest maturity, with a combination of
features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some
fastidious persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness
and delicacy. But we find enough of those attributes everywhere.
Preferable--by way of variety, at least--was Zenobia's bloom, health,
and vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man might well
have fallen in love with her for their sake only. In her quiet moods,
she seemed rather indolent; but when really in earnest, particularly if
there were a spice of bitter feeling, she grew all alive to her
finger-tips.
"I am the first comer," Zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed
warmth upon us all; "so I take the part of hostess for to-day, and
welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at
supper. Tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and
begin our new life from daybreak."
"Have we our various parts assigned?" asked some one.
"Oh, we of the softer sex," responded Zenobia, with her mellow, almost
broad laugh,--most delectable to hear, but not in the least like an
ordinary woman's laugh,--"we women (there are four of us here already)
will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a matter of
course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to stew,--to wash, and
iron, and scrub, and sweep,--and, at our idler intervals, to repose
ourselves on knitting and sewing,--these, I suppose, must be feminine
occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when our individual
adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who
wear the petticoat will go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to
take our places in the kitchen."
"What a pity," I remarked, "that the kitchen, and the housework
generally, cannot be left out of our system altogether! It is odd
enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just
that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life--the life of
degenerated mortals--from the life of Paradise. Eve had no dinner-pot,
and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day."
"I am afraid," said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, "we
shall find some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for at
least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the
window! Are there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples
been gathered to-day? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoanut?
Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No, no, Mr. Coverdale; the
only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a
greenhouse this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she,
shivering playfully, "I shall not assume it till after May-day!"
Assuredly Zenobia could not have intended it,--the fault must have been
entirely in my imagination. But these last words, together with
something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that
fine, perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment. Her free,
careless, generous modes of expression often had this effect of
creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite
decorous when born of a thought that passes between man and woman. I
imputed it, at that time, to Zenobia's noble courage, conscious of no
harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color
out of other women's conversation. There was another peculiarity about
her. We seldom meet with women nowadays, and in this country, who
impress us as being women at all,--their sex fades away and goes for
nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so with Zenobia. One felt an
influence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from
Eve, when she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam,
saying, "Behold! here is a woman!" Not that I would convey the idea of
especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm
and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been
refined away out of the feminine system.
"And now," continued Zenobia, "I must go and help get supper. Do you
think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the
other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a
certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a
housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there shall be bread and
milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it."
The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly
declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood for the
kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. After heaping up more
than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting-room, drew our
chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over our prospects.
Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared Silas Foster,
lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grizzly-bearded. He came from foddering
the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been
ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a
furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same tone as if he were
speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobacco-box, pulled off
his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before the fire in his
stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked garments, so that the
stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like.
"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to
town again, if this weather holds
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from
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How many times does the word 'from' appear in the text?
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antly related. Panshin's father, a retired cavalry
officer and a notorious gambler, was a man with insinuating eyes, a
battered countenance, and a nervous twitch about the mouth. He spent his
whole life hanging about the aristocratic world; frequented the English
clubs of both capitals, and had the reputation of a smart, not very
trustworthy, but jolly good-natured fellow. In spite of his smartness,
he was almost always on the brink of ruin, and the property he left his
son was small and heavily-encumbered. To make up for that, however,
he did exert himself, after his own fashion, over his son's education.
Vladimir Nikolaitch spoke French very well, English well, and German
badly; that is the proper thing; fashionable people would be ashamed
to speak German well; but to utter an occasional--generally a
humorous--phrase in German is quite correct, c'est meme tres chic,
as the Parisians of Petersburg express themselves. By the time he
was fifteen, Vladimir knew how to enter any drawing-room without
embarrassment, how to move about in it gracefully and to leave it at
the appropriate moment. Panshin's father gained many connections for his
son. He never lost an opportunity, while shuffling the cards between
two rubbers, or playing a successful trump, of dropping a hint about his
Volodka to any personage of importance who was a devotee of cards. And
Vladimir, too, during his residence at the university, which he left
without a very brilliant degree, formed an acquaintance with several
young men of quality, and gained an entry into the best houses. He was
received cordially everywhere: he was very good-looking, easy in his
manners, amusing, always in good health, and ready for everything;
respectful, when he ought to be; insolent, when he dared to be;
excellent company, un charmant garcon. The promised land lay before him.
Panshin quickly learnt the secret of getting on in the world; he knew
how to yield with genuine respect to its decrees; he knew how to take
up trifles with half ironical seriousness, and to appear to regard
everything serious as trifling; he was a capital dancer; and dressed in
the English style. In a short time he gained the reputation of being one
of the smartest and most attractive young men in Petersburg.
Panshin was indeed very smart, not less so than his father; but he was
also very talented. He did everything well; he sang charmingly, sketched
with spirit, wrote verses, and was a very fair actor. He was only
twenty-eight, and he was already a kammer-yunker, and had a very
good position. Panshin had complete confidence in himself, in his
own intelligence, and his own penetration; he made his way with
light-hearted assurance, everything went smoothly with him. He was
used to being liked by every one, old and young, and imagined that
he understood people, especially women: he certainly understood their
ordinary weaknesses. As a man of artistic leanings, he was conscious of
a capacity for passion, for being carried away, even for enthusiasm,
and consequently, he permitted himself various irregularities; he was
dissipated, associated with persons not belonging to good society, and,
in general, conducted himself in a free and easy manner; but at heart he
was cold and false, and at the moment of the most boisterous revelry
his sharp brown eye was always alert, taking everything in. This bold,
independent young man could never forget himself and be completely
carried away. To his credit it must be said, that he never boasted
of his conquests. He had found his way into Marya Dmitrievna's house
immediately he arrived in O----, and was soon perfectly at home there.
Marya Dmitrievna absolutely adored him. Panshin exchanged cordial
greetings with every one in the room; he shook hands with Marya
Dmitrievna and Lisaveta Mihalovna, clapped Gedeonovsky lightly on the
shoulder, and turning round on his heels, put his hand on Lenotchka's
head and kissed her on the forehead.
"Aren't you afraid to ride such a vicious horse?" Marya Dmitrievna
questioned him.
"I assure you he's very quiet, but I will tell you what I am afraid
of: I'm afraid to play preference with Sergei Petrovitch; yesterday he
cleaned me out of everything at Madame Byelenitsin's."
Gedeonovsky gave a thin, sympathetic little laugh; he was anxious to
be in favour with the brilliant young official from Petersburg--the
governor's favourite. In conversation with Marya Dmitrievna, he often
alluded to Panshin's remarkable abilities. Indeed, he used to argue,
how can one help admiring him? The young man is making his way in the
highest spheres, he is an exemplary official, and not a bit of pride
about him. And, in fact, even in Petersburg Panshin was reckoned a
capable official; he got through a great deal of work; he spoke of it
lightly as befits a man of the world who does not attach any special
importance to his labours, but he never hesitated in carrying out
orders. The authorities like such subordinates; he himself had no doubt,
that if he chose, he could be a minister in time.
"You are pleased to say that I cleaned you out," replied Gedeonovsky;
"but who was it won twelve roubles of me last week and more?"...
"You're a malicious fellow," Panshin interrupted, with genial but
somewhat contemptuous carelessness, and, paying him no further
attention, he went up to Lisa.
"I cannot get the overture of Oberon here," he began. "Madame
Byelenitsin was boasting when she said she had all the classical music:
in reality she has nothing but polkas and waltzes, but I have already
written to Moscow, and within a week you will have the overture. By the
way," he went on, "I wrote a new song yesterday, the words too are mine,
would you care for me to sing it? I don't know how far it is successful.
Madame Byelenitsin thought it very pretty, but her words mean nothing. I
should like to know what you think of it. But, I think, though, that had
better be later on."
"Why later on?" interposed Marya Dmitrievna, "why not now?"
"I obey," replied Panshin, with a peculiar bright and sweet smile, which
came and went suddenly on his face. He drew up a chair with his
knee, sat down to the piano, and striking a few chords began to sing,
articulating the words clearly, the following song--
Above the earth the moon floats high
Amid pale clouds;
Its magic light in that far sky
Yet stirs the floods.
My heart has found a moon to rule
Its stormy sea;
To joy and sorrow it is moved
Only by thee.
My soul is full of love's cruel smart,
And longing vain;
But thou art calm, as that cold moon,
That knows not pain.
The second couplet was sung by Panshin with special power and
expression, the sound of waves was heard in the stormy accompaniment.
After the words "and longing vain," he sighed softly, dropped his eyes
and let his voice gradually die away, morendo. When he had finished,
Lisa praised the motive, Marya Dmitrievna cried, "Charming!" but
Gedeonovsky went so far as to exclaim, "Ravishing poetry, and music
equally ravishing!" Lenotchka looked with childish reverence at the
singer. In short, every one present was delighted with the young
dilettante's composition; but at the door leading into the drawing-room
from the hall stood an old man, who had only just come in, and who,
to judge by the expression of his downcast face and the shrug of his
shoulders, was by no means pleased with Panshin's song, pretty though it
was. After waiting a moment and flicking the dust off his boots with
a coarse pocket-handkerchief, this man suddenly raised his eyes,
compressed his lips with a morose expression, and his stooping figure
bent forward, he entered the drawing-room.
"Ah! Christopher Fedoritch, how are you?" exclaimed Panshin before any
of the others could speak, and he jumped up quickly from his seat. "I
had no suspicion that you were here--nothing would have induced me to
sing my song before you. I know you are no lover of light music."
"I did not hear it," declared the new-comer, in very bad Russian, and
exchanging greetings with every one, he stood awkwardly in the middle of
the room.
"Have you come, Monsieur Lemm," said Marya Dmitrievna, "to give Lisa her
music lesson?"
"No, not Lisaveta Mihalovna, but Elena Mihalovna."
"Oh! very well. Lenotchka, go up-stairs with Mr. Lemm."
The old man was about to follow the little girl, but Panshin stopped
him.
"Don't go after the lesson, Christopher Fedoritch," he said. "Lisa
Mihalovna and I are going to play a duet of Beethoven's sonata."
The old man muttered some reply, and Panshin continued in German,
mispronouncing the words--
"Lisaveta Mihalovna showed me the religious cantata you dedicated to
her--a beautiful thing! Pray, do not suppose that I cannot appreciate
serious music--quite the contrary: it is tedious sometimes, but then it
is very elevating."
The old man crimsoned to his ears, and with a sidelong look at Lisa, he
hurriedly went out of the room.
Marya Dmitrievna asked Panshin to sing his song again; but he protested
that he did not wish to torture the ears of the musical German, and
suggested to Lisa that they should attack Beethoven's sonata. Then Marya
Dmitrievna heaved a sigh,
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marya
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How many times does the word 'marya' appear in the text?
| 3
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, too, he used to help her mother with her gardening, and
hover about her while she stood on the ladder and hammered creepers to
the scullery wall.
It had been Ann Veronica's lot as the youngest child to live in a home
that became less animated and various as she grew up. Her mother had
died when she was thirteen, her two much older sisters had married
off--one submissively, one insubordinately; her two brothers had gone
out into the world well ahead of her, and so she had made what she could
of her father. But he was not a father one could make much of.
His ideas about girls and women were of a sentimental and modest
quality; they were creatures, he thought, either too bad for a modern
vocabulary, and then frequently most undesirably desirable, or too pure
and good for life. He made this simple classification of a large and
various sex to the exclusion of all intermediate kinds; he held that
the two classes had to be kept apart even in thought and remote from one
another. Women are made like the potter's vessels--either for worship
or contumely, and are withal fragile vessels. He had never wanted
daughters. Each time a daughter had been born to him he had concealed
his chagrin with great tenderness and effusion from his wife, and had
sworn unwontedly and with passionate sincerity in the bathroom. He was
a manly man, free from any strong maternal strain, and he had loved his
dark-eyed, dainty bright-colored, and active little wife with a real
vein of passion in his sentiment. But he had always felt (he had never
allowed himself to think of it) that the promptitude of their family
was a little indelicate of her, and in a sense an intrusion. He had,
however, planned brilliant careers for his two sons, and, with a certain
human amount of warping and delay, they were pursuing these. One was
in the Indian Civil Service and one in the rapidly developing motor
business. The daughters, he had hoped, would be their mother's care.
He had no ideas about daughters. They happen to a man.
Of course a little daughter is a delightful thing enough. It runs about
gayly, it romps, it is bright and pretty, it has enormous quantities of
soft hair and more power of expressing affection than its brothers. It
is a lovely little appendage to the mother who smiles over it, and it
does things quaintly like her, gestures with her very gestures. It makes
wonderful sentences that you can repeat in the City and are good
enough for Punch. You call it a lot of nicknames--"Babs" and "Bibs" and
"Viddles" and "Vee"; you whack at it playfully, and it whacks you back.
It loves to sit on your knee. All that is jolly and as it should be.
But a little daughter is one thing and a daughter quite another. There
one comes to a relationship that Mr. Stanley had never thought out.
When he found himself thinking about it, it upset him so that he at once
resorted to distraction. The chromatic fiction with which he relieved
his mind glanced but slightly at this aspect of life, and never with any
quality of guidance. Its heroes never had daughters, they borrowed other
people's. The one fault, indeed, of this school of fiction for him was
that it had rather a light way with parental rights. His instinct was in
the direction of considering his daughters his absolute property, bound
to obey him, his to give away or his to keep to be a comfort in his
declining years just as he thought fit. About this conception of
ownership he perceived and desired a certain sentimental glamour, he
liked everything properly dressed, but it remained ownership. Ownership
seemed only a reasonable return for the cares and expenses of a
daughter's upbringing. Daughters were not like sons. He perceived,
however, that both the novels he read and the world he lived in
discountenanced these assumptions. Nothing else was put in their place,
and they remained sotto voce, as it were, in his mind. The new and
the old cancelled out; his daughters became quasi-independent
dependents--which is absurd. One married as he wished and one against
his wishes, and now here was Ann Veronica, his little Vee, discontented
with her beautiful, safe, and sheltering home, going about with hatless
friends to Socialist meetings and art-class dances, and displaying a
disposition to carry her scientific ambitions to unwomanly lengths. She
seemed to think he was merely the paymaster, handing over the means
of her freedom. And now she insisted that she MUST leave the chastened
security of the Tredgold Women's College for Russell's unbridled
classes, and wanted to go to fancy dress dances in pirate costume and
spend the residue of the night with Widgett's ramshackle girls in some
indescribable hotel in Soho!
He had done his best not to think about her at all, but the situation
and his sister had become altogether too urgent. He had finally put
aside The Lilac Sunbonnet, gone into his study, lit the gas fire, and
written the letter that had brought these unsatisfactory relations to a
head.
Part 4
MY DEAR VEE, he wrote.
These daughters! He gnawed his pen and reflected, tore the sheet up, and
began again.
"MY DEAR VERONICA,--Your aunt tells me you have involved yourself in
some arrangement with the Widgett girls about a Fancy Dress Ball in
London. I gather you wish to go up in some fantastic get-up, wrapped
about in your opera cloak, and that after the festivities you propose to
stay with these friends of yours, and without any older people in your
party, at an hotel. Now I am sorry to cross you in anything you have set
your heart upon, but I regret to say--"
"H'm," he reflected, and crossed out the last four words.
"--but this cannot be."
"No," he said, and tried again: "but I must tell you quite definitely
that I feel it to be my duty to forbid any such exploit."
"Damn!" he remarked at the defaced letter; and, taking a fresh sheet, he
recopied what he had written. A certain irritation crept into his manner
as he did so.
"I regret that you should ever have proposed it," he went on.
He meditated, and began a new paragraph.
"The fact of it is, and this absurd project of yours only brings it to
a head, you have begun to get hold of some very queer ideas about what a
young lady in your position may or may not venture to do. I do not think
you quite understand my ideals or what is becoming as between father and
daughter. Your attitude to me--"
He fell into a brown study. It was so difficult to put precisely.
"--and your aunt--"
For a time he searched for the mot juste. Then he went on:
"--and, indeed, to most of the established things in life is, frankly,
unsatisfactory. You are restless, aggressive, critical with all
the crude unthinking criticism of youth. You have no grasp upon the
essential facts of life (I pray God you never may), and in your rash
ignorance you are prepared to dash into positions that may end in
lifelong regret. The life of a young girl is set about with prowling
pitfalls."
He was arrested for a moment by an indistinct picture of Veronica
reading this last sentence. But he was now too deeply moved to trace
a certain unsatisfactoriness to its source in a mixture of metaphors.
"Well," he said, argumentatively, "it IS. That's all about it. It's time
she knew."
"The life of a young girl is set about with prowling pitfalls, from
which she must be shielded at all costs."
His lips tightened, and he frowned with solemn resolution.
"So long as I am your father, so long as your life is entrusted to my
care, I feel bound by every obligation to use my authority to check this
odd disposition of yours toward extravagant enterprises. A day will come
when you will thank me. It is not, my dear Veronica, that I think there
is any harm in you; there is not. But a girl is soiled not only by evil
but by the proximity of evil, and a reputation for rashness may do
her as serious an injury as really reprehensible conduct. So do please
believe that in this matter I am acting for the best."
He signed his name and reflected. Then he opened the study door and
called "Mollie!" and returned to assume an attitude of authority on the
hearthrug, before the blue flames and orange glow of the gas fire.
His sister appeared.
She was dressed in one of those complicated dresses that are all lace
and work and confused patternings of black and purple and cream about
the body, and she was in many ways a younger feminine version of the
same theme as himself. She had the same sharp nose--which, indeed, only
Ann Veronica, of all the family, had escaped. She carried herself well,
whereas her brother slouched, and there was a certain aristocratic
dignity about her that she had acquired through her long engagement to
a curate of family, a scion of the Wiltshire Edmondshaws. He had died
before they married, and when her brother became a widower she had
come to his assistance and taken over much of the care of his youngest
daughter. But from the first her rather old-fashioned conception of life
had jarred with the suburban atmosphere, the High School spirit and the
memories of the light and little Mrs. Stanley, whose family had been by
any reckoning inconsiderable--to use the kindliest term. Miss Stanley
had determined from the outset to have the warmest affection for her
youngest niece and to be a second mother in her life--a second and a
better one; but she had found much to battle with, and there was much in
herself that Ann Veronica failed to understand. She came in now with an
air of reserved solicitude.
Mr. Stanley pointed to the letter with a pipe he had drawn from his
jacket pocket. "What do you think of that?" he asked.
She took it up in her many-ringed hands and read it judicially. He
filled his pipe slowly.
"Yes," she said at last, "it is firm and affectionate."
"I could have said more."
"You seem to have said just what had to be said. It seems to me exactly
what is wanted. She really must not go to that affair."
She paused, and he waited for her to speak.
"I don't think she quite sees the harm of those people or the sort of
life to which
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daughters
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How many times does the word 'daughters' appear in the text?
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