The Girl with Green Eyes
by J. Bassett

‘Of course,’ the man in the brown hat said, ‘there are good policemen and there are bad policemen, you know.’
‘You’re right,’ the young man said. ‘Yes. That’s very true. Isn’t it, Julie?’ He looked at the young woman next to him.
Julie didn’t answer and looked bored. She closed her eyes.
‘Julie’s my wife,’ the young man told the man in the brown hat. ‘She doesn’t like trains. She always feels ill on trains.’
‘Oh yes?’ the man in the brown hat said. ‘Now my wife — she doesn’t like buses. She nearly had an accident on a bus once. It was last year … No, no, it wasn’t. It was two years ago. I remember now. It was in Manchester.’ He told a long, boring story about his wife and a bus in Manchester.
It was a hot day and the train was slow. There were seven people in the carriage. There was the man in the brown hat; the young man and his wife, Julie; a mother and two children; and a tall dark man in an expensive suit.
The young man’s name was Bill. He had short brown hair and a happy smile. His wife, Julie, had long red hair and very green eyes — the colour of sea water. They were very beautiful eyes.
The man in the brown hat talked and talked. He had a big red face and a loud voice. He talked to Bill because Bill liked to talk too. The man in the brown hat laughed a lot, and when he laughed, Bill laughed too. Bill liked talking and laughing with people. The two children were hot and bored. They didn’t want to sit down. They wanted to be noisy and run up and down the train.
‘Now sit down and be quiet,’ their mother said. She was a small woman with a tired face and a tired voice.
’1 don’t want to sit down,’ the little boy said. ‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Here. Have an orange,’ his mother said. She took an orange out of her bag and gave it to him.
‘I want an orange too,’ the little girl said loudly.
‘All right. Here you are,’ said her mother. ‘Eat it nicely, now.’
The children ate their oranges and were quiet for a minute.
Then the little boy said, ‘I want a drink. I’m thirsty.’
The tall dark man took out his newspaper and began to read. Julie opened her eyes and looked at the back page of his newspaper. She read about the weather in Budapest and about the football in Liverpool. She wasn’t interested in Budapest and she didn’t like football, but she didn’t want to listen to Bill and the man in the brown hat. ‘Talk, talk, talk,’ she thought. ‘Bill never stops talking.’
Then suddenly she saw the tall man’s eyes over the top of his newspaper. She could not see his mouth, but there was a smile in his eyes. Quickly, she looked down at the newspaper and read about the weather in Budapest again.
The train stopped at Dawlish station and people got on and got off. There was a lot of noise.
‘Is this our station?’ the little girl asked. She went to the window and looked out.
‘No, it isn’t. Now sit down,’ her mother said.
‘We’re going to Penzance,’ the little girl told Bill. ‘For our holidays.’
‘Yes,’ her mother said. ‘My sister’s got a little hotel by the sea. We’re staying there. It’s cheap, you see.’
‘Yes,’ the man in the brown hat said. ‘It’s a nice town. I know a man there. He’s got a restaurant in King Street. A lot of holiday people go there. He makes a lot of money in the summer.’ He laughed loudly. ‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘You can have a nice holiday in Penzance.’
‘We’re going to St Austell,’ Bill said. ‘Me and Julie. It’s our first holiday. Julie wanted to go to Spain, but I like St Austell. I always go there for my holidays. It’s nice in August. You can have a good time there too.’
Julie looked out of the window. ‘Where is Budapest?’ she thought. ‘I want to go there. I want to go to Vienna, to Paris, to Rome, to Athens.’ Her green eyes were bored and angry. Through the window she watched the little villages and hills of England.
The man in the brown hat looked at Julie. ‘You’re right,’ he said to Bill. ‘You can have a good time on holiday in England. We always go to Brighton, me and the wife. But the weather! We went one year, and it rained every day. Morning, afternoon, and night. It’s true. It never stopped raining.’ He laughed loudly. ‘We nearly went home after the first week.’
Bill laughed too.’What did you do all day, then?’ he asked.
Julie read about the weather in Budapest for the third time. Then she looked at the tall man’s hands. They were long, brown hands, very clean. ‘Nice hands,’ she thought. He wore a very expensive Japanese watch. ‘Japan,’ she thought. ‘I’d like to go to Japan.’ She looked up and saw the man’s eyes again over the top of his newspaper. This time she did not look away. Green eyes looked into dark brown eyes for a long, slow minute.
After Newton Abbot station the guard came into the carriage to look at their tickets. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘where are we all going?’
‘This train’s late,’ the man in the brown hat said. ‘Twenty minutes late, by my watch.’
‘Ten minutes,’ the guard said. ‘That’s all.’ He smiled at Julie.
The tall dark man put his newspaper down, found his ticket, and gave it to the guard. The guard looked at it.
‘You’re all right, sir,’ he said. ‘The boat doesn’t leave Plymouth before six o’clock. You’ve got lots of time.’
The tall man smiled, put his ticket back in his pocket and opened his newspaper again.
Julie didn’t look at him. ‘A boat,’ she thought. ‘He’s taking a boat from Plymouth. Where’s he going?’ She looked at him again with her long green eyes.
He read his newspaper and didn’t look at her. But his eyes smiled. The train stopped at Totnes station and more people got on and off.
‘Everybody’s going on holiday,’ Bill said. He laughed. ‘It’s going to be wonderful. No work for two weeks. It’s a nice, quiet town, St Austell. We can stay in bed in the mornings, and sit and talk in the afternoons, and have a drink or two in the evenings. Eh, Julie?’ He looked at his wife. ‘Are you all right, Julie?’
‘Yes, Bill,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m OK.’ She looked out of the window again. The train went more quickly now, and it began to rain. Bill and the man in the brown hat talked and talked. Bill told a long story about two men and a dog, and the man in the brown hat laughed very loudly.
‘That’s a good story,’ he said. ‘I like that. You tell it very well. Do you know the story about . . .’ And he told Bill a story about a Frenchman and a bicycle.
‘Why do people laugh at these stories?’ Julie thought. ‘They’re so boring!’
But Bill liked it. Then he told a story about an old woman and a cat, and the man in the brown hat laughed again. ‘That’s good, too. I don’t know. How do you remember them all?’
‘Because’, Julie thought, ‘he tells them every day.’
‘I don’t understand,’ the little girl said suddenly. She looked at Bill. ‘Why did the cat die?’
‘Shhh. Be quiet,’ her mother said. ‘Come and eat your sandwiches now.’
‘That’s all right,’ Bill said. ‘I like children.’
The man in the brown hat looked at the children’s sandwiches. ‘Mmm, I’m hungry, too,’ he said. ‘You can get sandwiches in the restaurant on this train.’ He looked at Bill. ‘Let’s go down to the restaurant, eh? I need a drink too.’
Bill laughed. ‘You’re right. It’s thirsty work, telling stories.’
The two men stood up and left the carriage.
The little girl ate her sandwich and looked at Julie. ‘But why did the cat die?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Julie said. ‘Perhaps it wanted to die.’
The little girl came and sat next to Julie. ‘I like your hair,’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful.’ Julie looked down at her and smiled.
For some minutes it was quiet in the carriage. Then the tall dark man opened his bag and took out a book. He put it on the seat next to him, and looked at Julie with a smile. Julie looked back at him, and then down at the book. Famous towns of Italy, she read. Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples. She looked away again, out of the window at the rain. ‘Two weeks in St Austell,’ she thought. ‘With Bill. In the rain.’
After half an hour the two men came back to the carriage. ‘There are a lot of people on this train,’ Bill said. ‘Do you want a sandwich, Julie?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not hungry. You eat them.’
The train was nearly at Plymouth. Doors opened and people began to move. ‘A lot of people get on here,’ the man in the brown hat said.
The tall dark man stood up and put his book and his newspaper in his bag. Then he picked up his bag and left the carriage. The train stopped at the station. A lot of people got on the train, and two women and an old man came into the carriage. They had a lot of bags with them. Bill and the man in the brown hat stood up and helped them. One of the women had a big bag of apples. The bag broke and the apples went all over the carriage.
‘Oh damn!’ she said.
Everybody laughed, and helped her to find the apples. The train moved away from Plymouth station. After a minute or two everybody sat down and the woman gave some apples to the children.
‘Where’s Julie?’ Bill said suddenly. ‘She’s not here.’ ‘Perhaps she went to the restaurant,’ the man in the brown hat said.
‘But she wasn’t hungry,’ Bill said. ‘She told me.’ The little girl looked at Bill. ‘She got off the train at
Plymouth,’ she said. ‘With the tall dark man. 1 saw them.’ ‘Of course she didn’t!’ Bill said. ‘She’s on this train. She didn’t get off.’
‘Yes, she did,’ the children’s mother said suddenly. ‘I saw her too. The tall man waited for her on the platform.’ ‘He waited for her?’ Bill’s mouth was open. ‘But… But he read his newspaper all the time. He didn’t talk to Julie. And she never talked to him. They didn’t say a word.’ ‘People don’t always need words, young man,’ the children’s mother said.
‘But she’s my wife!’ Bill’s face was red and angry. ‘She can’t do that!’ he said loudly. He stood up. ‘I’m going to stop the train.’ Everybody looked at him and the two children laughed.
‘No,’ the man in the brown hat said, ‘no, you don’t want to do that. Sit down and eat your sandwiches, my friend.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why did she go? What am I going to do?’ Bill’s face was very unhappy. After a second or two he sat down again. ‘What am I going to do?’ he said again.
‘Nothing,’ the man in the brown hat said. He ate his sandwich slowly. ‘Go and have your holiday in St Austell. You can have a good time there. Forget about Julie. Those green eyes, now.’ He took out a second sandwich and began to eat it. ‘I knew a woman once with green eyes. She gave me a very bad time. No, you want to forget about Julie.’

South for the Winter

by J. Bassett

I never stay in one country for a long time. It gets boring. I like to move on, see new places, meet different people. It’s a good life, most of the time. When I need money, I get a job. I can do most things — hotel and restaurant work, building work, picking fruit.

I like to go south in the winter — Cyprus, or perhaps North Africa. Life is easier in the sun, and Northern Europe can get very cold in the winter. Last year I was in Venice for October. I did some work in a hotel for three weeks, then I began slowly to move south. I always go by train when I can. I like trains. You can walk about on a train, and you meet a lot of people.

I left Venice and went on to Trieste. There I got a cheap ticket for the slow train to Sofia, in Bulgaria. It takes a day and a half, but the express was too expensive.

The train left Trieste at nine o’clock on a Thursday morning. There weren’t many people on it at first, but at Zagreb more people got on. Two girls went along the corridor, past my compartment. They looked through the door, but they didn’t come in. The train left Zagreb and I looked out of the window for about ten minutes, then I went to sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, the two girls were in the compartment.

‘Hi!’ they said.

‘You’re American,’ I said. ‘Or Canadian. Right?’

‘American,’ the taller girl said. She smiled. ‘And you’re twenty-three, your name is Tom Walsh, you’ve got blue eyes, and your mum lives in Burnham-on-Sea, UK. Right?

‘How did you know all that?’ I asked.

The second girl laughed. ‘She looked at your passport. It’s in your coat pocket.’

‘Oh. Right.’ My coat was on the seat next to me. I took my passport out of my pocket and put it in my bag in the luggage rack.

‘Who are you, then?’ I asked.

They told me. Melanie and Carol from Los Angeles, USA. They liked Europe, they said. They knew a lot of places — Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece…

They seemed like nice girls. They were older than me, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but I liked them. We talked and laughed for hours. I told them a lot of stories about my life. Some of the stories were true, some weren’t. But the girls laughed anyway, and said I was a great guy. I asked them about Bulgaria, because I didn’t know the country. They knew Sofia well, they said.

‘Hey, Carol,’ Melanie said. ‘We’re staying in Bela Palanka for a day or two. But let’s go over Sofia this weekend and meet Tom there. We can meet him on Saturday night at the Marmara Hotel.’

‘Great!’ I said. ‘ Let’s do that.’

The train got to Belgrade at six o’clock in the evening, and a lot of people got off. There were only me and the girls in the carriage then. The guard came, checked our tickets, and went away again.

Carol looked at Melanie. ‘Hey, Mel,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you and Tom go along the restaurant car? I’m not hungry, and I want to sleep for an hour.’

‘Er… Food’s very expensive on the train,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got much money just now. I’m going to get a job in Sofia.’

‘Oh Tom!’ Melanie said. ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Look, you’re a nice guy, right? We’re OK for money this week. We can buy you a meal.’

What could I say? I was hungry. They had money, I didn’t. So Melanie and I went to the restaurant car and had a meal. When we came back, Carol was still asleep in the compartment.

‘Why are you getting off at Bela Palanka?’ I asked. ‘What are you going to do there?’
Melanie smiled. ‘Find a cheap hotel, meet people, take a look around the town… you know.’

‘But there’s nothing there!’

‘Oh well, you never know,’ Melanie laughed. She put her feet on the seat and went to sleep.

A few hours later the train came into Bela Palanka station and stopped. The two girls got off and stood on the platform. They smiled at me through the window.

‘See you in Sofia, OK? The Marmara Hotel — eight o’clock.’ Carol said, ‘We’ll take you to the best restaurant in town.’

Then they picked up their bags and walked away. Nice girls. We’ll have a great time in Sofia, I thought.

The train crossed into Bulgaria at two o’clock in the morning. Then it stopped and suddenly there were a lot of policemen on the train.

‘What’s happening?’ I said in Italian to the old man next to me.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Then two policemen came into our carriage, a tall thin one and a short fat one. They looked at everybody carefully… and then they looked at me again.

‘Come with us, please,’ the fat policeman said in English.

‘What? Me? Why? What’s the matter?’

‘Is this your bag?’ the tall policeman asked.

I began to ask a question, but policemen never like questions from young men. So I stayed quiet and went with them.

In the station building there were a lot more policemen, and some people from the train. They were all young people, I saw. Some were afraid, some were bored. The police looked in everybody’s bags, and then the people went back to the train. My two policemen took me to a table. ‘Your passport, please,’ the fat policeman said, ‘and open your bag.’
They looked at my passport, and began to look through my bag.

‘Aha!’ the tall policeman said suddenly. All my dirty shirts and clothes were out on the table.

The policeman picked up my bag and turned it over. Onto the table, out of my bag, fell packet after packet of American dollars. Fifty dollar notes in big packets. A lot of money.

My mouth opened, and stayed open.

’50,000… 100,000… 150 000… there’s 200,000 dollars here,’ the tall policeman said. ‘What an interesting bag, Mr Tom Walsh.’

‘But it’s not my bag!’ I shouted.

There was a big, happy smile on that policeman’s face. ‘Well,’ he said, it’s got your name on it. Look!’ So I looked, and of course there was my name, and yes, of course it was my bag. So how did 200,000 American dollars get in my bag?

‘You cannot bring US dollars into the country,’ the fat policeman said.

‘But I didn’t bring them,’ I said quickly. ‘They’re not my dollars. I never saw them before in my life, and…’

There was a lot of noise in the station. I looked out of the window and saw my train. Slowly, it began to move.

‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘That’s my train…’

The tall policeman laughed.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘You’re not getting back on that train. You’re staying here with us, in our beautiful country,’ he smiled, happily.

So I never got to Sofia on Saturday. I was very unhappy about that. I wanted to have a little talk with Melanie and Carol, ask them one or two questions, you know. You’re a nice guy, Tom. See you in Sofia, OK? Take you to the best restaurant in town. Yeah. Great.

And I never got down to Cyprus or North Africa that winter. Oh well, you live and learn. It’s not an easy life in prison. But it’s warm in winter, and the food’s not bad. And I’m meeting some interesting people. There’s a man from Georgia — Boris, his name is. He comes from a place by the Black Sea. He’s a great guy. When we get out of here, he and I are going down to Australia… Brisbane perhaps, or Sydney. Get a job on a ship, start a new life. Yeah, next year will be OK.

How the Camel Got His Hump

by Rudyard Kipling

In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all, and the Animals were just beginning to work for Man, there was a Camel, and he lived in the middle of a Howling Desert because he did not want to work; and besides, he was a Howler himself. So he ate sticks and thorns and tamarisks and milkweed and prickles, most ‘scruciating idle; and when anybody spoke to him he said ‘Humph!’ Just ‘Humph!’ and no more.

Presently the Horse came to him on Monday morning, with a saddle on his back and a bit in his mouth, and said, ‘Camel, O Camel, come out and trot like the rest of us.’

‘Humph!’ said the Camel; and the Horse went away and told the Man.

Presently the Dog came to him, with a stick in his mouth, and said, ‘Camel, O Camel, come and fetch and carry like the rest of us.’

‘Humph!’ said the Camel; and the Dog went away and told the Man.

Presently the Ox came to him, with the yoke on his neck and said, ‘Camel, O Camel, come and plough like the rest of us.’

‘Humph!’ said the Camel; and the Ox went away and told the Man.

At the end of the day the Man called the Horse and the Dog and the Ox together, and said, ‘Three, O Three, I’m very sorry for you (with the world so new-and-all); but that Humph-thing in the Desert can’t work, or he would have been here by now, so I am going to leave him alone, and you must work double-time to make up for it.’

That made the Three very angry (with the world so new-and-all), and they held a palaver, and an indaba , and a punchayet , and a pow-wow on the edge of the Desert; and the Camel came chewing on milkweed most ‘scruciating idle, and laughed at them. Then he said ‘Humph!’ and went away again.

Presently there came along the Djinn in charge of All Deserts, rolling in a cloud of dust (Djinns always travel that way because it is Magic), and he stopped to palaver and pow-pow with the Three.

‘Djinn of All Deserts,’ said the Horse, ‘is it right for any one to be idle, with the world so new-and-all?’

‘Certainly not,’ said the Djinn.

‘Well,’ said the Horse, ‘there’s a thing in the middle of your Howling Desert (and he’s a Howler himself) with a long neck and long legs, and he hasn’t done a stroke of work since Monday morning. He won’t trot.’

‘Whew!’ said the Djinn, whistling, ‘that’s my Camel, for all the gold in Arabia! What does he say about it?’

‘He says “Humph!”’ said the Dog; ‘and he won’t fetch and carry.’

‘Does he say anything else?’

‘Only “Humph!”; and he won’t plough,’ said the Ox.

‘Very good,’ said the Djinn. ‘I’ll humph him if you will kindly wait a minute.’

The Djinn rolled himself up in his dust-cloak, and took a bearing across the desert, and found the Camel most ‘scruciatingly idle, looking at his own reflection in a pool of water.

‘My long and bubbling friend,’ said the Djinn, ‘what’s this I hear of your doing no work, with the world so new-and-all?’

‘Humph!’ said the Camel.

The Djinn sat down, with his chin in his hand, and began to think a Great Magic, while the Camel looked at his own reflection in the pool of water.

‘You’ve given the Three extra work ever since Monday morning, all on account of your ‘scruciating idleness,’ said the Djinn; and he went on thinking Magics, with his chin in his hand.

‘Humph!’ said the Camel.

‘I shouldn’t say that again if I were you,’ said the Djinn; you might say it once too often. Bubbles, I want you to work.’

And the Camel said ‘Humph!’ again; but no sooner had he said it than he saw his back, that he was so proud of, puffing up and puffing up into a great big lolloping humph.

‘Do you see that?’ said the Djinn. ‘That’s your very own humph that you’ve brought upon your very own self by not working. To-day is Thursday, and you’ve done no work since Monday, when the work began. Now you are going to work.’

‘How can I,’ said the Camel, ‘with this humph on my back?’

‘That’s made a-purpose,’ said the Djinn, ‘all because you missed those three days. You will be able to work now for three days without eating, because you can live on your humph; and don’t you ever say I never did anything for you. Come out of the Desert and go to the Three, and behave. Humph yourself!’

And the Camel humphed himself, humph and all, and went away to join the Three. And from that day to this the Camel always wears a humph (we call it ‘hump’ now, not to hurt his feelings); but he has never yet caught up with the three days that he missed at the beginning of the world, and he has never yet learned how to behave.

There’s a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella

by Fernando Sorrentino

There’s a man in the habit of hitting me on the head with an umbrella. It’s exactly five years today that he’s been hitting me on the head with his umbrella. At first I couldn’t stand it; now I’m used to it.

I don’t know his name. I know he’s average in appearance, wears a gray suit, is graying at the temples, and has a common face. I met him five years ago one sultry morning. I was sitting on a tree-shaded bench in Palermo Park, reading the paper. Suddenly I felt something touch my head. It was the very same man who now, as I’m writing, keeps whacking me, mechanically and impassively, with an umbrella.

On that occasion I turned around filled with indignation: he just kept on hitting me. I asked him if he was crazy: he didn’t even seem to hear me. Then I threatened to call a policeman. Unperturbed, cool as a cucumber, he stuck with his task. After a few moments of indecision, and seeing that he was not about to change his attitude, I stood up and punched him in the nose. The man fell down, and let out an almost inaudible moan. He immediately got back on his feet, apparently with great effort, and without a word again began hitting me on the head with the umbrella. His nose was bleeding and, at that moment, I felt sorry for him. I felt remorse for having hit him so hard. After all, the man wasn’t exactly bludgeoning me; he was merely tapping me lightly with his umbrella, not causing any pain at all. Of course, those taps were extremely bothersome. As we all know, when a fly lands on your forehead, you don’t feel any pain whatsoever; what you feel is annoyance. Well then, that umbrella was one humongous fly that kept landing on my head time after time, and at regular intervals.

Convinced that I was dealing with a madman, I tried to escape. But the man followed me, wordlessly continuing to hit me. So I began to run (at this juncture I should point out that not many people run as fast as I do). He took off after me, vainly trying to land a blow. The man was huffing and puffing and gasping so that I thought, if I continued to force him to run at that speed, my tormenter would drop dead right then and there.

That’s why I slowed down to a walk. I looked at him. There was no trace of either gratitude or reproach on his face. He merely kept hitting me on the head with the umbrella. I thought of showing up at the police station and saying, «Officer, this man is hitting me on the head with an umbrella.» It would have been an unprecedented case. The officer would have looked at me suspiciously, would have asked for my papers and begun asking embarrassing questions. And he might even have ended up placing me under arrest.

I thought it best to return home. I took the 67 bus. He, all the while hitting me with his umbrella, got on behind me. I took the first seat. He stood right beside me, and held on to the railing with his left hand. With his right hand he unrelentingly kept whacking me with that umbrella. At first, the passengers exchanged timid smiles. The driver began to observe us in the rearview mirror. Little by little the bus trip turned into one great fit of laughter, an uproarious, interminable fit of laughter. I was burning with shame. My persecutor, impervious to the laughter, continued to strike me.

I got off – we got off – at Pacifico Bridge. We walked along Santa Fe Avenue. Everyone stupidly turned to stare at us. It occurred to me to say to them, «What are you looking at, you idiots? Haven’t you ever seen a man hit another man on the head with an umbrella?» But it also occurred to me that they probably never had seen such a spectacle. Then five or six little boys began chasing after us, shouting like maniacs.

But I had a plan. Once I reached my house, I tried to slam the door in his face. That didn’t happen. He must have read my mind, because he firmly seized the doorknob and pushed his way in with me.

From that time on, he has continued to hit me on the head with his umbrella. As far as I can tell, he has never either slept or eaten anything. His sole activity consists of hitting me. He is with me in everything I do, even in my most intimate activities. I remember that at first, the blows kept me awake all night. Now I think it would be impossible for me to sleep without them.

Still and all, our relations have not always been good. I’ve asked him, on many occasions, and in all possible tones, to explain his behavior to me. To no avail: he has wordlessly continued to hit me on the head with his umbrella. Many times I have let him have it with punches, kicks, and even – God forgive me – umbrella blows. He would meekly accept the blows. He would accept them as though they were part of his job. And this is precisely the weirdest aspect of his personality: that unshakable faith in his work coupled with a complete lack of animosity. In short, that conviction that he was carrying out some secret mission that responded to a higher authority.

Despite his lack of physiological needs, I know that when I hit him, he feels pain. I know he is weak. I know he is mortal. I also know that I could be rid of him with a single bullet. What I don’t know is if it would be better for that bullet to kill him or to kill me. Neither do I know if, when the two of us are dead, he might not continue to hit me on the head with his umbrella. In any event, this reasoning is pointless; I recognize that I would never dare to kill him or kill myself.

On the other hand, I have recently come to the realization that I couldn’t live without those blows. Now, more and more frequently, a certain foreboding overcomes me. A new anxiety is eating at my soul: the anxiety stemming from the thought that this man, perhaps when I need him most, will depart and I will no longer feel those umbrella taps that helped me sleep so soundly.

Temptation of Harringay

by H. G. Wells

It is quite impossible to say whether this thing really happened. It depends entirely on the word of R.M. Harringay, who is an artist.

Following his version of the affair, the narrative deposes that Harringay went into his studio about ten o’clock to see what he could make of the head that he had been working at the day before. The head in question was that of an Italian organ-grinder, and Harringay thought — but was not quite sure — that the title would be the «Vigil.» So far he is frank, and his narrative bears the stamp of truth. He had seen the man expectant for pennies, and with a promptness that suggested genius, had had him in at once.

«Kneel. Look up at that bracket,» said Harringay. «As if you expected pennies.»

«Don’t grin!» said Harringay. «I don’t want to paint your gums. Look as though you were unhappy.»

Now, after a night’s rest, the picture proved decidedly unsatisfactory. «It’s good work,» said Harringay. «That little bit in the neck … But.»

He walked about the studio and looked at the thing from this point and from that. Then he said a wicked word. In the original the word is given.

«Painting,» he says he said. «Just a painting of an organ-grinder — a mere portrait. If it was a live organ-grinder I wouldn’t mind. But somehow I never make things alive. I wonder if my imagination is wrong.» This, too, has a truthful air. His imagination is wrong.

«That creative touch! To take canvas and pigment and make a man — as Adam was made of red ochre! But this thing! If you met it walking about the streets you would know it was only a studio production. The little boys would tell it to ‘Garnome and git frimed.’ Some little touch … Well — it won’t do as it is.»

He went to the blinds and began to pull them down. They were made of blue holland with the rollers at the bottom of the window, so that you pull them down to get more light. He gathered his palette, brushes, and mahl stick from his table. Then he turned to the picture and put a speck of brown in the corner of the mouth; and shifted his attention thence to the pupil of the eye. Then he decided that the chin was a trifle too impassive for a vigil.

Presently he put down his impedimenta, and lighting a pipe surveyed the progress of his work. «I’m hanged if the thing isn’t sneering at me,» said Harringay, and he still believes it sneered.

The animation of the figure had certainly increased, but scarcely in the direction he wished. There was no mistake about the sneer. «Vigil of the Unbeliever,» said Harringay. «Rather subtle and clever that! But the left eyebrow isn’t cynical enough.»

He went and dabbed at the eyebrow, and added a little to the lobe of the ear to suggest materialism. Further consideration ensued. «Vigil’s off, I’m afraid,» said Harringay. «Why not Mephistopheles? But that’s a bit too common. ‘A Friend of the Doge,’ — not so seedy. The armour won’t do, though. Too Camelot. How about a scarlet robe and call him ‘One of the Sacred College’? Humour in that, and an appreciation of Middle Italian History.»

«There’s always Benvenuto Cellini,» said Harringay; «with a clever suggestion of a gold cup in one corner. But that would scarcely suit the complexion.»

He describes himself as babbling in this way in order to keep down an unaccountably unpleasant sensation of fear. The thing was certainly acquiring anything but a pleasing expression. Yet it was as certainly becoming far more of a living thing than it had been — if a sinister one—far more alive than anything he had ever painted before. «Call it ‘Portrait of a Gentleman,’» said Harringay; — «A Certain Gentleman.»

«Won’t do,» said Harringay, still keeping up his courage. «Kind of thing they call Bad Taste. That sneer will have to come out. That gone, and a little more fire in the eye — never noticed how warm his eye was before — and he might do for —? What price Passionate Pilgrim? But that devilish face won’t do — this side of the Channel.

«Some little inaccuracy does it,» he said; «eyebrows probably too oblique,» — therewith pulling the blind lower to get a better light, and resuming palette and brushes.

The face on the canvas seemed animated by a spirit of its own. Where the expression of diablerie came in he found impossible to discover. Experiment was necessary. The eyebrows — it could scarcely be the eyebrows? But he altered them. No, that was no better; in fact, if anything, a trifle more satanic. The corner of the mouth? Pah! more than ever a leer — and now, retouched, it was ominously grim. The eye, then? Catastrophe! he had filled his brush with vermilion instead of brown, and yet he had felt sure it was brown! The eye seemed now to have rolled in its socket, and was glaring at him an eye of fire. In a flash of passion, possibly with something of the courage of panic, he struck the brush full of bright red athwart the picture; and then a very curious thing, a very strange thing indeed, occurred — if it did occur.

The diabolified Italian before him shut both his eyes, pursed his mouth, and wiped the colour off his face with his hand.

Then the red eye opened again, with a sound like the opening of lips, and the face smiled. «That was rather hasty of you,» said the picture.

Harringay states that, now that the worst had happened, his self-possession returned. He had a saving persuasion that devils were reasonable creatures.

«Why do you keep moving about then,» he said, «making faces and all that — sneering and squinting, while I am painting you?»

«I don’t,» said the picture.

«You do,» said Harringay.

«It’s yourself,» said the picture.

«It’s not myself,» said Harringay.

«It is yourself,» said the picture. «No! don’t go hitting me with paint again, because it’s true. You have been trying to fluke an expression on my face all the morning. Really, you haven’t an idea
what your picture ought to look like.»

«I have,» said Harringay.

«You have not,» said the picture: «You never have with your pictures. You always start with the vaguest presentiment of what you are going to do; it is to be something beautiful — you are sure of that — and devout, perhaps, or tragic; but beyond that it is all experiment and chance. My dear fellow! you don’t think you can paint a picture like that?»

Now it must be remembered that for what follows we have only Harringay’s word.

«I shall paint a picture exactly as I like,» said Harringay, calmly.

This seemed to disconcert the picture a little. «You can’t paint a picture without an inspiration,» it remarked.

«But I had an inspiration — for this.»

«Inspiration!» sneered the sardonic figure; «a fancy that came from your seeing an organ-grinder looking up at a window! Vigil! Ha, ha! You just started painting on the chance of something coming — that’s what you did. And when I saw you at it I came. I want a talk with you!»

«Art, with you,» said the picture, — «it’s a poor business. You potter. I don’t know how it is, but you don’t seem able to throw your soul into it. You know too much. It hampers you. In the midst of your enthusiasms you ask yourself whether something like this has not been done before. And …»

«Look here,» said Harringay, who had expected something better than criticism from the devil. «Are you going to talk studio to me?» He filled his number twelve hoghair with red paint.

«The true artist,» said the picture, «is always an ignorant man. An artist who theorises about his work is no longer artist but critic. Wagner … I say! — What’s that red paint for?»

«I’m going to paint you out,» said Harringay. «I don’t want to hear all that Tommy Rot. If you think just because I’m an artist by trade I’m going to talk studio to you, you make a precious mistake.»

«One minute,» said the picture, evidently alarmed. «I want to make you an offer — a genuine offer. It’s right what I’m saying. You lack inspirations. Well. No doubt you’ve heard of the Cathedral of Cologne, and the Devil’s Bridge, and —»

«Rubbish,» said Harringay. «Do you think I want to go to perdition simply for the pleasure of painting a good picture, and getting it slated. Take that.»

His blood was up. His danger only nerved him to action, so he says. So he planted a dab of vermilion in his creature’s mouth. The Italian spluttered and tried to wipe it off — evidently horribly surprised. And then — according to Harringay — there began a very remarkable struggle, Harringay splashing away with the red paint, and the picture wriggling about and wiping it off as fast as he put it on. «Two masterpieces,» said the demon. «Two indubitable masterpieces for a Chelsea artist’s soul. It’s a bargain?» Harringay replied with the paint brush.

For a few minutes nothing could be heard but the brush going and the spluttering and ejaculations of the Italian. A lot of the strokes he caught on his arm and hand, though Harringay got over his guard often enough. Presently the paint on the palette gave out and the two antagonists stood breathless, regarding each other. The picture was so smeared with red that it looked as if it had been rolling about a slaughterhouse, and it was painfully out of breath and very uncomfortable with the wet paint trickling down its neck. Still, the
first round was in its favour on the whole. «Think,» it said, sticking pluckily to its point, «two supreme masterpieces — in different styles. Each equivalent to the Cathedral…»

«I know,» said Harringay, and rushed out of the studio and along the passage towards his wife’s boudoir.

In another minute he was back with a large tin of enamel — Hedge Sparrow’s Egg Tint, it was, and a brush. At the sight of that the artistic devil with the red eye began to scream. «Three masterpieces — culminating masterpieces.»

Harringay delivered cut two across the demon, and followed with a thrust in the eye. There was an indistinct rumbling. «Four masterpieces,» and a spitting sound.

But Harringay had the upper hand now and meant to keep it. With rapid, bold strokes he continued to paint over the writhing canvas, until at last it was a uniform field of shining Hedge Sparrow tint. Once the mouth reappeared and got as far as «Five master—» before he filled it with enamel; and near the end the red eye opened and glared at him indignantly. But at last nothing remained save a gleaming panel of drying enamel. For a little while a faint stirring beneath the surface puckered it slightly here and there, but presently even that died away and the thing was perfectly still.

Then Harringay — according to Harringay’s account — lit his pipe and sat down and stared at the enamelled canvas, and tried to make out clearly what had happened. Then he walked round behind it, to see if the back of it was at all remarkable. Then it was he began to regret he had not photographed the Devil before he painted him out.

This is Harringay’s story — not mine. He supports it by a small canvas (24 by 20) enamelled a pale green, and by violent asseverations. It is also true that he never has produced a masterpiece, and in the opinion of his intimate friends probably never will.

Beginners

What is “American” food?

The answer is that it is part Italian, part British, part German, part Mexican, part Chinese… When people from other countries came to live in the US, they brought different cooking traditions. Some of them opened restaurants. Today Americans enjoy food from all over the world.
Over the years some foreign dishes changed a little. Doughnuts were originally from Holland. In 1847 a young American boy told his mother that her doughnuts were never cooked in the middle. He cut out the centre and his mother cooked them — and they were very tasty!
Maybe the US is most famous for “fast foods”. The first fast food restaurants served hamburgers, but now they serve other kinds of food too. Inside there is often a “salad bar”, where you can help yourself to as much salad as you want.
Americans eat a lot, and when they go to a restaurant, they don’t expect to be hungry afterwards. Most restaurants will put a lot of food on your plate — sometimes it can be too much. But if you can’t finish it all, don’t worry: they will give you a “doggy bag” and you can take it home.
Most Americans now have a light breakfast instead of the traditional eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee. But on weekends there is more time, and a large late breakfast or early lunch is often eaten with family or friends.

Beginners

Appearance

How important is it for you to be attractive? Although everyone wants to be good-looking, do you think beautiful people are always happy?
I don’t think so. For example, it must be a problem to be a very beautiful woman, because some men may be more interested in looking at this woman than talking to her. They think of her like a picture rather than a person. Some people think that very pretty women and handsome men are stupid, as a rule. These people are thought to be only interested in their appearance.
Some people believe that only unattractive people can be clever. But surely no one wants to be really ugly; and no one wants to be plain either — that is to have rather simple face that can be easily forgotten. Being attractive can help you find happiness, but it does not always make you happy. So maybe the best thing is not to worry about your appearance. It is more important to try to be an interesting personality, because interesting people are always attractive.

The Open Window

by Saki

«My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,» said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; «in the meantime you must try and put up with me.»

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

«I know how it will be,» his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; «you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.»

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.

«Do you know many of the people round here?» asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

«Hardly a soul,» said Framton. «My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.»

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

«Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?» pursued the self-possessed young lady.

«Only her name and address,» admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

«Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,» said the child; «that would be since your sister’s time.»

«Her tragedy?» asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

«You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,» said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

«It is quite warm for the time of the year,» said Framton; «but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?»

«Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.» Here the child’s voice lost
its self-possessed note and became falteringly human «Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease
her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window — »

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

«I hope Vera has been amusing you?» she said.

«She has been very interesting,» said Framton.

«I hope you don’t mind the open window,» said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; «my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, isn’t it?»

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

«The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,» announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. «On the matter of
diet they are not so much in agreement,» he continued.

«No?» said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention — but not to what Framton was saying.

«Here they are at last!» she cried. «Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!»

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: «I said, Bertie, why do you bound?»

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.

«Here we are, my dear,» said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; «fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?»

«A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,» said Mrs. Sappleton; «could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.»

«I expect it was the spaniel,» said the niece calmly; «he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.»

Romance at short notice was her specialty.

Beginners

British Customs

There exist some very unusual traditions in Great Britain.
One of them is Town Crier’s Rivalry. Town criers from all parts of the country gather at Hastings, Sussex, in August for the National Town Crier’s Championship. For the contest they wear their traditional ceremonial uniforms and carry their handbells. A procession headed by the Hastings band marches to an arena where the Mayor, members of town council and civil officials greet them. To enable the judges to determine who possesses the most powerful voice the competitors are rowed to a small island about 75 yards from them. From this little island they one by one make their cries and declaim a 150- word test piece.
Another curious tradition reminds us of our country. Fun and jokes are very common on April Fool’s Day. In Scotland an old name for April Fool is April-cuckoo. For some reason the cuckoo is a symbol for daftness. The return of the cuckoo and the arrival of spring are connected with all this fooling.
Still another interesting tournament is the Veteran Car Run. The veteran cars are set out on the London — Brighton run each November. There is a condition — every car taking part must be at least 60 years old. The London — Brighton ride is not a race. Participants are limited to a maximum average speed of 20 miles per hour. At 8 o’clock comes the “Off”. The main things in this tournament are the cars that represent the history of the country.