fiction and short story

[*زهره*]

THE DEVOTED FRIEND by: Oscar Wilde

THE DEVOTED FRIEND by: Oscar Wilde

[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, really, that is generous of you,’ said little Hans, and his funny round face glowed all over with pleasure. ‘I can easily put it in repair, as I have a plank of wood in the house.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘A plank of wood’! said the Miller; ‘why, that is just what I want for the roof of my barn. There is a very large hole in it, and the corn will all get damp if I don’t stop it up. How lucky you mentioned it! It is quite remarkable how one good action always breeds another. I have given you my wheelbarrow, and now you are going to give me your plank. Of course, the wheelbarrow is worth far more than the plank, but true, friendship never notices things like that. Pray get it at once, and I will set to work at my barn this very day.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, and he ran into the shed and dragged the plank out.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘It is not a very big plank,’ said the Miller, looking at it, ‘and I am afraid that after I have mended my barn-roof there won’t be any left for you to mend the wheelbarrow with; but, of course, that is not my fault. And now, as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I am sure you would like to give me some flowers in return. Here is the basket, and mind you fill it quite full.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Quite full?’ said little Hans, rather sorrowfully, for it was really a very big basket, and he knew that if he filled it he would have no flowers left for the market and he was very anxious to get his silver buttons back.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I don’t think that it is much to ask you for a few flowers. I may be wrong, but I should have thought that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘My dear friend, my best friend,’ cried little Hans, ‘you are welcome to all the flowers in my garden. I would much sooner have your good opinion than my silver buttons, any day’; and he ran and plucked all his pretty primroses, and filled the Miller’s basket.[/SIZE]



[SIZE=-1]“‘Good-bye, little Hans,’ said the Miller, as he went up the hill with the plank on his shoulder, and the big basket in his hand.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Good-bye,’ said little Hans, and he began to dig away quite merrily, he was so pleased about the wheelbarrow.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“The next day he was nailing up some honeysuckle against the porch, when he heard the Miller’s voice calling to him from the road. So he jumped off the ladder, and ran down the garden, and looked over the wall.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“There was the Miller with a large sack of flour on his back.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Dear little Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘would you mind carrying this sack of flour for me to market?’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said Hans, ‘but I am really very busy to-day. I have got all my creepers to nail up, and all my flowers to water, and all my grass to roll.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, really,’ said the Miller, ‘I think that, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, it is rather unfriendly of you to refuse.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Oh, don’t say that,’ cried little Hans, ‘I wouldn’t be unfriendly for the whole world’; and he ran in for his cap, and trudged off with the big sack on his shoulders.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“It was a very hot day, and the road was terribly dusty, and before Hans had reached the sixth milestone he was so tired that he had to sit down and rest. However, he went on bravely, and as last he reached the market. After he had waited there some time, he sold the sack of flour for a very good price, and then he returned home at once, for he was afraid that if he stopped too late he might meet some robbers on the way.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘It has certainly been a hard day,’ said little Hans to himself as he was going to bed, ‘but I am glad I did not refuse the Miller, for he is my best friend, and, besides, he is going to give me his wheelbarrow.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Early the next morning the Miller came down to get the money for his sack of flour, but little Hans was so tired that he was still in bed.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Upon my word,’ said the Miller, ‘you are very lazy. Really, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, I think you might work harder. Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friends to be idle or sluggish. You must not mind my speaking quite plainly to you. Of course I should not dream of doing so if I were not your friend. But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘I am very sorry,’ said little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off his night-cap, ‘but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, I am glad of that,’ said the Miller, clapping little Hans on the back, ‘for I want you to come up to the mill as soon as you are dressed, and mend my barn-roof for me.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Poor little Hans was very anxious to go and work in his garden, for his flowers had not been watered for two days, but he did not like to refuse the Miller, as he was such a good friend to him.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he inquired in a shy and timid voice.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘I do not think it is much to ask of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of course if you refuse I will go and do it myself.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Oh! on no account,’ cried little Hans and he jumped out of bed, and dressed himself, and went up to the barn.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“He worked there all day long, till sunset, and at sunset the Miller came to see how he was getting on.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Have you mended the hole in the roof yet, little Hans?’ cried the Miller in a cheery voice.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘It is quite mended,’ answered little Hans, coming down the ladder.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Ah’! said the Miller, ‘there is no work so delightful as the work one does for others.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘It is certainly a great privilege to hear you talk,’ answered little Hans, sitting down, and wiping his forehead, ‘a very great privilege. But I am afraid I shall never have such beautiful ideas as you have.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Oh! they will come to you,’ said the Miller, ‘but you must take more pains. At present you have only the practice of friendship; some day you will have the theory also.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Do you really think I shall?’ asked little Hans.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘I have no doubt of it,’ answered the Miller, ‘but now that you have mended the roof, you had better go home and rest, for I want you to drive my sheep to the mountain to-morrow.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Poor little Hans was afraid to say anything to this, and early the next morning the Miller brought his sheep round to the cottage, and Hans started off with them to the mountain. It took him the whole day to get there and back; and when he returned he was so tired that he went off to sleep in his chair, and did not wake up till it was broad daylight.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘What a delightful time I shall have in my garden,’ he said, and he went to work at once.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“But somehow he was never able to look after his flowers at all, for his friend the Miller was always coming round and sending him off on long errands, or getting him to help at the mill. Little Hans was very much distressed at times, as he was afraid his flowers would think he had forgotten them, but he consoled himself by the reflection that the Miller was his best friend. ‘Besides,’ he used to say, ‘he is going to give me his wheelbarrow, and that is an act of pure generosity.’[/SIZE]



[SIZE=-1]“So little Hans worked away for the Miller, and the Miller said all kinds of beautiful things about friendship, which Hans took down in a note-book, and used to read over at night, for he was a very good scholar.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Now it happened that one evening little Hans was sitting by his fireside when a loud rap came at the door. It was a very wild night, and the wind was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a third, louder than any of the others.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘It is some poor traveller,’ said little Hans to himself, and he ran to the door.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“There stood the Miller with a lantern in one hand and a big stick in the other.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Dear little Hans,’ cried the Miller, ‘I am in great trouble. My little boy has fallen off a ladder and hurt himself, and I am going for the Doctor. But he lives so far away, and it is such a bad night, that it has just occurred to me that it would be much better if you went instead of me. You know I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, and so, it is only fair that you should do something for me in return.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, ‘I take it quite as a compliment your coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the ditch.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘I am very sorry,’ answered the Miller, ‘but it is my new lantern, and it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Well, never mind, I will do without it,’ cried little Hans, and he took down his great fur coat, and his warm scarlet cap, and tied a muffler round his throat, and started off.[/SIZE]​

 

[*زهره*]

THE DEVOTED FRIEND by: Oscar Wilde

THE DEVOTED FRIEND by: Oscar Wilde

[SIZE=-1]“What a dreadful storm it was! The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand. However, he was very courageous, and after he had been walking about three hours, he arrived at the Doctor’s house, and knocked at the door.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Who is there?’ cried the Doctor, putting his head out of his bedroom window.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Little Hans, Doctor.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“’What do you want, little Hans?’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘The Miller’s son has fallen from a ladder, and has hurt himself, and the Miller wants you to come at once.’[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘All right!’ said the Doctor; and he ordered his horse, and his big boots, and his lantern, and came downstairs, and rode off in the direction of the Miller’s house, little Hans trudging behind him.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse. At last he lost his way, and wandered off on the moor, which was a very dangerous place, as it was full of deep holes, and there poor little Hans was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating in a great pool of water, and was brought back by them to the cottage.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Everybody went to little Hans’ funeral, as he was so popular, and the Miller was the chief mourner.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘As I was his best friend,’ said the Miller, ‘it is only fair that I should have the best place’; so he walked at the head of the procession in a long black cloak, and every now and then he wiped his eyes with a big pocket-handkerchief.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘Little Hans is certainly a great loss to every one,’ said the Blacksmith, when the funeral was over, and they were all seated comfortably in the inn, drinking spiced wine and eating sweet cakes.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“‘A great loss to me at any rate,’ answered the Miller; ‘why, I had as good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don’t know what to do with it. It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being generous.’”[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Well?” said the Water-rat, after a long pause.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Well, that is the end,” said the Linnet.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“But what became of the Miller?” asked the Water-rat.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Oh! I really don’t know,” replied the Linnet; “and I am sure that I don’t care.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“It is quite evident then that you have no sympathy in your nature,” said the Water-rat.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“I am afraid you don’t quite see the moral of the story,” remarked the Linnet.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“The what?” screamed the Water-rat.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“The moral.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?”[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Certainly,” said the Linnet.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“Well, really,” said the Water-rat, in a very angry manner, “I think you should have told me that before you began. If you had done so, I certainly would not have listened to you; in fact, I should have said ‘Pooh,’ like the critic. However, I can say it now”; so he shouted out “Pooh” at the top of his voice, gave a whisk with his tail, and went back into his hole.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“And how do you like the Water-rat?” asked the Duck, who came paddling up some minutes afterwards. “He has a great many good points, but for my own part I have a mother’s feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes.”[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]“I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,” answered the Linnet. “The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.”[/SIZE]



[SIZE=-1]“Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,” said the Duck.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=-1]And I quite agree with her[/SIZE]
​

 

[*زهره*]

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY by: Mark Twain

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY by: Mark Twain

[SIZE=-1]IN compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on a good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley -- Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley -- a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added, that, if Mr. Wheeler, could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he turned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admitted its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49 -- or maybe it was the spring of '50 -- I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him -- any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky -- he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar, to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him -- he would bet on anything -- the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he came in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was consid'able better -- thank the Lord for his inf'nit' mercy -- and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't anyway."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Thish-yer Smiley had a mare -- the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that -- and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose -- and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you'd think he warn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson -- which was the name of the pup -- Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else -- and the bets being doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it -- not claw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much to say his heart was broke and it was his fault for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius -- I know it, because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for these three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut -- see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing -- and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor -- Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog -- and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straight-for'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on the dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, youn understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywhere all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him downtown sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller -- a stranger in the camp, he was -- come across him with his box, and says:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What might it be that you've got in the box?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't -- it's only just a frog."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]An' the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm -- so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "He's good enough for one thing, I should judge -- he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And then Smiley says, "That's all right -- that's all right -- if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prizes his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot -- filled him pretty near up to his chin -- and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One -- two -- three -- jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders -- so -- like a Frenchman, but it wasn't no use -- he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted, too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder -- this way -- at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for -- I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him -- he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pound!" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man -- he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1](Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and he got up to see what was wanted.) And turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy -- I ain't going to be gone a second."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommended:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yeller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and--"[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.[/SIZE]

​

 

[*زهره*]

THE KING'S SWEETHEART by: Honoré de Balzac

THE KING'S SWEETHEART by: Honoré de Balzac

[SIZE=-1]There lived at this time at the forges of the Pont-aux-Change, a goldsmith whose daughter was talked about in Paris on account of her great beauty, and renowned above all things for her exceeding gracefulness. There were those who sought her favours by the usual tricks of love and, but others offered large sums of money to the father to give them his daughter in lawful wedlock, the which pleased him not a little. [/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]One of his neighbours, a parliamentary advocate, who by selling his cunning devices to the public had acquired as many lands as a dog has fleas, took it into his head to offer the said father a domain in consideration of his consent to this marriage, which he ardently desired to undertake. To this arrangement our goldsmith was nothing loth. He bargained away his daughter, without taking into consideration the fact that her patched-up old suitor had the features of an ape and had scarcely a tooth in his jaws. The smell which emanated from his mouth did not however disturb his own nostrils, although he was filthy and high flavoured, as are all those who pass their lives amid the smoke of chimneys, yellow parchment, and other black proceedings. Immediately this sweet girl saw him she exclaimed, "Great Heaven! I would rather not have him." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"That concerns me not," said the father, who had taken a violent fancy to the proffered domain. "I give him to you for a husband. You must get on as well as you can together. That is his business now, and his duty is to make himself agreeable to you." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Is it so?" said she. "Well then, before I obey your orders I'll let him know what he may expect." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And the same evening, after supper, when the love-sick man of law was pleading his cause, telling her he was mad for her, and promising her a life of ease and luxury, she taking him up, quickly remarked--[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"My father had sold me to you, but if you take me, you will make a bad bargain, seeing that I would rather offer myself to the passers-by than to you. I promise you a disloyalty that will only finish with death -- yours or mine."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Then she began to weep, like all young maidens will before they become experienced, for afterwards they never cry with their eyes. The good advocate took this strange behaviour for one of those artifices by which the women seek to fan the flames of love and turn the devotion of their admirers into the more tender caress and more daring osculation that speaks a husband's right. So that the knave took little notice of it, but laughing at the complaints of the charming creature, asked her to fix the day. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"To-morrow," replied she, "for the sooner this odious marriage takes place, the sooner I shall be free to have gallants and to lead the gay life of those who love where it pleases them." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Thereupon the foolish fellow -- as firmly fixed as a fly in a glue pot -- went away, made his preparations, spoke at the Palace, ran to the High Court, bought dispensations, and conducted his purchase more quickly than he ever done one before, thinking only of the lovely girl. Meanwhile the king, who had just returned from a journey, heard nothing spoken of at court but the marvellous beauty of the jeweller's daughter who had refused a thousand crowns from this one, snubbed that one; in fact, would yield to no one, but turned up her nose at the finest young men of the city, gentlemen who would have forfeited their seat in paradise only to possess one day, this little dragon of virtue.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The good king, was a judge of such game, strolled into the town, past the forges, and entered the goldsmith's shop, for the purpose of buying jewels for the lady of his heart, but at the same time to bargain for the most precious jewel in the shop. The king not taking a fancy to the jewels, or they not being to his taste, the good man looked in a secret drawer for a big white diamond. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Sweetheart," said he, to the daughter, while her father's nose was buried in the drawer, "sweetheart, you were not made to sell precious stones, but to receive them, and if you were to give me all the little rings in the place to choose from, I know one that many here are mad for; that pleases me; to which I should ever be subject and servant; and whose price the whole kingdom of France could never pay." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Ah! sire!" replied the maid, "I shall be married to-morrow, but if you will lend me the dagger that is in your belt, I will defend my honour, and you shall take it, that the gospel may be observed wherein it says, 'Render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's' . . ."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Immediately the king gave her the little dagger, and her brave reply rendered him so amorous that he lost his appetite. He had an apartment prepared, intending to lodge his new lady-love in the Rue a l'Hirundelle, in one of his palaces. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And now behold my advocate, in a great hurry to get married, to the disgust of his rivals, the leading his bride to the altar to the clang of bells and the sound of music, so timed as to provoke the qualms of diarrhea. In the evening, after the ball, comes he into the nuptial chamber, where should be reposing his lovely bride. No longer is she a lovely bride -- but a fury -- a wild she-devil, who, seated in an armchair, refuses her share of her lord's couch, and sits defiantly before the fire warming at the same time her ire and her calves. The good husband, quite astonished, kneels down gently before her, inviting her to the first passage of arms in that charming battle which heralds a first night of love; but she utters not a word, and when he tries to raise her garment, only just to glance at the charms that have cost him so dear, she gives him a slap that makes his bones rattle, and refuses to utter a syllable.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]This amusement, however, by no means displeased our friend the advocate, who saw at the end of his troubles that which you can as well imagine as he did; so played he his share of the game manfully, taking cheerfully the punishment bestowed upon him. By so much hustling about, scuffling, and struggling he managed at last to tear away a sleeve, to slit a petticoat, until he was able to place his hand upon his own property. This bold endeavour brought Madame to her feet and drawing the king's dagger, "What would you with me?" she cried. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Everything," answered he. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Ha! I should be a great fool to give myself against my inclination! If you fancied you would find my virtue unarmed you made a great error. Behold the poniard of the king, with which I will kill you if you make the semblance of a step towards me." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So saying, she took a cinder, and having still her eyes upon her lord she drew a circle on the floor, adding, "These are the confines of the king's domain. Beware how you pass them." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The advocate, with whose ideas of love-making the dagger sadly interfered, stood quite discomfited, but at the same time he heard the cruel speech of his tormentor he caught sight through the slits and tears in her robe of a sweet sample of a plump white thigh, and such voluptuous specimens of hidden mysteries, et cetera, that death seemed sweet to him if he could only taste of them a little. So that he rushed within the domain of the king, saying, "I mind not death." In fact he came with such force that his charmer fell backwards onto the bed, but keeping her presence of mind she defended herself so gallantly that the advocate enjoyed no further advantage than a knock at the door that would not admit him, and he gained as well a little stab from the poniard which did not wound him deeply, so that it did not cost him very dearly, his attack upon the realm of his sovereign. But maddened with this slight advantage, he cried, "I cannot live without the possession of that lovely body, and those marvels of love. Kill me then!" And again he attacked the royal preserves. The young beauty, whose head was full of the king, was not even touched by this great love, said gravely, "If you menace me further, it is not you but myself I will kill." She glared at him so savagely that the poor man was quite terrified, and commenced to deplore the evil hour in which he had taken her to wife, and thus the night which should have been so joyous, was passed in tears, lamentations, prayers, and ejaculations. In vain he tempted her with promises; she should eat out of gold, she should be a great lady, he would buy houses and lands for her. Oh! if she would only let him break one lance with her in the sweet conflict of love, he would leave her for ever and pass the remainder of his life according to her fantasy. But she, still unyielding, said she would permit him to die, and that was the only thing he could do to please her. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I have not deceived you," said she. "Agreeable to my promise, I shall give myself to the king, making you a present of the peddler, chance passers, and street loungers with whom I threatened you." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]When the day broke she put on her wedding garments and waited patiently till the poor husband had to depart to his office client's business, and then ran out into the town to seek the king. But she had not gone a bow-shot from the house before one of the king's servants who had watched the house from dawn, stopped her with the question--[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Do you seek the king?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Yes," said she. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Good; then allow me to be your good friend," said the subtle courtier. "I ask your aid and protection, as now I give you mine." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]With that he told her what sort of a man the king was, which was his weak side, that he was passionate one day and silent the next, that she would be luxuriously lodged and well kept, but that she must keep the king well in hand; in short, he chatted so pleasantly that the time passed quickly until she found herself in the Hotel de l'Hirundelle where afterwards lived Madame d'Estampes. The poor husband shed scalding tears, when he found his little bird had flown, and became melancholy and pensive. His friends and neighbours edified his ears with as many taunts and jeers as Saint Jacques had the honour of receiving in Compostella, but the poor fellow took it so to heart, that at last they tried rather to assuage his grief. These artful compeers by a species of legal chicanery, decreed that the good man was not a cuckold, seeing that his wife had refused a consummation, and if the planter of horns had been anyone but the king, the said marriage might have been dissolved; but the amorous spouse was wretched unto death at my lady's trick. However, he left her to the king, determining one day to have her to himself, and thinking that a life-long shame would not be too dear a payment for a night with her. One must love well to love like that, eh? and there are many worldly ones, who mock at such affection. But he, still thinking of her, neglected his cases and his clients, his robberies and everything. He went to the palace like a miser searching for a lost sixpence, bowed down, melancholy, and absent-minded, so much so, that one day he relieved himself against the robe of a counsellor, believing all the while he stood against a wall. Meanwhile the beautiful girl was loved night and day by the king, who could not tear himself from her embraces, because in amorous play she was so excellent, knowing as well how to fan the flame of love as to extinguish it -- to-day snubbing him, to-morrow petting him, never the same, and with it a thousand little tricks to charm the ardent lover.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]A lord of Bridore killed himself through her, because she would not receive his embraces, although he offered her his land, Bridore in Touraine. Of these gallants of Touraine, who gave an estate for one tilt with love's lance, there are none left. This death made the fair one sad, and since her confessor laid the blame of it upon her, she determined for the future to accept all domains and secretly ease their owner's amorous pains for the better saving of their souls from perdition. 'Twas thus she commenced to build up that great fortune which made her a person of consideration in the town. By this means she prevented many gallant gentlemen from perishing, playing her game so well, and inventing such fine stories, that his Majesty little guessed how much she aided him in securing the happiness of his subjects. The fact is, she had such a hold over him that she could have made him believe the floor was the ceiling, which was perhaps easier for him to think than anyone else seeing that at the Rue d'Hirundelle my lord king passed the greater portion of his time embracing her always as though he would see if such a lovely article would wear away: but he wore himself out first, poor man, seeing that he eventually died from excess of love. Although she took care to grant her favours only to the best and noblest in the court, and that such occasions were rare as miracles, there were not wanting those among her enemies and rivals who declared that for 10,000 crowns a simple gentleman might taste the pleasures of his sovereign, which was false above all falseness, for when her lord taxed her with it, did she not reply, "Abominable wretches! Curse the devils who put this idea in your head! I never yet did have man who spent less than 30,000 crowns upon me."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The king, although vexed could not repress a smile, and kept her on a month to silence scandal. And last, la demoiselle de Pisseleu, anxious to obtain her place, brought about her ruin. Many would have liked to be ruined in the same way, seeing she was taken by a young lord, was happy with him, the fires of love in her being still unquenched. But to take up the thread again. One day that the king's sweetheart was passing through the town in her litter to buy laces, furs, velvets, broideries, and other ammunition, and so charmingly attired, and looking so lovely, that anyone, especially the clerks, would have believed the heavens were open above them, behold, her good man, who comes upon her near the old cross. She, at that time lazily swinging her charming little foot over the side of the litter, drew in her head as though she had seen an adder. She was a good wife, for I know some who would have proudly passed their husbands, to their shame and to the great disrespect of conjugal rights. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"What is the matter?" asked one M. de Lannoy, who humbly accompanied her. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Nothing," she whispered; "but that person is my husband. Poor man, how changed he looks. Formerly he was the picture of a monkey; today he is the very image of a Job." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The poor advocate stood opened-mouthed. His heart beat rapidly at the sight of that little foot -- of that wife so wildly loved.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Observing which, the Sire de Lannoy said to him, with courtly innocence--[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"If you are her husband, is that any reason you should stop her passage?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]At this she burst out laughing, and the good husband instead of killing her bravely, shed scalding tears at that laugh which pierced his heart, his soul, his everything, so much that he nearly tumbled over an old citizen whom the sight of the king's sweetheart had driven against the wall. The aspect of this weak flower, which had been his in the bud, but far from him had spread its lovely leaves; of the fairy figure, the voluptuous bust -- all this made the poor advocate more wretched and more mad for her than it is possible to express in words. You must have been madly in love with a woman who refuses your advances thoroughly to understand the agony of this unhappy man. Rare indeed is it to be so infatuated as he was. He swore that life, fortune, honour -- all might go, but that for once at least he would be flesh-to-flesh with her, and make so grand a repast off her dainty body as would suffice him all his life. He passed the night saying, "oh yes; ah! I'll have her!" and "Curses am I not her husband?" and "Devil take me," striking himself on the forehead and tossing about. There are chances and occasions which occur so opportunely in this world that little-minded men refuse them credence, saying they are supernatural, but men of high intellect know them to be true because they could not be invented. One of the chances came to the poor advocate, even the day after that terrible one which had been so sore a trial to him. One of his clients, a man of good renown, who had his audiences with the king, came one morning to the advocate, saying that he required immediately a large sum of money, about 12,000 crowns. To which the artful fellow replied, 12,000 crowns were not so often met at the corner of a street as that which often is seen at the corner of the street; that besides the sureties and guarantees of interest, it was necessary to find a man who had about him 12,000 crowns, and that those gentlemen were not numerous in Paris, big city as it was, and various other things of a like character the man of cunning remarked.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Is it true, my lord, the you have a hungry and relentless creditor?" said he. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Yes, yes," replied the other, "it concerns the mistress of the king. Don't breathe a syllable; but this evening, in consideration of 20,000 crowns and my domain of Brie, I shall take her measure." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Upon this the advocate blanched, and the courtier perceived he touched a tender point. As he had only lately returned from the wars, he did not know that the lovely woman adored by the king had a husband. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You appear ill," he said. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I have a fever," replied the knave. "But is it to her that you give the contract and the money?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Yes." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Who then manages the bargain? Is it she also?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"No," said the noble; "her little arrangements are concluded through a servant of hers, the cleverest little ladies' maid that ever was. She's sharper than mustard, and these nights stolen from the king have lined her pockets well."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I know a Lombard who would accommodate you. But nothing can be done; of the 12,000 crowns you shall not have a brass farthing if this same ladies' maid does not come here to take the price of the article that is so great an alchemist that turns blood into gold, by Heaven!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"It will be a good trick to make her sign the receipt," replied the lord, laughing. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The servant came faithfully to the rendezvous with the advocate, who had begged the lord to bring her. The ducats looked bright and beautiful. There they lay all in a row, like nuns going to vespers. Spread out upon the table they would have made a donkey smile, even if he were being gutted alive; so lovely, so splendid, were those brave noble young piles. The good advocate, however, had prepared this view for no ass, for the little handmaiden look longingly at the golden heap, and muttered a prayer at the sight of them. Seeing which, the husband whispered in her ear his golden words, "These are for you." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Ah!" said she; "I have never been so well paid." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"My dear," replied the dear man, "you shall have them without being troubled with me;" and turning her round, "Your client has not told you who I am, eh? No? Learn then, I am the husband of the lady whom the king has debauched, and whom you serve. Carry her these crowns, and come back here. I will hand over yours to you on a condition which will be to your taste." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The servant did as she was bidden, and being very curious to know how she could get 12,000 crowns without sleeping with the advocate, was very soon back again. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Now, my little one," said he, "here are 12,000 crowns. With this sum I could buy lands, men, women, and the conscience of three priests at least; so that I believe if I give it to you I can have you, body, soul, and toe nails. And I shall have faith in you like an advocate, I expect that you will go to the lord who expects to pass the night with my wife, and you will deceive him, by telling him that the king is coming to supper with her, and that to-night he must seek his little amusements elsewhere. By so doing I shall be able to take his place and the king's." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"But how?" said she. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Oh!" replied he; "I have bought you, you and your tricks. You won't have to look at these crowns twice without finding me a way to have my wife. In bringing this conjunction about you commit no sin. It is a work of piety to bring together two people whose hands only been put one in to the other, and that by the priest." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"By my faith, come," said she; "after supper the lights will be put out, and you can enjoy Madame if you remain silent. Luckily, on these joyful occasions she cries more than she speaks, and asks questions with her hands alone, for she is very modest, and does not like loose jokes, like the ladies of the Court." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Oh," cried the advocate, "look, take the 12,000 crowns, and I promise you twice as much more if I get by fraud that which belongs to me by right." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Then he arranged the hour, the door, the signal, and all; and the servant went away, bearing with her on the back of the mules the golden treasure wrung by fraud and trickery from the widow and the orphan, and they were all going to that place where everything goes -- save our lives, which come from it. Now behold my advocate, who shaves himself, scents himself, goes without onions for dinner that his breath may be sweet, and does everything to make himself as presentable as a gallant signor. He gives himself the airs of a young dandy, tries to be lithe and frisky and to disguise his ugly face; he might try all he knew, he always smelt of the musty lawyer. He was not so clever as the pretty washerwoman of Portillon who one day wishing to appear at her best before one of her lovers, got rid of a disagreeable odour in a manner well known to young women of an inventive turn of mind. But our crafty fellow fancied himself the nicest man in the world, although in spite of his drugs and perfumes he was really the nastiest. He dressed himself in his thinnest clothes although the cold pinched him like a rope collar and sallied forth, quickly gaining the Rue d'Hirundelle. There he had to wait some time. But just as he was beginning to think he had been made a fool of, and just as it was quite dark, the maid came down and opened alike the door to him and good husband slipped gleefully into the king's apartment. The girl locked him carefully in a cupboard that was close to his wife's bed, and through a crack he feasted his eyes upon her beauty, for she undressed herself before the fire, and put on a thin nightgown, through which her charms were plainly visible. Believing herself alone with her maid she made those little jokes that women will when undressing. "Am I not worth 20,000 crowns to-night? Is that overpaid with a castle in Brie?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And saying this she gently raised two white supports, firm as rocks, which had well sustained many assaults, seeing they had been furiously attacked and had not softened. "My shoulders alone are worth a kingdom; no king could make their equal. But I am tired of this life. That which is hard work is no pleasure." The little maid smiled, and her lovely mistress said to her, "I should like to see you in my place." Then the maid laughed, saying--[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Be quiet, Madame, he is there." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Who?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Your husband." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Which?" [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"The real one." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Chut!" said Madame. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And her maid told her the whole story, wishing to keep her favour and the 12,000 crowns as well. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Oh well, he shall have his money's worth. I'll give his desires time to cool. If he tastes me may I lose my beauty and become as ugly as a monkey's baby. You get into bed in my place and thus gain the 12,000 crowns. Go and tell him that he must take himself off early in the morning in order that I may not find out your trick upon me, and just before dawn I will get in by his side." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The poor husband was freezing and his teeth were chattering, and the chambermaid coming to the cupboard on pretence of getting some linen, said to him, "Your hour of bliss approaches. Madame to-night has made grand preparations and you will be well served. But work without whistling, otherwise I shall be lost." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]At last, when the good husband was on the point of perishing with cold, the lights were put out. The maid cried softly in the curtains to the king's sweetheart, that his lordship was there, and jumped into bed, while her mistress went out as if she had been the chambermaid. The advocate, released from his cold hiding-place, rolled rapturously into the warm sheets, thinking to himself, "Oh! this is good!" To tell the truth, the maid gave him his money's worth -- and the good man thought of the difference between the profusion of the royal houses and the niggardly ways of the citizens' wives. The servant laughing, played her part marvellously well, regaling the knave with gentle cries, shiverings, convulsions and tossings about, like a newly-caught fish on the grass, giving little Ah! Ahs! in default of other words; and as often as the request was made by her, so often was it complied with by the advocate, who dropped of to sleep at last, like an empty pocket. But before finishing, the lover who wished to preserve a souvenir of this sweet night of love, by a dextrous turn, plucked out one of his wife's hairs, where from I know not, seeing I was not there, and kept in his hand this precious gauge of the warm virtue of that lovely creature. Towards the morning, when the cock crew, the wife slipped in beside her husband, and pretended to sleep. Then the maid tapped gently on the happy man's forehead, whispering in his ear, "It is time, get into your clothes and off you go -- it's daylight." The good man grieved to lose his treasure, and wished to see the source of his vanished happiness.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Oh! Oh!" said he, proceeding to compare certain things, "I've got light hair, and this is dark." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"What have you done?" said the servant; "Madame will see she has been duped." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"But look." [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Ah!" said she, with an air of disdain, "do you not know, you who knows everything, that that which is plucked dies and discolours?" and thereupon roaring with laughter at the good joke, she pushed him out of doors. This became known. The poor advocate, named Feron, died of shame, seeing that he was the only one who had not his own wife while she, who was from this was called La Belle Feroniere, married, after leaving the king, a young lord, Count of Buzancois. And in her old days she would relate the story, laughingly adding, that she had never scented the knave's flavour. [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]This teaches us not to attach ourselves more than we can help to wives who refuse to support our yoke.[/SIZE]​

 

[jimmi]

Mother’s True Love – Emotional Story

Mother’s True Love – Emotional Story

[h=1]Mother’s True Love – Emotional Story[/h] A mother waits desperately for her son to arrive from school. She wants to cook for him, wants to chat with him and ask how was everything at school. When he arrives Mother runs to open the door and puts a question forth ‘ how was your day at school, my son’l


In response to that she gets a reply ‘oh Mom I have just came home’. Understanding by the response she still smiles and goes to the kitchen to prepare some tea & refreshments. Within that excitement she remembers the day when her son was a …child and happy tears roll down her cheek. Few tears drop on the refreshments making it salty for her son. l

After preparing the refreshments she calls her beloved son’s name and gets no reply. She knocks on the door and gets a reply ‘when I am free I will come down and Mom please don’t disturb me I am over the phone with my friend’. She still doesn’t get upset but leaves with a smile on her face.l

Finally, the moment arrives when Her Son comes down to have some refreshment and after tasting it puts it back saying ‘Mom for God sake cant you prepare the food properly what the hell were you thinking’. Mom gets concerned and ask whats wrong my dear one. ‘Its salty Mom’ replies son.l

Mom gets upset and sad and starts to cry and instead of staying with her son. Her child walks out to spend sometime with friends saying to his Mom – ‘This is your all time show crying crying and crying’.l

Mom cries even more but instead of cursing her child ends up praying to God – saying “O God please forgive him. He is not like this, it probably the stress of school. O God, make my son’s life easier and stress free. O God give them everything good and keep them away from evil.”l


Moral: Mothers have unconditional love for their children & will always wish the best for them no matter how the children behave. So love your mother and treat her well as long as she is live. So that you don’t regret later, when they pass away.l


sorry, It was an Indian English storyl

​

 

[*زهره*]

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

[SIZE=-1]The persistent chirping of a sparrow made it almost harder to bear. Lady Brooke finally rose abruptly from the table, her black brows drawn close together, and swept to the window to scare the intruder away.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"I really have not the smallest idea what your objections can be," she observed, pausing with her back to the room.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"A little exercise of your imagination might be of some assistance to you," returned her husband dryly, not troubling to raise his eyes from his paper.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He was leaning back in a chair in an attitude of unstudied ease. It was characteristic of Sir Roland Brooke to make himself physically comfortable at least, whatever his mental atmosphere. He seldom raised his voice, and never swore. Yet there was about him a certain amount of force that made itself felt more by his silence than his speech.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His young wife, though she shrugged her shoulders and looked contemptuous, did not venture upon open defiance.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I am to decline the invitation, then?" she asked presently, without turning.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Certainly!" Sir Roland again made leisurely reply as he scanned the page before him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"And give as an excuse that you are too staunch a Tory to approve of such an innovation as the waltz?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You may give any excuse that you consider suitable," he returned with unruffled composure.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I know of none," she answered, with a quick vehemence that trembled on the edge of rebellion.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland turned very slowly in his chair and regarded the delicate outline of his wife's figure against the window-frame.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Then, my dear," he said very deliberately, "let me recommend you once more to have recourse to your ever romantic imagination!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She quivered, and clenched her hands, as if goaded beyond endurance. "You do not treat me fairly," she murmured under her breath.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland continued to look at her with the air of a naturalist examining an interesting specimen of his cult. He said nothing till, driven by his scrutiny, she turned and faced him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What is your complaint?" he asked then.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She hesitated for an instant. There was doubt—even a hint of fear—upon her beautiful face. Then, with a certain recklessness, she spoke:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I have been accustomed to freedom of action all my life. I never dreamed, when I married you, that I should be called upon to sacrifice this."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Her voice quivered. She would not meet his eyes. Sir Roland sat and passively regarded her. His face expressed no more than a detached and waning interest.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I am sorry," he said finally, "that the romance of your marriage has ceased to attract you. But I was not aware that its hold upon you was ever very strong."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Lady Brooke made a quick movement, and broke into a light laugh.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It certainly did not fall upon very fruitful ground," she said. "It is scarcely surprising that it did not flourish."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland made no response. The interest had faded entirely from his face. He looked supremely bored.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Lady Brooke moved towards the door.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It seems to be your pleasure to thwart me at every turn," she said. "A labourer's wife has more variety in her existence than I."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Infinitely more," said Sir Roland, returning to his paper. "A labourer's wife, my dear, has an occasional beating to chasten her spirit, and she is considerably the better for it."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His wife stood still, very erect and queenly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Not only the better, but the happier," she said very bitterly. "Even a dog would rather be beaten than kicked to one side."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland lowered his paper again with startling suddenness.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Is that your point of view?" he said. "Then I fear I have been neglecting my duty most outrageously. However, it is an omission easily remedied. Let me hear no more of this masquerade, Lady Brooke! You have my orders, and if you transgress them you will be punished in a fashion scarcely to your liking. Is that clearly understood?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He looked straight up at her with cold, smiling eyes that yet seemed to convey a steely warning.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She shivered very slightly as she encountered them. "You make a mockery of everything," she said, her voice very low.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland uttered a quiet laugh.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I am nevertheless a man of my word, Naomi," he said. "If you wish to test me, you have your opportunity."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He immersed himself finally in his paper as he ended, and she, with a smile of proud contempt, turned and passed from the room.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She had married him out of pique, it was true, but life with him had never seemed intolerable until he had shown her that he knew it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She took her invitation with her, and in her own room sat down to read it once again. It was from a near neighbour, Lady Blythebury, an acquaintance with whom she was more intimate than was Sir Roland. Lady Blythebury was a very lively person indeed. She had been on the stage in her young days, and she had decidedly advanced ideas on the subject of social entertainment. As a hostess, she was notorious for her originality and energy, and though some of the county families disapproved of her, she always knew how to secure as many guests as she desired. Lady Brooke had known her previous to her own marriage, and she clung to this friendship, notwithstanding Sir Roland's very obvious lack of sympathy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He knew Lord Blythebury in the hunting-field. Their properties adjoined, and it was inevitable that certain courtesies should be exchanged. But he refused so steadily to fall a captive to Lady Blythebury's bow and spear, that he very speedily aroused her aversion. He soon realised that her influence over his wife was very far from benevolent towards himself, but, save that he persisted in declining all social invitations to Blythebury, he made no attempt to counteract the evil. In fact, it was not his custom to coerce her. He denied her very little, though with regard to that little he was as adamant.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But to Naomi his non-interference was many a time more galling than his interdiction. It was but seldom that she attempted to oppose him, and, save that Lady Blythebury's masquerade had been discussed between them for weeks, she would not have greatly cared for his refusal to attend it. When Sir Roland asserted himself, it was her habit to yield without argument.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But now, for the first time, she asked herself if he were not presuming upon her wifely submission. He would think more of her if she resisted him, whispered her hurt pride, recalling the courteous indifference which it was his custom to mete out to her. But dared she do this thing?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She took up the invitation again and read it. It was to be a fancy-dress ball, and all were to wear masks. The waltz which she had learned to dance from Lady Blythebury herself and which was only just coming into vogue in England, was to be one of the greatest features of the evening. There would be no foolish formality, Lady Blythebury had assured her. The masks would preclude that. Altogether the whole entertainment promised to be of so entrancing a nature that she had permitted herself to look forward to it with considerable pleasure. But she might have guessed that Sir Roland would refuse to go, she reflected, as she sat in her dainty room with the invitation before her. Did he ever attend any function that was not so stiff and dull that she invariably pined to depart from the moment of arrival?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Again she read the invitation, recalling Lady Blythebury's gay words when last they had talked the matter over.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"If only Una could come without the lion for once!" she had said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And she herself had almost echoed the wish. Sir Roland always spoilt everything.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Well!—She took up her pen. She supposed she must refuse. A moment it hovered above the paper. Then, very slowly, it descended and began to write.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]* * * * *[/SIZE]

​

 

[*زهره*]

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

[SIZE=-1]The chatter of many voices and the rhythm of dancing feet, the strains of a string-band in the distance, and, piercing all, the clear, high notes of a flute, filled the spring night with wonderful sound. Lady Blythebury had turned her husband's house into a fairy palace of delight. She stood in the doorway of the ballroom, her florid face beaming above her Elizabethan ruffles, looking in upon the gay and ever-shifting scene which she had called into being.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"I feel as if I had stepped into an Arabian Night," she laughed to one of her guests, who stood beside her. He was dressed as a court jester, and carried a wand which he flourished dramatically. He wore a close-fitting black mask.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There is certainly magic abroad," he declared, in a rich, Irish brogue that Lady Blythebury smiled to hear. For she also was Irish to the backbone.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You know something of the art yourself, Captain Sullivan?" she asked.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She knew the man for a friend of her husband's. He was more or less disreputable, she believed, but he was none the less welcome on that account. It was just such men as he who knew how to make things a success. She relied upon the disreputable more than she would have admitted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Egad, I'm no novice in most things!" declared the court jester, waving his wand bombastically. "But it's the magic of a pretty woman that I'm after at the present moment. These masks, Lady Blythebury, are uncommon inconvenient. It's yourself that knows better than to wear one. Sure, beauty should never go veiled."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Lady Blythebury laughed indulgently. Though she knew it for what it was, the fellow's blarney was good to hear.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Ah, go and dance!" she said. "I've heard all that before. It never means anything. Go and dance with the little lady over there in the pink domino! I give you my word that she is pretty. Her name is Una, but she is minus the lion on this occasion. I shall tell you no more than that."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Egad! It's more than enough!" said the court jester, as he bowed and moved away.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The lady indicated stood alone in the curtained embrasure of a bay-window. She was watching the dancers with an absorbed air, and did not notice his approach.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He drew near, walking with a free swagger in time to the haunting waltz-music. Reaching her, he stopped and executed a sweeping bow, his hand upon his heart.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"May I have the pleasure—"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She looked up with a start. Her eyes shone through her mask with a momentary irresolution as she bent in response to his bow.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]With scarcely a pause he offered her his arm.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You dance the waltz?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She hesitated for a second; then, with an affirmatory murmur, accepted the proffered arm. The bold stare with which he met her look had in it something of compulsion.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He led her instantly away from her retreat, and in a moment his hand was upon her waist. He guided her into the gay stream of dancers without a word.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]They began to waltz—a dream—waltz in which she seemed to float without effort, without conscious volition. Instinctively she responded to his touch, keenly, vibrantly aware of the arm that supported her, of the dark, free eyes that persistently sought her own.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Faith!" he suddenly said in his soft, Irish voice. "To find Una without the lion is a piece of good fortune I had scarcely prayed for. And what was the persuasion that you used at all to keep the monster in his den?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She glanced up, half-startled by his speech. What did this man know about her?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"If you mean my husband," she said at last, "I did not persuade him. He never wished or intended to come."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Her companion laughed as one well pleased.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Very generous of him!" he commented, in a tone that sent the blood to her cheeks.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He guided her dexterously among the dancers. The girl's breath came quickly, unevenly, but her feet never faltered.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"If I were the lion," said her partner daringly, "by the powers, I'd play the part! I wouldn't be a tame beast, egad! If Una went out to a fancy ball, my faith, I would go too!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Lady Brooke uttered a little, excited laugh. The words caught her interest.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"And suppose Una went without your leave?" she said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Irishman looked at her with a humorous twist at one corner of his mouth.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I'm thinking that I'd still go too," he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"But if you didn't know?" She asked the question with a curious vehemence. Her instinct told her that, however he might profess to trifle, here at least was a man.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That wouldn't happen," he said, with conviction, "if I were the lion."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The music was quickening to the finale, and she felt the strong arm grow tense about her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Come!" he said. "We will go into the garden."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She went with him because it seemed that she must, but deep in her heart there lurked a certain misgiving. There was an almost arrogant air of power about this man. She wondered what Sir Roland would say if he knew, and comforted herself almost immediately with the reflection that he never could know. He had gone to Scotland, and she did not expect him back for several weeks.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So she turned aside with this stranger, and passed out upon his arm into the dusk of the soft spring night.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You know these gardens well?" he questioned.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She came out of her meditations.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Not really well. Lady Blythebury and I are friends, but we do not visit very often."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"And that but secretly," he laughed, "when the lion is absent?" She did not answer him, and he continued after a moment: "'Pon my life, the very mention of him seems to cast a cloud. Let us draw a magic circle, and exclude him!" He waved his wand. "You knew that I was a magician?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was a hint of something more than banter in his voice. They had reached the end of the terrace, and were slowly descending the steps. But at his last words, Lady Brooke stood suddenly still.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I only believe in one sort of magic," she said, "and that is beyond the reach of all but fools."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Her voice quivered with an almost passionate disdain. She was suddenly aware of an intense burning misery that seemed to gnaw into her very soul. Why had she come out with this buffoon, she wondered? Why had she come to the masquerade at all? She was utterly out of sympathy with its festive gaiety. A great and overmastering desire for solitude descended upon her. She turned almost angrily to go.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But in the same instant the jester's hand caught her own.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Even so, lady," he said. "But the magic of fools has led to paradise before now."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She laughed out bitterly:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"A fool's paradise!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Is ever green," he said whimsically. "Faith, it's no place at all for cynics. Shall we go hand in hand to find it then—in case you miss the way?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She laughed again at the quaint adroitness of his speech. But her lips were curiously unsteady, and she found the darkness very comforting. There was no moon, and the sky was veiled. She suffered the strong clasp of his fingers about her own without protest. What did it matter—for just one night?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Where are we going?" she asked.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Wait till we get there!" murmured her companion. "We are just within the magic circle. Una has escaped from the lion."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She felt turf beneath her feet, and once or twice the brushing of twigs against her hand. She began to have a faint suspicion as to whither he was leading her. But she would not ask a second time. She had yielded to his guidance, and though her heart fluttered strangely she would not seem to doubt. The dread of Sir Roland's displeasure had receded to the back of her mind. Surely there was indeed magic abroad that night! It seemed diffused in the very air she breathed. In silence they moved along the dim grass path. From far away there came to them fitfully the sound of music, remote and wonderful, like straying echoes of paradise. A soft wind stirred above them, lingering secretly among opening leaves. There was a scent of violets almost intoxicatingly sweet.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The silence seemed magnetic. It held them like a spell. Through it, vague and intangible as the night at first, but gradually taking definite shape, strange thoughts began to rise in the girl's heart.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She had consented to this adventure from sheer lack of purpose. But whither was it leading her? She was a married woman, with her shackles heavy upon her. Yet she walked that night with a stranger, as one who owned her freedom. The silence between them was intimate and wonderful, the silence which only kindred spirits can ever know. It possessed her magically, making her past life seem dim and shadowy, and the present only real.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And yet she knew that she was not free. She trespassed on forbidden ground. She tasted the forbidden fruit, and found it tragically sweet.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Suddenly and softly he spoke:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Does the magic begin to work?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She started and tried to stop. Surely it were wiser to go back while she had the will! But he drew her forward still. The mist overhead was faintly silver. The moon was rising.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"We will go to the heart of the tangle," he said. "There is nothing to fear. The lion himself could not frighten you here."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Again she yielded to him. There was a suspicion of raillery in his voice that strangely reassured her. The grasp of his hand was very close.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"We are in the maze," she said at last, breaking her silence. "Are you sure of the way?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He answered her instantly with complete self-assurance.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Like the heart of a woman, it's hard, that it is, to find. But I think I have the key. And if not, by the saints, I'm near enough now to break through."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The words thrilled her inexplicably. Truly the magic was swift and potent. A few more steps, and she was aware of a widening of the hedge. They were emerging into the centre of the maze.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Ah," said the jester, "I thought I should win through!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He led her forward into the shadow of a great tree. The mist was passing very slowly from the sky. By the silvery light that filtered down from the hidden moon Naomi made out the strong outline of his shoulders as he stood before her, and the vague darkness of his mask.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She put up her free hand and removed her own. The breeze had died down. The atmosphere was hushed and airless.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Do you know the way back?" she asked him, in a voice that sounded unnatural even to herself.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Do you want to go back, then?" he queried keenly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was something in his tone—a subtle something that she had not detected before. She began to tremble. For the first time, actual fear took hold of her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You must know the way back!" she exclaimed. "This is folly! They will be wondering where we are."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Faith, Lady Una! It is the fool's paradise," he told her coolly. "They will not wonder. They know too well that there is no way back."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His manner terrified her. Its very quietness seemed a menace. Desperately she tore herself from his hold, and turned to escape. But it was as though she fled in a nightmare. Whichever way she turned she met only the impenetrable ramparts of the hedge that surrounded her. She could find neither entrance nor exit. It was as though the way by which she had come had been closed behind her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But the brightness above was growing. She whispered to herself that she would soon be able to see, that she could not be a prisoner for long.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Suddenly she heard her captor close to her, and, turning in terror, she found him erect and dominating against the hedge. With a tremendous effort she controlled her rising panic to plead with him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Indeed, I must go back!" she said, her voice unsteady, but very urgent. "I have already stayed too long. You cannot wish to keep me here against my will?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She saw him shrug his shoulders slightly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There is no way back," he said, "or, if there is, I do not know it."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was no dismay in his voice, but neither was there exultation. He simply stated the fact with absolute composure. Her heart gave a wild throb of misgiving. Was the man wholly sane?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Again she caught wildly at her failing courage, and drew herself up to her full height. Perhaps she might awe him, even yet.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Sir," she said, "I am Sir Roland Brooke's wife. And I—"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Egad!" he broke in banteringly, "that was yesterday. You are free to-day. I have brought you out of bondage. We have found paradise together, and, my pretty Lady Una, there is no way back."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"But there is, there is!" she cried desperately. "And I must find it! I tell you I am Sir Roland Brooke's wife. I belong to him. No one can keep me from him!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was as though she beat upon an iron door.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There is no way out of the magic circle," said the jester inexorably.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]A white shaft of light illumined the mist above them, revealing the girl's pale face, making sinister the man's masked one. He seemed to be smiling. He bent towards her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You seem amazingly fond of your chains," he said softly. "And yet, from what I have heard, Sir Roland is no gentle tyrant. How is it, pretty one? What makes you cling to your bondage so?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"He is my husband!" she said, through white lips.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Faith, that is no answer," he declared. "Own, now, that you hate him, that you loathe his presence and shudder at his touch! I told you I was a magician, Lady Una; but you wouldn't believe me at all."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She confronted him with a sudden fury that marvellously reinforced her failing courage.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You lie, sir!" she cried, stamping passionately upon the soft earth. "I do none of these things. I have never hated him. I have never shrunk from his touch. We have not understood each other, perhaps, but that is a different matter, and no concern of yours."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"He has not made you happy," said the jester persistently. "You will never go back to him now that you are free!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I will go back to him!" she cried stormily. "How dare you say such a thing to me? How dare you?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He came nearer to her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Listen!" he said. "It is deliverance that I am offering you. I ask nothing at all in return, simply to make you happy, and to teach you the blessed magic which now you scorn. Faith! It's the greatest game in the world, Lady Una; and it only takes two players, dear, only two players!"[/SIZE]
​

 

[*زهره*]

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

THE MAGIC CIRCLE by: Ethel M. Dell

[SIZE=-1]There was a subtle, caressing quality in his voice. His masked face was bending close to hers. She felt trapped and helpless, but she forced herself to stand her ground.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"You insult me!" she said, her voice quivering, but striving to be calm.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Never a bit!" he declared. "Since I am the truest friend you have!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She drew away from him with a gesture of repulsion.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You insult me!" she said again. "I have my husband, and I need no other."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He laughed sneeringly, the insinuating banter all gone from his manner.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You know he is nothing to you," he said. "He neglects you. He bullies you. You married him because you wanted to be a married woman. Be honest, now! You never loved him. You do not know what love is!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It is false!" she cried. "I will not listen to you. Let me go!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He took a sudden step forward.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You refuse deliverance?" he questioned harshly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She did not retreat this time, but faced him proudly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I do!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Listen!" he said again, and his voice was stern. "Sir Roland Brooke has returned home. He knows that you have disobeyed him. He knows that you are here with me. You will not dare to face him. You have gone too far to return."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She gasped hysterically, and tottered for an instant, but recovered herself.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I will—I will go back!" she said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"He will beat you like a labourer's wife," warned the jester. "He may do worse."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She was swaying as she stood.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"He will do—as he sees fit," she said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He stooped a little lower.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I would make you happy, Lady Una," he whispered. "I would protect you—shelter you—love you!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She flung out her hands with a wild and desperate gesture. The magnetism of his presence had become horrible to her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I am going to him—now," she said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Behind him she saw, in the brightening moonlight, the opening which she had vainly sought a few minutes before. She sprang for it, darting past him like a frightened bird seeking refuge, and in another moment she was lost in the green labyrinths.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]* * * * *[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]The moonlight had become clear and strong, casting black shadows all about her. Twice, in her frantic efforts to escape, she ran back into the centre of the maze. The jester had gone, but she imagined him lurking behind every corner, and she impotently recalled his words: "There is no way out of the magic circle."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]At last, panting and exhausted, she knew that she was unwinding the puzzle. Often as its intricacies baffled her, she kept her head, rectifying each mistake and pressing on, till the wider curve told her that she was very near the entrance. She came upon it finally quite suddenly, and found herself, to her astonishment, close to the terrace steps.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She mounted them with trembling limbs, and paused a moment to summon her composure. Then, outwardly calm, she traversed the terrace and entered the house.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Lady Blythebury was dancing, and she felt she could not wait. She scribbled a few hasty words of farewell, and gave them to a servant as she entered her carriage. Hers was the first departure, and no one noted it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She sank back at length, thankfully, in the darkness, and closed her eyes. Whatever lay before her, she had escaped from the nightmare horror of the shadowy garden.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But as the brief drive neared its end, her anxiety revived. Had Sir Roland indeed returned and discovered her absence? Was it possible?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Her face was white and haggard as she entered the hall at last. Her eyes were hunted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The servant who opened to her looked at her oddly for a moment.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What is it?" she said nervously.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Sir Roland has returned, my lady," he said. "He arrived two hours ago, and went straight to his room, saying he would not disturb your ladyship."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She turned away in silence, and mounted the stairs. Did he know? Had he guessed? Was it that that had brought him back?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She entered her room, and dismissed the maid she found awaiting her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Swiftly she threw off the pink domino, and began to loosen her hair with stiff, fumbling fingers, then shook it about her shoulders, and sank quivering upon a couch. She could not go to bed. The terror that possessed her was too intense, too overmastering.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Ah! What was that? Every pulse in her body leaped and stood still at sound of a low knock at the door. Who could it be? gasped her fainting heart. Not Sir Roland, surely! He never came to her room now.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Softly the door opened. It was Sir Roland and none other—Sir Roland wearing an old velvet smoking jacket, composed as ever, his grey eyes very level and inscrutable.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He paused for a single instant upon the threshold, then came noiselessly in and closed the door.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Naomi sat motionless and speechless. She lacked the strength to rise. Her hands were pressed upon her heart. She thought its beating would suffocate her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He came quietly across the room to her, not seeming to notice her agitation.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I should not have disturbed you at this hour if I had not been sure that you were awake," he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Reaching her, he bent and touched her white cheek.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Why, child, how cold you are!" he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She started violently back, and then, as a sudden memory assailed her, she caught his hand and held it for an instant.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It is nothing," she said with an effort. "You—you startled me."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You are nervous tonight," said Sir Roland.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She shrank under his look.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You see, I did not expect you," she murmured.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Evidently not." Sir Roland stood gravely considering her. "I came back," he said, after a moment, "because it occurred to me that you might be lonely after all, in spite of your assurance to the contrary. I did not ask you to accompany me, Naomi. I did not think you would care to do so. But I regretted it later, and I have come back to remedy the omission. Will you come with me to Scotland?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His tone was quiet and somewhat formal, but there was in it a kindliness that sent the blood pulsing through her veins in a wave of relief even greater than her astonishment at his words. He did not know, then. That was her one all-possessing thought. He could not know, or he had not spoken to her thus.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She sat slowly forward, drawing her hair about her shoulders like a cloak. She felt for the moment an overpowering weakness, and she could not look up.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I will come, of course," she said at last, her voice very low, "if you wish it."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sir Roland did not respond at once. Then, as his silence was beginning to disquiet her again, he laid a steady hand upon the shadowing hair.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"My dear," he said gently, "have you no wishes upon the subject?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Again she started at his touch, and again, as if to rectify the start, drew ever so slightly nearer to him. It was many, many days since she had heard that tone from him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"My wishes are yours," she told him faintly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His hand was caressing her softly, very softly. Again he was silent for a while, and into her heart there began to creep a new feeling that made her gradually forget the immensity of her relief. She sat motionless, save that her head drooped a little lower, ever a little lower.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Naomi," he said, at last, "I have been thinking a good deal lately. We seem to have been wandering round and round in a circle. I have been wondering if we could not by any means find a way out?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She made a sharp, involuntary movement. What was this that he was saying to her?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I don't quite understand," she murmured.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His hand pressed a little upon her, and she knew that he was bending down.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You are not happy," he said, with grave conviction.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She could not contradict him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It is my own fault," she managed to say, without lifting her head.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I do not think so," he returned, "at least, not entirely. I know that there have frequently been times when you have regretted your marriage. For that you were not to blame." He paused an instant. "Naomi," he said, a new note in his voice, "I think I am right in believing that, notwithstanding this regret, you do not in your heart wish to leave me?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She quivered, and hid her face in silence.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He waited a few seconds, and finally went on as if she had answered in the affirmative.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That being so, I have a foundation on which to build. I would not ask of you anything which you feel unable to grant. But there is only one way for us to get out of the circle that I can see. Will you take it with me, Naomi? Shall we go away together, and leave this miserable estrangement behind us?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His voice was low and tender. Yet she felt instinctively that he had not found it easy to expose his most sacred reserve thus. She moved convulsively, trying to answer him, trying for several unworthy moments to accept in silence the shelter his generosity had offered her. But her efforts failed, for she had not been moulded for deception; and this new weapon of his had cut her to the heart. Heavy, shaking sobs overcame her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Hush!" he said. "Hush! I never dreamed you felt it so."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Ah, you don't know me!" she whispered. "I—I am not what you think me. I have disobeyed you, deceived you, cheated you!" Humbled to the earth, she made piteous, halting confession before her tyrant. "I was at the masquerade tonight. I waltzed—and afterwards went into the maze—in the dark—with a stranger—who made love to me. I never—meant you—to know."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Silence succeeded her words, and, as she waited for him to rise and spurn her, she wondered how she had ever brought herself to utter them. But she would not have recalled them even then. He moved at last, but not as she had anticipated. He gathered the tumbled hair back from her face, and, bending over her, he spoke. Even in her agony of apprehension she noted the curious huskiness of his voice.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"And yet you told me," he said. "Why?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She could not answer him, nor could she raise her face. He was not angry, she knew now; but yet she felt that she could not meet his eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was a short silence, then he spoke again, close to her ear:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You need not have told me, Naomi."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The words amazed her. With a great start of bewilderment she lifted her head and looked at him. He put his hands upon her shoulders. She thought she saw a smile hovering about his lips, but it was of a species she had never seen there before.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"Because," he explained gently, "I knew."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She stared at him in wonder, scarcely breathing, the tears all gone from her eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You—knew!" she said slowly, at last.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yes, I knew," he said. He looked deep into her eyes for seconds, and then she felt him drawing her irresistibly to him. She yielded herself as driftwood yields to a racing flood, no longer caring for the interpretation of the riddle, scarcely remembering its existence; heard him laugh above her head—a brief, exultant laugh—as he clasped her. And then came his lips upon her own....[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You see, dear," he said later, a quiver that was not all laughter in his voice, "it is not so remarkably wonderful, after all, that I should know all about it, when you come to consider that I was there—there with you in the magic circle all the time."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You were there!" she echoed, turning in his arms. "But how was it I never knew? Why did I not see you?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Faith, sweetheart, I think you did!" said Sir Roland. Then, at her quick cry of amazed understanding: "I wanted to teach you a lesson, but, sure, I'm thinking it's myself that learned one, after all." And, as she clung to him, still hardly believing: "We have found our paradise together, my Lady Una," he whispered softly. "And, love, there is no way back."[/SIZE]
​

 

[*زهره*]

THE CHILD'S STORY by: Charles Dickens

THE CHILD'S STORY by: Charles Dickens

[SIZE=-1]Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]he set out upon a journey. It was a magic journey, and was to seem [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]very long when he began it, and very short when he got half way [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]through.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]He travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, without [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]meeting anything, until at last he came to a beautiful child. So he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]said to the child, "What do you do here?" And the child said, "I am [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]always at play. Come and play with me!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they were [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]very merry. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, the water [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was so sparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers were so [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]lovely, and they heard such singing-birds and saw so many butterflies, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]that everything was beautiful. This was in fine weather. When it [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]rained, they loved to watch the falling drops, and to smell the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fresh scents. When it blew, it was delightful to listen to the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]wind, and fancy what it said, as it came rushing from its home--[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]where was that, they wondered!--whistling and howling, driving the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the chimneys, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fury. But, when it [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]snowed, that was best of all; for, they liked nothing so well as to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]look up at the white flakes falling fast and thick, like down from [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the breasts of millions of white birds; and to see how smooth and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]deep the drift was; and to listen to the hush upon the paths and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]roads.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]astonishing picture-books: all about scimitars and slippers and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]turbans, and dwarfs and giants and genii and fairies, and blue-[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]beards and bean-stalks and riches and caverns and forests and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Valentines and Orsons: and all new and all true.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child. He called [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to him over and over again, but got no answer. So, he went upon his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]road, and went on for a little while without meeting anything, until [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]at last he came to a handsome boy. So, he said to the boy, "What do [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]you do here?" And the boy said, "I am always learning. Come and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]learn with me."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So he learned with that boy about Jupiter and Juno, and the Greeks [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and the Romans, and I don't know what, and learned more than I could [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]tell--or he either, for he soon forgot a great deal of it. But, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]they were not always learning; they had the merriest games that ever [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]were played. They rowed upon the river in summer, and skated on the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]ice in winter; they were active afoot, and active on horseback; at [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]cricket, and all games at ball; at prisoner's base, hare and hounds, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]follow my leader, and more sports than I can think of; nobody could [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]beat them. They had holidays too, and Twelfth cakes, and parties [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]where they danced till midnight, and real Theatres where they saw [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]palaces of real gold and silver rise out of the real earth, and saw [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]all the wonders of the world at once. As to friends, they had such [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dear friends and so many of them, that I want the time to reckon [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]them up. They were all young, like the handsome boy, and were never [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to be strange to one another all their lives through.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Still, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the traveller [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]lost the boy as he had lost the child, and, after calling to him in [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]vain, went on upon his journey. So he went on for a little while [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]without seeing anything, until at last he came to a young man. So, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]he said to the young man, "What do you do here?" And the young man [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]said, "I am always in love. Come and love with me."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So, he went away with that young man, and presently they came to one [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of the prettiest girls that ever was seen--just like Fanny in the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]corner there--and she had eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dimples like Fanny's, and she laughed and coloured just as Fanny [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]does while I am talking about her. So, the young man fell in love [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]directly--just as Somebody I won't mention, the first time he came [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]here, did with Fanny. Well! he was teased sometimes--just as [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Somebody used to be by Fanny; and they quarrelled sometimes--just as [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Somebody and Fanny used to quarrel; and they made it up, and sat in [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the dark, and wrote letters every day, and never were happy asunder, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and were always looking out for one another and pretending not to, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and were engaged at Christmas-time, and sat close to one another by [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the fire, and were going to be married very soon--all exactly like [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Somebody I won't mention, and Fanny![/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the rest of his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]friends, and, after calling to them to come back, which they never [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]did, went on upon his journey. So, he went on for a little while [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]without seeing anything, until at last he came to a middle-aged [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]gentleman. So, he said to the gentleman, "What are you doing here?" [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]And his answer was, "I am always busy. Come and be busy with me!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So, he began to be very busy with that gentleman, and they went on [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]through the wood together. The whole journey was through a wood, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]only it had been open and green at first, like a wood in spring; and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]now began to be thick and dark, like a wood in summer; some of the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]little trees that had come out earliest, were even turning brown. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]The gentleman was not alone, but had a lady of about the same age [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]with him, who was his Wife; and they had children, who were with [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]them too. So, they all went on together through the wood, cutting [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]down the trees, and making a path through the branches and the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fallen leaves, and carrying burdens, and working hard.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Sometimes, they came to a long green avenue that opened into deeper [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]woods. Then they would hear a very little, distant voice crying, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"Father, father, I am another child! Stop for me!" And presently [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]they would see a very little figure, growing larger as it came [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]along, running to join them. When it came up, they all crowded [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]round it, and kissed and welcomed it; and then they all went on [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]together.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Sometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and then they all [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]stood still, and one of the children said, "Father, I am going to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sea," and another said, "Father, I am going to India," and another, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"Father, I am going to seek my fortune where I can," and another, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"Father, I am going to Heaven!" So, with many tears at parting, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]they went, solitary, down those avenues, each child upon its way; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and the child who went to Heaven, rose into the golden air and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]vanished.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Whenever these partings happened, the traveller looked at the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]gentleman, and saw him glance up at the sky above the trees, where [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the day was beginning to decline, and the sunset to come on. He [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]saw, too, that his hair was turning grey. But, they never could [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]rest long, for they had their journey to perform, and it was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]necessary for them to be always busy.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]At last, there had been so many partings that there were no children [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]left, and only the traveller, the gentleman, and the lady, went upon [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]their way in company. And now the wood was yellow; and now brown; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and the leaves, even of the forest trees, began to fall.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So, they came to an avenue that was darker than the rest, and were [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pressing forward on their journey without looking down it when the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]lady stopped.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"My husband," said the lady. "I am called."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]They listened, and they heard a voice a long way down the avenue, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]say, "Mother, mother!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]It was the voice of the first child who had said, "I am going to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Heaven!" and the father said, "I pray not yet. The sunset is very [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]near. I pray not yet!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But, the voice cried, "Mother, mother!" without minding him, though [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]his hair was now quite white, and tears were on his face.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Then, the mother, who was already drawn into the shade of the dark [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]avenue and moving away with her arms still round his neck, kissed [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]him, and said, "My dearest, I am summoned, and I go!" And she was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]gone. And the traveller and he were left alone together.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And they went on and on together, until they came to very near the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]end of the wood: so near, that they could see the sunset shining [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]red before them through the trees.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Yet, once more, while he broke his way among the branches, the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]traveller lost his friend. He called and called, but there was no [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]reply, and when he passed out of the wood, and saw the peaceful sun [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]going down upon a wide purple prospect, he came to an old man [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sitting on a fallen tree. So, he said to the old man, "What do you [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]do here?" And the old man said with a calm smile, "I am always [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]remembering. Come and remember with me!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, face to face [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]with the serene sunset; and all his friends came softly back and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]stood around him. The beautiful child, the handsome boy, the young [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]man in love, the father, mother, and children: every one of them [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was there, and he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, and was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]kind and forbearing with them all, and was always pleased to watch [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]them all, and they all honoured and loved him. And I think the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]traveller must be yourself, dear Grandfather, because this is what you [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]do to us, and what we do to you.[/SIZE]​

 

[jimmi]

Who has to Say Sorry??

Funny But True :l

Boy did mistake,
Girl shouted at him,
Boy said ‘Sorry’
.
.
Girl did mistake,
Boy shouted at her,
Girl started crying,
Boy said ”Sorry”..!!

TOO SHORT​

 

[*زهره*]

THE TOUCHSTONE by: Robert Louis Stevenson

THE TOUCHSTONE by: Robert Louis Stevenson

[SIZE=-1]THE King was a man that stood well before the world; his smile was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sweet as clover, but his soul withinsides was as little as a pea. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]He had two sons; and the younger son was a boy after his heart, but [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the elder was one whom he feared. It befell one morning that the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]drum sounded in the dun before it was yet day; and the King rode [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]with his two sons, and a brave array behind them. They rode two [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hours, and came to the foot of a brown mountain that was very [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]steep.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]"Where do we ride?" said the elder son.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Across this brown mountain." said the King, and smiled to himself.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"My father knows what he is doing," said the younger son.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And they rode two hours more, and came to the sides of a black [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]river that was wondrous deep.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"And where do we ride?" asked the elder son.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Over this black river," said the King, and smiled to himself.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"My father knows what he is doing," said the younger son.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And they rode all that day, and about the time of the sunsetting [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]came to the side of a lake, where was a great dun.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"It is here we ride," said the King; "to a King's house, and a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]priest's, and a house where you will learn much."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]At the gates of the dun, the King who was a priest met them; and he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was a grave man, and beside him stood his daughter, and she was as [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fair as the morn, and one that smiled and looked down.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"These are my two sons," said the first King.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"And here is my daughter," said the King who was a priest.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"She is a wonderful fine maid," said the first King, "and I like [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]her manner of smiling,"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"They are wonderful well-grown lads," said the second, "and I like [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]their gravity."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And then the two Kings looked at each other, and said, "The thing [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]may come about".[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And in the meanwhile the two lads looked upon the maid, and the one [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]grew pale and the other red; and the maid looked upon the ground [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]smiling.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Here is the maid that I shall marry," said the elder. "For I [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]think she smiled upon me."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But the younger plucked his father by the sleeve. "Father," said [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]he, "a word in your ear. If I find favour in your sight, might not [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]I wed this maid, for I think she smiles upon me?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A word in yours," said the King his father. "Waiting is good [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hunting, and when the teeth are shut the tongue is at home."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Now they were come into the dun, and feasted; and this was a great [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]house, so that the lads were astonished; and the King that was a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]priest sat at the end of the board and was silent, so that the lads [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]were filled with reverence; and the maid served them smiling with [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]downcast eyes, so that their hearts were enlarged.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Before it was day, the elder son arose, and he found the maid at [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]her weaving, for she was a diligent girl. "Maid," quoth he, "I [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]would fain marry you."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You must speak with my father," said she, and she looked upon the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]ground smiling, and became like the rose.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Her heart is with me," said the elder son, and he went down to the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]lake and sang.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]A little after came the younger son. "Maid," quoth he, "if our [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fathers were agreed, I would like well to marry you."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You can speak to my father," said she; and looked upon the ground, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and smiled and grew like the rose.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"She is a dutiful daughter," said the younger son, "she will make [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]an obedient wife." And then he thought, "What shall I do?" and he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]remembered the King her father was a priest; so he went into the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]temple, and sacrificed a weasel and a hare.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Presently the news got about; and the two lads and the first King [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]were called into the presence of the King who was a priest, where [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]he sat upon the high seat.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Little I reck of gear," said the King who was a priest, "and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]little of power. For we live here among the shadow of things, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the heart is sick of seeing them. And we stay here in the wind [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]like raiment drying, and the heart is weary of the wind. But one [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]thing I love, and that is truth; and for one thing will I give my [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]daughter, and that is the trial stone. For in the light of that [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]stone the seeming goes, and the being shows, and all things besides [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]are worthless. Therefore, lads, if ye would wed my daughter, out [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]foot, and bring me the stone of touch, for that is the price of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]her."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A word in your ear," said the younger son to his father. "I think [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]we do very well without this stone."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A word in yours," said the father. "I am of your way of thinking; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]but when the teeth are shut the tongue is at home." And he smiled [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to the King that was a priest.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But the elder son got to his feet, and called the King that was a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]priest by the name of father. "For whether I marry the maid or no, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]I will call you by that word for the love of your wisdom; and even [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]now I will ride forth and search the world for the stone of touch." [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]So he said farewell, and rode into the world.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I think I will go, too," said the younger son, "if I can have your [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]leave. For my heart goes out to the maid."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You will ride home with me," said his father.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So they rode home, and when they came to the dun, the King had his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]son into his treasury. "Here," said he, "is the touchstone which [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]shows truth; for there is no truth but plain truth; and if you will [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]look in this, you will see yourself as you are."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And the younger son looked in it, and saw his face as it were the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]face of a beardless youth, and he was well enough pleased; for the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]thing was a piece of a mirror.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Here is no such great thing to make a work about," said he; "but [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]if it will get me the maid I shall never complain. But what a fool [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]is my brother to ride into the world, and the thing all the while [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]at home!"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So they rode back to the other dun, and showed the mirror to the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]King that was a priest; and when he had looked in it, and seen [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]himself like a King, and his house like a King's house, and all [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]things like themselves, he cried out and blessed God. "For now I [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]know," said he, "there is no truth but the plain truth; and I am a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]King indeed, although my heart misgave me." And he pulled down his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]temple, and built a new one; and then the younger son was married [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to the maid.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]In the meantime the elder son rode into the world to find the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]touchstone of the trial of truth; and whenever he came to a place [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of habitation, he would ask the men if they had heard of it. And [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in every place the men answered: "Not only have we heard of it, but [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]we alone, of all men, possess the thing itself, and it hangs in the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]side of our chimney to this day". Then would the elder son be [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]glad, and beg for a sight of it. And sometimes it would be a piece [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of mirror, that showed the seeming of things; and then he would [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]say, "This can never be, for there should be more than seeming". [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]And sometimes it would be a lump of coal, which showed nothing; and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]then he would say, "This can never be, for at least there is the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]seeming". And sometimes it would be a touchstone indeed, beautiful [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in hue, adorned with polishing, the light inhabiting its sides; and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]when he found this, he would beg the thing, and the persons of that [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]place would give it him, for all men were very generous of that [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]gift; so that at the last he had his wallet full of them, and they [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]chinked together when he rode; and when he halted by the side of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the way he would take them out and try them, till his head turned [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]like the sails upon a windmill.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A murrain upon this business!" said the elder son, "for I perceive [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]no end to it. Here I have the red, and here the blue and the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]green; and to me they seem all excellent, and yet shame each other. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]A murrain on the trade! If it were not for the King that is a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]priest and whom I have called my father, and if it were not for the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fair maid of the dun that makes my mouth to sing and my heart [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]enlarge, I would even tumble them all into the salt sea, and go [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]home and be a King like other folk."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]But he was like the hunter that has seen a stag upon a mountain, so [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]that the night may fall, and the fire be kindled, and the lights [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]shine in his house; but desire of that stag is single in his bosom.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Now after many years the elder son came upon the sides of the salt [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sea; and it was night, and a savage place, and the clamour of the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sea was loud. There he was aware of a house, and a man that sat [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]there by the light of a candle, for he had no fire. Now the elder [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]son came in to him, and the man gave him water to drink, for he had [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]no bread; and wagged his head when he was spoken to, for he had no [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]words.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Have you the touchstone of truth?" asked the elder son and when [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the man had wagged his head, "I might have known that," cried the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]elder son. "I have here a wallet full of them!" And with that he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]laughed, although his heart was weary.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]And with that the man laughed too, and with the fuff of his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]laughter the candle went out.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Sleep," said the man, "for now I think you have come far enough; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and your quest is ended, and my candle is out."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Now when the morning came, the man gave him a clear pebble in his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hand, and it had no beauty and no colour; and the elder son looked [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]upon it scornfully and shook his head; and he went away, for it [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]seemed a small affair to him.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]All that day he rode, and his mind was quiet, and the desire of the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]chase allayed. "How if this poor pebble be the touchstone, after [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]all?" said he: and he got down from his horse, and emptied forth [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]his wallet by the side of the way. Now, in the light of each [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]other, all the touchstones lost their hue and fire, and withered [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]like stars at morning; but in the light of the pebble, their beauty [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]remained, only the pebble was the most bright. And the elder son [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]smote upon his brow. "How if this be the truth?" he cried, "that [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]all are a little true?" And he took the pebble, and turned its [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]light upon the heavens, and they deepened about him like the pit; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and he turned it on the hills, and the hills were cold and rugged, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]but life ran in their sides so that his own life bounded; and he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]turned it on the dust, and he beheld the dust with joy and terror; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and he turned it on himself, and kneeled down and prayed.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Now, thanks be to God," said the elder son, "I have found the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]touchstone; and now I may turn my reins, and ride home to the King [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and to the maid of the dun that makes my mouth to sing and my heart [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]enlarge."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Now when he came to the dun, he saw children playing by the gate [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]where the King had met him in the old days; and this stayed his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pleasure, for he thought in his heart, "It is here my children [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]should be playing". And when he came into the hall, there was his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]brother on the high seat and the maid beside him; and at that his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]anger rose, for he thought in his heart, "It is I that should be [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sitting there, and the maid beside me".[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Who are you?" said his brother. "And what make you in the dun?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I am your elder brother," he replied. "And I am come to marry the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]maid, for I have brought the touchstone of truth."[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]Then the younger brother laughed aloud. "Why," said he, "I found [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the touchstone years ago, and married the maid, and there are our [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]children playing at the gate."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Now at this the elder brother grew as gray as the dawn. "I pray [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]you have dealt justly," said he, "for I perceive my life is lost."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Justly?" quoth the younger brother. "It becomes you ill, that are [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]a restless man and a runagate, to doubt my justice, or the King my [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]father's, that are sedentary folk and known in the land."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Nay," said the elder brother, "you have all else, have patience [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]also; and suffer me to say the world is full of touchstones, and it [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]appears not easily which is true."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I have no shame of mine," said the younger brother. "There it is, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and look in it."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]So the elder brother looked in the mirror, and he was sore amazed; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]for he was an old man, and his hair was white upon his head; and he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sat down in the hall and wept aloud.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Now," said the younger brother, "see what a fool's part you have [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]played, that ran over all the world to seek what was lying in our [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]father's treasury, and came back an old carle for the dogs to bark [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]at, and without chick or child. And I that was dutiful and wise [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sit here crowned with virtues and pleasures, and happy in the light [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of my hearth."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Methinks you have a cruel tongue," said the elder brother; and he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pulled out the clear pebble and turned its light on his brother; [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and behold the man was lying, his soul was shrunk into the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]smallness of a pea, and his heart was a bag of little fears like [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]scorpions, and love was dead in his bosom. And at that the elder [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]brother cried out aloud, and turned the light of the pebble on the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]maid, and, lo! she was but a mask of a woman, and withinside's she [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was quite dead, and she smiled as a clock ticks, and knew not [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]wherefore.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Oh, well," said the elder brother, "I perceive there is both good [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and bad. So fare ye all as well as ye may in the dun; but I will [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]go forth into the world with my pebble in my pocket."[/SIZE]
​

 

[...scream...]

playful boy

playful boy

Peter was eight and a half years old, and he went to a school near his house. He always went there and came home on foot, and he usually got back on time, but last Friday he came home from school late. His mother was in the kitchen, and she saw him and said to him, "Why are you late today, Peter


"My teacher was angry and sent me to the headmaster after our lessons," Peter answered


?""To the headmaster?" his mother said. "Why did she send you to him


"Because she asked a question in the class; Peter said, "and none of the children gave her the answer except me."


His mother was angry. "But why did the teacher send you to the headmaster then? Why didn"t she send all the other stupid children?" she asked Peter


."Because her question was, "Who put glue on my chair?" Peter said ​

پیتر هشت سال و نیمش بود و به یک مدرسه در نزدیکی خونشون می‌رفت. او همیشه پیاده به آن جا می‌رفت و بر می‌گشت، و همیشه به موقع برمی‌گشت، اما جمعه‌ی قبل از مدرسه دیر به خانه آمد. مادرش در آشپزخانه بود،‌ و وقتی او (پیتر) را دید ازش پرسید «پیتر، چرا امروز دیر آمدی»؟


پیتر گفت: معلم عصبانی بود و بعد از درس مرا به پیش مدیر فرستاد.


مادرش گفت: پیش مدیر؟ چرا تو را پیش او فرستاد؟


پیتر گفت: برای اینکه او در کلاس یک سوال پرسید و هیچکس به غیر از من به سوال او جواب نداد.


مادرش عصبانی بود و از پیتر پرسید: در آن صورت چرا تو را پیش مدیر فرستاد؟ چرا بقیه‌ی بچه‌های احمق رو نفرستاد؟


پیتر گفت: برای اینکه سوالش این بود «چه کسی روی صندلی من چسب گذاشته؟»

 

[*زهره*]

DIFFERENT by: Zona Gale

DIFFERENT by: Zona Gale

[SIZE=-1]Those who had expected the circus procession to arrive from across the canal today were amazed to observe it filing silently across the tracks from the Plank Road. The Eight Big Shows Combined had arrived in the gray dawn; and word had not yet gone the rounds that, the Fair Ground being too wet, the performance would "show" in the Pump pasture, beyond the mill. There was to be no evening amusement. It was a wait between trains that conferred the circus on Friendship to all.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Half the country-side, having brought its lunch into town to make a day of it, trailed as a matter of course after the clown's cart at the end of the parade, and about noon arrived in the pasture with the pleasurable sense of entering familiar territory to find it transformed into unknown ground. Who in the vicinity of the village had not known the Pump pasture of old? Haunted of Jerseys and Guernseys and orioles, it had lain expressionless as the hills, for as long as memory. When in spring, "Where you goin'? Don't you go far in the hot sun!" from Friendship mothers was answered by, "We're just goin' up to the Pump pasture for vi'lets" from Friendship young, no more was to be said. The pasture was as dependable as a nurse, as a great, faithful Newfoundland dog; and about it was something of the safety of silence and warmth and night-in-a-trundle-bed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And lo, now it was suddenly as if the pasture were articulate. The great elliptical tent, the strange gold chariots casually disposed, the air of the hurrying men, so amazingly used to what they were doing--these gave to the place the aspect of having from the first been secretly familiar with more than one had suspected.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Ain't it the divil?" demanded Timothy Toplady, Jr., ecstatically, as the glory of the scene burst upon him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Liva Vesey, in rose-pink cambric, beside him in the buckboard, looked up at his brown Adam's apple--she hardly ever lifted her shy eyes as far as her sweetheart's face--and rejoined:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh, Timmie! ain't it just what you might say great?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You'd better believe," said Timothy, solemnly, "that it is that."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He looked down in her face with a lifting of eyebrows and an honest fatuity of mouth. Liva Vesey knew the look--without ever having met it squarely, she could tell when it was there, and she promptly turned her head, displaying to Timothy's ardent eyes tight coils of beautiful blond, crinkly hair, a little ear, and a line of white throat with a silver locket chain. At which Timothy now collapsed with the mien of a man who is unwillingly having second thoughts.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"My!" he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]They drove into the meadow, and when the horse had been loosed and cared for, they found a great cottonwood tree, its leaves shimmering and moving like little banners, and there they spread their lunch. The sunny slope was dotted with other lunchers. The look of it all was very gay, partly because the trees were in June green, and among them windmills were whirling like gaunt and acrobatic witches, and partly because it was the season when the women were brave in new hats, very pink and very perishable.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The others observed the two good-humouredly from afar, and once or twice a tittering group of girls, unescorted, passed the cottonwood tree, making elaborate detours to avoid it. At which Liva flushed, pretending not to notice; and Timothy looked wistfully in her face to see if she wished that she had not come with him. However, Timothy never dared look at her long enough to find out anything at all; for the moment that she seemed about to meet his look he always dropped his eyes precipitantly to her little round chin and so to the silver chain and locket. And then he was miserable.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was strange that a plain heart-shaped locket, having no initials, could make a man so utterly, extravagantly unhappy. Three months earlier, Liva, back from a visit in the city, had appeared with her locket. Up to that time the only personality in which Timothy had ever indulged was to mention to her that her eyes were the colour of his sister's eyes, whose eyes were the colour of their mother's eyes and their father's eyes, and of Timothy's own, and "Our eyes match, mine and yours," he had blurted our, crimson. And yet, even on these terms, he had taken the liberty of being wretched because of her. How much more now when he was infinitely nearer to her? For with the long spring evenings upon them, when he had sat late at the Vesey farm, matters had so far advanced with Timothy that, with his own hand, he had picked a green measuring-worm from Liva's throat. Every time he looked at her throat he thought of that worm with rapture. But also every time he looked at her throat he saw the silver chain and locket. And on circus day, if the oracles seemed auspicious, he meant to find out whose picture was worn in that locket, even though the knowledge made him a banished man.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]If only she would ever mention the locket! he thought disonsolately over lunch. If only she would "bring up the subject," then he could find courage. But she never did mention it. And the talk ran now:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Would you ever, ever think this was the Pump pasture?" from Liva.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"No, you wouldn't, would you? It don't look the same, does it? You'd think you was in a city or somewheres, wouldn't you now? Ain't it differ'nt?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Did you count the elephants?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I bet I did. Didn't you? Ten, wa'n't it? Did you count the cages? Neither did I. And they was too many of 'em shut up. I don't know whether it's much of a circus or not--" with gloomy superiority-- "they not bein' any calliope, so."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"A good many cute fellows in the band," observed Liva. For Liva would have teased a bit if Timothy would have teased too. But Timothy replied in mere misery:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You can't tell much about these circus men, Liva. They're apt to be the kind that carouse around. I guess they ain't much to 'em but their swell way."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh, I don't know," said Liva.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then a silence fell, resembling nothing so much as the breath of hesitation following a faux pas, save that this silence was longer, and was terminated by Liva humming a little snatch of song to symbolize how wholly delightful everything was.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"My!" said Timothy, finally. "You wouldn't think this was the Pump pasture at all, it looks so differ'nt."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That's so," Liva said. "You wouldn't."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was almost as if the two were inarticulate, as the pasture had been until the strange influence of the day had come to quicken it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]While Liva, with housewifely hands, put away the lunch things in their basket, Timothy nibbled along lengths of grass and hugged his knees and gloomed at the locket. It was then that Miggy and Peter passed them and the four greeted one another with the delicate, sheepish enjoyment of lovers who look on and understand other lovers. Then Timothy's look went back to Liva. Liva's rose-pink dress was cut distractingly without a collar, and the chain seemed to caress her little throat. Moreover, the locket had a way of hiding beneath a fold of ruffle, as if it were _her_ locket and as if Timothy had no share in it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh," cried Liva, "Timmie! That was the lion roared. Did you hear?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy nodded darkly, as if there were worse than lions.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Wasn't it the lion?" she insisted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy nodded again; he thought it might have been the lion.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What you so glum about, Timmie?" his sweetheart asked, glancing at him fleetingly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy flushed to the line of his hair.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Gosh," he said, "this here pasture looks so differ'nt I can't get over it."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yes," said Liva, "it does look differ'nt, don't it?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Before one o'clock they drifted with the rest toward the animal tent. They went incuriously past the snake show, the Eats-'em-alive show, and the Eastern vaudeville. But hard by the red wagon where tickets were sold Timothy halted spellbound. What he had heard was:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Types. Types. Right this way AND in this direction for Types. No, Ladies, and no, Gents: Not Tin-types. But Photo-types. Photographs put up in Tintype style AT Tintype price. Three for a quarter. The fourth of a dozen for the fourth of a dollar. Of yourself, Gents, of yourself. Or of any one you see around you. And WHILE you wait."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy said it before he had any idea that he meant to say it:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Liva," he begged, "come on. You."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When she understood and when Timothy saw the momentary abashment in her eyes, it is certain that he had never loved her more. But the very next moment she was far more adorable.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Not unless you will, Timmie," she said, "and trade."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He followed her into the hot little tent as if the waiting chair were a throne of empire. And perhaps it was. For presently Timothy had in his pocket a tiny blurry bit of paper at which he had hardly dared so much as glance, and he had given another blurry bit into her keeping. But that was not all. When she thanked him she had met his eyes. And he thought--oh, no matter what he thought. But it was as if there were established a throne of empire with Timothy lord of his world.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then they stepped along the green way of the Pump pasture and they entered the animal tent, and Strange Things closed about them. There underfoot lay the green of the meadow, verdant grass and not infrequent moss, plantain and sorrel and clover, all as yet hardly trampled and still sweet with the breath of kind and sheep. And three feet above, foregathered from the Antipodes, crouched and snarled the striped and spotted things of the wild, with teeth and claws quick to kill, and with generations of the jungle in their shifting eyes. The bright wings of unknown birds, the scream of some harsh throat of an alien wood, the monkeys chattering, the soft stamp and padding of the elephants chained in a stately central line along the clover--it was certain, one would have said, that these must change the humour of the pasture as the companionship of the grotesque and the vast alters the humour of the mind. That the pasture, indeed, would never be the same, and that its influence would be breathed on all who entered there. Already Liva and Timothy, each with the other's picture in a pocket, moved down that tent of the field in another world. Or had that world begun at the door of the stuffy little phototype tent?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was the cage of bright-winged birds that held the two. Timothy stood grasping his elbows and looking at that flitting flame and orange. Dare he ask her if she would wear his phototype in her locket--dare he--dare he--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He turned to look at her. Oh, and the rose-pink cambric was so near his elbow! Her face, upturned to the birds, was flushed, her lips were parted, her eyes that matched Timothy's were alight; but there was always in Timothy's eyes a look, a softness, a kind of speech that Liva's could not match. He longed inexpressibly to say to her what was in his heart concerning the locket--the phototype--themselves. And Liva herself was longing to say something about the sheer glory of the hour. So she looked up at his brown Adam's apple, and,[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Think, Timmie," she said, "they're all in the Pump pasture where nothin' but cows an' robins an' orioles ever was before!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I know it--I know it!" breathed Timothy fervently. "Don't seem like it could be the same place, does it?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Liva barely lifted her eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It makes us seem differ'nt, too," she said, and flushed a little, and turned to hurry on.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I was thinkin' that too!" he cried ecstatically, overtaking her. But all that Timothy could see was tight coils of blond, crinkled hair, and a little ear and a curve of white throat, with a silver locket chain.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Down the majestic line of the elephants, towering in the apotheosis of mere bulk to preach ineffectually that spirit is apocryphal and mass alone is potent; past the panthers that sniffed as if they guessed the nearness of the grazing herd in the next pasture; past the cage in which the lioness lay snarling and baring her teeth above her cubs, so pathetically akin to the meadow in her motherhood; past unknown creatures with surprising horns and shaggy necks and lolling tongues--it was wonderful progress. But it was as if Liva had found something more wonderful than these when, before the tigers' cage, she stepped forward, stooped a little beneath the rope, and stood erect with shining eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Look!" she said. "Look, Timmie."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She was holding a blue violet.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"In front of the tigers; it was growing!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Why don't you give it to me?" was Timothy's only answer.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She laid it in his hand, laughing a little at her daring.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It won't ever be the same," she said. "Tigers have walked over it. My, ain't everything in the pasture differ'nt?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Just as differ'nt as differ'nt can be," Timothy admitted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Here we are back to the birds again," Liva said, sighing.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy had put the violet in his coat pocket and he stood staring at the orange and flame in the cage: Her phototype and a violet--her phototype and a violet.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But all he said, not daring to look at her at all, was:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I can't make it seem like the Pump pasture to save me."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There is something, as they have said of a bugle, "winged and warlike" about a circus--the confusions, the tramplings, the shapes, the keen flavour of the Impending, and above all the sense of the Untoward, which is eternal and which survives glamour as his grave survives a man. Liva and Timothy sat on the top row of seats and felt it all, and believed it to be merely honest mirth. Occasionally Liva turned and peered out through the crack in the canvas where the side met the roof, for the pure joy of feeling herself alien to the long green fields with their grazing herds and their orioles, and at one with the colour and music and life within. And she was glad of it all, glad to be there with Timothy. But all she said was:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh, Timmie, I hope it ain't half over yet. Do you s'pose it is? When I look outside it makes me feel as if it was over."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]And Timothy, his heart beating, a great hope living in his breast, answered only:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"No, I guess it'll be quite some time yet. It's a nice show. Nice performance for the money, right through. Ain't it?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When at length it really was over and they left the tent, the wagons from town and country-side and the "depot busses" had made such a place of dust and confusion that he took her back to the cottonwood on the slope to wait until he brought the buckboard round. He left her leaning against the tree, the sun burnishing her hair and shining dazzlingly on the smooth silver locket. And when he drove back, and reached down a hand to draw her up to the seat beside him, and saw for a moment, as she mounted, with all the panorama of the field behind her, he perceived instantly that the locket was gone. Oh, and at that his heart leaped up! What more natural than to dream she had taken it off to slip his phototype inside and that he had come back too soon? What more natural than to divine the reality of dreams?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His trembling hope held him silent until they reached the highway. Then he looked at the field, elliptical tent, fluttering pennons, streaming crowds, and he observed as well as he could for the thumping of his heart:--[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I kind o' hate to go off an' leave it. Tomorrow when I go to town with the pie-plant, it'll look just like nothin' but a pasture again."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Liva glanced up at him and dropped her eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I ain't sure," she said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What do you mean?" he asked her, wondering.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But Liva shook her head.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I ain't sure," she said evasively, "but I don't think somehow the Pump pasture'll ever be the same again."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy mulled that for a moment. Oh, could she possibly mean because ...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Yet what he said was, "Well, the old pasture looks differ'nt now, all right."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yes," assented Liva, "don't it?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy had supper at the Vesey farm. It was eight o'clock and the elder Veseys had been gone to prayer-meeting for an hour when Liva discovered that she had lost her locket.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Lost your locket!" Timothy repeated. It was the first time, for all his striving, that he had been able to mention the locket in her presence. He had tried, all the way home that afternoon, to call her attention innocently to its absence, but the thing that he hoped held fast his intention. "Why," he cried now, in the crash of that hope, "you had it on when I left you under the cottonwood."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You sure?" Liva demanded.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Sure," Timothy said earnestly; "didn't--didn't you have it off while I was gone?" he asked wistfully.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"No," Liva replied blankly; she had not taken it off.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When they had looked in the buckboard and had found nothing, Timothy spoke tentatively.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Tell you what," he said. "We'll light a lantern and hitch up and drive back to the Pump pasture and look."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Could we?" Liva hesitated.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was gloriously starlight when the buckboard rattled out on the Plank Road. Timothy, wretched as he was at her concern over the locket, was yet recklessly, magnificently happy in being alone by her side in the warm dusk, and on her ministry. She was silent, and, for almost the first time since he had known her, Timothy was silent too--as if he were giving his inarticulateness honest expression instead of forcing it continually to antics of speech.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]From the top of the hill they looked down on the Pump pasture. It lay there, silent and dark, but no longer expressionless; for instantly their imagination quickened it with all the music and colour and life of the afternoon. Just as Timothy's silence was now of the pattern of dreams.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He tied the horse, and together they entered the field by the great open place where the fence had not yet been replaced. The turf was still soft and yielding, in spite of all the treading feet. The pasture was girdled by trees--locusts and box-alders outlined dimly upon the sky, nest-places for orioles; and here and there a great oak or a cottonwood made a mysterious figure on the stars. One would have said that underfoot would certainly be violets. A far light pricked out an answer to their lantern, and a nearer firefly joined the signalling.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I keep thinkin' the way it looked here this afternoon," said Liva once.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That's funny, so do I," he cried.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Under the cottonwood on the slope, its leaves stirring like little banners, Timothy flashed his light, first on tufted grass, then on red-tasselled sorrel, then--lying there as simply as if it belonged there--on Liva's silver locket. She caught it from him with a little cry.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh," she said, "I'm so glad. Oh, thank you ever so much, Timmie."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He faced her for a moment.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Why are you so almighty glad?" he burst out.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Why, it's the first locket I ever had!" she said in surprise. "So of course I'm glad. Oh, Timmie--thank you!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You're welcome, I'm sure," he returned stiffly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She gave a little skipping step beside him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Timmie," she said, "let's circle round a little ways and come by where the big tent was. I want to see how it'll seem."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His ill-humour was gone in a moment.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That's what we will do!" he cried joyously.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He walked beside her, his lantern swinging a little rug of brightness about her feet. So they passed the site of the big red ticket wagon, of the Eastern vaudeville, of the phototype tent; so they traversed the length where had stretched the great elliptical tent that had prisoned for them colour and music and life, as in a cup. And so at last they stepped along that green way of the pasture where underfoot lay the grass and the not infrequent moss and clover, not yet wholly trampled to dust; and this was where there had been assembled bright-winged birds of orange and flame and creatures of the wild from the Antipodes, and where Strange Things had closed them round.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The influence of what the pasture had seen must have been breathed on all who entered there that night: something of the immemorial freedom of bright birds in alien woods, of the ancestral kinship of the wild. For that tranquil meadow, long haunted of Jerseys and Guernseys and orioles, expressionless as the hills, dependable as a nurse, had that day known strange breath, strange tramplings, cries and trumpetings, music and colour and life and the beating of wild hearts--and was it not certain that these must change the humour of the place as the coming of the grotesque and the vast alters the humour of the mind? The field bore the semblance of a place exquisitely of the country and, here in the dark, it was inarticulate once more. But something was stirring there, something that swept away what had always been as a wind sweeps, something that caught up the heart of the boy as ancient voices stir in the blood.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy cast down his lantern and gathered Liva Vesey in his arms. Her cheek lay against his shoulder and he lifted her face and kissed her, three times or four, with all the love that he bore her.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Liva," he said, "all the time--every day--I've meant this. Did you mean it, too?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She struggled a little from him, but when he would have let her go she stood still in his arms. And then he would have her words and "Did you?" he begged again. He could not hear what she said without bending close, close, and it was the sweeter for that.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh, Timmie," she answered, "I don't know. I don't know if I did. But I do--now."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy's courage came upon him like a mantle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"An' be my wife?" he asked.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"An' be ..." Liva assented, and the words faltered away. But they were not greatly missed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Timothy looked over the pasture, and over the world. And lo, it was suddenly as if, with these, he were become articulate, and they were all three saying something together.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When they turned, there was the lantern glimmering alight on the trodden turf. And in its little circle of brightness they saw something coloured and soft. It was a gay feather, and Timothy took it curiously in his hand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"See, it's from one of the circus birds," he said.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"No!" Liva cried. "It's an oriole feather. One of the pasture orioles, Timmie!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"So it is," he assented, and without knowing why, he was glad that it was so. He folded it away with the violet Liva had gathered that afternoon. After all the strangeness, what he treasured most had belonged to the pasture all the time.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Liva!" he begged. "Will you wear the picture--my picture--in that locket?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Oh," she said, "Timmie, I'm so sorry. The locket's one I bought cheap in the city, and it don't open."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She wondered why that seemed to make him love her more. She wondered a little, too, when on the edge of the pasture Timothy stood still, looking back.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Liva!" he said, "don't the Pump pasture seem differ'nt? Don't it seem like another place?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yes," Liva said, "it don't seem the same."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Liva!" Timothy said again, "it ain't the pasture that's so differ'nt. It's us."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She laughed a little--softly, and very near his coat sleeve.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I 'most knew that this afternoon," she answered.[/SIZE]
​

 

[...scream...]

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their migh The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die He jumped even harder and finally made it out When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons
There is power of life and death in the tongue An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day
A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them
So, be careful of what you say
​

 

[...scream...]

Mr Robinson never went to a dentist, because he was afraid:'
but then his teeth began hurting a lot, and he went to a dentist. The dentist did a lot of work in his mouth for a long time. On the last day Mr Robinson said to him, 'How much is all this work going to cost?' The dentist said, 'Twenty-five pounds,' but he did not ask him for the money.
After a month Mr Robinson phoned the dentist and said, 'You haven't asked me for any money for your work last month.'
'Oh,' the dentist answered, 'I never ask a gentleman for money.'
'Then how do you live?' Mr Robinson asked.
'Most gentlemen pay me quickly,' the dentist said, 'but some don't. I wait for my money for two months, and then I say, "That man isn't a gentleman," and then I ask him for my money.
​

 

[...scream...]

Run


I was teaching a very basic class in BASIC programming to a group of adults. Adults who have never been around computers before are very nervous and much harder to teach than children, however I am a patient person so I enjoy their successes.
However, I must share the following:
After putting a short program on the board, I told the students to type "R," "U," "N" and press return to see the program execute.
A hand went up in the back of the room, waving to get my attention, and the person attached to the hand said, "I did what you said and it didn't work." Knowing full-well that all of us make mistakes when typing at the computer, I suggested she retype "R," "U," "N" and press return. A few seconds later, the lady's hand goes up again. "It still doesn't work," she said.
So... I went back to see what the problem was ... only to find that instead of typing RUN, she had typed in the following: ARE YOU IN !
​

 

[*زهره*]

WHILE THE AUTO WAITS by: O. Henry

WHILE THE AUTO WAITS by: O. Henry

[SIZE=-1]Promptly at the beginning of twilight, came again to that quiet corner of that quiet, small park the girl in gray. She sat upon a bench and read a book, for there was yet to come a half hour in which print could be accomplished.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]To repeat: Her dress was gray, and plain enough to mask its impeccancy of style and fit. A large-meshed veil imprisoned her turban hat and a face that shone through it with a calm and unconscious beauty. She had come there at the same hour on the day previous, and on the day before that; and there was one who knew it.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The young man who knew it hovered near, relying upon burnt sacrifices to the great joss, Luck. His piety was rewarded, for, in turning a page, her book slipped from her fingers and bounded from the bench a full yard away.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]The young man pounced upon it with instant avidity, returning it to its owner with that air that seems to flourish in parks and public places -- a compound of gallantry and hope, tempered with respect for the policeman on the beat. In a pleasant voice, he risked an inconsequent remark upon the weather -- that introductory topic responsible for so much of the world's unhappiness -- and stood poised for a moment, awaiting his fate.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The girl looked him over leisurely; at his ordinary, neat dress and his features distinguished by nothing particular in the way of expression.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You may sit down, if you like," she said, in a full, deliberate contralto. "Really, I would like to have you do so. The light is too bad for reading. I would prefer to talk."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The vassal of Luck slid upon the seat by her side with complaisance.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Do you know," he said, speaking the formula with which park chairmen open their meetings, "that you are quite the stunningest girl I have seen in a long time? I had my eye on you yesterday. Didn't know somebody was bowled over by those pretty lamps of yours, did you, honeysuckle?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Whoever you are," said the girl, in icy tones, "you must remember that I am a lady. I will excuse the remark you have just made because the mistake was, doubtless, not an unnatural one -- in your circle. I asked you to sit down; if the invitation must constitute me your honeysuckle, consider it withdrawn."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I earnestly beg your pardon," pleaded the young man. His expression of satisfaction had changed to one of penitence and humility. "It was my fault, you know -- I mean, there are girls in parks, you know -- that is, of course, you don't know, but--"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Abandon the subject, if you please. Of course I know. Now, tell me about these people passing and crowding, each way, along these paths. Where are they going? Why do they hurry so? Are they happy?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The young man had promptly abandoned his air of coquetry. His cue was now for a waiting part; he could not guess the rôle he would be expected to play.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"It is interesting to watch them," he replied, postulating her mood. "It is the wonderful drama of life. Some are going to supper and some to -- er -- other places. One wonders what their histories are."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I do not," said the girl; "I am not so inquisitive. I come here to sit because here, only, can I be near the great, common, throbbing heart of humanity. My part in life is cast where its beats are never felt. Can you surmise why I spoke to you, Mr.—?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Parkenstacker," supplied the young man. Then he looked eager and hopeful.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"No," said the girl, holding up a slender finger, and smiling slightly. "You would recognize it immediately. It is impossible to keep one's name out of print. Or even one's portrait. This veil and this hat of my maid furnish me with an incog. You should have seen the chauffeur stare at it when he thought I did not see. Candidly, there are five or six names that belong in the holy of holies, and mine, by the accident of birth, is one of them. I spoke to you, Mr. Stackenpot--"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Parkenstacker," corrected the young man, modestly.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"--Mr. Parkenstacker, because I wanted to talk, for once, with a natural man -- one unspoiled by the despicable gloss of wealth and supposed social superiority. Oh! you do not know how weary I am of it -- money, money, money! And of the men who surround me, dancing like little marionettes all cut by the same pattern. I am sick of pleasure, of jewels, of travel, of society, of luxuries of all kinds."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I always had an idea," ventured the young man, hesitatingly, "that money must be a pretty good thing."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A competence is to be desired. But when you have so many millions that--!" She concluded the sentence with a gesture of despair. "It is the monotony of it," she continued, "that palls. Drives, dinners, theatres, balls, suppers, with the gilding of superfluous wealth over it all. Sometimes the very tinkle of the ice in my champagne glass nearly drives me mad."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Mr. Parkenstacker looked ingenuously interested.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I have always liked," he said, "to read and hear about the ways of wealthy and fashionable folks. I suppose I am a bit of a snob. But I like to have my information accurate. Now, I had formed the opinion that champagne is cooled in the bottle and not by placing ice in the glass."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The girl gave a musical laugh of genuine amusement.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"You should know," she explained, in an indulgent tone, "that we of the non-useful class depend for our amusement upon departure from precedent. Just now it is a fad to put ice in champagne. The idea was originated by a visiting Prince of Tartary while dining at the Waldorf. It will soon give way to some other whim. Just as at a dinner party this week on Madison Avenue a green kid glove was laid by the plate of each guest to be put on and used while eating olives."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I see," admitted the young man, humbly.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"These special diversions of the inner circle do not become familiar to the common public."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Sometimes," continued the girl, acknowledging his confession of error by a slight bow, "I have thought that if I ever should love a man it would be one of lowly station. One who is a worker and not a drone. But, doubtless, the claims of caste and wealth will prove stronger than my inclination. Just now I am besieged by two. One is a Grand Duke of a German principality. I think he has, or has had, a wife, somewhere, driven mad by his intemperance and cruelty. The other is an English Marquis, so cold and mercenary that I even prefer the diabolism of the Duke. What is it that impels me to tell you these things, Mr. Packenstacker?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Parkenstacker," breathed the young man. "Indeed, you cannot know how much I appreciate your confidences."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The girl contemplated him with the calm, impersonal regard that befitted the difference in their stations.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"What is your line of business, Mr. Parkenstacker?" she asked.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"A very humble one. But I hope to rise in the world. Were you really in earnest when you said that you could love a man of lowly position?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Indeed I was. But I said 'might.' There is the Grand Duke and the Marquis, you know. Yes; no calling could be too humble were the man what I would wish him to be."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I work," declared Mr. Parkenstacker, "in a restaurant."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The girl shrank slightly.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Not as a waiter?" she said, a little imploringly. "Labor is noble, but personal attendance, you know -- valets and--"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I am not a waiter. I am cashier in" -- on the street they faced that bounded the opposite side of the park was the brilliant electric sign "RESTAURANT" -- "I am cashier in that restaurant you see there."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The girl consulted a tiny watch set in a bracelet of rich design upon her left wrist, and rose, hurriedly. She thrust her book into a glittering reticule suspended from her waist, for which, however, the book was too large.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Why are you not at work?" she asked.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I am on the night turn," said the young man; "it is yet an hour before my period begins. May I not hope to see you again?"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"I do not know. Perhaps -- but the whim may not seize me again. I must go quickly now. There is a dinner, and a box at the play -- and, oh! the same old round. Perhaps you noticed an automobile at the upper corner of the park as you came. One with a white body."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"And red running gear?" asked the young man, knitting his brows reflectively.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Yes. I always come in that. Pierre waits for me there. He supposes me to be shopping in the department store across the square. Conceive of the bondage of the life wherein we must deceive even our chauffeurs. Good-night."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"But it is dark now," said Mr. Parkenstacker, "and the park is full of rude men. May I not walk--"[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"If you have the slightest regard for my wishes," said the girl, firmly, "you will remain at this bench for ten minutes after I have left. I do not mean to accuse you, but you are probably aware that autos generally bear the monogram of their owner. Again, good-night."[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]Swift and stately she moved away through the dusk. The young man watched her graceful form as she reached the pavement at the park's edge, and turned up along it toward the corner where stood the automobile. Then he treacherously and unhesitatingly began to dodge and skim among the park trees and shrubbery in a course parallel to her route, keeping her well in sight.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]When she reached the corner she turned her head to glance at the motor car, and then passed it, continuing on across the street. Sheltered behind a convenient standing cab, the young man followed her movements closely with his eyes. Passing down the sidewalk of the street opposite the park, she entered the restaurant with the blazing sign. The place was one of those frankly glaring establishments, all white paint and glass, where one may dine cheaply and conspicuously. The girl penetrated the restaurant to some retreat at its rear, whence she quickly emerged without her hat and veil.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The cashier's desk was well to the front. A red-haired girl an the stool climbed down, glancing pointedly at the clock as she did so. The girl in gray mounted in her place.[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]The young man thrust his hands into his pockets and walked slowly back along the sidewalk. At the corner his foot struck a small, paper-covered volume lying there, sending it sliding to the edge of the turf. By its picturesque cover he recognized it as the book the girl had been reading. He picked it up carelessly, and saw that its title was "New Arabian Nights," the author being of the name of Stevenson. He dropped it again upon the grass, and lounged, irresolute, for a minute. Then he stepped into the automobile, reclined upon the cushions, and said two words to the chauffeur:[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=-1]"Club, Henri."[/SIZE]​

 

[*زهره*]

THE REMARKABLE ROCKET by: Oscar Wilde

THE REMARKABLE ROCKET by: Oscar Wilde

[SIZE=-1]The King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess herself. Her long ermine-cloak reached right down to her feet, on her head was a tiny cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she had always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the streets all the people wondered. “She is like a white rose!” they cried, and they threw down flowers on her from the balconies.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Your picture was beautiful,” he murmured, “but you are more beautiful than your picture”; and the little Princess blushed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“She was like a white rose before,” said a young Page to his neighbour, “but she is like a red rose now”; and the whole Court was delighted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]For the next three days everybody went about saying, “White rose, Red rose, Red rose, White rose”; and the King gave orders that the Page’s salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly published in the Court Gazette.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was a magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in hand under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little pearls. Then there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five hours. The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“It’s quite clear that they love each other,” said the little Page, “as clear as crystal!” and the King doubled his salary a second time. “What an honour!” cried all the courtiers.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom were to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to play the flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two airs, and was never quite certain which one he was playing; but it made no matter, for, whatever he did, everybody cried out, “Charming! charming!”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to be let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen a firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“What are fireworks like?” she had asked the Prince, one morning, as she was walking on the terrace.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“They are like the Aurora Borealis,” said the King, who always answered questions that were addressed to other people, “only much more natural. I prefer them to stars myself, as you always know when they are going to appear, and they are as delightful as my own flute-playing. You must certainly see them.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So at the end of the King’s garden a great stand had been set up, and as soon as the Royal Pyrotechnist had put everything in its proper place, the fireworks began to talk to each other.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“The world is certainly very beautiful,” cried a little Squib. “Just look at those yellow tulips. Why! if they were real crackers they could not be lovelier. I am very glad I have travelled. Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“The King’s garden is not the world, you foolish squib,” said a big Roman Candle; “the world is an enormous place, and it would take you three days to see it thoroughly.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Any place you love is the world to you,” exclaimed a pensive Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once -- But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Nonsense!” said the Roman Candle, “Romance never dies. It is like the moon, and lives for ever. The bride and bridegroom, for instance, love each other very dearly. I heard all about them this morning from a brown-paper cartridge, who happened to be staying in the same drawer as myself, and knew the latest Court news.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But the Catherine Wheel shook her head. “Romance is dead, Romance is dead, Romance is dead,” she murmured. She was one of those people who think that, if you say the same thing over and over a great many times, it becomes true in the end.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Order! order!” cried out a Cracker. He was something of a politician, and had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, so he knew the proper Parliamentary expressions to use.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Quite dead,” whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to sleep.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third time and began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he was talking. In fact, he had a most distinguished manner.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“How fortunate it is for the King’s son,” he remarked, “that he is to be married on the very day on which I am to be let off. Really, if it had been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out better for him; but, Princes are always lucky.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Dear me!” said the little Squib, “I thought it was quite the other way, and that we were to be let off in the Prince’s honour.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“It may be so with you,” he answered; “indeed, I have no doubt that it is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing. When she made her great public appearance she spun round nineteen times before she went out, and each time that she did so she threw into the air seven pink stars. She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very best gunpowder. My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain. The newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering terms. Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic art.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean,” said a Bengal Light; “I know it is Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Well, I said Pylotechnic,” answered the Rocket, in a severe tone of voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at once to bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still a person of some importance.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying -- What was I saying?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of every kind, for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole world is so sensitive as I am, I am quite sure of that.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the Cracker nearly exploded with laughter.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Pray, what are you laughing at?” inquired the Rocket; “I am not laughing.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I am laughing because I am happy,” replied the Cracker.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“That is a very selfish reason,” said the Rocket angrily. “What right have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others. In fact, you should be thinking about me. I am always thinking about myself, and I expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess it in a high degree. Suppose, for instance, anything happened to me to-night, what a misfortune that would be for every one! The Prince and Princess would never be happy again, their whole married life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I know he would not get over it. Really, when I begin to reflect on the importance of my position, I am almost moved to tears.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“If you want to give pleasure to others,” cried the Roman Candle, “you had better keep yourself dry.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Certainly,” exclaimed the Bengal Light, who was now in better spirits; “that is only common sense.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget that I am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different. As for keeping myself dry, there is evidently no one here who can at all appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for myself, I don’t care. The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated. But none of you have any hearts. Here you are laughing and making merry just as if the Prince and Princess had not just been married.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Well, really,” exclaimed a small Fire-balloon, “why not? It is a most joyful occasion, and when I soar up into the air I intend to tell the stars all about it. You will see them twinkle when I talk to them about the pretty bride.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Ah! what a trivial view of life!” said the Rocket; “but it is only what I expected. There is nothing in you; you are hollow and empty. Why, perhaps the Prince and Princess may go to live in a country where there is a deep river, and perhaps they may have one only son, a little fair-haired boy with violet eyes like the Prince himself; and perhaps some day he may go out to walk with his nurse; and perhaps the nurse may go to sleep under a great elder-tree; and perhaps the little boy may fall into the deep river and be drowned. What a terrible misfortune! Poor people, to lose their only son! It is really too dreadful! I shall never get over it.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“But they have not lost their only son,” said the Roman Candle; “no misfortune has happened to them at all.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I never said that they had,” replied the Rocket; “I said that they might. If they had lost their only son there would be no use in saying anything more about the matter. I hate people who cry over spilt milk. But when I think that they might lose their only son, I certainly am very much affected.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“You certainly are!” cried the Bengal Light. “In fact, you are the most affected person I ever met.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you cannot understand my friendship for the Prince.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Why, you don’t even know him,” growled the Roman Candle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I never said I knew him,” answered the Rocket. “I dare say that if I knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“You had really better keep yourself dry,” said the Fire-balloon. “That is the important thing.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Very important for you, I have no doubt,” answered the Rocket, “but I shall weep if I choose”; and he actually burst into real tears, which flowed down his stick like rain-drops, and nearly drowned two little beetles, who were just thinking of setting up house together, and were looking for a nice dry spot to live in.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“He must have a truly romantic nature,” said the Catherine Wheel, “for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about”; and she heaved a deep sigh, and thought about the deal box.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But the Roman Candle and the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and kept saying, “Humbug! humbug!” at the top of their voices. They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called it humbug.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then the moon rose like a wonderful silver shield; and the stars began to shine, and a sound of music came from the palace.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat time.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then ten o’clock struck, and then eleven, and then twelve, and at the last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and the King sent for the Royal Pyrotechnist.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Let the fireworks begin,” said the King; and the Royal Pyrotechnist made a low bow, and marched down to the end of the garden. He had six attendants with him, each of whom carried a lighted torch at the end of a long pole.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was certainly a magnificent display.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Whizz! Whizz! went the Catherine Wheel, as she spun round and round. Boom! Boom! went the Roman Candle. Then the Squibs danced all over the place, and the Bengal Lights made everything look scarlet. “Good-bye,” cried the Fire-balloon, as he soared away, dropping tiny blue sparks. Bang! Bang! answered the Crackers, who were enjoying themselves immensely. Every one was a great success except the Remarkable Rocket. He was so damp with crying that he could not go off at all. The best thing in him was the gunpowder, and that was so wet with tears that it was of no use. All his poor relations, to whom he would never speak, except with a sneer, shot up into the sky like wonderful golden flowers with blossoms of fire. Huzza! Huzza! cried the Court; and the little Princess laughed with pleasure.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I suppose they are reserving me for some grand occasion,” said the Rocket; “no doubt that is what it means,” and he looked more supercilious than ever.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The next day the workmen came to put everything tidy. “This is evidently a deputation,” said the Rocket; “I will receive them with becoming dignity” so he put his nose in the air, and began to frown severely as if he were thinking about some very important subject. But they took no notice of him at all till they were just going away. Then one of them caught sight of him. “Hallo!” he cried, “what a bad rocket!” and he threw him over the wall into the ditch.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“BAD Rocket? BAD Rocket?” he said, as he whirled through the air; “impossible! GRAND Rocket, that is what the man said. BAD and GRAND sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same”; and he fell into the mud.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“It is not comfortable here,” he remarked, “but no doubt it is some fashionable watering-place, and they have sent me away to recruit my health. My nerves are certainly very much shattered, and I require rest.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled coat, swam up to him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“A new arrival, I see!” said the Frog. “Well, after all there is nothing like mud. Give me rainy weather and a ditch, and I am quite happy. Do you think it will be a wet afternoon? I am sure I hope so, but the sky is quite blue and cloudless. What a pity!”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket, and he began to cough.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“What a delightful voice you have!” cried the Frog. “Really it is quite like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical sound in the world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We sit in the old duck pond close by the farmer’s house, and as soon as the moon rises we begin. It is so entrancing that everybody lies awake to listen to us. In fact, it was only yesterday that I heard the farmer’s wife say to her mother that she could not get a wink of sleep at night on account of us. It is most gratifying to find oneself so popular.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket angrily. He was very much annoyed that he could not get a word in.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“A delightful voice, certainly,” continued the Frog; “I hope you will come over to the duck-pond. I am off to look for my daughters. I have six beautiful daughters, and I am so afraid the Pike may meet them. He is a perfect monster, and would have no hesitation in breakfasting off them. Well, good-bye: I have enjoyed our conversation very much, I assure you.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. “You have talked the whole time yourself. That is not conversation.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog, “and I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“But I like arguments,” said the Rocket.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. “Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. Good-bye a second time; I see my daughters in the distance and the little Frog swam away.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“You are a very irritating person,” said the Rocket, “and very ill-bred. I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call selfishness, and selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially to any one of my temperament, for I am well known for my sympathetic nature. In fact, you should take example by me; you could not possibly have a better model. Now that you have the chance you had better avail yourself of it, for I am going back to Court almost immediately. I am a great favourite at Court; in fact, the Prince and Princess were married yesterday in my honour. Of course you know nothing of these matters, for you are a provincial.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“There is no good talking to him,” said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for he has gone away.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket. “I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-fly; and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“How very silly of him not to stay here!” said the Rocket. “I am sure that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some day”; and he sank down a little deeper into the mud.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow legs, and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account of her waddle.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Quack, quack, quack,” she said. “What a curious shape you are! May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,” answered the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down in a shower of golden rain.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I don’t think much of that,” said the Duck, “as I cannot see what use it is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the ox, or draw a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the collie-dog, that would be something.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, “I see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my position is never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem to recommend. Indeed, I have always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Well, well,” said the Duck, who was of a very peaceable disposition, and never quarrelled with any one, “everybody has different tastes. I hope, at any rate, that you are going to take up your residence here.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Oh! dear no,” cried the Rocket. “I am merely a visitor, a distinguished visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather tedious. There is neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it is essentially suburban. I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that I am destined to make a sensation in the world.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,” remarked the Duck; “there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I took the chair at a meeting some time ago, and we passed resolutions condemning everything that we did not like. However, they did not seem to have much effect. Now I go in for domesticity, and look after my family.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I am made for public life,” said the Rocket, “and so are all my relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite great attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I do so it will be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and distracts one’s mind from higher things.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck; “and that reminds me how hungry I feel”: and she swam away down the stream, saying, “Quack, quack, quack.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal to say to you”; but the Duck paid no attention to him. “I am glad that she has gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly middle-class mind”; and he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came running down the bank, with a kettle and some faggots.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick! I wonder how it came here”; and he picked the rocket out of the ditch.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“OLD Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible! GOLD Stick, that is what he said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he mistakes me for one of the Court dignitaries!”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to boil the kettle.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit the fire.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me off in broad day-light, so that every one can see me.”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the kettle will be boiled”; and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last, however, the fire caught him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and straight. “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall go so high that--”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Delightful!” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever. What a success I am!”[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But nobody saw him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole world on fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for a whole year.” And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the gunpowder. There was no doubt about it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound asleep.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“Good heavens!” cried the Goose. “It is going to rain sticks”; and she rushed into the water.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and he went out.[/SIZE]
​

 

[...scream...]

An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt confident that one cartridge remained to him. It was in the chamber of the rifle and he had overlooked it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that the chamber was empty. But the hallucination persisted. He fought it off for hours, then threw his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness. The disappointment was as bitter as though he had really expected to find the cartridge.
He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again. Again he fought it, and still it persisted, till for very relief he opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But these excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for ever the pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked back abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! He could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear his vision, and beheld, not a horse, but a great brown bear. The animal was studying him with bellicose curiosity.
The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew his hunting-knife from its beaded sheath at his hip. Before him was meat and life.
He ran his thumb along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of the dizziness into his brain.
His desperate courage was evicted by a great surge of fear. In his weakness, what if the animal attacked him? He drew himself up to his most imposing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard at the bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple of steps, reared up, and gave vent to a tentative growl. If the man ran, he would run after him; but the man did not run. He was animated now with the courage of fear. He, too, growled, savagely, terribly, voicing the fear that is to life germane and that lies twisted about life's deepest roots.
The bear edged away to one side, growling menacingly, himself appalled by this mysterious creature that appeared upright and unafraid. But the man did not move. He stood like a statue till the danger was past, when he yielded to a fit of trembling and sank down into the wet moss.
He pulled himself together and went on, afraid now in a new way. It was not the fear that he should die passively from lack of food, but that he should be destroyed violently before starvation had exhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him that made toward surviving. There were the wolves. Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent.
Now and again the wolves, in packs of two and three, crossed his path. But they sheered clear of him. They were not in sufficient numbers, and besides they were hunting the caribou, which did not battle, while this strange creature that walked erect might scratch and bite.
In the late afternoon he came upon scattered bones where the wolves had made a kill. The d bris had been a caribou calf an hour before, squawking and running and very much alive. He contemplated the bones, clean-picked and polished, pink with the cell-life in them which had not yet died. Could it possibly be that he might be that ere the day was done! Such was life, eh? A vain and fleeting thing. It was only life that pained. There was no hurt in death. To die was to sleep. It meant cessation, rest. Then why was he not content to die?
But he did not moralize long. He was squatting in the moss, a bone in his mouth, sucking at the shreds of life that still dyed it faintly pink. The sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as a memory, maddened him. He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. Sometimes it was the bone that broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them to a pulp, and swallowed them. He pounded his fingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment in which to feel surprise at the fact that his fingers did not hurt much when caught under the descending rock.
Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did not know when he made camp, when he broke camp. He travelled in the night as much as in the day. He rested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dying life in him flickered up and burned less dimly. He, as a man, no longer strove. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had become blunted, numb, while his mind was filled with weird visions and delicious dreams.
But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed bones of the caribou calf, the least remnants of which he had gathered up and carried with him. He crossed no more hills or divides, but automatically followed a large stream which flowed through a wide and shallow valley. He did not see this stream nor this valley. He saw nothing save visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side by side, yet apart, so slender was the thread that bound them.
He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. The sun was shining bright and warm. Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou calves. He was aware of vague memories of rain and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten by the storm for two days or two weeks he did not know.
For some time he lay without movement, the genial sunshine pouring upon him and saturating his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day, he thought. Perhaps he could manage to locate himself. By a painful effort he rolled over on his side. Below him flowed a wide and sluggish river. Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly he followed it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the bleak, bare hills, bleaker and barer and lower-lying than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly, deliberately, without excitement or more than the most casual interest, he followed the course of the strange stream toward the sky-line and saw it emptying into a bright and shining sea. He was still unexcited. Most unusual, he thought, a vision or a mirage -- more likely a vision, a trick of his disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by sight of a ship lying at anchor in the midst of the shining sea. He closed his eyes for a while, then opened them. Strange how the vision persisted! Yet not strange. He knew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle.
He heard a snuffle behind him -- a half-choking gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined between two jagged rocks not a score of feet away he made out the gray head of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so sharply as he had seen them on other wolves; the eyes were bleared and bloodshot, the head seemed to droop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As he looked it snuffled and coughed again.
This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned on the other side so that he might see the reality of the world which had been veiled from him before by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality, after all? He closed his eyes for a long while and thought, and then it came to him. He had been making north by east, away from the Dease Divide and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide and sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining sea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler, strayed east, far east, from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor in Coronation Gulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company chart he had seen long ago, and it was all clear and reasonable to him.
He sat up and turned his attention to immediate affairs. He had worn through the blanket-wrappings, and his feet were shapeless lumps of raw meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife were both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere, with the bunch of matches in the band, but the matches against his chest were safe and dry inside the tobacco pouch and oil paper. He looked at his watch. It marked eleven o'clock and was still running. Evidently he had kept it wound.
He was calm and collected. Though extremely weak, he had no sensation of pain. He was not hungry. The thought of food was not even pleasant to him, and whatever he did was done by his reason alone. He ripped off his pants' legs to the knees and bound them about his feet. Somehow he had succeeded in retaining the tin bucket. He would have some hot water before he began what he foresaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship.
His movements were slow. He shook as with a palsy. When he started to collect dry moss, he found he could not rise to his feet. He tried again and again, then contented himself with crawling about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself reluctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a tongue which seemed hardly to have the strength to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was not the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish brown and seemed coated with a rough and half-dry mucus.
After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man found he was able to stand, and even to walk as well as a dying man might be supposed to walk. Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His steps were feeble and uncertain, just as the wolf's that trailed him were feeble and uncertain; and that night, when the shining sea was blotted out by blackness, he knew he was nearer to it by no more than four miles.
Throughout the night he heard the cough of the sick wolf, and now and then the squawking of the caribou calves. There was life all around him, but it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail in the hope that the man would die first. In the morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it regarding him with a wistful and hungry stare. It stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the chill morning wind, and grinned dispiritedly when the man spoke to it in a voice that achieved no more than a hoarse whisper.
The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man tottered and fell toward the ship on the shining sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief Indian Summer of the high latitudes. It might last a week. To-morrow or next day it might be gone.
In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours. The man thought it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, uninterested way. He had no curiosity. In fact, sensation and emotion had left him. He was no longer susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him on. He was very weary, but it refused to die. It was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept a wary eye on the sick wolf.

continued below

 

[.angel.]

thanks for your good story but put shorter story please zohre!!!!!!!!

 

[.angel.]

​

There was a rich merchant who had 4 wives. He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best. He also loved the 3rd wife very much. He's very proud of her and always wanted to show off her to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other men. He too, loved his 2nd wife. She is a very considerate person, always patient and in fact is the merchant's confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his 2nd wife and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times. Now, the merchant's 1st wife is a very loyal partner and has made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and business as well as taking care of the household. However, the merchant did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her. One day, the merchant fell ill. Before long, he knew that he was going to die soon. He thought of his luxurious life and told himself, "Now I have 4 wives with me. But when I die, I'll be alone. How lonely I'll be!" Thus, he asked the 4th wife, "I loved you most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?" "No way!" replied the 4th wife and she walked away without another word. The answer cut like a sharp knife right into the merchant's heart. The sad merchant then asked the 3rd wife, "I have loved you so much for all my life. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?" "No!" replied the 3rd wife. "Life is so good over here! I'm going to remarry when you die!" The merchant's heart sank and turned cold. He then asked the 2nd wife, "I always turned to you for help and you've always helped me out. Now I need your help again. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?" "I'm sorry, I can't help you out this time!" replied the 2nd wife. "At the very most, I can only send you to your grave." The answer came like a bolt of thunder and the merchant was devastated. Then a voice called out : "I'll leave with you. I'll follow you no matter where you go." The merchant looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the merchant said, "I should have taken much better care of you while I could have !" Actually, we all have 4 wives in our lives a. The 4th wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it'll leave us when we die. b. Our 3rd wife ? Our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they all go to others. c. The 2nd wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we're alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave. d. The 1st wife is in fact our soul, often neglected in our pursuit of material, wealth and sensual pleasure. Guess what? It is actually the only thing that follows us wherever we go. Perhaps it's a good idea to cultivate and strengthen it now rather than to wait until we're on our deathbed to lament

​

 

[*زهره*]

TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE by: F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

[SIZE=-1]Running footsteps--light, soft-soled shoes made of curious leathery [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]cloth brought from Ceylon setting the pace; thick flowing boots, two [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pairs, dark blue and gilt, reflecting the moonlight in blunt gleams [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and splotches, following a stone's throw behind.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Soft Shoes flashes through a patch of moonlight, then darts into a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]blind labyrinth of alleys and becomes only an intermittent scuffle [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]ahead somewhere in the enfolding darkness. In go Flowing Boots, with [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]short swords lurching and long plumes awry, finding a breath to curse [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]God and the black lanes of London.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Soft Shoes leaps a shadowy gate and crackles through a hedgerow. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Flowing Boots leap the gate and crackles through the hedgerow--and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]there, startlingly, is the watch ahead--two murderous pikemen of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]ferocious cast of mouth acquired in Holland and the Spanish marches.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]But there is no cry for help. The pursued does not fall panting at the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]feet of the watch, clutching a purse; neither do the pursuers raise a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hue and cry. Soft Shoes goes by in a rush of swift air. The watch [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]curse and hesitate, glance after the fugitive, and then spread their [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pikes grimly across the road and wait for Flowing Boots. Darkness, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]like a great hand, cuts off the even flow the moon.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The hand moves off the moon whose pale caress finds again the eaves [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and lintels, and the watch, wounded and tumbled in the dust. Up the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]street one of Flowing Boots leaves a black trail of spots until he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]binds himself, clumsily as he runs, with fine lace caught from his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]throat.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It was no affair for the watch: Satan was at large tonight and Satan [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]seemed to be he who appeared dimly in front, heel over gate, knee over [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fence. Moreover, the adversary was obviously travelling near home or [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]at least in that section of London consecrated to his coarser whims, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]for the street narrowed like a road in a picture and the houses bent [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]over further and further, cooping in natural ambushes suitable for [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]murder and its histrionic sister, sudden death.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Down long and sinuous lanes twisted the hunted and the harriers, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]always in and out of the moon in a perpetual queen's move over a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]checker-board of glints and patches. Ahead, the quarry, minus his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]leather jerkin now and half blinded by drips of sweat, had taken to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]scanning his ground desperately on both sides. As a result he suddenly [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]slowed short, and retracing his steps a bit scooted up an alley so [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dark that it seemed that here sun and moon had been in eclipse since [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the last glacier slipped roaring over the earth. Two hundred yards [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]down he stopped and crammed himself into a niche in the wall where he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]huddled and panted silently, a grotesque god without bulk or outline [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in the gloom.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Flowing Boots, two pairs, drew near, came up, went by, halted twenty [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]yards beyond him, and spoke in deep-lunged, scanty whispers:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I was attune to that scuffle; it stopped."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Within twenty paces."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"He's hid."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Stay together now and we'll cut him up."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The voice faded into a low crunch of a boot, nor did Soft Shoes wait [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to hear more--he sprang in three leaps across the alley, where he bounded up, flapped for a moment on the top of the wall like a huge [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]bird, and disappeared, gulped down by the hungry night at a mouthful.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]II[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]"He read at wine, he read in bed, [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]He read aloud, had he the breath,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]His every thought was with the dead,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]And so he read himself to death."[/SIZE] ​

[SIZE=-1]Any visitor to the old James the First graveyard near Peat's Hill may [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]spell out this bit of doggerel, undoubtedly one of the worst recorded [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of an Elizabethan, on the tomb of Wessel Caster.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]This death of his, says the antiquary, occurred when he was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]thirty-seven, but as this story is concerned with the night of a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]certain chase through darkness, we find him still alive, still [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]reading. His eyes were somewhat dim, his stomach somewhat obvious -- he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was a mis-built man and indolent--oh, Heavens! But an era is an era, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and in the reign of Elizabeth, by the grace of Luther, Queen of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]England, no man could help but catch the spirit of enthusiasm. Every [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]loft in Cheapside published its Magnum Folium (or magazine)--of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]its new blank verse; the Cheapside Players would produce anything on [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sight as long as it "got away from those reactionary miracle plays," [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and the English Bible had run through seven "very large" printings in, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]as many months.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]So Wessel Caxter (who in his youth had gone to sea) was now a reader [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]of all on which he could lay his hands--he read manuscripts In holy [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]friendship; he dined rotten poets; he loitered about the shops where [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the Magna Folia were printed, and he listened tolerantly while [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the young playwrights wrangled and bickered among them-selves, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]behind each other's backs made bitter and malicious charges of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]plagiarism or anything else they could think of.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]To-night he had a book, a piece of work which, though inordinately [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]versed, contained, he thought, some rather excellent political satire. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]"The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser lay before him under the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]tremulous candle-light. He had ploughed through a canto; he was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]beginning another:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]THE LEGEND OF BRITOMARTIS OR OF CHASTITY[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]It falls me here to write of Chastity.[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]The fayrest vertue, far above the rest....[/SIZE] ​

[SIZE=-1]A sudden rush of feet on the stairs, a rusty swing-open of the thin [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]door, and a man thrust himself into the room, a man without a jerkin, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]panting, sobbing, on the verge of collapse.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Wessel," words choked him, "stick me away somewhere, love of Our [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Lady!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Caxter rose, carefully closing his book, and bolted the door in some [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]concern.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I'm pursued," cried out Soft Shoes. "I vow there's two short-witted [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]blades trying to make me into mincemeat and near succeeding. They saw [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]me hop the back wall!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It would need," said Wessel, looking at him curiously, "several [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]battalions armed with blunderbusses, and two or three Armadas, to keep [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]you reasonably secure from the revenges of the world."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Soft Shoes smiled with satisfaction. His sobbing gasps were giving way [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]to quick, precise breathing; his hunted air had faded to a faintly [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]perturbed irony.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I feel little surprise," continued Wessel.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"They were two such dreary apes."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Making a total of three."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Only two unless you stick me away. Man, man, come alive, they'll be [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]on the stairs in a spark's age."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel took a dismantled pike-staff from the corner, and raising it to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the high ceiling, dislodged a rough trap-door opening into a garret [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]above.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There's no ladder."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He moved a bench under the trap, upon which Soft Shoes mounted, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]crouched, hesitated, crouched again, and then leaped amazingly upward. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]He caught at the edge of the aperture and swung back and forth, for a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]moment, shifting his hold; finally doubled up and disappeared into the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]darkness above. There was a scurry, a migration of rats, as the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]trap-door was replaced;... silence.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel returned to his reading-table, opened to the Legend of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Britomartis or of Chastity--and waited. Almost a minute later there [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]was a scramble on the stairs and an intolerable hammering at the door. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Wessel sighed and, picking up his candle, rose.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Who's there?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Open the door!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Who's there?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]An aching blow frightened the frail wood, splintered it around the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]edge. Wessel opened it a scarce three inches, and held the candle [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]high. His was to play the timorous, the super-respectable citizen, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]disgracefully disturbed.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"One small hour of the night for rest. Is that too much to ask from [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]every brawler and---"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Quiet, gossip! Have you seen a perspiring fellow?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The shadows of two gallants fell in immense wavering outlines over the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]narrow stairs; by the light Wessel scrutinized them closely. [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Gentlemen, they were, hastily but richly dressed--one of them wounded [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]severely in the hand, both radiating a sort of furious horror. Waving [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]aside Wessel's ready miscomprehension, they pushed by him into the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]room and with their swords went through the business of poking [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]carefully into all suspected dark spots in the room, further extending [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]their search to Wessel's bedchamber.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Is he hid here?" demanded the wounded man fiercely.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Is who here?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Any man but you."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Only two others that I know of."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]For a second Wessel feared that he had been too damned funny, for the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]gallants made as though to prick him through.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I heard a man on the stairs," he said hastily, "full five minutes [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]ago, it was. He most certainly failed to come up."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He went on to explain his absorption in "The Faerie Queene" but, for [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the moment at least, his visitors, like the great saints, were [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]anaesthetic to culture.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What's been done?" inquired Wessel.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Violence!" said the man with the wounded hand. Wessel noticed that [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]his eyes were quite wild. "My own sister. Oh, Christ in heaven, give [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]us this man!"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel winced.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Who is the man?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"God's word! We know not even that. What's that trap up there?" he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]added suddenly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It's nailed down. It's not been used for years." He thought of the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pole in the corner and quailed in his belly, but the utter despair of [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the two men dulled their astuteness.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It would take a ladder for any one not a tumbler," said the wounded [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]man listlessly.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]His companion broke into hysterical laughter.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"A tumbler. Oh, a tumbler. Oh---"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel stared at them in wonder.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That appeals to my most tragic humor," cried the man, "that no [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]one--oh, no one--could get up there but a tumbler."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The gallant with the wounded hand snapped his good fingers [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]impatiently.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"We must go next door--and then on--"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Helplessly they went as two walking under a dark and storm-swept sky.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel closed and bolted the door and stood a moment by it, frowning [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in pity.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]A low-breathed "Ha!" made him look up. Soft Shoes had already raised [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the trap and was looking down into the room, his rather elfish face [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]squeezed into a grimace, half of distaste, half of sardonic amusement.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"They take off their heads with their helmets," he remarked in a [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]whisper, "but as for you and me, Wessel, we are two cunning men."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Now you be cursed," cried Wessel vehemently. "I knew you for a dog, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]but when I hear even the half of a tale like this, I know you for such [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]a dirty cur that I am minded to club your skull."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Soft Shoes stared at him, blinking.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"At all events," he replied finally, "I find dignity impossible in [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]this position."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]With this he let his body through the trap, hung for an instant, and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dropped the seven feet to the floor.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There was a rat considered my ear with the air of a gourmet," he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]continued, dusting his hands on his breeches. "I told him in the rat's [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]peculiar idiom that I was deadly poison, so he took himself off."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Let's hear of this night's lechery!" insisted Wessel angrily.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Soft Shoes touched his thumb to his nose and wiggled the fingers [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]derisively at Wessel.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Street gamin!" muttered Wessel.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Have you any paper?" demanded Soft Shoes irrelevantly, and then [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]rudely added, "or can you write?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Why should I give you paper?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"You wanted to hear of the night's entertainment. So you shall, an you [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]give me pen, ink, a sheaf of paper, and a room to myself."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel hesitated.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Get out!" he said finally.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"As you will. Yet you have missed a most intriguing story."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel wavered--he was soft as taffy, that man--gave in. Soft Shoes [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]went into the adjoining room with the begrudged writing materials and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]precisely closed the door. Wessel grunted and returned to "The Faerie [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Queene"; so silence came once more upon the house.[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]III[/SIZE]
​

[SIZE=-1]Three o'clock went into four. The room paled, the dark outside was [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]shot through with damp and chill, and Wessel, cupping his brain in his [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]hands, bent low over his table, tracing through the pattern of knights [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]and fairies and the harrowing distresses of many girls. There were [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dragons chortling along the narrow street outside; when the sleepy [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]armorer's boy began his work at half-past five the heavy clink and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]clank of plate and linked mail swelled to the echo of a marching [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]cavalcade.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]A fog shut down at the first flare of dawn, and the room was grayish [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]yellow at six when Wessel tiptoed to his cupboard bedchamber and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]pulled open the door. His guest turned on him a face pale as parchment [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in which two distraught eyes burned like great red letters. He had [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]drawn a chair close to Wessel's prie-dieu which he was using as [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]a desk; and on it was an amazing stack of closely written pages. With [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]a long sigh Wessel withdrew and returned to his siren, calling himself [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]fool for not claiming his bed here at dawn.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The dump of boots outside, the croaking of old beldames from attic to [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]attic, the dull murmur of morning, unnerved him, and, dozing, he [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]slumped in his chair, his brain, overladen with sound and color, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]working intolerably over the imagery that stacked it. In this restless [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]dream of his he was one of a thousand groaning bodies crushed near the [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]sun, a helpless bridge for the strong-eyed Apollo. The dream tore at [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]him, scraped along his mind like a ragged knife. When a hot hand [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]touched his shoulder, he awoke with what was nearly a scream to find [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]the fog thick in the room and his guest, a gray ghost of misty stuff, [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]beside him with a pile of paper in his hand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It should be a most intriguing tale, I believe, though it requires [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]some going over. May I ask you to lock it away, and in God's name let [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]me sleep?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He waited for no answer, but thrust the pile at Wessel, and literally [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]poured himself like stuff from a suddenly inverted bottle upon a couch [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]in the corner, slept, with his breathing regular, but his brow [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]wrinkled in a curious and somewhat uncanny manner.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Wessel yawned sleepily and, glancing at the scrawled, uncertain first [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]page, he began reading aloud very softly:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]The Rape of Lucrece[/SIZE]

​

[SIZE=-1]"From the besieged Ardea all in post,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Lust-breathing Tarquin leaves the Roman host--"[/SIZE]
​

 

[...scream...]

Three Rooms in Hell

A man dies and goes to Hell. The Devil meets him at the gates and says "There are three rooms here. You can choose which one you want to spend eternity in

The Devil takes him to the first room where there are people hanging from the walls by their wrists and obviously in agony

The Devil takes him to the second room where the people are being whipped with metal chains

The Devil then opens the third door, and the man looks inside and sees many people sitting around, up to their waists in garbage, drinking cups of tea

The man decides instantly which room he is going to spend eternity in and chooses the last room

He goes into the third room, picks up his cup of tea and the Devil walks back in saying "Ok, guys, tea break’s over, back on your heads​

 

[*زهره*]

NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN by: O. Henry

NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN by: O. Henry

[SIZE=-1]"We sail at eight in the morning on the Celtic," said Honoria, plucking a loose thread from her lace sleeve.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I heard so," said young Ives, dropping his hat, and muffing it as he tried to catch it, "and I came around to wish you a pleasant voyage."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Of course you heard it," said Honoria, coldly sweet, "since we have had no opportunity of informing you ourselves."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Ives looked at her pleadingly, but with little hope.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Outside in the street a high-pitched voice chanted, not unmusically, a commercial gamut of "Cand-ee-ee-ee-s! Nice, fresh cand-ee-ee-ee-ees!"[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"It's our old candy man," said Honoria, leaning out the window and beckoning. "I want some of his motto kisses. There's nothing in the Broadway shops half so good."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man stopped his pushcart in front of the old Madison Avenue home. He had a holiday and festival air unusual to street peddlers. His tie was new and bright red, and a horseshoe pin, almost life-size, glittered speciously from its folds. His brown, thin face was crinkled into a semi-foolish smile. Striped cuffs with dog-head buttons covered the tan on his wrists.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I do believe he's going to get married," said Honoria, pityingly. "I never saw him taken that way before. And to-day is the first time in months that he has cried his wares, I am sure."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Ives threw a coin to the sidewalk. The candy man knows his customers. He filled a paper bag, climbed the old-fashioned stoop and handed it in. "I remember--" said Ives.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Wait," said Honoria.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]She took a small portfolio from the drawer of a writing desk and from the portfolio a slip of flimsy paper one-quarter of an inch by two inches in size.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"This," said Honoria, inflexibly, "was wrapped about the first one we opened."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"It was a year ago," apologized Ives, as he held out his hand for it,[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"As long as skies above are blue[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]To you, my love, I will be true."[/SIZE] ​

[SIZE=-1]This he read from the slip of flimsy paper.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"We were to have sailed a fortnight ago," said Honoria, gossipingly. "It has been such a warm summer. The town is quite deserted. There is nowhere to go. Yet I am told that one or two of the roof gardens are amusing. The singing -- and the dancing -- on one or two seem to have met with approval."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Ives did not wince. When you are in the ring you are not surprised when your adversary taps you on the ribs.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"I followed the candy man that time," said Ives, irrelevantly, "and gave him five dollars at the corner of Broadway."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He reached for the paper bag in Honoria's lap, took out one of the square, wrapped confections and slowly unrolled it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Sara Chillingworth's father," said Honoria, "has given her an automobile."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Read that," said Ives, handing over the slip that had been wrapped around the square of candy.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]"Life teaches us -- how to live,[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Love teaches us -- to forgive."[/SIZE] ​

[SIZE=-1]Honoria's checks turned pink.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Honoria!" cried Ives, starting up from his chair.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Miss Clinton," corrected Honoria, rising like Venus from the bead on the surf. "I warned you not to speak that name again."'[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Honoria," repeated Ives, "you must hear me. I know I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I must have it. There is a madness that possesses one sometimes for which his better nature is not responsible. I throw everything else but you to the winds. I strike off the chains that have bound me. I renounce the siren that lured me from you. Let the bought verse of that street peddler plead for me. It is you only whom I can love. Let your love forgive, and I swear to you that mine will be true 'as long as skies above are blue.'"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]On the west side, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, an alley cuts the block in the middle. It perishes in a little court in the centre of the block. The district is theatrical; the inhabitants, the bubbling froth of half a dozen nations. The atmosphere is Bohemian, the language polyglot, the locality precarious.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]In the court at the rear of the alley lived the candy man. At seven o'clock he pushed his cart into the narrow entrance, rested it upon the irregular stone slats and sat upon one of the handles to cool himself. There was a great draught of cool wind through the alley.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]There was a window above the spot where he always stopped his pushcart. In the cool of the afternoon, Mlle. Adèle, drawing card of the Aërial Roof Garden, sat at the window and took the air. Generally her ponderous mass of dark auburn hair was down, that the breeze might have the felicity of aiding Sidonie, the maid, in drying and airing it. About her shoulders -- the point of her that the photographers always made the most of -- was loosely draped a heliotrope scarf. Her arms to the elbow were bare -- there were no sculptors there to rave over them -- but even the stolid bricks in the walls of the alley should not have been so insensate as to disapprove. While she sat thus Félice, another maid, anointed and bathed the small feet that twinkled and so charmed the nightly Aërial audiences.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Gradually Mademoiselle began to notice the candy man stopping to mop his brow and cool himself beneath her window. In the hands of her maids she was deprived for the time of her vocation -- the charming and binding to her chariot of man. To lose time was displeasing to Mademoiselle. Here was the candy man -- no fit game for her darts, truly -- but of the *** upon which she had been born to make war.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]After casting upon him looks of unseeing coldness for a dozen times, one afternoon she suddenly thawed and poured down upon him a smile that put to shame the sweets upon his cart.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," she said, cooingly, while Sidonie followed her impulsive dive, brushing the heavy auburn hair, "don't you think I am beautiful?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man laughed harshly, and looked up, with his thin jaw set, while he wiped his forehead with a red-and-blue handkerchief.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Yer'd make a dandy magazine cover," he said, grudgingly. "Beautiful or not is for them that cares. It's not my line. If yer lookin' for bouquets apply elsewhere between nine and twelve. I think we'll have rain."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Truly, fascinating a candy man is like killing rabbits in a deep snow; but the hunter's blood is widely diffused. Mademoiselle tugged a great coil of hair from Sidonie's hands and let it fall out the window.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man, have you a sweetheart anywhere with hair as long and soft as that? And with an arm so round?" She flexed an arm like Galatea's after the miracle across the window-sill.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man cackled shrilly as he arranged a stock of butter-scotch that had tumbled down.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Smoke up!" said he, vulgarly. "Nothin' doin' in the complimentary line. I'm too wise to be bamboozled by a switch of hair and a newly massaged arm. Oh, I guess you'll make good in the calcium, all right, with plenty of powder and paint on and the orchestra playing 'Under the Old Apple Tree.' But don't put on your hat and chase downstairs to fly to the Little Church Around the Corner with me. I've been up against peroxide and make-up boxes before. Say, all joking aside -- don't you think we'll have rain?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," said Mademoiselle softly, with her lips curving and her chin dimpling, "don't you think I'm pretty?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man grinned.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Savin' money, ain't yer?" said he, "by bein' yer own press agent. I smoke, but I haven't seen yer mug on any of the five-cent cigar boxes. It'd take a new brand of woman to get me goin', anyway. I know 'em from sidecombs to shoelaces. Gimme a good day's sales and steak-and-onions at seven and a pipe and an evenin' paper back there in the court, and I'll not trouble Lillian Russell herself to wink at me, if you please."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Mademoiselle pouted.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," she said, softly and deeply, "yet you shall say that I am beautiful. All men say so and so shall you."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man laughed and pulled out his pipe.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Well," said he, "I must be goin' in. There is a story in the evenin' paper that I am readin'. Men are divin' in the seas for a treasure, and pirates are watchin' them from behind a reef. And there ain't a woman on land or water or in the air. Good-evenin'." And he trundled his pushcart down the alley and back to the musty court where he lived.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Incredibly to him who has not learned woman, Mademoiselle sat at the window each day and spread her nets for the ignominious game. Once she kept a grand cavalier waiting in her reception chamber for half an hour while she battered in vain the candy man's tough philosophy. His rough laugh chafed her vanity to its core. Daily he sat on his cart in the breeze of the alley while her hair was being ministered to, and daily the shafts of her beauty rebounded from his dull bosom pointless and ineffectual. Unworthy pique brightened her eyes. Pride-hurt she glowed upon him in a way that would have sent her higher adorers into an egoistic paradise. The candy man's hard eyes looked upon her with a half-concealed derision that urged her to the use of the sharpest arrow in her beauty's quiver.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]One afternoon she leaned far over the sill, and she did not challenge and torment him as usual.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," said she, "stand up and look into my eyes."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]He stood up and looked into her eyes, with his harsh laugh like the sawing of wood. He took out his pipe, fumbled with it, and put it back into big pocket with a trembling hand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"That will do," said Mademoiselle, with a slow smile. "I must go now to my masseuse. Good-evening."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The next evening at seven the candy man came and rested his cart under the window. But was it the candy man? His clothes were a bright new check. His necktie was a flaming red, adorned by a glittering horseshoe pin, almost life-size. His shoes were polished; the tan of his cheeks had paled -- his hands had been washed. The window was empty, and he waited under it with his nose upward, like a hound hoping for a bone.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Mademoiselle came, with Sidonie carrying her load of hair. She looked at the candy man and smiled a slow smile that faded away into ennui. Instantly she knew that the game was bagged; and so quickly she wearied of the chase. She began to talk to Sidonie.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Been a fine day," said the candy man, hollowly. "First time in a month I've felt first-class. Hit it up down old Madison, hollering out like I useter. Think it'll rain to-morrow?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Mademoiselle laid two round arms on the cushion on the window-sill, and a dimpled chin upon them.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," said she, softly, "do you not love me?"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The candy man stood up and leaned against the brick wall.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Lady," said he, chokingly, "I've got $800 saved up. Did I say you wasn't beautiful? Take it every bit of it and buy a collar for your dog with it."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]A sound as of a hundred silvery bells tinkled in the room of Mademoiselle. The laughter filled the alley and trickled back into the court, as strange a thing to enter there as sunlight itself. Mademoiselle was amused. Sidonie, a wise echo, added a sepulchral but faithful contralto. The laughter of the two seemed at last to penetrate the candy man. He fumbled with his horseshoe pin. At length Mademoiselle, exhausted, turned her flushed, beautiful face to the window.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Candy man," said she, "go away. When I laugh Sidonie pulls my hair. I can but laugh while you remain there."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Here is a note for Mademoiselle," said Félice, coming to the window in the room.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"There is no justice," said the candy man, lifting the handle of his cart and moving away.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Three yards he moved, and stopped. Loud shriek after shriek came from the window of Mademoiselle. Quickly he ran back. He heard a body thumping upon the floor and a sound as though heels beat alternately upon it.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"What is it?" he called.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Sidonie's severe head came into the window.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]"Mademoiselle is overcome by bad news," she said. "One whom she loved with all her soul has gone -- you may have heard of him -- he is Monsieur Ives. He sails across the ocean to-morrow. Oh, you men!"[/SIZE]
​

 

[Persia1]

خانم جوانی در سالن انتظار فرودگاهی بزرگ منتظر اعلام برای سوار شدن به هواپیما بود..

As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies.

باید ساعات زیادی رو برای سوار شدن به هواپیما سپری میکرد و تا پرواز هواپیما مدت زیادی مونده بود ..پس تصمیم گرفت یه کتاب بخره و با مطالعه كتاب اين مدت رو بگذرونه ..اون همینطور یه پاکت شیرینی خرید...

She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP room of the airport, to rest and read in peace.

اون خانم نشست رو یه صندلی راحتی در قسمتی که مخصوص افراد مهم بود. تا هم با خیال راحت استراحت کنه و هم کتابشو بخونه.

Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading.

کنار دستش .اون جایی که پاکت شیرینی اش بود .یه آقایی نشست روی صندلی کنارش وشروع کرد به خوندن مجله ای که با خودش آورده بود ..

When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also.

She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought:

“What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!”

وقتی خانومه اولین شیرینی رو از تو پاکت برداشت..آقاهه هم یه دونه ورداشت ..خانومه عصبانی شد ولی به روي خودش نیاورد..فقط پیش خودش فکر کرد این یارو عجب رویی داره ..اگه حال و حوصله داشتم حسابی حالشو میگرفتم

For each cookie she took, the man took one too.

This was infuriating her but she didn’t want to cause a scene.

هر یه دونه شیرینی که خانومه بر میداشت ..آقاهه هم یکی ور میداشت .دیگه خانومه داشت راستی راستی جوش میاورد ولی نمی خواست باعث مشاجره بشه

When only one cookie remained, she thought: “ah... What this abusive man do now?”

Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it into half, giving her one half.

وقتی فقط یه دونه شیرینی ته پاکت مونده بود ..خانومه فکر کرد..اه . حالا این آقای پر رو و سواستفاده چی چه عکس العملی نشون میده..هان؟؟؟؟آقاهه هم با کمال خونسردی شیرینی آخری رو ور داشت ..دو قسمت کرد و نصفشو داد خانومه ونصف دیگه شو خودش خورد..

Ah! That was too much!

She was much too angry now!

In a huff, she took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place.


اه ..این دیگه خیلی رو میخواد...خانومه دیگه از عصبانیت کارد میزدی خونش در نمیومد. در حالی که حسابی قاطی کرده بود ..بلند شد و کتاب و اثاثش رو برداشت وعصبانی رفت برای سوار شدن به هواپیما

When she sat down in her seat, inside the plane, she looked into her purse to take her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there, untouched, unopened!


وقتی نشست سر جای خودش تو هواپیما ..یه نگاهی توی کیفش کرد تا عینکش رو بر داره..که یک دفعه غافلگیر شد..چرا؟ برای این که دید که پاکت شیرینی که خریده بود توی کیفش هست .<<.دست نخورده و باز نشده>>

She felt so ashamed!! She realized that she was wrong...

She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse


فهمید که اشتباه کرده و از خودش شرمنده شد.اون یادش رفته بود که پاکت شیرینی رو وقتی خریده بود تو کیفش گذاشته بود.

The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter.


اون آقا بدون ناراحتی و اوقات تلخی شیرینی هاشو با او تقسیم کرده بود

...while she had been very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him.

And now there was no chance to explain herself...nor to apologize.”


در زمانی که

اون عصبانی بود و فکر میکرد که در واقع اون آقاهه است که داره شیرینی هاشو میخوره و حالا حتی فرصتی نه تنها برای توجیه کار خودش بلکه برای عذر خواهی از اون آقا رو نداره

There are 4 things that you cannot recover


چهار چیز هست که غیر قابل جبران و برگشت ناپذیر هست .
The stone... ...after the throw!

سنگ بعد از این که پرتاب شد
The word... palavra... ...after it’s said!....

دشنام .. بعد از این که گفته شد..
The occasion.... after the loss!

موقعیت .... بعد از این که از دست رفت...
and...The time.....after it’s gone!

و زمان... بعد از این که گذشت و سپری شد...



گرد آوری: گروه دانش وتکنولوژی سایت تبیان زنجان

 

[Persia1]

خانم جوانی در سالن انتظار فرودگاهی بزرگ منتظر اعلام برای سوار شدن به هواپیما بود..

As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies.
​

باید ساعات زیادی رو برای سوار شدن به هواپیما سپری میکرد و تا پرواز هواپیما مدت زیادی مونده بود ..پس تصمیم گرفت یه کتاب بخره و با مطالعه كتاب اين مدت رو بگذرونه ..اون همینطور یه پاکت شیرینی خرید...

She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP room of the airport, to rest and read in peace.
​

اون خانم نشست رو یه صندلی راحتی در قسمتی که مخصوص افراد مهم بود. تا هم با خیال راحت استراحت کنه و هم کتابشو بخونه.

Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading.
​

کنار دستش .اون جایی که پاکت شیرینی اش بود .یه آقایی نشست روی صندلی کنارش وشروع کرد به خوندن مجله ای که با خودش آورده بود ..

When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also.

She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought:

“What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!”
​

وقتی خانومه اولین شیرینی رو از تو پاکت برداشت..آقاهه هم یه دونه ورداشت ..خانومه عصبانی شد ولی به روي خودش نیاورد..فقط پیش خودش فکر کرد این یارو عجب رویی داره ..اگه حال و حوصله داشتم حسابی حالشو میگرفتم

For each cookie she took, the man took one too.

This was infuriating her but she didn’t want to cause a scene.
​

هر یه دونه شیرینی که خانومه بر میداشت ..آقاهه هم یکی ور میداشت .دیگه خانومه داشت راستی راستی جوش میاورد ولی نمی خواست باعث مشاجره بشه

When only one cookie remained, she thought: “ah... What this abusive man do now?”

Then, the man, taking the last cookie, divided it into half, giving her one half.
​

وقتی فقط یه دونه شیرینی ته پاکت مونده بود ..خانومه فکر کرد..اه . حالا این آقای پر رو و سواستفاده چی چه عکس العملی نشون میده..هان؟؟؟؟آقاهه هم با کمال خونسردی شیرینی آخری رو ور داشت ..دو قسمت کرد و نصفشو داد خانومه ونصف دیگه شو خودش خورد..

Ah! That was too much!

She was much too angry now!

In a huff, she took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place.
​

اه ..این دیگه خیلی رو میخواد...خانومه دیگه از عصبانیت کارد میزدی خونش در نمیومد. در حالی که حسابی قاطی کرده بود ..بلند شد و کتاب و اثاثش رو برداشت وعصبانی رفت برای سوار شدن به هواپیما

When she sat down in her seat, inside the plane, she looked into her purse to take her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there, untouched, unopened!
​

وقتی نشست سر جای خودش تو هواپیما ..یه نگاهی توی کیفش کرد تا عینکش رو بر داره..که یک دفعه غافلگیر شد..چرا؟ برای این که دید که پاکت شیرینی که خریده بود توی کیفش هست .<<.دست نخورده و باز نشده>>

She felt so ashamed!! She realized that she was wrong...

She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse
​

فهمید که اشتباه کرده و از خودش شرمنده شد.اون یادش رفته بود که پاکت شیرینی رو وقتی خریده بود تو کیفش گذاشته بود.

The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter.
​

اون آقا بدون ناراحتی و اوقات تلخی شیرینی هاشو با او تقسیم کرده بود

...while she had been very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him.

And now there was no chance to explain herself...nor to apologize.”
​

در زمانی که

اون عصبانی بود و فکر میکرد که در واقع اون آقاهه است که داره شیرینی هاشو میخوره و حالا حتی فرصتی نه تنها برای توجیه کار خودش بلکه برای عذر خواهی از اون آقا رو نداره

There are 4 things that you cannot recover
​

چهار چیز هست که غیر قابل جبران و برگشت ناپذیر هست .

The stone... ...after the throw!
​

سنگ بعد از این که پرتاب شد

The word... palavra... ...after it’s said!....
​

دشنام .. بعد از این که گفته شد..

The occasion.... after the loss!
​

موقعیت .... بعد از این که از دست رفت...

and...The time.....after it’s gone!
​

و زمان... بعد از این که گذشت و سپری شد...



گرد آوری: گروه دانش وتکنولوژی سایت تبیان زنجان

 

[Persia1]

Two friends, Sam and Mike, were riding on a bus. Suddenly the bus stopped and bandits got on.The bandits began robbing the passengers. They were taking the passengers’ jewelry and watches. They were taking all their money, too. Sam opened his wallet and took out twenty dollars. He gave the twenty dollars to Mike Why are you giving me this money?” Mike asked Last week I didn’t have any money, and you loaned me twenty dollars, remember?” Sam said. “Yes, I remember,” Mike said. " I’m paying you back,” Sam said
​

قرض

دو دوست به نام های سام و مایک در حال مسافرت در اتوبوس بودند. ناگهان اتوبوس توقف کرد و یک دسته راهزن وارد اتوبوس شدند. راهزنان شروع به غارت کردن مسافران کردند. آن ها شروع به گرفتن ساعت و اشیاء قیمتی مسافران کردند. ضمنا تمام پول های مسافران را نیز از آن ها می گرفتند.

سام کیف پول خود را باز نمود و بیست دلار از آن بیرون آورد. او این بیست دلار را به مایک داد. مایک پرسید: «چرا این پول را به من می دهی؟» سام جواب داد: «یادت می آید هفته گذشته وقتی من پول نداشتم تو به من بیست دلار قرض دادی؟» مایک گفت: «بله، یادم هست.» سام گفت: «من دارم پولت را پس می دهم.

گرد آوری: گروه دانش وتکنولوژی سایت تبیان زنجان

 

[Persia1]

داستان يك قورباغه

A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit When the other frogs saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their migh The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die He jumped even harder and finally made it out When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.

This story teaches two lessons
There is power of life and death in the tongue An encouraging word to someone who is down can lift them up and help them make it through the day
A destructive word to someone who is down can be what it takes to kill them
So, be careful of what you say

​

گروهی از قورباغه ها از بیشه ای عبور می کردند . دو قورباغه از بین آنها درون گودال عمیقی افتادند. وقتی دیگر قورباغه ها دیدند که گودال چقدر عمیق است ،به دو قورباغه گفتند آنها دیگر می میرند. دو قورباغه نصایح آنها را نادیده گرفتند و سعی کردند با تمام توانشان از گودال بیرون بپرند. سرانجام یکی از آنها به آنچه دیگر قورباغه ها می گفتند، اعتنا کرد و دست از تلاش برداشت. به زمین افتاد و مرد. قورباغه دیگر به تلاش ادامه داد تا جایی که توان داشت. بار دیگر قورباغه ها سرش فریاد کشیدند که دست از رنج کشیدن بردارد و بمیرد. او سخت تر شروع به پریدن کرد و سرانجام بیرون آمد. وقتی او از آنجا خارج شد. قورباغه های دیگر به او گفتند :آیا صدای ما را نشنیدی؟ قورباغه به آنها توضیح داد که او ناشنوا است.او فکر کرد که قورباغه ها، تمام مدت او را تشویق می کردند.

این داستان دو درس به ما می آموزد:

قدرت زندگی و مرگ در زبان است. یک واژه دلگرم کننده به کسی که غمگین است می تواند باعث پیشرفت او شود و کمک کند در طول روز سرزنده باشند.
یک واژه مخرب به کسی که غمگین است می تواند موجب مرگ او شود.
پس مراقب آنجه می گویی باش.

منبع : بيرجند پرتال

 

[Persia1]

داستان يك دندان پزشك

Mr Robinson never went to a dentist, because he was afraid:'

but then his teeth began hurting a lot, and he went to a dentist. The dentist did a lot of work in his mouth for a long time. On the last day Mr Robinson said to him, 'How much is all this work going to cost?' The dentist said, 'Twenty-five pounds,' but he did not ask him for the money.

After a month Mr Robinson phoned the dentist and said, 'You haven't asked me for any money for your work last month.'

'Oh,' the dentist answered, 'I never ask a gentleman for money.'

'Then how do you live?' Mr Robinson asked.

'Most gentlemen pay me quickly,' the dentist said, 'but some don't. I wait for my money for two months, and then I say, "That man isn't a gentleman," and then I ask him for my money.
​

آقاي رابينسون هرگز به دندانپزشكي نرفته بود، براي اينكه ميترسيد.
اما بعد دندانش شروع به درد كرد، و به دندانپزشكي رفت. دندانپزشك بر روي دهان او وقت زيادي گذاشت و كلي كار كرد. در آخرين روز دكتر رابينسون به او گفت: هزينهي تمام اين كارها چقدر ميشود؟ دندانپزشك گفت: بيست و پنج پوند. اما از او درخواست پول نكرد.

بعد از يك ماه آقاي رابينسون به دندانپزشك زنگ زد و گفت: ماه گذشته شما از من تقاضاي هيچ پولي براي كارتان نكرديد.

دندانپزشك پاسخ داد: آه، من هرگز از انسانهاي نجيب تقاضاي پول نميكنم.

آقاي رابينسون پرسيد: پس چگونه زندگي ميكنيد.

دندانپزشك گفت: بيشتر انسانهاي شريف به سرعت پول مرا ميدهند، اما بعضيها نه. من براي پولم دو ماه صبر ميكنم، و بعد ميگويم «وي مرد شريفي نيست» و بعد از وي پولم را ميخواهم.


منبع : بيرجند پرتال

 

[Persia1]

داستان شنل قرمزی - قسمت اول

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a village near the forest. Whenever she went out, the little girl wore a red riding cloak, so everyone in the village called her Little Red Riding Hood.
One morning, Little Red Riding Hood asked her mother if she could go to visit her grandmother as it had been awhile since they'd seen each other.

"That's a good idea," her mother said. So they packed a nice basket for Little Red Riding Hood to take to her grandmother.
​

روزي روزگار ، دختر كوچكي در دهكده اي نزديك جنگل زندگي مي كرد . دخترك هرگاه بيرون مي رفت يك شنل با كلاه قرمز به تن مي كرد ، براي همين مردم دهكده او را شنل قرمزي صدا مي كردند .

يك روز صبح شنل قرمزي از مادرش خواست كه اگر ممكن است به او اجازه دهد تا به ديدن مادر بزرگش برود چون خيلي وقت بود كه آنها همديگر را نديده بودند . مادرش گفت : فكر خوبي است . سپس آنها يك سبد زيبا از خوراكي درست كردند تا شنل قرمزي آنرا براي مادر بزرگش ببرد

When the basket was ready, the little girl put on her red cloak and kissed her mother goodbye.
"Remember, go straight to Grandma's house," her mother cautioned. "Don't dawdle along the way and please don't talk to strangers! The woods are dangerous."

"Don't worry, mommy," said Little Red Riding Hood, "I'll be careful."
​

وقتي سبد آماده شد ، دخترك شنل قرمزش را پوشيد و مادرش را بوسيد و از او خداحافظي كرد .
مادرش گفت : عزيزم يكراست خانه مادربرگ برو و وقتت را تلف نكن در ضمن با غريبه ها حرف نزن . در جنگل خطرهاي فراواني وجود دارد
شنل قرمزي گفت : مادرجون ، نگران نباش . من دقت مي كنم

But when Little Red Riding Hood noticed some lovely flowers in the woods, she forgot her promise to her mother. She picked a few, watched the butterflies flit about for awhile, listened to the frogs croaking and then picked a few more.
Little Red Riding Hood was enjoying the warm summer day so much, that she didn't notice a dark shadow approaching out of the forest behind her...
​

اما وقتي در جنگل ، چشم او به گلهاي زيبا و دوست داشتني افتاد ، نصيحتهاي مادرش را فراموش كرد .
او تعدادي گل چيد و به پرواز پروانه ها نگاه كرد و به صداي قورباغه ها گوش داد .
شنل قرمزي از اين روز گرم تابستاني خيلي لذت مي برد و متوجه نزديك شدن سايه سياهي كه پشت سرش بود ، نشد .

منبع :انگليش سنتر