Click on the player to hear the audio version of this poem.
The Last Bargain
by Rabindranath Tagore
“Come and hire me,” I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road.
Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot.
He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.”
But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot.
In the heat of the midday the houses stood with shut doors.
I wandered along the crooked lane.
An old man came out with his bag of gold.
He pondered and said, “I will hire you with my money.”
He weighed his coins one by one, but I turned away.
It was evening. The garden hedge was all aflower.
The fair maid came out and said, “I will hire you with a smile.”
Her smile paled and melted into tears, and she went back alone into the dark.
The sun glistened on the sand, and the sea waves broke waywardly.
A child sat playing with shells.
He raised his head and seemed to know me, and said, “I hire you with nothing.”
From thenceforward that bargain struck in child’s play made me a free man.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
King Midas' Ears by Jeannie Lange
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.
Midas had now no wish for golden riches, nor even for power. He wished to lead the simple life and to listen to the pipings of Pan along with the goat-herds on the mountains or the wild creatures in the woods. Thus it befell that he was present one day at a contest between Pan and Apollo himself. It was a day of merry-making for nymphs and fauns and dryads, and all those who lived in the lonely solitudes of Phrygia came to listen to the music of the god who ruled them. For as Pan sat in the shade of a forest one night and piped on his reeds until the very shadows danced, and the water of the stream by which he sat leapt high over the mossy stones it passed, and laughed aloud in its glee, the god had so gloried in his own power that he cried:
“Who speaks of Apollo and his lyre? Some of the gods may be well pleased with his music, and mayhap a bloodless man or two. But my music strikes to the heart of the earth itself. It stirs with rapture the very sap of the trees, and awakes to life and joy the innermost soul of all things mortal.”
Apollo heard his boast, and heard it angrily.
“Oh, thou whose soul is the soul of the untilled ground!” he said, “wouldst thou place thy music, that is like the wind in the reeds, beside my music, which is as the music of the spheres?”
And Pan, splashing with his goat’s feet amongst the water-lilies of the stream on the bank of which he sat, laughed loudly and cried:
“Yea, would I, Apollo! Willingly would I play thee a match—thou on thy golden lyre—I on my reeds from the river.”
Thus did it come to pass that Apollo and Pan matched against each other their music, and King Midas was one of the judges.
First of all Pan took his fragile reeds, and as he played, the leaves on the trees shivered, and the sleeping lilies raised their heads, and the birds ceased their song to listen and then flew straight to their mates. And all the beauty of the world grew more beautiful, and all its terror grew yet more grim, and still Pan piped on, and laughed to see the nymphs and the fauns first dance in joyousness and then tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom, and the stags to bellow in their lordship of the hills. When he ceased, it was as though a tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless and mute. And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened as he had spoken through the hearts of reeds to the hearts of men.
“Canst, then, make music like unto my music, Apollo?” he said.
Then Apollo, his purple robes barely hiding the perfection of his limbs, a wreath of laurel crowning his yellow curls, looked down at Pan from his godlike height and smiled in silence. For a moment his hand silently played over the golden strings of his lyre, and then his finger-tips gently touched them. And every creature there who had a soul, felt that that soul had wings, and the wings sped them straight to Olympus. Far away from all earth-bound creatures they flew, and dwelt in magnificent serenity amongst the Immortals. No longer was there strife, or any dispeace. No more was there fierce warring between the actual and the unknown. The green fields and thick woods had faded into nothingness, and their creatures, and the fair nymphs and dryads, and the wild fauns and centaurs longed and fought no more, and man had ceased to desire the impossible. Throbbing nature and passionately desiring life faded into dust before the melody that Apollo called forth, and when his strings had ceased to quiver and only the faintly remembered echo of his music remained, it was as though the earth had passed away and all things had become new.
For the space of many seconds all was silence.
Then, in low voice, Apollo asked:
“Ye who listen—who is the victor?”
And earth and sea and sky, and all the creatures of earth and sky, and of the deep, replied as one:
“The victory is thine, Divine Apollo.”
Yet was there one dissentient voice.
Midas, sorely puzzled, utterly un-understanding, was relieved when the music of Apollo ceased. “If only Pan would play again,” he murmured to himself. “I wish to live, and Pan’s music gives me life. I love the woolly vine-buds and the fragrant pine-leaves, and the scent of the violets in the spring. The smell of the fresh-ploughed earth is dear to me, the breath of the kine that have grazed in the meadows of wild parsley and of asphodel. I want to drink red wine and to eat and love and fight and work and be joyous and sad, fierce and strong, and very weary, and to sleep the dead sleep of men who live only as weak mortals do.”
Therefore he raised his voice, and called very loud: “Pan’s music is sweeter and truer and greater than the music of Apollo. Pan is the victor, and I, King Midas, give him the victor’s crown!”
With scorn ineffable the sun-god turned upon Midas, his peasant’s face transfigured by his proud decision. For a little he gazed at him in silence, and his look might have turned a sunbeam to an icicle.
Then he spoke:
“The ears of an ass have heard my music,” he said. “Henceforth shall Midas have ass’s ears.”
And when Midas, in terror, clapped his hands to his crisp black hair, he found growing far beyond it, the long, pointed ears of an ass. Perhaps what hurt him most, as he fled away, was the shout of merriment that came from Pan. And fauns and nymphs and satyrs echoed that shout most joyously.
Willingly would he have hidden in the woods, but there he found no hiding-place. The trees and shrubs and flowering things seemed to shake in cruel mockery. Back to his court he went and sent for the court hairdresser, that he might bribe him to devise a covering for these long, peaked, hairy symbols of his folly. Gladly the hairdresser accepted many and many oboli, many and many golden gifts, and all Phrygia wondered, while it copied, the strange headdress of the king.
But although much gold had bought his silence, the court barber was unquiet of heart. All day and all through the night he was tormented by his weighty secret. And then, at length, silence was to him a torture too great to be borne; he sought a lonely place, there dug a deep hole, and, kneeling by it, softly whispered to the damp earth: “King Midas has ass’s ears.”
Greatly relieved, he hastened home, and was well content until, on the spot where his secret lay buried, rushes grew up. And when the winds blew through them, the rushes whispered for all those who passed by to hear: “King Midas has ass’s ears! King Midas has ass’s ears!” Those who listen very carefully to what the green rushes in marshy places whisper as the wind passes through them, may hear the same thing to this day. And those who hear the whisper of the rushes may, perhaps, give a pitying thought to Midas—the tragic comedian of mythology.
Midas had now no wish for golden riches, nor even for power. He wished to lead the simple life and to listen to the pipings of Pan along with the goat-herds on the mountains or the wild creatures in the woods. Thus it befell that he was present one day at a contest between Pan and Apollo himself. It was a day of merry-making for nymphs and fauns and dryads, and all those who lived in the lonely solitudes of Phrygia came to listen to the music of the god who ruled them. For as Pan sat in the shade of a forest one night and piped on his reeds until the very shadows danced, and the water of the stream by which he sat leapt high over the mossy stones it passed, and laughed aloud in its glee, the god had so gloried in his own power that he cried:
“Who speaks of Apollo and his lyre? Some of the gods may be well pleased with his music, and mayhap a bloodless man or two. But my music strikes to the heart of the earth itself. It stirs with rapture the very sap of the trees, and awakes to life and joy the innermost soul of all things mortal.”
Apollo heard his boast, and heard it angrily.
“Oh, thou whose soul is the soul of the untilled ground!” he said, “wouldst thou place thy music, that is like the wind in the reeds, beside my music, which is as the music of the spheres?”
And Pan, splashing with his goat’s feet amongst the water-lilies of the stream on the bank of which he sat, laughed loudly and cried:
“Yea, would I, Apollo! Willingly would I play thee a match—thou on thy golden lyre—I on my reeds from the river.”
Thus did it come to pass that Apollo and Pan matched against each other their music, and King Midas was one of the judges.
First of all Pan took his fragile reeds, and as he played, the leaves on the trees shivered, and the sleeping lilies raised their heads, and the birds ceased their song to listen and then flew straight to their mates. And all the beauty of the world grew more beautiful, and all its terror grew yet more grim, and still Pan piped on, and laughed to see the nymphs and the fauns first dance in joyousness and then tremble in fear, and the buds to blossom, and the stags to bellow in their lordship of the hills. When he ceased, it was as though a tensely-drawn string had broken, and all the earth lay breathless and mute. And Pan turned proudly to the golden-haired god who had listened as he had spoken through the hearts of reeds to the hearts of men.
“Canst, then, make music like unto my music, Apollo?” he said.
Then Apollo, his purple robes barely hiding the perfection of his limbs, a wreath of laurel crowning his yellow curls, looked down at Pan from his godlike height and smiled in silence. For a moment his hand silently played over the golden strings of his lyre, and then his finger-tips gently touched them. And every creature there who had a soul, felt that that soul had wings, and the wings sped them straight to Olympus. Far away from all earth-bound creatures they flew, and dwelt in magnificent serenity amongst the Immortals. No longer was there strife, or any dispeace. No more was there fierce warring between the actual and the unknown. The green fields and thick woods had faded into nothingness, and their creatures, and the fair nymphs and dryads, and the wild fauns and centaurs longed and fought no more, and man had ceased to desire the impossible. Throbbing nature and passionately desiring life faded into dust before the melody that Apollo called forth, and when his strings had ceased to quiver and only the faintly remembered echo of his music remained, it was as though the earth had passed away and all things had become new.
For the space of many seconds all was silence.
Then, in low voice, Apollo asked:
“Ye who listen—who is the victor?”
And earth and sea and sky, and all the creatures of earth and sky, and of the deep, replied as one:
“The victory is thine, Divine Apollo.”
Yet was there one dissentient voice.
Midas, sorely puzzled, utterly un-understanding, was relieved when the music of Apollo ceased. “If only Pan would play again,” he murmured to himself. “I wish to live, and Pan’s music gives me life. I love the woolly vine-buds and the fragrant pine-leaves, and the scent of the violets in the spring. The smell of the fresh-ploughed earth is dear to me, the breath of the kine that have grazed in the meadows of wild parsley and of asphodel. I want to drink red wine and to eat and love and fight and work and be joyous and sad, fierce and strong, and very weary, and to sleep the dead sleep of men who live only as weak mortals do.”
Therefore he raised his voice, and called very loud: “Pan’s music is sweeter and truer and greater than the music of Apollo. Pan is the victor, and I, King Midas, give him the victor’s crown!”
With scorn ineffable the sun-god turned upon Midas, his peasant’s face transfigured by his proud decision. For a little he gazed at him in silence, and his look might have turned a sunbeam to an icicle.
Then he spoke:
“The ears of an ass have heard my music,” he said. “Henceforth shall Midas have ass’s ears.”
And when Midas, in terror, clapped his hands to his crisp black hair, he found growing far beyond it, the long, pointed ears of an ass. Perhaps what hurt him most, as he fled away, was the shout of merriment that came from Pan. And fauns and nymphs and satyrs echoed that shout most joyously.
Willingly would he have hidden in the woods, but there he found no hiding-place. The trees and shrubs and flowering things seemed to shake in cruel mockery. Back to his court he went and sent for the court hairdresser, that he might bribe him to devise a covering for these long, peaked, hairy symbols of his folly. Gladly the hairdresser accepted many and many oboli, many and many golden gifts, and all Phrygia wondered, while it copied, the strange headdress of the king.
But although much gold had bought his silence, the court barber was unquiet of heart. All day and all through the night he was tormented by his weighty secret. And then, at length, silence was to him a torture too great to be borne; he sought a lonely place, there dug a deep hole, and, kneeling by it, softly whispered to the damp earth: “King Midas has ass’s ears.”
Greatly relieved, he hastened home, and was well content until, on the spot where his secret lay buried, rushes grew up. And when the winds blew through them, the rushes whispered for all those who passed by to hear: “King Midas has ass’s ears! King Midas has ass’s ears!” Those who listen very carefully to what the green rushes in marshy places whisper as the wind passes through them, may hear the same thing to this day. And those who hear the whisper of the rushes may, perhaps, give a pitying thought to Midas—the tragic comedian of mythology.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Nice Suit
Click on the player below to hear an audio version of this episode.
Rules of Engagement
NICE SUIT
I went to my agent one day and checked in to see if there were any acting jobs coming up. I was wearing a nice suit, and I asked my agent what she thought it was worth. I knew what I had paid, but I really didn’t know what it was worth. This is a lady who knows a fine suit when she sees one, and has been involved in the fashion industry for more than three decades. She looked at the material and the labels and told me it must have cost $1500.00. I was pleasantly surprised. I had paid only one hundred dollars for that suit on EBay. This may not be the kind of recycling you are used to hearing about, but I never felt better wearing a suit for which someone else had paid a bundle.
Today I want to persuade you to be a recycling genius. I’ll talk about what recycling is, where recycling can take place, and who should recycle.
First, let’s talk about what I mean when I say the word recycling. Many people are familiar with the standard types of recycling, where end consumers sort glass from plastic and then hope the recycling companies can use the fruits of their labor. I think this kind of recycling is great, but many communities in the world don’t offer recycling services. So the kind of recycling I would like to discuss is the kind all of us can do. I’ll describe three kinds of “locals only” recycling that anyone can do anywhere. We can all reuse, reduce and resell. This sounds like the official slogan of recycling, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”, but I have adapted it for places which don’t have recycling facilities.
Reduce is easy to understand. We live in a consumer society, which means we may have more than one television, computer or car. When something is replaced, is it necessary to replace it?
Or are we just buying the newest model so we can have all the new features? Less consumption means less use, and as we reduce our use, we also need to recycle less. Another version of reducing could be to take the things we no longer use and put them somewhere they will be used. We reduce our clutter, and the item gets new life.
This leads into reuse. As someone acquires our old item, it is reused. Often a minor repair is all that is needed to prevent an item from ending up as trash. I have repaired my car so many times I don’t think there is an original part left on the vehicle. Of course, there are old parts left, but I have been able to reuse the car every time it broke down, and I recently put another engine into it. Even the “new” engine was recycled, since it was a used engine with about 35,000 miles on it. Who knows when it will finally break down and not be useful anymore? Until then, I will continue to recycle new parts into the car, so it can be “reused.”
In the second part of this discussion, let’s talk about where you can recycle. I’ve tried to adapt my topic to discuss recycling we can do where we live since many communities have no “official” or local recycling programs. But recycling doesn’t have to be limited to places where governments or other companies support your recycling efforts. So this part of will give you some ideas you may not have considered, even if you do have recycling services in your local area. I’ll describe this idea as “Where can this be used?”
If you have a computer you no longer need, most recycling centers won’t bother with it. It has special recycling needs, and there are very few of this type of recycling centers. But if I ask the question “Where can this be used?” I’ll bet you have already thought of several before I can list them here. Schools, churches, community centers, senior citizen centers, boys and girls clubs, local organizations and charitable societies can all use an old computer. They may even have the connections to get the right kind of recycling done if they can’t use the computer. It’s a much better choice than sending it to the landfill – computers have parts which are toxic.
Another question to ask yourself has to do with the reselling for recycling we discussed earlier. Ask yourself, “Does this item have value to others?” If it does have value, then you can decide which is the best way to resell the item. Maybe this computer is just in the wrong part of the country. With EBay and other online auction sites, almost anything can be sold and shipped to anywhere in the world. Here’s an example of something I have actually sold and shipped on EBay.
We have a forty year old English walnut tree in my front yard, which means I have to gather hundreds of walnuts every fall unless I want walnut seedling sprouting in my lawn. After collecting the huge seeds for years, I thought it might be interesting to plant some in the garden and see if they would grow.
Of course they sprouted and soon I had dozens of walnut seedling, but what could I do with them? I decided to try to sell some of them on EBay, and since they hadn’t really cost me anything except my time and some water, I could charge a low price. A quick survey of other online gardening auctions and retailers, I decided to sell the 10 to 12 inch newly-sprouted trees for $4.99 each, and charge $2.99 for shipping.
Did it work? Did I recycle the walnuts I really wasn’t using? To make a long story short, every summer I dig walnut seedlings from my yard, add a bit of potting soil, wrap the roots and soil in a piece of newspaper, add a little water, squeeze out the excess, seal up the bag and send trees through the US postal service to places all over the United States. Every summer, I sell between two and three hundred seedlings, now charging about $6.99 per tree and $3.99 for shipping. For $10.98, my satisfied customers (over 3100 positive feedbacks on EBay so far) get a brand-new walnut tree ready to grow in their yard. If it dies or needs replaced, I package up another and send it to them. Even if I have to send them three trees, I have still made money.
If you think this is an isolated case, log on to EBay. You would be surprised at what some people sell, and other people buy.
So far I’ve told you “what” recycling is, and “where” we can recycle. Let’s now discuss
“who ” should recycle.
I know everyone can recycle, but most people don’t. Why not? They may not see the advantages clearly. So let’s try and decide who should recycle by examining the advantages of recycling.
Anyone who wants more money, a cleaner environment, less landfill, more parsimony , and finally a clearer conscience should recycle. It’s like the George Carlin routine about leftovers. He says when you save leftover food, you feel good, because you are saving food. Then you get to feel good when you throw away the leftover food after it has gone moldy in the refrigerator, because you are saving your life.
But with recycling, we can find a good place for those no longer useful items.
Let’s look at how each advantage can apply to you. I once saw a fish finder at a local thrift store. Someone had donated it, and that made them feel good. When I saw the price, it made me feel better, because I knew I could resell it for more. It was like finding a rare painting at a yard sale. I paid the money to the thrift store, which made them happy because now they had money instead of a fish-finder. As the consummate EBay aficionado I am, I promptly listed the fish finder and sold it for six times what I paid, even after the fees, postage and packaging. Now someone else in the country was happy, because they had beat several people in the bidding, and now they had a fish finder. Even the people at EBay and Paypal felt good, since they had made money letting me use their websites for a modest fee.
This example also shows how it cleans our environment. The fish finder could have been sent to the dump. In a landfill, it doesn’t make anyone feel good. With recycling, at least four of us got to feel good about what we were doing.
Today I’ve discussed what recycling is, where we can recycle, and who should be recycling .
I hope it inspires you to reduce, reuse, recycle, and perhaps make some money. But at the very least, I hope it makes you feel good, too.
The day I bought a used suit on EBay, I didn’t know I was buying a $1500 suit. But when my agent told me how much it was worth, I was glad I had become part of the recycling age. It gave new life to a suit that might have just been thrown away. Somewhere, someone didn’t need that suit anymore – either it didn’t fit or they were dead – but I had a use for the suit. Someone out there showed the common sense to recycle my suit through EBay, and for one hundred dollars, I thought to myself, ‘I just might be able to recycle some of my stuff, too.’
Now it’s your turn. Reduce, reuse and recycle — resell. You’ll feel good, and you may get a nice suit out of the deal.
Rules of Engagement
NICE SUIT
I went to my agent one day and checked in to see if there were any acting jobs coming up. I was wearing a nice suit, and I asked my agent what she thought it was worth. I knew what I had paid, but I really didn’t know what it was worth. This is a lady who knows a fine suit when she sees one, and has been involved in the fashion industry for more than three decades. She looked at the material and the labels and told me it must have cost $1500.00. I was pleasantly surprised. I had paid only one hundred dollars for that suit on EBay. This may not be the kind of recycling you are used to hearing about, but I never felt better wearing a suit for which someone else had paid a bundle.
Today I want to persuade you to be a recycling genius. I’ll talk about what recycling is, where recycling can take place, and who should recycle.
First, let’s talk about what I mean when I say the word recycling. Many people are familiar with the standard types of recycling, where end consumers sort glass from plastic and then hope the recycling companies can use the fruits of their labor. I think this kind of recycling is great, but many communities in the world don’t offer recycling services. So the kind of recycling I would like to discuss is the kind all of us can do. I’ll describe three kinds of “locals only” recycling that anyone can do anywhere. We can all reuse, reduce and resell. This sounds like the official slogan of recycling, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”, but I have adapted it for places which don’t have recycling facilities.
Reduce is easy to understand. We live in a consumer society, which means we may have more than one television, computer or car. When something is replaced, is it necessary to replace it?
Or are we just buying the newest model so we can have all the new features? Less consumption means less use, and as we reduce our use, we also need to recycle less. Another version of reducing could be to take the things we no longer use and put them somewhere they will be used. We reduce our clutter, and the item gets new life.
This leads into reuse. As someone acquires our old item, it is reused. Often a minor repair is all that is needed to prevent an item from ending up as trash. I have repaired my car so many times I don’t think there is an original part left on the vehicle. Of course, there are old parts left, but I have been able to reuse the car every time it broke down, and I recently put another engine into it. Even the “new” engine was recycled, since it was a used engine with about 35,000 miles on it. Who knows when it will finally break down and not be useful anymore? Until then, I will continue to recycle new parts into the car, so it can be “reused.”
In the second part of this discussion, let’s talk about where you can recycle. I’ve tried to adapt my topic to discuss recycling we can do where we live since many communities have no “official” or local recycling programs. But recycling doesn’t have to be limited to places where governments or other companies support your recycling efforts. So this part of will give you some ideas you may not have considered, even if you do have recycling services in your local area. I’ll describe this idea as “Where can this be used?”
If you have a computer you no longer need, most recycling centers won’t bother with it. It has special recycling needs, and there are very few of this type of recycling centers. But if I ask the question “Where can this be used?” I’ll bet you have already thought of several before I can list them here. Schools, churches, community centers, senior citizen centers, boys and girls clubs, local organizations and charitable societies can all use an old computer. They may even have the connections to get the right kind of recycling done if they can’t use the computer. It’s a much better choice than sending it to the landfill – computers have parts which are toxic.
Another question to ask yourself has to do with the reselling for recycling we discussed earlier. Ask yourself, “Does this item have value to others?” If it does have value, then you can decide which is the best way to resell the item. Maybe this computer is just in the wrong part of the country. With EBay and other online auction sites, almost anything can be sold and shipped to anywhere in the world. Here’s an example of something I have actually sold and shipped on EBay.
We have a forty year old English walnut tree in my front yard, which means I have to gather hundreds of walnuts every fall unless I want walnut seedling sprouting in my lawn. After collecting the huge seeds for years, I thought it might be interesting to plant some in the garden and see if they would grow.
Of course they sprouted and soon I had dozens of walnut seedling, but what could I do with them? I decided to try to sell some of them on EBay, and since they hadn’t really cost me anything except my time and some water, I could charge a low price. A quick survey of other online gardening auctions and retailers, I decided to sell the 10 to 12 inch newly-sprouted trees for $4.99 each, and charge $2.99 for shipping.
Did it work? Did I recycle the walnuts I really wasn’t using? To make a long story short, every summer I dig walnut seedlings from my yard, add a bit of potting soil, wrap the roots and soil in a piece of newspaper, add a little water, squeeze out the excess, seal up the bag and send trees through the US postal service to places all over the United States. Every summer, I sell between two and three hundred seedlings, now charging about $6.99 per tree and $3.99 for shipping. For $10.98, my satisfied customers (over 3100 positive feedbacks on EBay so far) get a brand-new walnut tree ready to grow in their yard. If it dies or needs replaced, I package up another and send it to them. Even if I have to send them three trees, I have still made money.
If you think this is an isolated case, log on to EBay. You would be surprised at what some people sell, and other people buy.
So far I’ve told you “what” recycling is, and “where” we can recycle. Let’s now discuss
“who ” should recycle.
I know everyone can recycle, but most people don’t. Why not? They may not see the advantages clearly. So let’s try and decide who should recycle by examining the advantages of recycling.
Anyone who wants more money, a cleaner environment, less landfill, more parsimony , and finally a clearer conscience should recycle. It’s like the George Carlin routine about leftovers. He says when you save leftover food, you feel good, because you are saving food. Then you get to feel good when you throw away the leftover food after it has gone moldy in the refrigerator, because you are saving your life.
But with recycling, we can find a good place for those no longer useful items.
Let’s look at how each advantage can apply to you. I once saw a fish finder at a local thrift store. Someone had donated it, and that made them feel good. When I saw the price, it made me feel better, because I knew I could resell it for more. It was like finding a rare painting at a yard sale. I paid the money to the thrift store, which made them happy because now they had money instead of a fish-finder. As the consummate EBay aficionado I am, I promptly listed the fish finder and sold it for six times what I paid, even after the fees, postage and packaging. Now someone else in the country was happy, because they had beat several people in the bidding, and now they had a fish finder. Even the people at EBay and Paypal felt good, since they had made money letting me use their websites for a modest fee.
This example also shows how it cleans our environment. The fish finder could have been sent to the dump. In a landfill, it doesn’t make anyone feel good. With recycling, at least four of us got to feel good about what we were doing.
Today I’ve discussed what recycling is, where we can recycle, and who should be recycling .
I hope it inspires you to reduce, reuse, recycle, and perhaps make some money. But at the very least, I hope it makes you feel good, too.
The day I bought a used suit on EBay, I didn’t know I was buying a $1500 suit. But when my agent told me how much it was worth, I was glad I had become part of the recycling age. It gave new life to a suit that might have just been thrown away. Somewhere, someone didn’t need that suit anymore – either it didn’t fit or they were dead – but I had a use for the suit. Someone out there showed the common sense to recycle my suit through EBay, and for one hundred dollars, I thought to myself, ‘I just might be able to recycle some of my stuff, too.’
Now it’s your turn. Reduce, reuse and recycle — resell. You’ll feel good, and you may get a nice suit out of the deal.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Pygmalion by Jeanie Lang
Click on the player to hear the audio version of this short story.
Pygmalion
by Jeanie Lang
In days when the world was young and when the gods walked on the earth, there reigned over the island of Cyprus a sculptor-king, and king of sculptors, named Pygmalion. In the language of our own day, we should call him “wedded to his art.” In woman he only saw the bane of man. Women, he believed, lured men from the paths to which their destiny called them. While man walked alone, he walked free — he had given no “hostages to fortune.” Alone, man could live for his art, could combat every danger that beset him, could escape, unhampered, from every pitfall in life. But woman was the ivy that clings to the oak, and throttles the oak in the end. No woman, vowed Pygmalion, should ever hamper him. And so at length he came to hate women, and, free of heart and mind, his genius wrought such great things that he became a very perfect sculptor. He had one passion, a passion for his art, and that sufficed him. Out of great rough blocks of marble he would hew the most perfect semblance of men and of women, and of everything that seemed to him most beautiful and the most worth preserving.
When we look now at the Venus of Milo, at the Diana of Versailles, and at the Apollo Belvidere in the Vatican, we can imagine what were the greater things that the sculptor of Cyprus freed from the dead blocks of marble. One day as he chipped and chiselled there came to him, like the rough sketch of a great picture, the semblance of a woman. How it came he knew not. Only he knew that in that great mass of pure white stone there seemed to be imprisoned the exquisite image of a woman, a woman that he must set free. Slowly, gradually, the woman came. Soon he knew that she was the most beautiful thing that his art had ever wrought. All that he had ever thought that a woman should be, this woman was. Her form and features were all most perfect, and so perfect were they, that he felt very sure that, had she been a woman indeed, most perfect would have been the soul within. For her he worked as he had never worked before. There came, at last, a day when he felt that another touch would be insult to the exquisite thing he had created. He laid his chisel aside and sat down to gaze at the Perfect Woman. She seemed to gaze back at him. Her parted lips were ready to speak–to smile. Her hands were held out to hold his hands. Then Pygmalion covered his eyes. He, the hater of women, loved a woman–a woman of chilly marble. The women he had scorned were avenged.
Day by day his passion for the woman of his own creation grew and grew. His hands no longer wielded the chisel. They grew idle. He would stand under the great pines and gaze across the sapphire-blue sea, and dream strange dreams of a marble woman who walked across the waves with arms outstretched, with smiling lips, and who became a woman of warm flesh and blood when her bare feet touched the yellow sand, and the bright sun of Cyprus touched her marble hair and turned it into hair of living gold. Then he would hasten back to his studio to find the miracle still unaccomplished, and would passionately kiss the little cold hands, and lay beside the little cold feet the presents he knew that young girls loved–bright shells and exquisite precious stones, gorgeous-hued birds and fragrant flowers, shining amber, and beads that sparkled and flashed with all the most lovely combinations of colour that the mind of artist could devise. Yet more he did, for he spent vast sums on priceless pearls and hung them in her ears and upon her cold white breast; and the merchants wondered who could be the one upon whom Pygmalion lavished the money from his treasury.
To his divinity he gave a name–”Galatea”; and always on still nights the myriad silver stars would seem to breathe to him “Galatea” … and on those days when the tempests blew across the sandy wastes of Arabia and churned up the fierce white surf on the rocks of Cyprus, the very spirit of the storm seemed to moan through the crash of waves in longing, hopeless and unutterable–”Galatea!… Galatea!…” For her he decked a couch with Tyrian purple, and on the softest of pillows he laid the beautiful head of the marble woman that he loved.
So the time wore on until the festival of Aphrodite drew near. Smoke from many altars curled out to sea, the odour of incense mingled with the fragrance of the great pine trees, and garlanded victims lowed and bleated as they were led to the sacrifice. As the leader of his people, Pygmalion faithfully and perfectly performed all his part in the solemnities and at last he was left beside the altar to pray alone. Never before had his words faltered as he laid his petitions before the gods, but on this day he spoke not as a sculptor-king, but as a child who was half afraid of what he asked.
“O Aphrodite!” he said, “who can do all things, give me, I pray you, one like my Galatea for my wife!”
“Give me my Galatea,” he dared not say; but Aphrodite knew well the words he would fain have uttered, and smiled to think how Pygmalion at last was on his knees. In token that his prayer was answered, three times she made the flames on the altar shoot up in a fiery point, and Pygmalion went home, scarcely daring to hope, not allowing his gladness to conquer his fear.
The shadows of evening were falling as he went into the room that he had made sacred to Galatea. On the purple-covered couch she lay, and as he entered it seemed as though she met his eyes with her own; almost it seemed that she smiled at him in welcome. He quickly went up to her and, kneeling by her side, he pressed his lips on those lips of chilly marble. So many times he had done it before, and always it was as though the icy lips that could never live sent their chill right through his heart, but now it surely seemed to him that the lips were cold no longer. He felt one of the little hands, and no more did it remain heavy and cold and stiff in his touch, but lay in his own hand, soft and living and warm. He softly laid his fingers on the marble hair, and lo, it was the soft and wavy burnished golden hair of his desire. Again, reverently as he had laid his offerings that day on the altar of Venus, Pygmalion kissed her lips. And then did Galatea, with warm and rosy cheeks, widely open her eyes, like pools in a dark mountain stream on which the sun is shining, and gaze with timid gladness into his own.
There are no after tales of Pygmalion and Galatea. We only know that their lives were happy and that to them was born a son, Paphos, from whom the city sacred to Aphrodite received its name. Perhaps Aphrodite may have smiled sometimes to watch Pygmalion, once the scorner of women, the adoring servant of the woman that his own hands had first designed.
Pygmalion
by Jeanie Lang
In days when the world was young and when the gods walked on the earth, there reigned over the island of Cyprus a sculptor-king, and king of sculptors, named Pygmalion. In the language of our own day, we should call him “wedded to his art.” In woman he only saw the bane of man. Women, he believed, lured men from the paths to which their destiny called them. While man walked alone, he walked free — he had given no “hostages to fortune.” Alone, man could live for his art, could combat every danger that beset him, could escape, unhampered, from every pitfall in life. But woman was the ivy that clings to the oak, and throttles the oak in the end. No woman, vowed Pygmalion, should ever hamper him. And so at length he came to hate women, and, free of heart and mind, his genius wrought such great things that he became a very perfect sculptor. He had one passion, a passion for his art, and that sufficed him. Out of great rough blocks of marble he would hew the most perfect semblance of men and of women, and of everything that seemed to him most beautiful and the most worth preserving.
When we look now at the Venus of Milo, at the Diana of Versailles, and at the Apollo Belvidere in the Vatican, we can imagine what were the greater things that the sculptor of Cyprus freed from the dead blocks of marble. One day as he chipped and chiselled there came to him, like the rough sketch of a great picture, the semblance of a woman. How it came he knew not. Only he knew that in that great mass of pure white stone there seemed to be imprisoned the exquisite image of a woman, a woman that he must set free. Slowly, gradually, the woman came. Soon he knew that she was the most beautiful thing that his art had ever wrought. All that he had ever thought that a woman should be, this woman was. Her form and features were all most perfect, and so perfect were they, that he felt very sure that, had she been a woman indeed, most perfect would have been the soul within. For her he worked as he had never worked before. There came, at last, a day when he felt that another touch would be insult to the exquisite thing he had created. He laid his chisel aside and sat down to gaze at the Perfect Woman. She seemed to gaze back at him. Her parted lips were ready to speak–to smile. Her hands were held out to hold his hands. Then Pygmalion covered his eyes. He, the hater of women, loved a woman–a woman of chilly marble. The women he had scorned were avenged.
Day by day his passion for the woman of his own creation grew and grew. His hands no longer wielded the chisel. They grew idle. He would stand under the great pines and gaze across the sapphire-blue sea, and dream strange dreams of a marble woman who walked across the waves with arms outstretched, with smiling lips, and who became a woman of warm flesh and blood when her bare feet touched the yellow sand, and the bright sun of Cyprus touched her marble hair and turned it into hair of living gold. Then he would hasten back to his studio to find the miracle still unaccomplished, and would passionately kiss the little cold hands, and lay beside the little cold feet the presents he knew that young girls loved–bright shells and exquisite precious stones, gorgeous-hued birds and fragrant flowers, shining amber, and beads that sparkled and flashed with all the most lovely combinations of colour that the mind of artist could devise. Yet more he did, for he spent vast sums on priceless pearls and hung them in her ears and upon her cold white breast; and the merchants wondered who could be the one upon whom Pygmalion lavished the money from his treasury.
To his divinity he gave a name–”Galatea”; and always on still nights the myriad silver stars would seem to breathe to him “Galatea” … and on those days when the tempests blew across the sandy wastes of Arabia and churned up the fierce white surf on the rocks of Cyprus, the very spirit of the storm seemed to moan through the crash of waves in longing, hopeless and unutterable–”Galatea!… Galatea!…” For her he decked a couch with Tyrian purple, and on the softest of pillows he laid the beautiful head of the marble woman that he loved.
So the time wore on until the festival of Aphrodite drew near. Smoke from many altars curled out to sea, the odour of incense mingled with the fragrance of the great pine trees, and garlanded victims lowed and bleated as they were led to the sacrifice. As the leader of his people, Pygmalion faithfully and perfectly performed all his part in the solemnities and at last he was left beside the altar to pray alone. Never before had his words faltered as he laid his petitions before the gods, but on this day he spoke not as a sculptor-king, but as a child who was half afraid of what he asked.
“O Aphrodite!” he said, “who can do all things, give me, I pray you, one like my Galatea for my wife!”
“Give me my Galatea,” he dared not say; but Aphrodite knew well the words he would fain have uttered, and smiled to think how Pygmalion at last was on his knees. In token that his prayer was answered, three times she made the flames on the altar shoot up in a fiery point, and Pygmalion went home, scarcely daring to hope, not allowing his gladness to conquer his fear.
The shadows of evening were falling as he went into the room that he had made sacred to Galatea. On the purple-covered couch she lay, and as he entered it seemed as though she met his eyes with her own; almost it seemed that she smiled at him in welcome. He quickly went up to her and, kneeling by her side, he pressed his lips on those lips of chilly marble. So many times he had done it before, and always it was as though the icy lips that could never live sent their chill right through his heart, but now it surely seemed to him that the lips were cold no longer. He felt one of the little hands, and no more did it remain heavy and cold and stiff in his touch, but lay in his own hand, soft and living and warm. He softly laid his fingers on the marble hair, and lo, it was the soft and wavy burnished golden hair of his desire. Again, reverently as he had laid his offerings that day on the altar of Venus, Pygmalion kissed her lips. And then did Galatea, with warm and rosy cheeks, widely open her eyes, like pools in a dark mountain stream on which the sun is shining, and gaze with timid gladness into his own.
There are no after tales of Pygmalion and Galatea. We only know that their lives were happy and that to them was born a son, Paphos, from whom the city sacred to Aphrodite received its name. Perhaps Aphrodite may have smiled sometimes to watch Pygmalion, once the scorner of women, the adoring servant of the woman that his own hands had first designed.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Carving Pencils
Click on the player below to hear a podcast of this blog.
Rules of Engagement
Carving Pencils
Dalton Ghetti carves the tips of pencils. He has carved a tiny alphabet on 26 pencils, and one features Elvis. One pencil has the original lead tip, but inside the body of the pencil, he has carved a small chain with a heart hanging from it.
I often wonder where people find the passion for the things they do. Some people might call them fanatics, but when someone has a real desire to do something, logic, the cost, the consequences are often ignored. We may criticize what their desire is doing to them or others in their life, but we can’t fault their dedication.
Is there something which you are willing to dedicate the rest of your life? Like Gandhi, would you spend your life gaining independence for India? Would your quest involve climbing the tallest mountains? Would you build a house for a needy family? Would you do that thing you are sent here for, no matter the consequences?
Carl Jung coined a term you may want to learn. When there is a coincidence which appears in your life, when the series of events seem related, but are not obviously caused by one another, you are experiencing synchronicity. I like to think of synchronicity as the way the universe tries to get our attention, not like a slap to the face but more like a gentle nudge. When you experiencing a synchronicity, others may not know what is happening. They might not see the connections you are seeing, but don’t let their blindness to it cloud your vision. Sometimes it is two people meeting in the right place at the right time; often it is someone taking two different ideas and combining them into something new and wonderful everyone will want to have. Sometimes it is just a point in your life where the light bulb goes off and you discover an idea which has been bubbling just under the surface of your consciousness, you may be ready to take the leap from being an observer. From being a watcher to one of those other people shake their heads at, and wonder what madness has overtaken them. Pay attention to synchronicity; the universe is trying to send you a message. Are you listening?
One of the reasons we ignore our gut feelings, our real desires or our dreams is the path they may set us upon may look like work. The second step to finding your own path may seem to require so much effort it seems overwhelming. We get discouraged and quit before we begin. The amount of work required to get from here to there is ridiculous. But changing the world is a lot of work. I’m sure there are many, many people who have started out with their seed of a dream and as they chiseled away bit by bit trying to get something accomplished, they discovered there was a long road of other seeds to be planted and obstacles to be broken away. This is the place where most of us decide whatever it is we are trying to accomplish really isn’t worth it. Maybe that is a good decision, but maybe it isn’t. Only you will be able to tell if it is time to stop, or venture boldly into a different future.
But somewhere along the line, the work aspect vanishes, and the joy of the process makes what others would perceive as insanity. We have then crossed into the rarified region where we are sure we are doing what we are sent here to do that others may consider fanaticism. Our passion may scare or confuse others, but once you have been gripped by your idea, your goal, your aspiration, then nothing else matters. Nothing can stand in your way. Now get ready for the best part of this whole process. If what you are spending your life doing doesn’t bring an incredible happiness, lightness, and energy, then you may not be on the right path. Expect a crazy kind of dizziness at the magnificent world, the beauty of everything you see, combined with the ability to see problems only as solvable. You can accomplish anything, or at least you feel that way. Not a bad way to spend the time we have.
Others may see someone spending way too much time carving small sculptures into the lead of pencils with a needle and a razor. But if you asked Dalton Ghetti, you may find he is doing exactly what he wants, exactly what he is supposed to be doing, exactly why he is here now. Don’t wait for someone else to define your purpose. Pay attention to that gentle nudge, get ready to work hard and get ready for some real happiness. Then, get ready for the ride of your life.
Rules of Engagement
Carving Pencils
Dalton Ghetti carves the tips of pencils. He has carved a tiny alphabet on 26 pencils, and one features Elvis. One pencil has the original lead tip, but inside the body of the pencil, he has carved a small chain with a heart hanging from it.
I often wonder where people find the passion for the things they do. Some people might call them fanatics, but when someone has a real desire to do something, logic, the cost, the consequences are often ignored. We may criticize what their desire is doing to them or others in their life, but we can’t fault their dedication.
Is there something which you are willing to dedicate the rest of your life? Like Gandhi, would you spend your life gaining independence for India? Would your quest involve climbing the tallest mountains? Would you build a house for a needy family? Would you do that thing you are sent here for, no matter the consequences?
Carl Jung coined a term you may want to learn. When there is a coincidence which appears in your life, when the series of events seem related, but are not obviously caused by one another, you are experiencing synchronicity. I like to think of synchronicity as the way the universe tries to get our attention, not like a slap to the face but more like a gentle nudge. When you experiencing a synchronicity, others may not know what is happening. They might not see the connections you are seeing, but don’t let their blindness to it cloud your vision. Sometimes it is two people meeting in the right place at the right time; often it is someone taking two different ideas and combining them into something new and wonderful everyone will want to have. Sometimes it is just a point in your life where the light bulb goes off and you discover an idea which has been bubbling just under the surface of your consciousness, you may be ready to take the leap from being an observer. From being a watcher to one of those other people shake their heads at, and wonder what madness has overtaken them. Pay attention to synchronicity; the universe is trying to send you a message. Are you listening?
One of the reasons we ignore our gut feelings, our real desires or our dreams is the path they may set us upon may look like work. The second step to finding your own path may seem to require so much effort it seems overwhelming. We get discouraged and quit before we begin. The amount of work required to get from here to there is ridiculous. But changing the world is a lot of work. I’m sure there are many, many people who have started out with their seed of a dream and as they chiseled away bit by bit trying to get something accomplished, they discovered there was a long road of other seeds to be planted and obstacles to be broken away. This is the place where most of us decide whatever it is we are trying to accomplish really isn’t worth it. Maybe that is a good decision, but maybe it isn’t. Only you will be able to tell if it is time to stop, or venture boldly into a different future.
But somewhere along the line, the work aspect vanishes, and the joy of the process makes what others would perceive as insanity. We have then crossed into the rarified region where we are sure we are doing what we are sent here to do that others may consider fanaticism. Our passion may scare or confuse others, but once you have been gripped by your idea, your goal, your aspiration, then nothing else matters. Nothing can stand in your way. Now get ready for the best part of this whole process. If what you are spending your life doing doesn’t bring an incredible happiness, lightness, and energy, then you may not be on the right path. Expect a crazy kind of dizziness at the magnificent world, the beauty of everything you see, combined with the ability to see problems only as solvable. You can accomplish anything, or at least you feel that way. Not a bad way to spend the time we have.
Others may see someone spending way too much time carving small sculptures into the lead of pencils with a needle and a razor. But if you asked Dalton Ghetti, you may find he is doing exactly what he wants, exactly what he is supposed to be doing, exactly why he is here now. Don’t wait for someone else to define your purpose. Pay attention to that gentle nudge, get ready to work hard and get ready for some real happiness. Then, get ready for the ride of your life.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Denis by Guy de Maupassant
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.
Denis
by Guy De Maupassant
To Leon Chapron.
Marambot opened the letter which his servant Denis gave him and smiled.
For twenty years Denis has been a servant in this house. He was a short, stout, jovial man, who was known throughout the countryside as a model servant. He asked:
“Is monsieur pleased? Has monsieur received good news?”
M. Marambot was not rich. He was an old village druggist, a bachelor, who lived on an income acquired with difficulty by selling drugs to the farmers. He answered:
“Yes, my boy. Old man Malois is afraid of the law-suit with which I am threatening him. I shall get my money to-morrow. Five thousand francs are not liable to harm the account of an old bachelor.”
M. Marambot rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was a man of quiet temperament, more sad than gay, incapable of any prolonged effort, careless in business.
He could undoubtedly have amassed a greater income had he taken advantage of the deaths of colleagues established in more important centers, by taking their places and carrying on their business. But the trouble of moving and the thought of all the preparations had always stopped him. After thinking the matter over for a few days, he would be satisfied to say:
“Bah! I’ll wait until the next time. I’ll not lose anything by the delay. I may even find something better.”
Denis, on the contrary, was always urging his master to new enterprises. Of an energetic temperament, he would continually repeat:
“Oh! If I had only had the capital to start out with, I could have made a fortune! One thousand francs would do me.”
M. Marambot would smile without answering and would go out in his little garden, where, his hands behind his back, he would walk about dreaming.
All day long, Denis sang the joyful refrains of the folk-songs of the district. He even showed an unusual activity, for he cleaned all the windows of the house, energetically rubbing the glass, and singing at the top of his voice.
M. Marambot, surprised at his zeal, said to him several times, smiling:
“My boy, if you work like that there will be nothing left for you to do to-morrow.”
The following day, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the postman gave Denis four letters for his master, one of them very heavy. M. Marambot immediately shut himself up in his room until late in the afternoon. He then handed his servant four letters for the mail. One of them was addressed to M. Malois; it was undoubtedly a receipt for the money.
Denis asked his master no questions; he appeared to be as sad and gloomy that day as he had seemed joyful the day before.
Night came. M. Marambot went to bed as usual and slept.
He was awakened by a strange noise. He sat up in his bed and listened. Suddenly the door opened, and Denis appeared, holding in one hand a candle and in the other a carving knife, his eyes staring, his face contracted as though moved by some deep emotion; he was as pale as a ghost.
M. Marambot, astonished, thought that he was sleep-walking, and he was going to get out of bed and assist him when the servant blew out the light and rushed for the bed. His master stretched out his hands to receive the shock which knocked him over on his back; he was trying to seize the hands of his servant, whom he now thought to be crazy, in order to avoid the blows which the latter was aiming at him.
He was struck by the knife; once in the shoulder, once in the forehead and the third time in the chest. He fought wildly, waving his arms around in the darkness, kicking and crying:
“Denis! Denis! Are you mad? Listen, Denis!”
But the latter, gasping for breath, kept up his furious attack always striking, always repulsed, sometimes with a kick, sometimes with a punch, and rushing forward again furiously.
M. Marambot was wounded twice more, once in the leg and once in the stomach. But, suddenly, a thought flashed across his mind, and he began to shriek:
“Stop, stop, Denis, I have not yet received my money!”
The man immediately ceased, and his master could hear his labored breathing in the darkness.
M. Marambot then went on:
“I have received nothing. M. Malois takes back what he said, the law- suit will take place; that is why you carried the letters to the mail. Just read those on my desk.”
With a final effort, he reached for his matches and lit the candle.
He was covered with blood. His sheets, his curtains, and even the walls, were spattered with red. Denis, standing in the middle of the room, was also bloody from head to foot.
When he saw the blood, M. Marambot thought himself dead, and fell unconscious.
At break of day he revived. It was some time, however, before he regained his senses, and was able to understand or remember. But, suddenly, the memory of the attack and of his wounds returned to him, and he was filled with such terror that he closed his eyes in order not to see anything. After a few minutes he grew calmer and began to think. He had not died immediately, therefore he might still recover. He felt weak, very weak; but he had no real pain, although he noticed an uncomfortable smarting sensation in several parts of his body. He also felt icy cold, and all wet, and as though wrapped up in bandages. He thought that this dampness came from the blood which he had lost; and he shivered at the dreadful thought of this red liquid which had come from his veins and covered his bed. The idea of seeing this terrible spectacle again so upset him that he kept his eyes closed with all his strength, as though they might open in spite of himself.
What had become of Denis? He had probably escaped.
But what could he, Marambot, do now? Get up? Call for help? But if he should make the slightest motions, his wounds would undoubtedly open up again and he would die from loss of blood.
Suddenly he heard the door of his room open. His heart almost stopped. It was certainly Denis who was coming to finish him up. He held his breath in order to make the murderer think that he had been successful.
He felt his sheet being lifted up, and then someone feeling his stomach. A sharp pain near his hip made him start. He was being very gently washed with cold water. Therefore, someone must have discovered the misdeed and he was being cared for. A wild joy seized him; but prudently, he did not wish to show that he was conscious. He opened one eye, just one, with the greatest precaution.
He recognized Denis standing beside him, Denis himself! Mercy! He hastily closed his eye again.
Denis! What could he be doing? What did he want? What awful scheme could he now be carrying out?
What was he doing? Well, he was washing him in order to hide the traces of his crime! And he would now bury him in the garden, under ten feet of earth, so that no one could discover him! Or perhaps under the wine cellar! And M. Marambot began to tremble like a leaf. He kept saying to himself: “I am lost, lost!” He closed his eyes so as not to see the knife as it descended for the final stroke. It did not come. Denis was now lifting him up and bandaging him. Then he began carefully to dress the wound on his leg, as his master had taught him to do.
There was no longer any doubt. His servant, after wishing to kill him, was trying to save him.
Then M. Marambot, in a dying voice, gave him the practical piece of advice:
“Wash the wounds in a dilute solution of carbolic acid!”
Denis answered:
“This is what I am doing, monsieur.”
M. Marambot opened both his eyes. There was no sign of blood either on the bed, on the walls, or on the murderer. The wounded man was stretched out on clean white sheets.
The two men looked at each other.
Finally M. Marambot said calmly:
“You have been guilty of a great crime.”
Denis answered:
“I am trying to make up for it, monsieur. If you will not tell on me, I will serve you as faithfully as in the past.”
This was no time to anger his servant. M. Marambot murmured as he closed his eyes:
“I swear not to tell on you.”
Denis saved his master. He spent days and nights without sleep, never leaving the sick room, preparing drugs, broths, potions, feeling his pulse, anxiously counting the beats, attending him with the skill of a trained nurse and the devotion of a son.
He continually asked:
“Well, monsieur, how do you feel?”
M. Marambot would answer in a weak voice:
“A little better, my boy, thank you.”
And when the sick man would wake up at night, he would often see his servant seated in an armchair, weeping silently.
Never had the old druggist been so cared for, so fondled, so spoiled. At first he had said to himself:
“As soon as I am well I shall get rid of this rascal.”
He was now convalescing, and from day to day he would put off dismissing his murderer. He thought that no one would ever show him such care and attention, for he held this man through fear; and he warned him that he had left a document with a lawyer denouncing him to the law if any new accident should occur.
This precaution seemed to guarantee him against any future attack; and he then asked himself if it would not be wiser to keep this man near him, in order to watch him closely.
Just as formerly, when he would hesitate about taking some larger place of business, he could not make up his mind to any decision.
“There is always time,” he would say to himself.
Denis continued to show himself an admirable servant. M. Marambot was well. He kept him.
One morning, just as he was finishing breakfast, he suddenly heard a great noise in the kitchen. He hastened in there. Denis was struggling with two gendarmes. An officer was taking notes on his pad.
As soon as he saw his master, the servant began to sob, exclaiming:
“You told on me, monsieur, that’s not right, after what you had promised me. You have broken your word of honor, Monsieur Marambot; that is not right, that’s not right!”
M. Marambot, bewildered and distressed at being suspected, lifted his hand:
“I swear to you before the Lord, my boy that I did not tell on you. I haven’t the slightest idea how the police could have found out about your attack on me.”
The officer started:
“You say that he attacked you, M. Marambot?”
The bewildered druggist answered:
“Yes–but I did not tell on him–I haven’t said a word–I swear it–he has served me excellently from that time on–”
The officer pronounced severely:
“I will take down your testimony. The law will take notice of this new action, of which it was ignorant, Monsieur Marambot. I was commissioned to arrest your servant for the theft of two ducks surreptitiously taken by him from M. Duhamel of which act there are witnesses. I shall make a note of your information.”
Then, turning toward his men, he ordered:
“Come on, bring him along!”
The two gendarmes dragged Denis out.
The lawyer used a plea of insanity, contrasting the two misdeeds in order to strengthen his argument. He had clearly proved that the theft of the two ducks came from the same mental condition as the eight knife-wounds in the body of Marambot. He had cunningly analyzed all the phases of this transitory condition of mental aberration, which could, doubtless, be cured by a few months’ treatment in a reputable sanatorium. He had spoken in enthusiastic terms of the continued devotion of this faithful servant, of the care with which he had surrounded his master, wounded by him in a moment of alienation.
Touched by this memory, M. Marambot felt the tears rising to his eyes.
The lawyer noticed it, opened his arms with a broad gesture, spreading out the long black sleeves of his robe like the wings of a bat, and exclaimed:
“Look, look, gentleman of the jury, look at those tears. What more can I say for my client? What speech, what argument, what reasoning would be worth these tears of his master? They, speak louder than I do, louder than the law; they cry: ‘Mercy, for the poor wandering mind of a while ago! They implore, they pardon, they bless!”
He was silent and sat down.
Then the judge, turning to Marambot, whose testimony had been excellent for his servant, asked him:
“But, monsieur, even admitting that you consider this man insane, that does not explain why you should have kept him. He was none the less dangerous.”
Marambot, wiping his eyes, answered:
“Well, your honor, what can you expect? Nowadays it’s so hard to find good servants–I could never have found a better one.”
Denis was acquitted and put in a sanatorium at his master’s expense.
Denis
by Guy De Maupassant
To Leon Chapron.
Marambot opened the letter which his servant Denis gave him and smiled.
For twenty years Denis has been a servant in this house. He was a short, stout, jovial man, who was known throughout the countryside as a model servant. He asked:
“Is monsieur pleased? Has monsieur received good news?”
M. Marambot was not rich. He was an old village druggist, a bachelor, who lived on an income acquired with difficulty by selling drugs to the farmers. He answered:
“Yes, my boy. Old man Malois is afraid of the law-suit with which I am threatening him. I shall get my money to-morrow. Five thousand francs are not liable to harm the account of an old bachelor.”
M. Marambot rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was a man of quiet temperament, more sad than gay, incapable of any prolonged effort, careless in business.
He could undoubtedly have amassed a greater income had he taken advantage of the deaths of colleagues established in more important centers, by taking their places and carrying on their business. But the trouble of moving and the thought of all the preparations had always stopped him. After thinking the matter over for a few days, he would be satisfied to say:
“Bah! I’ll wait until the next time. I’ll not lose anything by the delay. I may even find something better.”
Denis, on the contrary, was always urging his master to new enterprises. Of an energetic temperament, he would continually repeat:
“Oh! If I had only had the capital to start out with, I could have made a fortune! One thousand francs would do me.”
M. Marambot would smile without answering and would go out in his little garden, where, his hands behind his back, he would walk about dreaming.
All day long, Denis sang the joyful refrains of the folk-songs of the district. He even showed an unusual activity, for he cleaned all the windows of the house, energetically rubbing the glass, and singing at the top of his voice.
M. Marambot, surprised at his zeal, said to him several times, smiling:
“My boy, if you work like that there will be nothing left for you to do to-morrow.”
The following day, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the postman gave Denis four letters for his master, one of them very heavy. M. Marambot immediately shut himself up in his room until late in the afternoon. He then handed his servant four letters for the mail. One of them was addressed to M. Malois; it was undoubtedly a receipt for the money.
Denis asked his master no questions; he appeared to be as sad and gloomy that day as he had seemed joyful the day before.
Night came. M. Marambot went to bed as usual and slept.
He was awakened by a strange noise. He sat up in his bed and listened. Suddenly the door opened, and Denis appeared, holding in one hand a candle and in the other a carving knife, his eyes staring, his face contracted as though moved by some deep emotion; he was as pale as a ghost.
M. Marambot, astonished, thought that he was sleep-walking, and he was going to get out of bed and assist him when the servant blew out the light and rushed for the bed. His master stretched out his hands to receive the shock which knocked him over on his back; he was trying to seize the hands of his servant, whom he now thought to be crazy, in order to avoid the blows which the latter was aiming at him.
He was struck by the knife; once in the shoulder, once in the forehead and the third time in the chest. He fought wildly, waving his arms around in the darkness, kicking and crying:
“Denis! Denis! Are you mad? Listen, Denis!”
But the latter, gasping for breath, kept up his furious attack always striking, always repulsed, sometimes with a kick, sometimes with a punch, and rushing forward again furiously.
M. Marambot was wounded twice more, once in the leg and once in the stomach. But, suddenly, a thought flashed across his mind, and he began to shriek:
“Stop, stop, Denis, I have not yet received my money!”
The man immediately ceased, and his master could hear his labored breathing in the darkness.
M. Marambot then went on:
“I have received nothing. M. Malois takes back what he said, the law- suit will take place; that is why you carried the letters to the mail. Just read those on my desk.”
With a final effort, he reached for his matches and lit the candle.
He was covered with blood. His sheets, his curtains, and even the walls, were spattered with red. Denis, standing in the middle of the room, was also bloody from head to foot.
When he saw the blood, M. Marambot thought himself dead, and fell unconscious.
At break of day he revived. It was some time, however, before he regained his senses, and was able to understand or remember. But, suddenly, the memory of the attack and of his wounds returned to him, and he was filled with such terror that he closed his eyes in order not to see anything. After a few minutes he grew calmer and began to think. He had not died immediately, therefore he might still recover. He felt weak, very weak; but he had no real pain, although he noticed an uncomfortable smarting sensation in several parts of his body. He also felt icy cold, and all wet, and as though wrapped up in bandages. He thought that this dampness came from the blood which he had lost; and he shivered at the dreadful thought of this red liquid which had come from his veins and covered his bed. The idea of seeing this terrible spectacle again so upset him that he kept his eyes closed with all his strength, as though they might open in spite of himself.
What had become of Denis? He had probably escaped.
But what could he, Marambot, do now? Get up? Call for help? But if he should make the slightest motions, his wounds would undoubtedly open up again and he would die from loss of blood.
Suddenly he heard the door of his room open. His heart almost stopped. It was certainly Denis who was coming to finish him up. He held his breath in order to make the murderer think that he had been successful.
He felt his sheet being lifted up, and then someone feeling his stomach. A sharp pain near his hip made him start. He was being very gently washed with cold water. Therefore, someone must have discovered the misdeed and he was being cared for. A wild joy seized him; but prudently, he did not wish to show that he was conscious. He opened one eye, just one, with the greatest precaution.
He recognized Denis standing beside him, Denis himself! Mercy! He hastily closed his eye again.
Denis! What could he be doing? What did he want? What awful scheme could he now be carrying out?
What was he doing? Well, he was washing him in order to hide the traces of his crime! And he would now bury him in the garden, under ten feet of earth, so that no one could discover him! Or perhaps under the wine cellar! And M. Marambot began to tremble like a leaf. He kept saying to himself: “I am lost, lost!” He closed his eyes so as not to see the knife as it descended for the final stroke. It did not come. Denis was now lifting him up and bandaging him. Then he began carefully to dress the wound on his leg, as his master had taught him to do.
There was no longer any doubt. His servant, after wishing to kill him, was trying to save him.
Then M. Marambot, in a dying voice, gave him the practical piece of advice:
“Wash the wounds in a dilute solution of carbolic acid!”
Denis answered:
“This is what I am doing, monsieur.”
M. Marambot opened both his eyes. There was no sign of blood either on the bed, on the walls, or on the murderer. The wounded man was stretched out on clean white sheets.
The two men looked at each other.
Finally M. Marambot said calmly:
“You have been guilty of a great crime.”
Denis answered:
“I am trying to make up for it, monsieur. If you will not tell on me, I will serve you as faithfully as in the past.”
This was no time to anger his servant. M. Marambot murmured as he closed his eyes:
“I swear not to tell on you.”
Denis saved his master. He spent days and nights without sleep, never leaving the sick room, preparing drugs, broths, potions, feeling his pulse, anxiously counting the beats, attending him with the skill of a trained nurse and the devotion of a son.
He continually asked:
“Well, monsieur, how do you feel?”
M. Marambot would answer in a weak voice:
“A little better, my boy, thank you.”
And when the sick man would wake up at night, he would often see his servant seated in an armchair, weeping silently.
Never had the old druggist been so cared for, so fondled, so spoiled. At first he had said to himself:
“As soon as I am well I shall get rid of this rascal.”
He was now convalescing, and from day to day he would put off dismissing his murderer. He thought that no one would ever show him such care and attention, for he held this man through fear; and he warned him that he had left a document with a lawyer denouncing him to the law if any new accident should occur.
This precaution seemed to guarantee him against any future attack; and he then asked himself if it would not be wiser to keep this man near him, in order to watch him closely.
Just as formerly, when he would hesitate about taking some larger place of business, he could not make up his mind to any decision.
“There is always time,” he would say to himself.
Denis continued to show himself an admirable servant. M. Marambot was well. He kept him.
One morning, just as he was finishing breakfast, he suddenly heard a great noise in the kitchen. He hastened in there. Denis was struggling with two gendarmes. An officer was taking notes on his pad.
As soon as he saw his master, the servant began to sob, exclaiming:
“You told on me, monsieur, that’s not right, after what you had promised me. You have broken your word of honor, Monsieur Marambot; that is not right, that’s not right!”
M. Marambot, bewildered and distressed at being suspected, lifted his hand:
“I swear to you before the Lord, my boy that I did not tell on you. I haven’t the slightest idea how the police could have found out about your attack on me.”
The officer started:
“You say that he attacked you, M. Marambot?”
The bewildered druggist answered:
“Yes–but I did not tell on him–I haven’t said a word–I swear it–he has served me excellently from that time on–”
The officer pronounced severely:
“I will take down your testimony. The law will take notice of this new action, of which it was ignorant, Monsieur Marambot. I was commissioned to arrest your servant for the theft of two ducks surreptitiously taken by him from M. Duhamel of which act there are witnesses. I shall make a note of your information.”
Then, turning toward his men, he ordered:
“Come on, bring him along!”
The two gendarmes dragged Denis out.
The lawyer used a plea of insanity, contrasting the two misdeeds in order to strengthen his argument. He had clearly proved that the theft of the two ducks came from the same mental condition as the eight knife-wounds in the body of Marambot. He had cunningly analyzed all the phases of this transitory condition of mental aberration, which could, doubtless, be cured by a few months’ treatment in a reputable sanatorium. He had spoken in enthusiastic terms of the continued devotion of this faithful servant, of the care with which he had surrounded his master, wounded by him in a moment of alienation.
Touched by this memory, M. Marambot felt the tears rising to his eyes.
The lawyer noticed it, opened his arms with a broad gesture, spreading out the long black sleeves of his robe like the wings of a bat, and exclaimed:
“Look, look, gentleman of the jury, look at those tears. What more can I say for my client? What speech, what argument, what reasoning would be worth these tears of his master? They, speak louder than I do, louder than the law; they cry: ‘Mercy, for the poor wandering mind of a while ago! They implore, they pardon, they bless!”
He was silent and sat down.
Then the judge, turning to Marambot, whose testimony had been excellent for his servant, asked him:
“But, monsieur, even admitting that you consider this man insane, that does not explain why you should have kept him. He was none the less dangerous.”
Marambot, wiping his eyes, answered:
“Well, your honor, what can you expect? Nowadays it’s so hard to find good servants–I could never have found a better one.”
Denis was acquitted and put in a sanatorium at his master’s expense.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter 26.2
Click on the player to hear the final chapter of this book as an audio file.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX point two
When Smitty saw Johnson crumpled on the floor, with Tommy sitting by his side, he realized the secret weapon had worked beyond all expectations. It was too bad Tommy couldn’t pass the police examination, because he had been the most valuable player in the bunch. Ray was still moaning when Smitty picked him up by his good shoulder and made him walk down the stairs. Why bother the paramedics with hauling this guy down the stairs on a gurney? Smitty even smiled when Ray winced on each step. At the bottom of the stairs, Skinner was waiting to escort the prisoner to a car, and make sure he was locked in. Even Skinner managed a smirk as he saw the bad condition Raymond Johnson was in. It was probably wrong to smile at another’s pain, but since his brother and three other people had paid the ultimate price for this man’s greed, it was the right kind of smile. The smile of justice.
Tommy followed the other downstairs, looking over at the bundle in the front room. He recognized his football, and went over to pick it up. As he walked out of the house, Greg Jones looked up and saw the giant man holding the package of money under his arm like a football, and saying, “I’m the quarterback!! I’m ready to throw the ball!!”
Tommy was waving the collection of bills, attempting to get someone to catch. Greg stepped up and signaled for the toss, which Tommy was more than happy to oblige. The “ball” sailed through the air and plopped down solidly in Greg Jones arms.
“Think we can get a shot of my favorite cop and his bundle of money for the station?” Paula asked.
Greg wrapped his arm around her and said quietly, “Only if this is going to be a Paula Rogers exclusive.” She smiled and kissed him lightly. She planned on a very “exclusive” interview.
As Smitty passed by Officer Greg Jones, Greg stopped him to clarify one question. “Harold, now how did you know Ray wouldn’t take a head shot at his friend Tommy?”
Smitty leaned in close and whispered the answer. “I really didn’t know if he would follow the pattern, but the other two officers were shot in the chest. Habit is a hard thing to break, and we figured with the surprise of the big guy showing up, there wouldn’t really be any time for Johnson to think about a bullet-proof vest. A really big bullet-proof vest. Sometimes, you just get lucky. Especially when you have a big friend who is willing to work for candy. Think the district attorney will want to use him as a star witness?”
The three laughed together, trying to picture a judge telling Tommy to sit back down and stop playing with the gavel. Or to give the nice deputy back his bible. But whatever was going to happen to Tommy, they knew the fact he had helped to capture Raymond Johnson would look very good in his file. It would be a first step, if a halting one, to some kind of rehabilitation and a better place for Tommy.
By this time Tommy was running a victory lap, jogging around the house and signaling that his pass had been good for a touchdown. To those who were watching, it seemed like slow jogging, but more like plodding as the runner circled the Parker house once again. One thing was clear to those around Tommy. He knew the joy of the moment, and on his face he also wore a smile.
The doctor told him to stay off the leg for two months, and it had only been one.
Four weeks of waiting to run again was too long, and John Graham decided to try out his recently aerated leg. It was only to be a short run, up and down one of his favorite country roads. He parked the car and stretched out just a bit, fearing if he stretched too much he would damage the muscle again. He could feel the ripped muscles straining already.
Slowly plodding on in his own way, John reviewed the last month. It had been stupid to try to knock Raymond Johnson down with the bundle, and he had been told that by many, many people. He got two holes in his legs for his trouble, but what John didn’t tell the casual observers was that he believed Johnson would have killed him anyway. It may have been the smartest thing he had ever done.
Ranking up with stupidest thoughts ever, many more people had teased him about trying to keep the money, and although Greg Jones had tried to give John credit for helping get the bad guy, most people didn’t really believe John was going to return the money. But the bank didn’t care, because in their eyes, if the money had been in the sheriff’s office, Raymond Johnson might be sunning himself in Mexico at that very moment. Instead, he was recovering from his injuries under guard, and waiting to stand trial for his crimes. He would never see sunlight on a beach again. But the bank insisted on a $10,000 reward for Graham’s quick thinking and careful reasoning, even if everything didn’t look quite right if you examined it closely. The bank got their money, the criminals were behind bars, and all was well with the world.
The occasional sharp pain in his leg was a fit reminder that most decisions have consequences. “We can’t imagine what they are even as we make those decisions,” John thought to himself. “We have the ability to know when a bad decision has been made, but that never seems to stop people from making bad decisions every day.” Plodding through his life, John Graham knew he would make other bad decisions.
Greg Jones had received his moment in the spotlight for his bravery and quick-thinking, with his own Paula Rogers exclusive, which included the announcement of an upcoming marriage. Even Tommy had turned into a celebrity, and several local charities were seeing that this local hero who had helped save the day would now get the kind of guidance and services he truly needed. Tommy loved the attention, and was more than willing to attend ribbon cuttings, make speeches and serve on several special committees. He had found his way.
John Graham noticed a pulling and painful sensation near where the wound had been, and knew that it would be months before that particular sensation would go away. He tried to focus on the good that had happened. The bills were easy to pay this month with the extra money, and some even ended up being saved for the future “rainy” days that seemed to happen several times a year. The money wouldn’t last long, but it was a nice thing to have. It was also nice to be alive. It was great to be plodding along, wondering why life could be so good, and realizing that it only seemed good when compared to the bad we all have to experience. John Graham looked over at the overgrown ditches near the road.
It always amazed him to see the diversity of life, even at the side of a farm road, and he could hear the mice scurrying around in the dried wheat heads and straw. They struggled for their existence just as every other creature does. Life really was good, and John Graham was glad he was around to enjoy it.
A small mouse crept to the side of the road and prepared to cross. It was just ahead of John, and his massive body of John Graham crashing toward it helped the mouse decide to cross before John arrived where the mouse was waiting. John watched the mouse dash across the road to other adventures across the wide black strip of asphalt. John wondered what other adventures awaited him in his future, and decided to just take it one step at a time. As he plodded onward, it was easy to see the expression on his face. It was the plodders’ smile.
Copy and paste the link below to access all chapters in order.
"http://daneallred.podbean.com/the-plodders-mile/chapters-in-order/"
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX point two
When Smitty saw Johnson crumpled on the floor, with Tommy sitting by his side, he realized the secret weapon had worked beyond all expectations. It was too bad Tommy couldn’t pass the police examination, because he had been the most valuable player in the bunch. Ray was still moaning when Smitty picked him up by his good shoulder and made him walk down the stairs. Why bother the paramedics with hauling this guy down the stairs on a gurney? Smitty even smiled when Ray winced on each step. At the bottom of the stairs, Skinner was waiting to escort the prisoner to a car, and make sure he was locked in. Even Skinner managed a smirk as he saw the bad condition Raymond Johnson was in. It was probably wrong to smile at another’s pain, but since his brother and three other people had paid the ultimate price for this man’s greed, it was the right kind of smile. The smile of justice.
Tommy followed the other downstairs, looking over at the bundle in the front room. He recognized his football, and went over to pick it up. As he walked out of the house, Greg Jones looked up and saw the giant man holding the package of money under his arm like a football, and saying, “I’m the quarterback!! I’m ready to throw the ball!!”
Tommy was waving the collection of bills, attempting to get someone to catch. Greg stepped up and signaled for the toss, which Tommy was more than happy to oblige. The “ball” sailed through the air and plopped down solidly in Greg Jones arms.
“Think we can get a shot of my favorite cop and his bundle of money for the station?” Paula asked.
Greg wrapped his arm around her and said quietly, “Only if this is going to be a Paula Rogers exclusive.” She smiled and kissed him lightly. She planned on a very “exclusive” interview.
As Smitty passed by Officer Greg Jones, Greg stopped him to clarify one question. “Harold, now how did you know Ray wouldn’t take a head shot at his friend Tommy?”
Smitty leaned in close and whispered the answer. “I really didn’t know if he would follow the pattern, but the other two officers were shot in the chest. Habit is a hard thing to break, and we figured with the surprise of the big guy showing up, there wouldn’t really be any time for Johnson to think about a bullet-proof vest. A really big bullet-proof vest. Sometimes, you just get lucky. Especially when you have a big friend who is willing to work for candy. Think the district attorney will want to use him as a star witness?”
The three laughed together, trying to picture a judge telling Tommy to sit back down and stop playing with the gavel. Or to give the nice deputy back his bible. But whatever was going to happen to Tommy, they knew the fact he had helped to capture Raymond Johnson would look very good in his file. It would be a first step, if a halting one, to some kind of rehabilitation and a better place for Tommy.
By this time Tommy was running a victory lap, jogging around the house and signaling that his pass had been good for a touchdown. To those who were watching, it seemed like slow jogging, but more like plodding as the runner circled the Parker house once again. One thing was clear to those around Tommy. He knew the joy of the moment, and on his face he also wore a smile.
The doctor told him to stay off the leg for two months, and it had only been one.
Four weeks of waiting to run again was too long, and John Graham decided to try out his recently aerated leg. It was only to be a short run, up and down one of his favorite country roads. He parked the car and stretched out just a bit, fearing if he stretched too much he would damage the muscle again. He could feel the ripped muscles straining already.
Slowly plodding on in his own way, John reviewed the last month. It had been stupid to try to knock Raymond Johnson down with the bundle, and he had been told that by many, many people. He got two holes in his legs for his trouble, but what John didn’t tell the casual observers was that he believed Johnson would have killed him anyway. It may have been the smartest thing he had ever done.
Ranking up with stupidest thoughts ever, many more people had teased him about trying to keep the money, and although Greg Jones had tried to give John credit for helping get the bad guy, most people didn’t really believe John was going to return the money. But the bank didn’t care, because in their eyes, if the money had been in the sheriff’s office, Raymond Johnson might be sunning himself in Mexico at that very moment. Instead, he was recovering from his injuries under guard, and waiting to stand trial for his crimes. He would never see sunlight on a beach again. But the bank insisted on a $10,000 reward for Graham’s quick thinking and careful reasoning, even if everything didn’t look quite right if you examined it closely. The bank got their money, the criminals were behind bars, and all was well with the world.
The occasional sharp pain in his leg was a fit reminder that most decisions have consequences. “We can’t imagine what they are even as we make those decisions,” John thought to himself. “We have the ability to know when a bad decision has been made, but that never seems to stop people from making bad decisions every day.” Plodding through his life, John Graham knew he would make other bad decisions.
Greg Jones had received his moment in the spotlight for his bravery and quick-thinking, with his own Paula Rogers exclusive, which included the announcement of an upcoming marriage. Even Tommy had turned into a celebrity, and several local charities were seeing that this local hero who had helped save the day would now get the kind of guidance and services he truly needed. Tommy loved the attention, and was more than willing to attend ribbon cuttings, make speeches and serve on several special committees. He had found his way.
John Graham noticed a pulling and painful sensation near where the wound had been, and knew that it would be months before that particular sensation would go away. He tried to focus on the good that had happened. The bills were easy to pay this month with the extra money, and some even ended up being saved for the future “rainy” days that seemed to happen several times a year. The money wouldn’t last long, but it was a nice thing to have. It was also nice to be alive. It was great to be plodding along, wondering why life could be so good, and realizing that it only seemed good when compared to the bad we all have to experience. John Graham looked over at the overgrown ditches near the road.
It always amazed him to see the diversity of life, even at the side of a farm road, and he could hear the mice scurrying around in the dried wheat heads and straw. They struggled for their existence just as every other creature does. Life really was good, and John Graham was glad he was around to enjoy it.
A small mouse crept to the side of the road and prepared to cross. It was just ahead of John, and his massive body of John Graham crashing toward it helped the mouse decide to cross before John arrived where the mouse was waiting. John watched the mouse dash across the road to other adventures across the wide black strip of asphalt. John wondered what other adventures awaited him in his future, and decided to just take it one step at a time. As he plodded onward, it was easy to see the expression on his face. It was the plodders’ smile.
Copy and paste the link below to access all chapters in order.
"http://daneallred.podbean.com/the-plodders-mile/chapters-in-order/"
Monday, September 6, 2010
Song of Man Twenty-five by Khalil Gibran
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this poem.
Song of Man XXV
Khalil Gibran
I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being.
I roamed the infinite sky, and
Soared in the ideal world, and
Floated through the firmament. But
Here I am, prisoner of measurement.
I heard the teachings of Confucius;
I listened to Brahma's wisdom;
I sat by Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge.
Yet here I am, existing with ignorance
And heresy.
I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses;
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan;
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited.
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment.
Then I witnessed the might of Babylon;
I learned of the glory of Egypt;
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome.
Yet my earlier teachings showed the
Weakness and sorrow of those achievements.
I conversed with the magicians of Ain Dour;
I debated with the priests of Assyria;
I gleaned depth from the prophets of Palestine.
Yet, I am still seeking truth.
I gathered wisdom from quiet India;
I probed the antiquity of Arabia;
I heard all that can be heard.
Yet, my heart is deaf and blind.
I suffered at the hands of despotic rulers;
I suffered slavery under insane invaders;
I suffered hunger imposed by tyranny;
Yet, I still possess some inner power
With which I struggle to greet each day.
My mind is filled, but my heart is empty;
My body is old, but my heart is an infant.
Perhaps in youth my heart will grow, but I
Pray to grow old and reach the moment of
My return to God. Only then will my heart fill!
I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being.
Song of Man XXV
Khalil Gibran
I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being.
I roamed the infinite sky, and
Soared in the ideal world, and
Floated through the firmament. But
Here I am, prisoner of measurement.
I heard the teachings of Confucius;
I listened to Brahma's wisdom;
I sat by Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge.
Yet here I am, existing with ignorance
And heresy.
I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses;
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan;
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited.
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment.
Then I witnessed the might of Babylon;
I learned of the glory of Egypt;
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome.
Yet my earlier teachings showed the
Weakness and sorrow of those achievements.
I conversed with the magicians of Ain Dour;
I debated with the priests of Assyria;
I gleaned depth from the prophets of Palestine.
Yet, I am still seeking truth.
I gathered wisdom from quiet India;
I probed the antiquity of Arabia;
I heard all that can be heard.
Yet, my heart is deaf and blind.
I suffered at the hands of despotic rulers;
I suffered slavery under insane invaders;
I suffered hunger imposed by tyranny;
Yet, I still possess some inner power
With which I struggle to greet each day.
My mind is filled, but my heart is empty;
My body is old, but my heart is an infant.
Perhaps in youth my heart will grow, but I
Pray to grow old and reach the moment of
My return to God. Only then will my heart fill!
I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
A Grain as Big as a Hen's Egg by Leo Tolstoy
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.
A Grain As Big As A Hen’s Egg
by Leo Tolstoy
One day some children found, in a ravine, a thing shaped like a grain of corn, with a groove down the middle, but as large as a hen’s egg. A traveler passing by saw the thing, bought it from the children for a penny, and taking it to town, sold it to the King as a curiosity.
The King called together his wise men, and told them to find out what the thing was. The wise men pondered and pondered and could not make head or tail of it, till one day, when the thing was lying on a window-sill, a hen flew in and pecked at it till she made a hole in it, and then every one saw that it was a grain of corn. The wise men went to the King and said:
‘It is a grain of corn.’
At this the King was much surprised; and he ordered the learned men to find out when and where such corn had grown. The learned men pondered again, and searched in their books, but could find nothing about it. So they returned to the King and said:
‘We can give you no answer. There is nothing about it in our books. You will have to ask the peasants; perhaps some of them may have heard from their fathers when and where grain grew to such a size.’
So the King gave orders that some very old peasant should be brought before him; and his servants found such a man and brought him to the King. Old and bent, ashy pale and toothless, he just managed with the help of two crutches to totter into the King’s presence.
The King showed him the grain, but the old man could hardly see it; he took it, however, and felt it with his hands. The King questioned him, saying:
‘Can you tell us, old man, where such grain as this grew? Have you ever bought such corn, or sown such in your fields?’
The old man was so deaf that he could hardly hear what the King said, and only understood with great difficulty.
‘No!’ he answered at last, ‘I never sowed nor reaped any like it in my fields, nor did I ever buy any such. When we bought corn, the grains were always as small as they are now. But you might ask my father. He may have heard where such grain grew.’
So the King sent for the old man’s father, and he was found and brought before the King. He came walking with one crutch. The King showed him the grain, and the old peasant, who was still able to see, took a good look at it. And the King asked him:
‘Can you not tell us, old man, where corn like this used to grow? Have you ever bought any like it, or sown any in your fields?’
Though the old man was rather hard of hearing, he still heard better than his son had done.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never sowed nor reaped any grain like this in my field. As to buying, I never bought any, for in my time money was not yet in use. Every one grew his own corn, and when there was any need we shared with one another. I do not know where corn like this grew. Ours was larger and yielded more flour than present-day grain, but I never saw any like this. I have, however, heard my father say that in his time the grain grew larger and yielded more flour than ours. You had better ask him.’
So the King sent for this old man’s father, and they found him too, and brought him before the King. He entered walking easily and without crutches: his eye was clear, his hearing good, and he spoke distinctly. The King showed him the grain, and the old grandfather looked at it, and turned it about in his hand.
‘It is long since I saw such a fine grain,’ said he, and he bit a piece off and tasted it.
‘It’s the very same kind,’ he added.
‘Tell me, grandfather,’ said the King, ‘when and where was such corn grown? Have you ever bought any like it, or sown any in your fields?’
And the old man replied:
‘Corn like this used to grow everywhere in my time. I lived on corn like this in my young days, and fed others on it. It was grain like this that we used to sow and reap and thrash.’
And the King asked:
‘Tell me, grandfather, did you buy it anywhere, or did you grow it all yourself?’
The old man smiled.
‘In my time,’ he answered, ‘no one ever thought of such a sin as buying or selling bread; and we knew nothing of money. Each man had corn enough of his own.’
‘Then tell me, grandfather,’ asked the King, ‘where was your field, where did you grow corn like this?’
And the grandfather answered:
‘My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labour was the only thing men called their own.’
‘Answer me two more questions,’ said the King. ‘The first is, Why did the earth bear such grain then and has ceased to do so now? And the second is, Why your grandson walks with two crutches, your son with one, and you yourself with none? Your eyes are bright, your teeth sound, and your speech clear and pleasant to the ear. How have these things come about?’
And the old man answered:
‘These things are so, because men have ceased to live by their own labour, and have taken to depending on the labour of others. In the old time, men lived according to God’s law. They had what was their own, and coveted not what others had produced.’
A Grain As Big As A Hen’s Egg
by Leo Tolstoy
One day some children found, in a ravine, a thing shaped like a grain of corn, with a groove down the middle, but as large as a hen’s egg. A traveler passing by saw the thing, bought it from the children for a penny, and taking it to town, sold it to the King as a curiosity.
The King called together his wise men, and told them to find out what the thing was. The wise men pondered and pondered and could not make head or tail of it, till one day, when the thing was lying on a window-sill, a hen flew in and pecked at it till she made a hole in it, and then every one saw that it was a grain of corn. The wise men went to the King and said:
‘It is a grain of corn.’
At this the King was much surprised; and he ordered the learned men to find out when and where such corn had grown. The learned men pondered again, and searched in their books, but could find nothing about it. So they returned to the King and said:
‘We can give you no answer. There is nothing about it in our books. You will have to ask the peasants; perhaps some of them may have heard from their fathers when and where grain grew to such a size.’
So the King gave orders that some very old peasant should be brought before him; and his servants found such a man and brought him to the King. Old and bent, ashy pale and toothless, he just managed with the help of two crutches to totter into the King’s presence.
The King showed him the grain, but the old man could hardly see it; he took it, however, and felt it with his hands. The King questioned him, saying:
‘Can you tell us, old man, where such grain as this grew? Have you ever bought such corn, or sown such in your fields?’
The old man was so deaf that he could hardly hear what the King said, and only understood with great difficulty.
‘No!’ he answered at last, ‘I never sowed nor reaped any like it in my fields, nor did I ever buy any such. When we bought corn, the grains were always as small as they are now. But you might ask my father. He may have heard where such grain grew.’
So the King sent for the old man’s father, and he was found and brought before the King. He came walking with one crutch. The King showed him the grain, and the old peasant, who was still able to see, took a good look at it. And the King asked him:
‘Can you not tell us, old man, where corn like this used to grow? Have you ever bought any like it, or sown any in your fields?’
Though the old man was rather hard of hearing, he still heard better than his son had done.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never sowed nor reaped any grain like this in my field. As to buying, I never bought any, for in my time money was not yet in use. Every one grew his own corn, and when there was any need we shared with one another. I do not know where corn like this grew. Ours was larger and yielded more flour than present-day grain, but I never saw any like this. I have, however, heard my father say that in his time the grain grew larger and yielded more flour than ours. You had better ask him.’
So the King sent for this old man’s father, and they found him too, and brought him before the King. He entered walking easily and without crutches: his eye was clear, his hearing good, and he spoke distinctly. The King showed him the grain, and the old grandfather looked at it, and turned it about in his hand.
‘It is long since I saw such a fine grain,’ said he, and he bit a piece off and tasted it.
‘It’s the very same kind,’ he added.
‘Tell me, grandfather,’ said the King, ‘when and where was such corn grown? Have you ever bought any like it, or sown any in your fields?’
And the old man replied:
‘Corn like this used to grow everywhere in my time. I lived on corn like this in my young days, and fed others on it. It was grain like this that we used to sow and reap and thrash.’
And the King asked:
‘Tell me, grandfather, did you buy it anywhere, or did you grow it all yourself?’
The old man smiled.
‘In my time,’ he answered, ‘no one ever thought of such a sin as buying or selling bread; and we knew nothing of money. Each man had corn enough of his own.’
‘Then tell me, grandfather,’ asked the King, ‘where was your field, where did you grow corn like this?’
And the grandfather answered:
‘My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labour was the only thing men called their own.’
‘Answer me two more questions,’ said the King. ‘The first is, Why did the earth bear such grain then and has ceased to do so now? And the second is, Why your grandson walks with two crutches, your son with one, and you yourself with none? Your eyes are bright, your teeth sound, and your speech clear and pleasant to the ear. How have these things come about?’
And the old man answered:
‘These things are so, because men have ceased to live by their own labour, and have taken to depending on the labour of others. In the old time, men lived according to God’s law. They had what was their own, and coveted not what others had produced.’
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The Imp and the Crust by Leo Tolstoy
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.
The Imp and the Crust
by Leo Tolstoy
A poor peasant set out early one morning to plough, taking with him for his breakfast a crust of bread. He got his plough ready, wrapped the bread in his coat, put it under a bush, and set to work. After a while when his horse was tired and he was hungry, the peasant fixed the plough, let the horse loose to graze and went to get his coat and his breakfast.
He lifted the coat, but the bread was gone! He looked and looked, turned the coat over, shook it out — but the bread was gone. The peasant could not make this out at all.
‘That’s strange,’ thought he; ‘I saw no one, but all the same some one has been here and has taken the bread!’
It was an imp who had stolen the bread while the peasant was ploughing, and at that moment he was sitting behind the bush, waiting to hear the peasant swear and call on the Devil.
The peasant was sorry to lose his breakfast, but ‘It can’t be helped,’ said he. ‘After all, I shan’t die of hunger! No doubt whoever took the bread needed it. May it do him good!’
And he went to the well, had a drink of water, and rested a bit. Then he caught his horse, harnessed it, and began ploughing again.
The imp was crestfallen at not having made the peasant sin, and he went to report what had happened to the Devil, his master.
He came to the Devil and told how he had taken the peasant’s bread, and how the peasant instead of cursing had said, ‘May it do him good!’
The Devil was angry, and replied: ‘If the man got the better of you, it was your own fault — you don’t understand your business! If the peasants, and their wives after them, take to that sort of thing, it will be all up with us. The matter can’t be left like that! Go back at once,’ said he, ‘and put things right. If in three years you don’t get the better of that peasant, I’ll have you ducked in holy water!’
The imp was frightened. He scampered back to earth, thinking how he could redeem his fault. He thought and thought, and at last hit upon a good plan.
He turned himself into a labouring man, and went and took service with the poor peasant. The first year he advised the peasant to sow corn in a marshy place. The peasant took his advice, and sowed in the marsh. The year turned out a very dry one, and the crops of the other peasants were all scorched by the sun, but the poor peasant’s corn grew thick and tall and full-eared. Not only had he grain enough to last him for the whole year, but he had much left over besides.
The next year the imp advised the peasant to sow on the hill; and it turned out a wet summer. Other people’s corn was beaten down and rotted and the ears did not fill; but the peasant’s crop, up on the hill, was a fine one. He had more grain left over than before, so that he did not know what to do with it all.
Then the imp showed the peasant how he could mash the grain and distil spirit from it; and the peasant made strong drink, and began to drink it himself and to give it to his friends.
So the imp went to the Devil, his master, and boasted that he had made up for his failure. The Devil said that he would come and see for himself how the case stood.
He came to the peasant’s house, and saw that the peasant had invited his well-to-do neighbours and was treating them to drink. His wife was offering the drink to the guests, and as she handed it round she tumbled against the table and spilt a glassful.
The peasant was angry, and scolded his wife: ‘What do you mean, you slut? Do you think it’s ditchwater, you cripple, that you must go pouring good stuff like that over the floor?’
The imp nudged the Devil, his master, with his elbow: ‘See,’ said he, ‘that’s the man who did not grudge his last crust!’
The peasant, still railing at his wife, began to carry the drink round himself. Just then a poor peasant returning from work came in uninvited. He greeted the company, sat down, and saw that they were drinking. Tired with his day’s work he felt that he too would like a drop. He sat and sat, and his mouth kept watering, but the host instead of offering him any only muttered: ‘I can’t find drink for every one who comes along.’
This pleased the Devil; but the imp chuckled and said, ‘Wait a bit, there’s more to come yet!’
The rich peasants drank, and their host drank too. And they began to make false, oily speeches to one another.
The Devil listened and listened, and praised the imp.
‘If,’ said he, ‘the drink makes them so foxy that they begin to cheat each other, they will soon all be in our hands.’
‘Wait for what’s coming,’ said the imp. ‘Let them have another glass all round. Now they are like foxes, wagging their tails and trying to get round one another; but presently you will see them like savage wolves.’
The peasants had another glass each, and their talk became wilder and rougher. Instead of oily speeches they began to abuse and snarl at one another. Soon they took to fighting, and punched one another’s noses. And the host joined in the fight, and he too got well beaten.
The Devil looked on and was much pleased at all this. ‘This is first-rate!’ said he.
But the imp replied: ‘Wait a bit — the best is yet to come. Wait till they have had a third glass. Now they are raging like wolves, but let them have one more glass, and they will be like swine.’
The peasants had their third glass, and became quite like brutes. They muttered and shouted, not knowing why, and not listening to one another.
Then the party began to break up. Some went alone, some in twos, and some in threes, all staggering down the street. The host went out to speed his guests, but he fell on his nose into a puddle, smeared himself from top to toe, and lay there grunting like a hog.
This pleased the Devil still more.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘you have hit on a first-rate drink, and have quite made up for your blunder about the bread. But now tell me how this drink is made. You must first have put in fox’s blood: that was what made the peasants sly as foxes. Then, I suppose, you added wolf’s blood: that is what made them fierce like wolves. And you must have finished off with swine’s blood, to make them behave like swine.’
‘No,’ said the imp, ‘that was not the way I did it. All I did was to see that the peasant had more corn than he needed. The blood of the beasts is always in man; but as long as he has only enough corn for his needs, it is kept in bounds. While that was the case, the peasant did not grudge his last crust. But when he had corn left over, he looked for ways of getting pleasure out of it. And I showed him a pleasure — drinking! And when he began to turn God’s good gifts into spirits for his own pleasure — the fox’s, wolf’s and swine’s blood in him all came out. If only he goes on drinking, he will always be a beast!’
The Devil praised the imp, forgave him for his former blunder, and advanced him to a post of high honor.
The Imp and the Crust
by Leo Tolstoy
A poor peasant set out early one morning to plough, taking with him for his breakfast a crust of bread. He got his plough ready, wrapped the bread in his coat, put it under a bush, and set to work. After a while when his horse was tired and he was hungry, the peasant fixed the plough, let the horse loose to graze and went to get his coat and his breakfast.
He lifted the coat, but the bread was gone! He looked and looked, turned the coat over, shook it out — but the bread was gone. The peasant could not make this out at all.
‘That’s strange,’ thought he; ‘I saw no one, but all the same some one has been here and has taken the bread!’
It was an imp who had stolen the bread while the peasant was ploughing, and at that moment he was sitting behind the bush, waiting to hear the peasant swear and call on the Devil.
The peasant was sorry to lose his breakfast, but ‘It can’t be helped,’ said he. ‘After all, I shan’t die of hunger! No doubt whoever took the bread needed it. May it do him good!’
And he went to the well, had a drink of water, and rested a bit. Then he caught his horse, harnessed it, and began ploughing again.
The imp was crestfallen at not having made the peasant sin, and he went to report what had happened to the Devil, his master.
He came to the Devil and told how he had taken the peasant’s bread, and how the peasant instead of cursing had said, ‘May it do him good!’
The Devil was angry, and replied: ‘If the man got the better of you, it was your own fault — you don’t understand your business! If the peasants, and their wives after them, take to that sort of thing, it will be all up with us. The matter can’t be left like that! Go back at once,’ said he, ‘and put things right. If in three years you don’t get the better of that peasant, I’ll have you ducked in holy water!’
The imp was frightened. He scampered back to earth, thinking how he could redeem his fault. He thought and thought, and at last hit upon a good plan.
He turned himself into a labouring man, and went and took service with the poor peasant. The first year he advised the peasant to sow corn in a marshy place. The peasant took his advice, and sowed in the marsh. The year turned out a very dry one, and the crops of the other peasants were all scorched by the sun, but the poor peasant’s corn grew thick and tall and full-eared. Not only had he grain enough to last him for the whole year, but he had much left over besides.
The next year the imp advised the peasant to sow on the hill; and it turned out a wet summer. Other people’s corn was beaten down and rotted and the ears did not fill; but the peasant’s crop, up on the hill, was a fine one. He had more grain left over than before, so that he did not know what to do with it all.
Then the imp showed the peasant how he could mash the grain and distil spirit from it; and the peasant made strong drink, and began to drink it himself and to give it to his friends.
So the imp went to the Devil, his master, and boasted that he had made up for his failure. The Devil said that he would come and see for himself how the case stood.
He came to the peasant’s house, and saw that the peasant had invited his well-to-do neighbours and was treating them to drink. His wife was offering the drink to the guests, and as she handed it round she tumbled against the table and spilt a glassful.
The peasant was angry, and scolded his wife: ‘What do you mean, you slut? Do you think it’s ditchwater, you cripple, that you must go pouring good stuff like that over the floor?’
The imp nudged the Devil, his master, with his elbow: ‘See,’ said he, ‘that’s the man who did not grudge his last crust!’
The peasant, still railing at his wife, began to carry the drink round himself. Just then a poor peasant returning from work came in uninvited. He greeted the company, sat down, and saw that they were drinking. Tired with his day’s work he felt that he too would like a drop. He sat and sat, and his mouth kept watering, but the host instead of offering him any only muttered: ‘I can’t find drink for every one who comes along.’
This pleased the Devil; but the imp chuckled and said, ‘Wait a bit, there’s more to come yet!’
The rich peasants drank, and their host drank too. And they began to make false, oily speeches to one another.
The Devil listened and listened, and praised the imp.
‘If,’ said he, ‘the drink makes them so foxy that they begin to cheat each other, they will soon all be in our hands.’
‘Wait for what’s coming,’ said the imp. ‘Let them have another glass all round. Now they are like foxes, wagging their tails and trying to get round one another; but presently you will see them like savage wolves.’
The peasants had another glass each, and their talk became wilder and rougher. Instead of oily speeches they began to abuse and snarl at one another. Soon they took to fighting, and punched one another’s noses. And the host joined in the fight, and he too got well beaten.
The Devil looked on and was much pleased at all this. ‘This is first-rate!’ said he.
But the imp replied: ‘Wait a bit — the best is yet to come. Wait till they have had a third glass. Now they are raging like wolves, but let them have one more glass, and they will be like swine.’
The peasants had their third glass, and became quite like brutes. They muttered and shouted, not knowing why, and not listening to one another.
Then the party began to break up. Some went alone, some in twos, and some in threes, all staggering down the street. The host went out to speed his guests, but he fell on his nose into a puddle, smeared himself from top to toe, and lay there grunting like a hog.
This pleased the Devil still more.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘you have hit on a first-rate drink, and have quite made up for your blunder about the bread. But now tell me how this drink is made. You must first have put in fox’s blood: that was what made the peasants sly as foxes. Then, I suppose, you added wolf’s blood: that is what made them fierce like wolves. And you must have finished off with swine’s blood, to make them behave like swine.’
‘No,’ said the imp, ‘that was not the way I did it. All I did was to see that the peasant had more corn than he needed. The blood of the beasts is always in man; but as long as he has only enough corn for his needs, it is kept in bounds. While that was the case, the peasant did not grudge his last crust. But when he had corn left over, he looked for ways of getting pleasure out of it. And I showed him a pleasure — drinking! And when he began to turn God’s good gifts into spirits for his own pleasure — the fox’s, wolf’s and swine’s blood in him all came out. If only he goes on drinking, he will always be a beast!’
The Devil praised the imp, forgave him for his former blunder, and advanced him to a post of high honor.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)