diff options
Diffstat (limited to '23420.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 23420.txt | 1609 |
1 files changed, 1609 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/23420.txt b/23420.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3855fdb --- /dev/null +++ b/23420.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1609 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Folly Of Eustace, by Robert S. Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Folly Of Eustace + 1896 + +Author: Robert S. Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23420] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOLLY OF EUSTACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +THE FOLLY OF EUSTACE. + +By R. S. Hichens + +1896 + + + + +I. + +Some men deliberately don a character in early youth as others don a +mask before going to an opera ball. They select it not without some +care, being guided in their choice by the opinion they have formed +of the world's mind and manner of proceeding. In the privacy of the +dressing-room, the candles being lighted and the mirror adjusted at the +best angle for a view of self, they assume their character, and peacock +to their reflection, meditating: Does it become me? Will it be generally +liked? Will it advance me towards my heart's desire? Then they catch up +their cloak, twist the mirror back to its usual position, puff out the +candles, and steal forth into their career, shutting the door gently +behind them. And, perhaps till they are laid out in the grave, the +last four walls enclosing them, only the dressing-room could tell their +secret. And it has no voice to speak. For, if they are wise, they do not +keep a valet. + +At the age of sixteen Eustace Lane chose his mask, lit the candles, +tried it on, and resolved to wear it at the great masquerade. He was +an Eton boy at the time. One fourth of June he was out in the +playing-fields, paying polite attentions to another fellow's sister, +when he overheard a fragment of a conversation that was taking place +between his mother and one of the masters. His mother was a kind +Englishwoman, who was very short-sighted, and always did her duty. +The master was a fool, but as he was tall, handsome, and extremely +good-natured, Eustace Lane and most people considered him to be highly +intelligent. Eustace caught the sound of his name pronounced. The fond +mother, in the course of discreet conversation, had proceeded from the +state of the weather to the state of her boy's soul, taking, with +the ease of the mediocre, the one step between the sublime and the +ridiculous. She had told the master the state of the weather--which, for +once, was sublime; she wanted him, in return, to tell her the state of +her boy's soul--which was ridiculous. + +Eustace forgot the other fellow's sister, her limpid eyes, her +open-worked stockings, her panoply of chiffons and of charms. He +had heard his own name. Bang went the door on the rest of the world, +shutting out even feminine humanity. Self-consciousness held him +listening. His mother said: + +"Dear Eustace! What do you think of him, Mr. Bembridge? Is he _really_ +clever? His father and I consider him unusually intelligent for his +age--so advanced in mind. He judges for himself, you know. He always +did, even as a baby. I remember when he was quite a tiny mite I could +always trust to his perceptions. In my choice of nurses I was invariably +guided by him. If he screamed at them I felt that there was something +wrong, and dismissed them--of course with a character. If he smiled at +them, I knew I could have confidence in their virtue. How strange these +things are! What is it in us that screams at evil and smiles at good?" + +"Ah! what, indeed?" replied the master, accepting her conclusion as an +established and very beautiful fact. "There is more in the human heart +than you and I can fathom, Mrs. Lane." + +"Yes, indeed! But tell me about Eustace. You have observed him?" + +"Carefully. He is a strange boy." + +"Strange?" + +"Whimsical, I mean. How clever he may be I am unable to say. He is so +young, and, of course, undeveloped. But he is an original. Even if he +never displays great talents the world will talk about him." + +"Why?" asked Mrs. Lane in some alarm. + +To be talked about was, she considered, to be the prey of +scandalmongers. She did not wish to give her darling to the lions. + +"I mean that Eustace has a strain of quaint fun in him--a sort of +passion for the burlesque of life. You do not often find this in boys. +It is new to my experience. He sees the peculiar side of everything with +a curious acuteness. Life presents itself to him in caricature. I------ +Well hit! Well hit indeed!" + +Someone had scored a four. + +The other fellow's sister insisted on moving to a place whence they +could see the cricket better, and Eustace had to yield to her. But from +that moment he took no more interest in her artless remarks and her +artful open-worked stockings. In the combat between self and her she +went to the wall. He stood up before the mirror looking steadfastly at +his own image. + +And, finding it not quite so interestingly curious as the fool of a +master had declared it to be, he lit some more candies, selected a mask, +and put it on. + +He chose the mask of a buffoon. + +***** + +From that day Eustace strove consistently to live up to the reputation +given to him by a fool, who had been talking at random to please an avid +mother. Mr. Bembridge knew that the boy was no good at work, wanted +to say something nice about him, and had once noticed him playing +some absurd but very ordinary boyish prank. On this supposed hint of +character the master spoke. Mrs. Lane listened. Eustace acted. A sudden +ambition stirred within him. To be known, talked about, considered, +perhaps even wondered at--was not that a glory? Such a glory came to the +greatly talented--to the mightily industrious. Men earned it by labour, +by intensity, insensibility to fatigue, the "roughing it" of the mind. +He did not want to rough it. Nor was he greatly talented. But he was +just sharp enough to see, as he believed, a short and perhaps easy way +to a thing that his conceit desired and that his egoism felt it could +love. Being only a boy, he had never, till this time, deliberately +looked on life as anything. Now he set himself, in his, at first, +youthful way, to look on it as burlesque--to see it in caricature. +How to do that? He studied the cartoons in _Vanity Fair_, the wondrous +noses, the astounding trousers, that delight the cynical world. Were men +indeed like these? Did they assume such postures, stare with such eyes, +revel in such complexions? These were the celebrities of the time. +They all looked with one accord preposterous. Eustace jumped to the +conclusion that they were what they looked, and, going a step farther, +that they were celebrated because they were preposterous. Gifted with +a certain amount of imagination, this idea of the interest, almost the +beauty of the preposterous, took a firm hold of his mind. One day he, +too, would be in _Vanity Fair_, displaying terrific boots, amazing thin +legs, a fatuous or a frenetic countenance to the great world of the +unknown. He would stand out from the multitude if only by virtue of an +unusual eyeglass, a particular glove, the fashion of his tie or of his +temper. He would balance on the ball of peculiarity, and toe his way +up the spiral of fame, while the music-hall audience applauded and the +managers consulted as to the increase of his salary. Mr. Bembridge had +shown him a weapon with which he might fight his way quickly to the +front. He picked it up and resolved to use it. Soon he began to slash +out right and left. His blade chanced to encounter the outraged body of +an elderly and sardonic master. Eustace was advised that he had better +leave Eton. His father came down by train and took him away. + +As they journeyed up to town, Mr. Lane lectured and exhorted, and +Eustace looked out of the window. Already he felt himself near to being +a celebrity. He had astonished Eton. That was a good beginning. Papa +might prose, knowing, of course, nothing of the poetry of caricature, +of the wild joys and the laurels that crown the whimsical. So while Mr. +Lane hunted adjectives, and ran sad-sounding and damnatory substantives +to earth, Eustace hugged himself, and secretly chuckled over his +pilgrim's progress towards the pages of _Vanity Fair_. + +"Eustace! Eustace! Are you listening to me?" + +"Yes, father." + +"Then what have you to say? What explanation have you to offer for your +conduct? You have behaved like a buffoon, sir--d'you hear me?--like a +buffoon!" + +"Yes, father." + +"What the deuce do you mean by 'yes,' sir?" + +Eustace considered, while Mr. Lane puffed in the approved paternal +fashion What did he mean? A sudden thought struck him. He became +confidential. With an earnest gaze, he said: + +"I couldn't help doing what I did. I want to be like the other fellows, +but somehow I can't. Something inside of me won't let me just go on as +they do. I don't know why it is, but I feel as if I must do original +things--things other people never do; it--it seems in me." + +Mr. Lane regarded him suspiciously, but Eustace had clear eyes, and +knew, at least, how to look innocent. + +"We shall have to knock it out of you," blustered the father. + +"I wish you could, father," the boy said. "I know I hate it." + +Mr. Lane began to be really puzzled. There was something pathetic in the +words, and especially in the way they were spoken. He stared at Eustace +meditatively. + +"So you hate it, do you?" he said rather limply at last. "Well, that's a +step in the right direction, at any rate. Perhaps things might have been +worse." + +Eustace did not assent. + +"They were bad enough," he said, with a simulation of shame. "I know +I've been a fool." + +"Well, well," Mr. Lane said, whirling, as paternal weathercocks will, +to another point of the compass, "never mind, my boy. Cheer up! You see +your fault--that's the main thing. What's done can't be undone." + +"No, thank heaven!" thought the boy, feeling almost great. + +How delicious is the irrevocable past--sometimes! + +"Be more careful in future. Don't let your boyish desire for follies +carry you away." + +"I shall," was his son's mental rejoinder. + +"And I dare say you'll do good work in the world yet." + +The train ran into Paddington Station on this sublime climax of +fatherhood, and the further words of wisdom were jerked out of Mr. Lane +during their passage to Carlton House Terrace in a four-wheeled cab. + +***** + +"What an extraordinary person Mr. Eustace Lane is!" said Winifred Ames +to her particular friend and happy foil, Jane Fraser. "All London is +beginning to talk about him. I suppose he must be clever?" + +"Oh, of course, darling, very clever; otherwise, how could he possibly +gain so much notice? Just think--why, there are millions of people in +London, and I'm sure only about a thousand of them, at most, attract any +real attention. I think Mr. Eustace Lane is a genius." + +"Do you really, Jenny?" + +"I do indeed." + +Winifred mused for a moment. Then she said: + +"It must be very interesting to marry a genius, I suppose?" + +"Oh, enthralling, simply. And, then, so few people can do it." + +"Yes." + +"And it must be grand to do what hardly anybody can do." + +"In the way of marrying, Jenny?" + +"In any way," responded Miss Fraser, who was an enthusiast, and +habitually sentimental. "What would I give to do even one unique thing, +or to marry even one unique person!" + +"You couldn't marry two at the same time--in England." + +"England limits itself so terribly; but there is a broader time coming. +Those who see it, and act upon what they see, are pioneers; Mr. Lane is +a pioneer." + +"But don't you think him rather extravagant?" + +"Oh yes. That is so splendid. I love the extravagance of genius, the +barbaric lavishness of moral and intellectual supremacy." + +"I wonder whether the supremacy of Eustace Lane is moral, or +intellectual, or--neither?" said Winifred. "There are so many different +supremacies, aren't there? I suppose a man might be supreme merely as +a--as a--well, an absurdity, you know." + +Jenny smiled the watery smile of the sentimentalist; a glass of still +lemonade washed with limelight might resemble it. + +"Eustace Lane likes you, Winnie," she remarked. + +"I know; that is why I am wondering about him. One does wonder, you see, +about the man one may possibly be going to marry." + +There had never been such a man for Jane Fraser, so she said nothing, +but succeeded in looking confidential. + +Presently Winifred allowed her happy foil to lace her up. She was going +to a ball given by the Lanes in Carlton House Terrace. + +"Perhaps he will propose to you to-night," whispered Jane in a gush of +excitement as the two girls walked down the stairs to the carriage. "If +he does, what will you say?". + +"I don't know." + +"Oh, darling, but surely----" + +"Eustace is so odd. I can't make him out." + +"That is because he is a genius." + +"He is certainly remarkable--in a way. Good-night, dear." + +The carriage drove off, and the happy foil joined her maid, who was +waiting to conduct her home. On the way they gossipped, and the maid +expressed a belief that Mr. Lane was a fine young gentleman, but full of +his goings-on. + +Jane knew what she meant. Eustace had once kissed her publicly in Jane's +presence, which deed the latter considered a stroke of genius, and the +act of a true and courageous pioneer. + +Eustace was now just twenty-two, and he had already partially succeeded +in his ambition. His mask had deceived his world, and Mr. Bembridge's +prophecy about him was beginning to be fulfilled. He had done nothing +specially intellectual or athletic, was not particularly active either +with limbs or brain; but people had begun to notice and to talk about +him, to discuss him with a certain interest, even with a certain +wonder. The newspapers occasionally mentioned him as a dandy, a fop, +a whimsical, irresponsible creature, yet one whose vagaries were not +entirely without interest. He had performed some extravagant antic in a +cotillon, or worn some extraordinary coat. He had invented a new way +of walking one season, and during another season, although in perfect +health, he had never left the house, declaring that movement of any kind +was ungentlemanly and ridiculous, and that an imitation of harem life +was the uttermost bliss obtainable in London. His windows in Carlton +House Terrace had been latticed, and when his friends came there to see +him they found him lying, supported by cushions, on a prayer-carpet, +eating Eastern sweetmeats from a silver box. + +But he soon began to tire of this deliberate imprisonment, and to reduce +buffoonery to a modern science. His father was a rich man, and he was an +only child. Therefore he was able to gratify the supposed whims, which +were no whims at all. He could get up surprise parties, which really +bored him, carry out elaborate practical jokes, give extraordinary +entertainments at will. For his parents acquiesced in his absurdities, +were even rather proud of them, thinking that he followed his +Will-o'-the-wisp of a fancy because he was not less, but more, than +other young men. In fact, they supposed he must be a genius because he +was erratic. Many people are of the same opinion, and declare that a +goose standing on its head must be a swan. By degrees Eustace Lane's +practical jokes became a common topic of conversation in London, and +smart circles were in a perpetual state of mild excitement as to what +he would do next. It was said that he had put the latchkey of a Duchess +down the back of a Commander-in-Chief; that he had once, in a country +house, prepared an apple-pie bed for an Heir-apparent, and that he had +declared he would journey to Rome next Easter in order to present a +collection of penny toys to the Pope. Society loves folly if it is +sufficiently blatant. The folly of Eustace was just blatant enough to +be more than tolerated--enjoyed. He had by practice acquired a knack +of being silly in unexpected ways, and so a great many people honestly +considered him one of the cleverest young men in town. + +But, you know, it is the proper thing, if you wear a mask, to have a sad +face behind it. Eustace sometimes felt sad, and sometimes fatigued. He +had worked a little to make his reputation, but it was often hard labour +to live up to it. His profession of a buffoon sometimes exhausted him, +but he could no longer dare to be like others. The self-conscious live +to gratify the changing expectations of their world, and Eustace had +educated himself into a self-consciousness that was almost a disease. + +And, then, there was his place in the pages of _Vanity Fair_ to be won. +He put that in front of him as his aim in life, and became daily more +and more whimsical. + +Nevertheless, he did one prosaic thing. He fell in love with Winifred +Ames, and could not help showing it. As the malady increased upon him +his reputation began to suffer eclipse, for he relapsed into sentiment, +and even allowed his eyes to grow large and lover-like. He ceased to +worry people, and so began to bore them--a much more dangerous thing. +For a moment he even ran the fearful risk of becoming wholly natural, +dropping his mask, and showing himself as he really was, a rather dull, +quite normal young man, with the usual notions about the usual things, +the usual bias towards the usual vices, the usual disinclination to do +the usual duties of life. + +He ran a risk, but Winifred saved him, and restored him to his fantasies +this evening of the ball in Carlton House Terrace. + +It was an ordinary ball, and therefore Eustace appeared to receive his +guests in fancy dress, wearing a powdered wig and a George IV. Court +costume. This absurdity was a mechanical attempt to retrieve his +buffoon's reputation, for he was really very much in love, and very +serious in his desire to be married in quite the ordinary way. With a +rather lack-lustre eye he noticed the amusement of his friends at his +last vagary; but when Winifred Ames entered the ballroom a nervous +vivacity shook him, as it has shaken ploughmen under similar conditions, +and for just a moment he felt ill at ease in the lonely lunacy of his +flowered waistcoat and olive-green knee-breeches. He danced with her, +then took her to a scarlet nook, apparently devised to hold only one +person, but into which they gently squeezed, not without difficulty. + +She gazed at him with her big brown eyes, that were at the same time +honest and fanciful. Then she said: + +"You have taken an unfair advantage of us all to-night, Mr. Lane." + +"Havel? How?" + +"By retreating into the picturesque clothes of another age. All the men +here must hate you." + +"No; they only laugh at me." + +She was silent a moment. Then she said: + +"What is it in you that makes you enjoy that which the rest of us are +afraid of?" + +"And that is----" + +"Being laughed at. Laughter, you know, is the great world's +cat-o'-nine-tails. We fear it as little boys fear the birch on a +winter's morning at school." + +Eustace smiled uneasily. + +"Do you laugh at me?" he asked. + +"I have. You surely don't mind." + +"No," he said, with an effort. Then: "Are you laughing to-night?" + +"No. You have done an absurd thing, of course, but it happens to be +becoming. You look--well, pretty--yes, that's the word--in your wig. +Many men are ugly in their own hair. And, after all, what would life be +without its absurdities? Probably you are right to enjoy being laughed +at." + +Eustace, who had seriously meditated putting off his mask forever that +night, began to change his mind. The sentence, "Many men are ugly in +their own hair," dwelt with him, and he felt fortified in his powdered +wig. What if he took it off, and henceforth Winifred found him ugly? +Does not the safety of many of us lie merely in dressing up? Do we not +buy our fate at the costumier's? + +"Just tell me one thing," Winifred went on. "Are you natural?" + +"Natural?" he hesitated. + +"Yes; I think you must be. You've got a whimsical nature." + +"I suppose so." He thought of his journey with his father years ago, +and added: "I wish I hadn't." + +"Why? There is a charm in the fantastic, although comparatively few +people see it. Life must be a sort of Arabian Nights Entertainment to +you." + +"Sometimes. To-night it is different. It seems a sort of Longfellow +life." + +"What's that?" + +"Real and earnest." + +And then he proposed to her, with a laugh, to shoot an arrow at the dead +poet and his own secret psalm. + +And Winifred accepted him, partly because she thought him really +strange, partly because he seemed so pretty in his wig, which she chose +to believe his own hair. + +They were married, and on the wedding-day the bridegroom astonished his +guests by making a burlesque speech at the reception. + +In anyone else such an exhibition would have been considered the worst +taste, but nobody was disgusted, and many were delighted. They had begun +to fear that Eustace was getting humdrum. This harlequinade after +the pantomime at the church--for what is a modern smart wedding but a +second-rate pantomime?--put them into a good humour, and made them feel +that, after all, they had got something for their presents. And so the +happy pair passed through a dreary rain of rice to the mysteries of that +Bluebeard's Chamber, the honeymoon. + + + + +II. + +Winifred anticipated this honeymoon with calmness, but Eustace was too +much in love to be calm. He was, on the contrary, in a high state of +excitement, and of emotion, and the effort of making his ridiculous +speech had nearly sent him into hysterics. But he had now fully resolved +to continue in his whimsical course, and to play for ever the part of a +highly erratic genius, driven hither and thither by the weird impulses +of the moment. That he never had any impulses but such as were common to +most ordinary young men was a sad fact which he meant to most carefully +conceal from Winifred. He had made up his mind that she believed his +mask to be his face. She had, therefore, married the mask. To divorce +her violently from it might be fatal to their happiness. If he showed +the countenance God had given him, she might cry: "I don't know you. +You are a stranger. You are like all the other men I didn't choose to +marry." His blood ran cold at the thought. No, he must keep it up. She +loved his fantasies because she believed them natural to him. She must +never suspect that they were not natural. So, as they travelled, he +planned the campaign of married life, as doubtless others, strange in +their new bondage, have planned. He gazed at Winifred, and thought, +"What is her notion of the ideal husband, I wonder?" She gazed at him, +and mused on his affection and his whimsicality, and what the two would +lead to in connection with her fate. And the old, scarlet-faced guard +smiled fatuously at them both through the window on which glared a +prominent "Engaged" as he had smiled on many another pair of fools--so +he silently dubbed them. Then they entered Bluebeard's Chamber and +closed the door behind them. + +Brighton was their destination. They meant to lose themselves in a +marine crowd. + +They stayed there for a fortnight, and then returned to town, Eustace +more in love than ever. + +But Winifred? + +One afternoon she sat in the drawing-room of the pretty little house +they had taken in Deanery Street, Park Lane. She was thinking, very +definitely. The silent processes of even an ordinary woman's mind--what +great male writer would not give two years of his life to sit with them +and watch them, as the poet watches the flight of a swallow, or the +astronomer the processions of the sky? A curious gale was raging through +the town, touzling its thatch of chimney-pots, doing violence to +the demureness of its respectable streets. Night was falling, and in +Piccadilly those strange, gay hats that greet the darkness were coming +out like eager, vulgar comets in a dim and muttering firmament. It was +just the moment when the outside mood of the huge city begins to undergo +a change, to glide from its comparative simplicity of afternoon into +its leering complexity of evening. Each twenty-four hours London has its +moment of emancipation, its moment in which the wicked begin to breathe +and the good to wonder, when "How?" and "Why?" are on the lips of the +opposing factions, and only the philosophers who know--or think they +know--their human nature hold themselves still, and feel that man is at +the least ceaselessly interesting. + +Winifred sat by the fire and held a council. She called her thoughts +together and gave audience to her suspicions, and her brown eyes were +wide and rather mournful as her counsellors uttered each a word of hope +or of warning. + +Eustace was out. He had gone to a concert, and had not returned. + +She was holding a council to decide something in reference to him. + +The honeymoon weeks had brought her just as far as the question, "Do I +know my husband at all, or is he, so far, a total stranger?" + +Some people seem to draw near to you as you look at them steadily, +others to recede until they reach the verge of invisibility. Which was +Eustace doing? Did his outline become clearer or more blurred? Was he +daily more definite or more phantasmal? And the members of her council +drew near and whispered their opinions in Winifred's attentive ears. +They were not all in accord at the first. Pros fought with cons, elbowed +them, were hustled in return. Sometimes there was almost a row, and she +had to stretch forth her hands and hush the tumult. For she desired a +calm conclave, although she was a woman. + +And the final decision--if, indeed, it could be arrived at that +evening--was important. Love seemed to hang upon it, and all the sweets +of life; and the little wings of Love fluttered anxiously, as the little +wings of a bird flutter when you hold it in the cage of your hands, +prisoning it from its wayward career through the blue shadows of the +summer. + +For love is not always and for ever instinctive--not even the finest +love. While many women love because they must, whether the thing to be +loved or not loved be carrion or crystal, a child of the gods or an imp +of the devil, others love decisively because they see--perhaps can even +analyze--a beauty that is there in the thing before them. One woman +loves a man simply because he kisses her. Another loves him because he +has won the Victoria Cross. + +Winifred was not of the women who love because they are kissed. + +She had accepted Eustace rather impulsively, but she had not married him +quite uncritically. There was something new, different from other +men, about him which attracted her, as well as his good looks--that +prettiness which had peeped out from the white wig in the scarlet nook +at the ball. His oddities at that time she had grown thoroughly to +believe in, and, believing in them, she felt she liked them. She +supposed them to spring, rather like amazing spotted orchids, from +the earth of a quaint nature. Now, after a honeymoon spent among the +orchids, she held this council while the wind blew London into a mood of +evening irritation. + +What was Eustace? + +How the wind sang over Park Lane! Yet the stars were coming out. + +What was he? A genius or a clown? A creature to spread a buttered slide +or a man to climb to heaven? A fine, free child of Nature, who did, +freshly, what he would, regardless of the strained discretion +of others, or a futile, scheming hypocrite, screaming after forced +puerilities, without even a finger on the skirts of originality? + +It was a problem for lonely woman's debate. Winifred strove to weigh it +well. In Bluebeard's Chamber Eustace had cut many capers. This activity +she had expected--had even wished for. And at first she had been amused +and entertained by the antics, as one assisting at a good burlesque, +through which, moreover, a piquant love theme runs. But by degrees she +began to feel a certain stiffness in the capers, a self-consciousness in +the antics, or fancied she began to feel it, and instead of being always +amused she became often thoughtful. + +Whimsicality she loved. Buffoonery she possibly, even probably, could +learn to hate. + +Of Eustace's love for her she had no doubt. She was certain of his +affection. But was it worth having? That depended, surely, on the nature +of the man in whom it sprang, from whom it flowed. She wanted to be sure +of that nature; but she acknowledged to herself, as she sat by the fire, +that she was perplexed. Perhaps even that perplexity was merciful. Yet +she wished to sweep it away. She knit her brows moodily, and longed for +a secret divining-rod that would twist to reveal truth in another. +For truth, she thought, is better than hidden water-springs, and a +sincerity--even of stupidity--more lovely than the fountain that gives +flowers to the desert, wild red roses to the weary gold of sands. + +The wind roared again, howling to poor, shuddering Mayfair, and there +came a step outside. Eustace sprang in upon Winifred's council, looking +like a gay schoolboy, his cheeks flushed, his lips open to speak. + +"Dreaming?" he said. + +She smiled. + +"Perhaps." + +"That concert paralyzed me. Too much Beethoven. I wanted Wagner. +Beethoven insists on exalting you, but Wagner lets you revel and feel +naughty. Winnie, d'you hear the wind?" + +"Could I help it?" she asked. + +"Does it suggest something to you?" + +He looked at her, and made his expression mischievous, or meant to make +it. She looked up at him, too. + +"Yes, many things," she said--"many, many things." + +"To me it suggests kites." + +"Kites?" + +"Yes. I'm going to fly one now in the Park. The stars are out. Put on +your hat and come with me." + +He seemed all impulse, sparkling to the novelty of the idea. + +"Well, but------" She hesitated. + +"I've got one--a beauty, a monster! I noticed the wind was getting up +yesterday. Come!" + +He pulled at her hand; she obeyed him, not quickly. She put on her hat, +a plain straw, a thick jacket, gloves. Kite-flying in London seemed an +odd notion. Was it lively and entertaining, or merely silly? Which ought +it to be? + +Eustace shouted to her from the tiny hall. + +"Hurry!" he cried. + +The wind yelled beyond the door, and Winifred ran down, beginning to +feel a childish thrill of excitement. Eustace held the kite. It was, +indeed, a white monster, gaily decorated with fluttering scarlet and +blue ribbons. + +"We shall be mobbed," she said. + +"There's no one about," he answered. "The gale frightens people." + +He opened the door, and they were out in the crying tempest. The great +clouds flew along the sky like an army in retreat. Some, to Winifred, +seemed soldiers, others baggage-waggons, horses, gun-carriages, rushing +pell-mell for safety. One drooping, tattered cloud she deemed the +colours of a regiment streaming under the stars that peeped out here +and there--watching sentinel eyes, obdurate, till some magic password +softened them. + +As they crossed the road she spoke of her cloud army to Eustace. + +"This kite's like a live thing," was his reply. "It tugs as a fish tugs +a line." + +He did not care for the tumult of a far-off world. + +They entered the Park. It seemed, indeed, strangely deserted. A +swaggering soldier passed them by, going towards the Marble Arch. His +spurs clinked; his long cloak gleamed like a huge pink carnation in +the dingy dimness of the startled night. How he stared with his +unintelligent, though bold, eyes as he saw the kite bounding to be free. + +Eustace seemed delighted. + +"That man thinks us mad!" he said. + +"Are we mad?" Winifred asked, surprised at her own strange enjoyment of +the adventure. + +"Who knows?" said Eustace, looking at her narrowly. "You like this +escapade?" + +"Yes," she answered. + +"My mask!" he thought, secretly longing to be quietly by the fire +sipping tea and reading _Punch_. "She loves that." + +They were through the trees now, across the broad path, out on the open +lawns. + +"Now for it!" he shouted, as the wind roared in their faces. + +He paid out the coils of the thin cord. The white monster skimmed, +struggled near the ground, returned, darted again upward and outward, +felt for the wind's hands, caught them and sprang, with a mad courage, +star-wards, its gay ribbons flying like coloured birds to mark its +course. But soon they were lost to sight, and only a diminished, +ghost-like shadow leaping against the black showed where the kite beat +on to liberty. + +Eustace ran with the wind, and Winifred followed him. The motion sent +an exultation dancing through her veins, and stirred her blood into a +ferment. The noises in the trees, the galloping music of the airs on +their headlong courses, rang in her ears like clashing bells. She called +as she ran, but never knew what words. She leaped, as if over glorious +obstacles. Her feet danced on the short grass. She had a sudden notion: +"I am living now!" and Eustace had never seemed so near to her. He had +an art to find why children are happy, she thought, because they do +little strange things, coupling mechanical movements, obvious actions +that may seem absurd, with soft flights of the imagination, that wrap +their prancings and their leaps in golden robes, and give to the dull +world a glory. The hoop is their demon enemy, whom they drive before +them to destruction. The kite is a great white bird, whom they hold +back for a time from heaven. Suddenly Winifred longed to feel the bird's +efforts to be free. + +"Let me have it!" she cried to Eustace, holding out her hands eagerly. +"Do let me!" + +He was glad to pass the cord to her, being utterly tired of a prank +which he thought idiotic, and he could not understand the light that +sprang into her eyes as she grasped it, and felt the life of the +lifeless thing that soared towards the clouds. + +For the moment it was more to her--this tugging, scarce visible, white +thing--than all the world of souls. It gave to her the excitement of +battle, the joy of strife. She felt herself a Napoleon with empires in +her hand; a Diana holding eternities, instead of hounds, in leash. She +had quite the children's idea of kites, the sense of being in touch with +the infinite that enters into baby pleasures, and makes the remembrance +of them live in us when we are old, and have forgotten wild passions, +strange fruitions, that have followed them and faded away for ever. + +How the creature tore at her! She fancied she felt the pulsings of its +fly-away heart, beating with energy and great hopes of freedom. And +suddenly, with a call, she opened her hands. Her captive was lost in the +night. + +In a moment she felt sad, such a foolish sorrow, as a gaoler may feel +sad who has grown to love his prisoner, and sees him smile when the +gaping door gives him again to crime. + +"It's gone," she said to Eustace; "I think it's glad to go." + +"Glad--a kite!" he said. + +And it struck her that he would have thought it equally sensible if she +had spoken, like Hans Andersen, of the tragedies of a toy-shop or the +Homeric passions of wooden dolls. + +Then, why had he been prompted by the wind to play the boy if he had +none of the boy's ardent imagination? + +They reached Deanery Street, and passed in from the night and the +elements. Eustace shut the door with a sigh of relief. Winifred's +echoing sigh was of regret. + +It seemed a listless world--the world inside a lighted London house, +dominated by a pale butler with black side-whiskers and endless +discretion. But Eustace did not feel it so. Winifred knew that beyond +hope of doubt as she stole a glance at his face. He had put off the +child--the buffoon--and looked for the moment a grave, dull young man, +naturally at ease with all the conventions. She could not help saying +to herself, as she went to her room to live with hairpins and her +lady's-maid: "I believe he hated it all!" + +From that night of kite-flying Winifred felt differently towards her +husband. She was of the comparatively rare women who hate pretence even +in another woman, but especially in a man. The really eccentric she +was not afraid of--could even love, being a searcher after the new +and strange, like so many modern pilgrims. But pinchbeck +eccentricity--Brummagem originalities--gave to her views of the poverty +of poor human nature leading her to a depression not un-tinged with +contempt. + +And the fantasies of Eustace became more violent and more continuous +as he began to note the lassitude which gradually crept into her +intercourse with him. London rang with them. At one time he pretended to +a strange passion for death; prayed to a skull which grinned in a shrine +raised for it in his dressing-room; lay down each day in a coffin, and +asked Winifred to close it and scatter earth upon the lid, that he might +realize the end towards which we journey. He talked of silence, long +and loudly--an irony which Winifred duly noted--sneered at the fleeting +phantoms in the show of existence, called the sobbing of women, the +laughter of men, sounds as arid as the whizz of a cracker let off by a +child on the fifth of November. + +"We should kill our feelings," he said. "They make us absurd. Life +should be a breathing calm, as death is a breathless calm." + +The calm descending upon Winifred was of the benumbing order. + +Later he recoiled from this coquetting with the destroyer. + +"After all," he said, "which of us does not feel himself eternal, exempt +from the penalty of the race? You don't believe that you will ever die, +Winifred?" + +"I know it," she said. + +"Yes, but you don't believe it." + +"You think knowledge less real than belief? Perhaps it is. But I, at +least, hope that some day I shall die. To live on here for ever would be +like staying eternally at a party. After all, when one has danced, and +supped, and flirted, and wondered at the gowns, and praised the flowers, +and touched the hand of one's hostess, and swung round in a final +gallop, and said how much one has enjoyed it all--one wants to go home." + +"Does one?" Eustace said. "Home you call it!" + +He shuddered. + +"I call it what I want it to be, what I think it may be, what the poor +and the weary and the fallen make it in their lonely thoughts. Let us, +at least, hope that we travel towards the east, where the sun is." + +"You have strange fancies," he said. + +"I! Not so strange as yours." + +She looked at him in the eyes as she spoke. He wondered what that look +meant. It seemed to him a menace. + +"I must keep it up--I must keep it up," he murmured to himself as he +left the room. "Winifred loves fancies--loves me for what she thinks +mine." + +He went to his library, and sat down heavily, to devise fresh outrages +on the ordinary. + +His pranks became innumerable, and Society called him the most original +figure of London. The papers quoted him--his doings, not his sayings. +People pointed him out in the Park. His celebrity waxed. Even the +Marble Arch seemed turning to gaze after him as he went by, showing the +observation which the imaginative think into inanimate things. + +At least, so a wag declared. + +And Winifred bore it, but with an increasing impatience. + +At this time, too, a strange need of protection crept over her, the +yearning for man's beautiful, dog-like sympathy that watches woman in +her grand dark hour before she blooms into motherhood. When she knew the +truth, she resolved to tell Eustace, and she came into his room softly, +with shining eyes. He was sitting reading the Financial News in a nimbus +of cigarette smoke, secretly glorying in his momentary immunity from the +prison rules of the fantastic. Winifred's entry was as that of a warder. +He sprang up laughing. + +"Winnie," he said, "I think I am going to South Africa." + +"You!" she said in surprise. + +"Yes; to give acrobatic performances in the street, and so pave the way +to a position as a millionaire. Who ever heard of a man rising from a +respectable competence to a fortune? According to the papers, you must +start with nothing; that is the first rule of the game. We have ten +thousand a year, so we can never hope to be rich. Fortune only favours +the pauper. I am mad about money to-day. I can think of nothing else." + +And he began showing her conjuring tricks with sovereigns which he drew +from his pockets. + +She did not tell him that day. And when she told him, it was without +apparent emotion. She seemed merely stating coldly a physical fact, +not breathing out a beautiful secret of her soul and his, a consecrated +wonder to shake them both, and bind them together as two flowers are +bound in the centre of a bouquet, the envy of the other flowers. + +"Eustace," she said, and her eyes were clear and her hands were still, +"I think I ought to tell you--we shall have a child." + +Her voice was unwavering as a doctor's which pronounces, "You have the +influenza." She stood there before him. + +"Winifred!" he cried, looking up. His impulse was to say, "Wife! My +Winifred!" to take her in his arms as any clerk might take his little +middle-class spouse, to kiss her lips, and, in doing it, fancy he drew +near to the prison in which every soul eternally dwells on earth. Finely +human he felt, as the dullest, the most unknown, the plainest, the +most despised, may feel, thank God! "Winifred!" he cried. And then he +stopped, with the shooting thought, "Even now I must be what she thinks +me, what she perhaps loves me for." + +She stood there silently waiting. + +"Toys!" he exclaimed. "Toys have always been my besetting sin. Now I +will make a grand collection, not for the Pope, as people pretend, but +for our family. You will have two children to laugh at, Winnie. Your +husband is one, you know." He sprang up. "I'll go into the Strand," he +said. "There's a man near the Temple who has always got some delightful +novelty displaying its paces on the pavement. What fun!" + +And off he went, leaving Winifred alone with the mystery of her woman's +world, the mystic mystery of birth that may dawn out of hate as out of +love, out of drunken dissipation as out of purity's sweet climax. + +Next day a paragraph in the papers told how Mr. Eustace Lane had bought +up all the penny toys of the Strand. Mention was again made of his +supposed mission to the Vatican, and a picture drawn of the bewilderment +of the Holy Father, roused from contemplation of the eternal to +contemplation of jumping pasteboard, and the frigid gestures of people +from the world of _papier-mache_. + +Eustace showed the paragraph to Winifred. + +"Why will they chronicle all I do?" he said, with a sigh. + +"Would you rather they did not?" + +"Oh, if it amuses them," he answered. "To amuse the world is to be its +benefactor." + +"No, to comfort the world," was Winifred's silent thought. . + +To her the world often seemed a weary invalid, playing cards on the +coverlet of the bed from which it longed in vain to move, peeping with +heavy eyes at the shrouded windows of its chamber, and listening for +faint sounds from without--soft songs, soft murmurings, the breath of +winds, the sigh of showers; then turning with a smothered groan to its +cards again, its lengthy game of "Patience." Clubs, spades, hearts, +diamonds--there they all lay on the coverlet ready to the hands of the +invalid. But she wanted to take them away, and give to the sufferer a +prayer and a hope. + +At this period she was often full of a vague, chaotic tenderness, +far-reaching, yet indefinite. She could rather have kissed the race than +a person. + +And so the days went by, Winifred in a dream of wonder, Eustace in the +toy-shops. + +Until the birthday dawned and faded. + +All through that day Eustace was in agony. He did not care so much for +the child, but he loved the mother. Her danger tore at his heart. Her +pain smote him, till he seemed to feel it actually and physically. That +she was giving him something was naught to him; that she might be taken +away in the giving was everything. And when he learnt that all was well, +he cried and prayed, and thought to himself afterwards, "If Winifred +could know what I am like, what I have done to-day, how would it strike +her?" + +She did not know; for when at length Eustace was admitted to her room, +he trained himself to murmur, "A girl, that's lucky because of all the +dolls. The Pope sha'n't have even one now." + +Winifred lay back white on her pillow, and a little frown travelled +across her face. If Eustace had just kissed her, and she had felt a tear +of his on her face, and he had said nothing, she could have loved him +then as a father, perhaps, more than as a husband. His allusion to the +supposed Papal absurdity disgusted her at such a time, only faintly, +because of her weakness, but distinctly, and in a way to be remembered. + +She recovered; but just as the child was beginning to smile, and to +express an approbation of life by murmurous gurglings, an infantile +disease gripped it, held it, would not release it. And Winifred knelt +beside it, dead, and thought, with a new and vital horror, of the +invalid world playing cards upon the drawn coverlet of its bed. Baby was +outside that chamber now, beyond the curtained windows, outside in sun +or shower that she could not see, could only dream of, while the game of +"Patience" went on and on. + + + + +III. + +The death of the child meant more to Winifred than she would at first +acknowledge even to herself. Almost unconsciously she had looked forward +to its birth as to a release from bondage. There are moments when a duet +is gaol, a trio comparative liberty. The child, the tiny intruder into +youthful married life, may come in the guise of an imp or of a good +fairy: one to cloud the perfect and complete joy of two, or one to give +sunlight to their nascent weariness and dissatisfaction. Or, again, it +may be looked for with longing by one of two lovers, with apprehension +by the other. Only when it lay dead did Winifred understand that Eustace +was to her a stranger, and that she was lonely alone with him. The "Au +revoir" of two bodies may be sweet, but the "Au revoir" of two minds is +generally but a hypocritical or sarcastic rendering of the tragic word +"Adieu." Winifred's mind cried "Au revoir" to the mind of Eustace, to +his nature, to his love, but deep in her soul trembled the minor music, +the shuddering discord, of "Adieu." Adieu to the body of child; adieu +more complete, more eternal, to the soul of husband. Which good bye was +the stranger? She stood as at cross-roads, and watched, with hand-shaded +eyes, the tiny, wayward babe dwindling on its journey to heaven; the man +she had married dwindling on his journey--whither? And the one she had a +full hope of meeting again, but the other---- + +After the funeral the Lanes took up once more the old dual life which +had been momentarily interrupted. Had it not been for the interruption, +Winifred fancied that she might not have awakened to the full knowledge +of her own feelings towards Eustace until a much later period. But the +baby's birth, existence, passing away, were a blow upon the gate of life +from the vague without. She had opened the gate, caught a glimpse of the +shadowy land of the possible. And to do that is often to realize in a +flash the impossibility of one's individual fate. So many of us manage +to live ignorantly all our days and to call ourselves happy. Winifred +could never live quite ignorantly again. + +To Eustace the interruption meant much less. So long as he had Winifred +he could not feel that any of his dreams hung altogether in tatters. +Sometimes, it is true, he contemplated the penny toys, and had a moment +of quaint, not unpleasant regret, half forming the thought, Why do we +ever trouble ourselves to prepare happiness for others, when happiness +is a word of a thousand meanings? As often as not, to do so is to set +a dinner of many courses and many wines before an unknown guest, who +proves to be vegetarian and teetotaler, after all. + +"What shall I do with the toys?" he asked Winifred one day. + +"The toys? Oh, give them to a children's hospital," she said, and her +voice had a harsh note in it. + +"No," he answered, after a moment's reflection; "I'll keep them and play +with them myself; you know I love toys." + +And on the following Sunday, when many callers came to Deanery Street, +they found him in the drawing-room, playing with a Noah's ark. Red, +green, violet, and azure elephants, antelopes, zebras, and pigs +processed along the carpet, guided by an orange-coloured Noah in a +purple top-hat, and a perfect parterre of sons and wives. The fixed +anxiety of their painted faces suggested that they were in apprehension +of the flood, but their rigid attitudes implied trust in the Unseen. + +Winifred's face that day seemed changed to those who knew her best. +To one man, a soldier who had admired her greatly before her marriage, +and\who had seen no reason to change his opinion of her since, she was +more cordial than usual, and he went away curiously meditating on the +mystery of women. + +"What has happened to Mrs. Lane?" he thought to himself as he walked +down Park Lane. "That last look of hers at me, when I was by the door, +going, was--yes, I'll swear it--Regent Street. And yet Winnie Lane is +the purest--I'm hanged if I can make out women! Anyhow, I'll go there +again. People say she and that fantastic ass she's married are devoted. +H'm!" He went to Pall Mall, and sat staring at nothing in his Club till +seven, deep in the mystery of the female sex. + +And he went again to Deanery Street to see whether the vision of Regent +Street was deceptive, and came away wondering and hoping. From this time +the vagaries of Eustace Lane became more incessant, more flamboyant, +than ever, and Mrs. Lane was perpetually in society. If it would not +have been true to say, conventionally, that no party was complete +without her, yet it certainly seemed, from this time, that she was +incomplete without a party. She was the starving wolf after the sledge +in which sat the gay world. If the sledge escaped her, she was left to +face darkness, snow, wintry winds, loneliness. In London do we not often +hear the dismal howling of the wolves, suggesting steppes of the heart +frigid as Siberia? + +Eustace grew uneasy, for Winifred seemed eluding him in this maze of +entertainments. He could not impress the personality of his mask upon +her vitally when she moved perpetually in the pantomime processions of +society, surrounded by grotesques, mimes, dancers, and deformities. + +"We are scarcely ever alone, Winnie," he said to her one day. + +"You must learn to love me in a crowd," she answered. "Human nature can +love even God in isolation, but the man who can love God in the world is +the true Christian." + +"I can love you anywhere," he said. "But you------" And then he stopped +and quickly readjusted his mask which was slipping off. + +From that day he monotonously accentuated his absurdities. All London +rang with them. He was the Court Fool of Mayfair, the buffoon of the +inner circles of the Metropolis, and, by degrees, his painted fame, +jangling the bells in its cap, spun about England in a dervish dance, +till Peckham whispered of him, and even the remotest suburbs crowned +him with parsley and hung upon his doings. All the blooming flowers of +notoriety were his, to hug in his arms as he stood upon his platform +bowing to the general applause. His shrine in _Vanity Fair_ was surely +being prepared. But he scarcely thought of this, being that ordinary, +ridiculous, middle-class thing, an immoderately loving husband, insane +enough to worship romantically the woman to whom he was unromantically +tied by the law of his country. With each new fantasy he hoped to win +back that which he had lost. Each joke was the throw of a desperate +gamester, each tricky invention a stake placed on the number that would +never turn up. That wild time of his career was humorous to the world, +how tragic to himself we can only wonder. He spread wings like a bird, +flew hither and thither as if a vagrant for pure joy and the pleasure +of movement, darted and poised, circled and sailed, but all the time +his heart cried aloud for a nest and Winifred. Yet he wooed her only +silently by his follies, and set her each day farther and farther from +him. + +And she--how she hated his notoriety, and was sick with weariness when +voices told her of his escapades, modulating themselves to wondering +praise. Long ago she had known that Eustace sinned against his own +nature, but she had never loved him quite enough to discover what that +nature really was. And now she had no desire to find out. He was only +her husband and the least of all men to her. + +The Lanes sat at breakfast one morning and took up their letters. +Winifred sipped her tea, and opened one or two carelessly. They were +invitations. Then she tore, the envelope of a third, and, as she read +it, forgot to sip her tea. Presently she laid it down slowly. Eustace +was looking at her. + +"Winifred," he said, "I have got a letter from the editor of _Vanity +Fair_." + +"Oh!" + +"He wishes me to permit a caricature of myself to appear in his pages." + +Winifred's fingers closed sharply on the letter she had just been +reading. A decision of hers in regard to the writer of it was hanging in +the balance, though Eustace did not know it. + +"Well?" said Eustace, inquiring of her silence. + +"What are you going to reply?" she asked. + +"I am wondering." + +She chipped an eggshell and took a bit of dry toast. + +"All those who appear in _Vanity Fair_ are celebrated, aren't they?" she +said. + +"I suppose so," Eustace said. + +"For many different things." + +"Of course." + +"Can you refuse the editor's request?" + +"I don't know why I should." + +"Exactly. Tell me when you have written to him, and what you have +written, Eustace." + +"Yes, Winnie, I will." + +Later on in the day he came up to her boudoir, and said to her: + +"I have told him I am quite willing to have my caricature in his paper." + +"Your portrait," she said. "All right. Leave me now, Eustace; I have +some writing to do." + +As soon as he had gone she sat down and wrote a short letter, which she +posted herself. + +A month later Eustace came bounding up the stairs to find her. + +"Winnie, Winnie!" he called. "Where are you? I've something to show +you." + +He held a newspaper in his hand. Winifred was not in the room. Eustace +rang the bell. + +"Where is Mrs. Lane?" he asked of the footman who answered it. + +"Gone out, sir," the man answered. + +"And not back yet? It's very late," said Eustace, looking at his watch. + +The time was a quarter to eight. They were dining at half-past. + +"I wonder where she is," he thought. + +Then he sat down and gazed at a cartoon which represented a thin man +with a preternaturally pale face, legs like sticks, and drooping hands +full of toys--himself. Beneath it was written, "His aim is to amuse." + +He turned a page, and read, for the third or fourth time, the following: + +"Mr. Eustace Lane. + +"Mr. Eustace Bernhard Lane, only son of Mr. Merton Lane, of Carlton +House Terrace, was born in London twenty-eight years ago. He is married +to one of the belles of the day, and is probably the most envied husband +in town. + +"Although he is such a noted figure in society, Mr. Eustace Lane has +never done any conspicuously good or bad deed. He has neither invented +a bicycle nor written a novel, neither lost a seat in Parliament, nor +found a mine in South Africa. Careless of elevating the world, he has +been content to entertain it, to make it laugh, or to make it wonder. +His aim is to amuse, and his whole-souled endeavour to succeed in this +ambition has gained him the entire respect of the frivolous. What more +could man desire?" + +As he finished there came a ring at the hall-door bell. + +"Winifred!" he exclaimed, and jumped up with the paper in his hand. + +In a moment the footman entered with a note. + +"A boy messenger has just brought this, sir," he said. + +Eustace took it, and, as the man went out and shut the door, opened it, +and read: + + "Victoria Station. + + "This is to say good-bye. By the time it reaches you I + shall have left London. Not alone. I have seen the cartoon. + It is very like you. + Winifred." + +Eustace sank down in a chair. + +On the table at his elbow lay _Vanity Fair_. Mechanically he looked at +it, and read once more the words beneath his picture, "His aim is to +amuse." + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Folly Of Eustace, by Robert S. Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOLLY OF EUSTACE *** + +***** This file should be named 23420.txt or 23420.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/2/23420/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |