College Life.

1. Master the pronunciation of the phonetically oriented phrases and rhymes. Do the follow up activities.

1. Are these pass- marks?

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

2. He speaks Chinese and Japanese with equal ease.

Make up all types of questions.

3. Steve is eager to please the teacher.

Make up mini-situations with the phrase.

4. Can’t we dance after classes?

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

5. Eve, will you, please, read?

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

6. The teacher has every reason to be displeased.

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

7. It’s never too late to learn.

Make up mini-situations with the phrase.

8. First think then speak.

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

9. When there is a will there’s a way.

Make up mini-situations with the phrase.

10. Please, feel free to leave.

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

11. He gave a very elaborate explanation.

Make up mini-situations with the phrase.

12. You’ll get along better with people if you cooperate with them.

Make up mini-dialogues with the phrase.

13. Haste makes waste.

Make the phrase Passive and use it in mini-situations.

2. Match the words with their definitions.

Degree, first year/ second year, doctorate (PhD), higher education, junior, lecture, Master’s degree, postgraduate (British)/ graduate (American) , semester, seminar, senior, sophomore, term, the academic year.

1. Advance education that takes place after a student has finished a university degree, or about students who study at this level.

2. Someone who is in the first year, second year (British).

3. Someone who is in the second year at university or high school (American).

4. Someone who is in the third year at university or high school (American).

5. Someone who is in the fourth year at university or high school (American).

6. One of the three periods that the year is divided into at British schools and most British universities.

7. One of the two periods that the year is divided into at American schools and most American universities.

8. The period of the year when there are school or university classes.

9. A long talk on a subject, given by a teacher at a college or university, and listened to by a large number of students.

10. A class usually at a college or university, where a teacher and a small group of students discuss a subject.

11. The qualification that you get when you successfully finish a course at university.

12. An advanced degree that you get by studying for one or two years after getting your first degree.

13. The most advanced type of degree, which you study for on your own for several years, doing work and writing a long report explaining what you have discovered.

14. Education at a university or similar institution.

15. Applicant – a person who makes a formal request for smth., especially a job, a place at a college or university

16. Faculty – a department or a group of related departments in a college or university

17. Dean – a person in a university who is in charge of a department of studies

18. Major – the main subject or course of a student at college or university

19. Pass – a successful result in an exam

20. Quiz – an informal test given to students

21. Scholarship – an amount of money given to sb. by an organization to help pay for their education

22. Curriculum – the subjects that are included in a course of study or taught in a school, college

3. Read the text and be ready to translate.

Types of university in Britain

Oxbridge

Oxford University

This name denotes the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, both founded in the medieval period. They are federations of semi-independent colleges, each college having its own staff, known as ‘fellows’. Most colleges having their own dining hall, library and chapel and contain enough accommodation for at least half of their students. The fellows teach the college students, either one-to-one or I very small groups (known as ‘tutorials’ in Oxford and ‘supervisions in Cambridge). Oxbridge has the lowest student/staff ratio in Britain. Lectures and laboratory work are organized at university level. As well as the college libraries, there are two university libraries, both of which are legally entitled to a free copy of every book published in Britain. Before 1970, all Oxbridge colleges were single-sex (mostly for men). Nearly all now admit both sexes.

Cambridge University

The old Scottish universities

By 1600, Scotland boasted four universities. They were Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St. Andrew’s. The last of these resembles Oxbridge in many ways, while the other three are more like civic universities (see the following) in that most of the students live at home or find their own rooms in town. In all of them the pattern of study is closer to the Continental tradition than to the English one – there is less specialization than at Oxbridge.

The early nineteenth-century English universities

The University of London

Durham University was founded in 1832. Its collegiate living arrangements are similar to Oxbridge, but academic matters are organized at university level. The University of London started in 1836 with just two colleges, many more have joined since, scattered widely around the city, so that each college (most being non-residential) is almost a separate university. The central organization is responsible for little more than exams and the awarding of degrees.

The older civic (‘redbrick’) universities

Redbrick University Sheffield

During the nineteenth century, various institutes of higher education, usually with a technical bias, sprang up in the new industrial towns and cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds. Their buildings were of local material, often brick, in contrast to the stone of older universities (hence the name ‘redbrick’). They catered only for local people. At first, they prepared students for London University degrees, but later they were given the right to award their own degrees, and so became universities themselves. In the mid twentieth century, they started to accept students from all over the country.

Redbrick University Liverpool

The campus universities

These are purpose-built institutions located in the countryside outside a nearby town. Examples are East Anglia, Lancaster, Sussex, and Warwick. They have accommodation for most of their students on site and from their beginning, mostly in the early 1960s, attracted students from all over the country. (Many were known as centres of student protest in the late 1960s and early 1970s). They tend to place emphasis on relatively ‘new’ academic disciplines such as social sciences and to make greater use than other universities of teaching in small groups, often known as ‘seminars’.

The newer civic universities

These were originally technical colleges set up by local authorities in the first sixty years of the twentieth century. Their upgrading to university status took place in two waves. The first wave occurred in the mid 1960s, when ten of them (e. g. Aston in Birmingham, Salford near Manchester and Strathclyde in Glasgow) were promoted in this way. Then, in the early 1970s, another thirty became ‘polytechnics’, which meant that, as well continuing with their former courses, they were allowed to teach degree courses (the degrees being awarded by a national body). In the early 1990s most of these (and also some other colleges) became universities. Their most notable feature is flexibility with regard to studying arrangements, including ‘sandwich’ courses (i.e. studies interrupted by periods of time outside education). They are now all financed by central government.

1. Put 15 questions to the text.

Oxford University Library

A SCHOOL STORY

by M. R. James

www.world-english.org

Two men in a smoking-room were talking of their private-school days. "At our

school," said A., "we had a ghost's footmark on the staircase. "

“What was it like?"

"Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe, with a square toe, if I

remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about

the thing. That seems odd, when you come to think of it. Why didn't somebody

invent one, I wonder?"

"You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own.

There's a subject for you, by the way - "The Folklore of Private Schools."

"Yes; the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine, if you were to

investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at

private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be

highly-compressed versions of stories out of books."

"Nowadays the Strand and Pearson's, and so on, would be extensively drawn

upon."

"No doubt: they weren't born or thought of in my time. Let's see. I

wonder if I can remember the staple ones that I was told. First, there was

the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing a

night; and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner, and

had just time to say, 'I've seen it,' and died."

"Wasn't that the house in Berkeley Square?"

"I dare say it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the

passage at night, opened his door, and saw someone crawling towards him on

all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was besides, let me

think - Yes! the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe

mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of

horseshoes also; I don't know why. Also there was the lady who, on locking

her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the

bed-curtains say, 'Now we're shut in for the night.' None of those had any

explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those stories."

"Oh, likely enough - with additions from the magazines, as I said. You

never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? I thought not,

nobody has that ever I came across."

"From the way in which you said that, I gather that you have."

"I really don't know, but this is what was in my mind. It happened at my

private school thirty odd years ago, and I haven't any explanation of it.

"The school I mean was near London. It was established in a large and

fairly old house - a great white building with very fine grounds about it;

there were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the older

gardens in the Thames valley, and ancient elms in the three or four fields

which we used for our games. I think probably it was quite an attractive

place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any tolerable

features.

"I came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among

the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland boy,

whom I will call McLeod. I needn't spend time in describing him: the main

thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in

any way - not particularly good at books or games - but he suited me.

"The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys

there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and

there were rather frequent changes among them.

"One term - perhaps it was my third or fourth - a new master made his

appearance. His name was Sampson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale,

black-bearded man. I think we liked him: he had travelled a good deal, and

had stories which amused us on our school walks, so that there was some

competition among us to get within earshot of him. I remember too - dear me,

I have hardly thought of it since then - that he had a charm on his

watch-chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it.

It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin; there was an effigy of some

absurd emperor on one side; the other side had been worn practically smooth,

and he had had cut on it - rather barbarously - his own initials, G.W.S.,

and a date, 24 July, 1865. Yes, I can see it now: he told me he had picked

it up in Constantinople: it was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather

smaller.

"Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Sampson was doing

Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods - perhaps it is rather a

good one - was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to

illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is a

thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being impertinent: there are lots

of school stories in which that happens - or any-how there might be. But

Sampson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with

him. Now, on this occasion he was telling us how to express remembering in

Latin: and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb

memini, 'I remember.' Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such

as 'I remember my father,' or 'He remembers his book,' or something equally

uninteresting: and I dare say a good many put down memino librum meum, and

so forth: but the boy I mentioned - McLeod - was evidently thinking of

something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our

sentences passed, and get on to something else, so some kicked him under the

desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look

sharp. But he didn't seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had

put down nothing at all. So I jogged him again harder than before and

upbraided him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect.

He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a

couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the

last, or nearly the last, to come in, and as Sampson had a good deal to say

to the boys who had written meminiscimus patri meo and the rest of it, it

turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and

McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was

nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come.

He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guessed there had been some

sort of trouble. 'Well,' I said, 'what did you get?' 'Oh, I don't know,'

said McLeod, 'nothing much: but I think Sampson's rather sick with me.'

'Why, did you show him up some rot?' 'No fear,' he said. 'It was all right

as far as I could see: it was like this: Memento - that's right enough for

remember, and it takes a genitive, - memento putei inter quatuor taxos.'

'What silly rot!' I said. 'What made you shove that down? What does it

mean?' 'That's the funny part,' said McLeod. 'I'm not quite sure what it

does mean. All I know is, it just came into my head and I corked it down. I

know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort

of picture of it in my head: I believe it means "Remember the well among the

four" - what are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them?'

'Mountain ashes, I s'pose you mean.' 'I never heard of them,' said McLeod;

'no, I'll tell you - yews.' 'Well, and what did Sampson say?' 'Why, he was

jolly odd about it. When he read it he got up and went to the mantel-piece

and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me.

And then he said, without turning round, and rather quiet, "What do you

suppose that means?" I told him what I thought; only I couldn't remember the

name of the silly tree: and then he wanted to know why I put it down, and I

had to say something or other. And after that he left off talking about it,

and asked me how long I'd been here, and where my people lived, and things

like that: and then I came away: but he wasn't looking a bit well.'

"I don't remember any more that was said by either of us about this. Next

day McLeod took to his bed with a chill or something of the kind, and it was

a week or more before he was in school again. And as much as a month went by

without anything happening that was noticeable. Whether or not Mr. Sampson

was really startled, as McLeod had thought, he didn't show it. I am pretty

sure, of course, now, that there was something very curious in his past

history, but I'm not going to pretend that we boys were sharp enough to

guess any such thing.

"There was one other incident of the same kind as the last which I told

you. Several times since that day we had had to make up examples in school

to illustrate different rules, but there had never been any row except when

we did them wrong. At last there came a day when we were going through those

dismal things which people call Conditional Sentences, and we were told to

make a conditional sentence, expressing a future consequence. We did it,

right or wrong, and showed up our bits of paper, and Sampson began looking

through them. All at once he got up, made some odd sort of noise in his

throat, and rushed out by a door that was just by his desk. We sat there for

a minute or two, and then - I suppose it was incorrect - but we went up, I

and one or two others, to look at the papers on his desk. Of course I

thought someone must have put down some nonsense or other, and Sampson had

gone off to report him. All the same, I noticed that he hadn't taken any of

the papers with him when he ran out. Well, the top paper on the desk was

written in red ink - which no one used - and it wasn't in anyone's hand who

was in the class. They all looked at it - McLeod and all - and took their

dying oaths that it wasn't theirs. Then I thought of counting the bits of

paper. And of this I made quite certain: that there were seventeen bits of

paper on the desk, and sixteen boys in the form. Well, I bagged the extra

paper, and kept it, and I believe I have it now. And now you will want to

know what was written on it. It was simple enough, and harmless enough, I

should have said.

"'Si tu non veneris ad me, ego veniam ad te,' which means, I suppose, 'If

you don't come to me, I'll come to you.'"

"Could you show me the paper?" interrupted the listener.

"Yes, I could: but there's another odd thing about it. That same

afternoon I took it out of my locker - I know for certain it was the same

bit, for I made a finger-mark on it and no single trace of writing of any

kind was there on it. I kept it, as I said, and since that time I have tried

various experiments to see whether sympathetic ink had been used, but

absolutely without result.

"So much for that. After about half an hour Sampson looked in again: said

he had felt very unwell, and told us we might go. He came rather gingerly to

his desk, and gave just one look at the uppermost paper: and I suppose he

thought he must have been dreaming: anyhow, he asked no questions.

"That day was a half-holiday, and next day Sampson was in school again,

much as usual. That night the third and last incident in my story happened.

"We - McLeod and I - slept in a dormitory at right angles to the main

building. Sampson slept in the main building on the first floor. There was a

very bright full moon. At an hour which I can't tell exactly, but some time

between one and two, I was woken up by somebody shaking me. It was McLeod,

and a nice state of mind he seemed to be in. 'Come,' he said, - 'come

there's a burglar getting in through Sampson's window.' As soon as I could

speak, I said, 'Well, why not call out and wake everybody up? 'No, no,' he

said, 'I'm not sure who it is: don't make a row: come and look.' Naturally I

came and looked, and naturally there was no one there. I was cross enough,

and should have called McLeod plenty of names: only - I couldn't tell why -

it seemed to me that there was something wrong - something that made me very

glad I wasn't alone to face it. We were still at the window looking out, and

as soon as I could, I asked him what he had heard or seen. 'I didn't hear

anything at all,' he said, 'but about five minutes before I woke you, I

found myself looking out of this window here, and there was a man sitting or

kneeling on Sampson's window-sill, and looking in, and I thought he was

beckoning.' 'What sort of man?' McLeod wriggled. 'I don't know,' he said,

'but I can tell you one thing - he was beastly thin: and he looked as if he

was wet all over: and,' he said, looking round and whispering as if he

hardly liked to hear himself, 'I'm not at all sure that he was alive.'

"We went on talking in whispers some time longer, and eventually crept

back to bed. No one else in the room woke or stirred the whole time. I

believe we did sleep a bit afterwards, but we were very cheap next day.

"And next day Mr. Sampson was gone: not to be found: and I believe no

trace of him has ever come to light since. In thinking it over, one of the

oddest things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither

McLeod nor I ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever.

Of course no questions were asked on the subject, and if they had been, I am

inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer: we seemed unable

to speak about it.

"That is my story," said the narrator. "The only approach to a ghost

story connected with a school that I know, but still, I think, an approach

to such a thing."

* * * * *

The sequel to this may perhaps be reckoned highly conventional; but a

sequel there is, and so it must be produced. There had been more than one

listener to the story, and, in the latter part of that same year, or of the

next, one such listener was staying at a country house in Ireland.

One evening his host was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in

the smoking-room. Suddenly he put his hand upon a little box. "Now," he

said, "you know about old things; tell me what that is." My friend opened

the little box, and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to

it. He glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it

more narrowly. "What's the history of this?" he asked. "Odd enough," was the

answer. "You know the yew thicket in the shrubbery: well, a year or two back

we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here, and

what do you suppose we found?"

"Is it possible that you found a body?" said the visitor, with an odd

feeling of nervousness.

"We did that: but what's more, in every sense of the word, we found two."

"Good Heavens! Two? Was there anything to show how they got there? Was

this thing found with them?"

"It was. Amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies.

A bad business, whatever the story of it may have been. One body had the

arms tight round the other. They must have been there thirty years or more -

long enough before we came to this place. You may judge we filled the well

up fast enough. Do you make anything of what's cut on that gold coin you

have there?"

"I think I can," said my friend, holding it to the light (but he read it

without much difficulty); "it seems to be G.W.S., 24 July, 1865."

The Dancing Partner

by Jerome K. Jerome

www.world-english.org

"This story," commenced MacShaugnassy, "comes from Furtwangen, a small town

in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow named

Nicholaus Geibel. His business was the making of mechanical toys, at which

work he had acquired an almost European reputation. He made rabbits that

would emerge from the heart of a cabbage, flop their ears, smooth their

whiskers, and disappear again; cats that would wash their faces, and mew so

naturally that dogs would mistake them for real cats and fly at them; dolls

with phonographs concealed within them, that would raise their hats and say,

'Good morning; how do you do?' and some that would even sing a song.

"But, he was something more than a mere mechanic; he was an artist. His work

was with him a hobby, almost a passion. His shop was filled with all manner

of strange things that never would, or could, be sold -- things he had made

for the pure love of making them. He had contrived a mechanical donkey that

would trot for two hours by means of stored electricity, and trot, too, much

faster than the live article, and with less need for exertion on the part of

the driver, a bird that would shoot up into the air, fly round and round in

a circle, and drop to earth at the exact spot from where it started; a

skeleton that, supported by an upright iron bar, would dance a hornpipe, a

life-size lady doll that could play the fiddle, and a gentleman with a

hollow inside who could smoke a pipe and drink more lager beer than any

three average German students put together, which is saying much.

"Indeed, it was the belief of the town that old Geibel could make a man

capable of doing everything that a respectable man need want to do. One day

he made a man who did too much, and it came about in this way:

"Young Doctor Follen had a baby, and the baby had a birthday. Its first

birthday put Doctor Follen's household into somewhat of a flurry, but on the

occasion of its second birthday, Mrs. Doctor Follen gave a ball in honour of

the event. Old Geibel and his daughter Olga were among the guests.

"During the afternoon of the next day some three or four of Olga's bosom

friends, who had also been present at the ball, dropped in to have a chat

about it. They naturally fell to discussing the men, and to criticizing

their dancing. Old Geibel was in the room, but he appeared to be absorbed in

his newspaper, and the girls took no notice of him.

"'There seem to be fewer men who can dance at every ball you go to,' said

one of the girls.

"'Yes, and don't the ones who can give themselves airs,' said another; 'they

make quite a favor of asking you.'

"'And how stupidly they talk,' added a third. 'They always say exactly the

same things: "How charming you are looking to-night." "Do you often go to

Vienna? Oh, you should, it's delightful." "What a charming dress you have

on." "What a warm day it has been." "Do you like Wagner?" I do wish they'd

think of something new.'

"'Oh, I never mind how they talk,' said a forth. 'If a man dances well he

may be a fool for all I care.'

"'He generally is,' slipped in a thin girl, rather spitefully.

"'I go to a ball to dance,' continued the previous speaker, not noticing the

interruption. 'All I ask is that he shall hold me firmly, take me round

steadily, and not get tired before I do.'

"'A clockwork figure would be the thing for you,' said the girl who had

interrupted.

"'Bravo!' cried one of the others, clapping her hands, 'what a capital

idea!'

"'What's a capital idea?' they asked.

"'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by

electricity and never run down.'

"The girls took up the idea with enthusiasm.

"'Oh, what a lovely partner he would make,' said one; 'he would never kick

you, or tread on your toes.'

"'Or tear your dress,' said another.

"'Or get out of step.'

"'Or get giddy and lean on you.'

"'And he would never want to mop his face with his handkerchief. I do hate

to see a man do that after every dance.'

"'And wouldn't want to spend the whole evening in the supper-room.'

"'Why, with a phonograph inside him to grind out all the stock remarks, you

would not be able to tell him from a real man,' said the girl who had first

suggested the idea.

"Oh yes, you would,' said the thin girl, 'he would be so much nicer.'

"Old Geibel had laid down his paper, and was listening with both his ears.

On one of the girls glancing in his direction, however, he hurriedly hid

himself again behind it.

"After the girls were gone, he went into his workshop, where Olga heard him

walking up and down, and every now and then chuckling to himself; and that

night he talked to her a good deal about dancing and dancing men -- asked

what dances were most popular -- what steps were gone through, with many

other questions bearing on the subject.

"Then for a couple of weeks he kept much to his factory, and was very

thoughtful and busy, though prone at unexpected moments to break into a

quiet low laugh, as if enjoying a joke that nobody else knew of.

"A month later another ball took place in Furtwangen. On this occasion it

was given by old Wenzel, the wealthy timber merchant, to celebrate his

niece's betrothal, and Geibel and his daughter were again among the invited.

"When the hour arrived to set out, Olga sought her father. Not finding him

in the house, she tapped at the door of his workshop. He appeared in his

shirt-sleeves, looking hot but radiant.

"Don't wait for me,' he said, 'you go on, I'll follow you. I've got

something to finish.'

"As she turned to obey he called after her, 'Tell them I'm going to bring a

young man with me -- such a nice young man, and an excellent dancer. All the

girls will like him.' Then he laughed and closed the door.

"Her father generally kept his doings secret from everybody, but she had a

pretty shrewd suspicion of what he had been planning, and so, to a certain

extent, was able to prepare the guests for what was coming. Anticipation ran

high, and the arrival of the famous mechanist was eagerly awaited.

"At length the sound of wheels was heard outside, followed by a great

commotion in the passage, and old Wenzel himself, his jolly face red with

excitement and suppressed laughter, burst into the room and announced in

stentorian tones:

"'Herr Geibel -- and a friend.'

"Herr Geibel and his 'friend' entered, greeted with shouts of laughter and

applause, and advanced to the centre of the room.

"'Allow me, ladies and gentlemen,' said Herr Geibel, 'to introduce you to my

friend, Lieutenant Fritz. Fritz, my dear fellow, bow to the ladies and

gentlemen.'

"Geibel placed his hand encouragingly on Fritz's shoulder, and the

Lieutenant bowed low, accompanying the action with a harsh clicking noise in

his throat, unpleasantly suggestive of a death-rattle. But that was only a

detail.

"'He walks a little stiffly' (old Geibel took his arm and walked him forward

a few steps. He certainly did walk stiffly), 'but then, walking is not his

forte. He is essentially a dancing man. I have only been able to teach him

the waltz as yet, but at that he is faultless. Come, which of you ladies may

I introduce him to as a partner? He keeps perfect time; he never gets tired;

he won't kick you or trad on your dress; he will hold you as firmly as you

like, and go as quickly or a slowly as you please; he never gets giddy; and

he is full of conversation. Come, speak up for yourself, my boy.'

"The old gentleman twisted one of the buttons at the back of his coat, and

immediately Fritz opened his mouth, and in thin tones that appeared to

proceed from the back of his head, remarked suddenly, 'May I have the

pleasure?' and then shut his mouth again with a snap.

"That Lieutenant Fritz had made a strong impression on the company was

undoubted, yet none of the girls seemed inclined to dance with him. They

looked askance at his waxen face, with its staring eyes and fixed smile, and

shuddered. At last old Geibel came to the girl who had conceived the idea.

"'It is your own suggestion, carried out to the letter,' said Geibel, 'an

electric dancer. You owe it to the gentleman to give him a trial.'

"She was a bright, saucy little girl, fond of a frolic. Her host added his

entreaties, and she consented.

"Her Geibel fixed the figure to her. Its right arm was screwed round her

waist, and held her firmly; its delicately jointed left hand was made to

fasten upon her right. The old toymaker showed her how to regulate its

speed, and how to stop it, and release herself.

"'It will take you round in a complete circle,' he explained; 'be careful

that no one knocks against you, and alters its course.'

"The music struck up. Old Geibel put the current in motion, and Annette and

her strange partner began to dance.

"For a while everyone stood watching them. The figure performed its purpose

admirably. Keeping perfect time and step, and holding its little partner

tight clasped in an unyielding embrace, it revolved steadily, pouring forth

at the same time a constant flow of squeaky conversation, broken by brief

intervals of grinding silence.

"'How charming you are looking tonight,' it remarked in its thin, far-away

voice. 'What a lovely day it has been. Do you like dancing? How well our

steps agree. You will give me another, won't you? Oh, don't be so cruel.

What a charming gown you have on. Isn't waltzing delightful? I could go on

dancing for ever -- with you. Have you had supper?'

"As she grew more familiar with the uncanny creature, the girl's nervousness

wore off, and she entered into the fun of the thing.

"'Oh, he's just lovely,' she cried, laughing; 'I could go on dancing with

him all my life.'

"Couple after couple now joined them, and soon all the dancers in the room

were whirling round behind them. Nicholaus Geibel stood looking on, beaming

with childish delight at his success.

"Old Wenzel approached him, and whispered something in his ear. Geibel

laughed and nodded, and the two worked their way quietly towards the door.

"'This is the young people's house to-night,' said Wenzel, as soon as they

were outside; 'you and I will have a quiet pipe and glass of hock, over in

the counting-house.'

"Meanwhile the dancing grew more fast and furious. Little Annette loosened

the screw regulating her partner's rate of progress, and the figure flew

round with her swifter and swifter. Couple after couple dropped out

exhausted, but they only went the faster, till at length they remained

dancing alone.

"Madder and madder became the waltz. The music lagged behind: the musicians,

unable to keep pace, ceased, and sat staring. The younger guests applauded,

but the older faces began to grow anxious.

"'Hadn't you better stop, dear,' said one of the women, 'you'll make

yourself so tired.'

"But Annette did not answer.

"'I believe she's fainted,' cried out a girl who had caught sight of her

face as it was swept by.

"One of the men sprang forward and clutched at the figure, but its impetus

threw him down on to the floor, where its steel-cased feet laid bare his

cheek. The thing evidently did not intend to part with its prize so easily.

"Had any one retained a cool head, the figure, one cannot help thinking,

might easily have been stopped. Two or three men acting in concert might

have lifted it bodily off the floor, or have jammed it into a corner. But

few human heads are capable of remaining cool under excitement. Those who

are not present think how stupid must have been those wh were; those who are

reflect afterwards how simple it would have been to do this, that, or the

other, if only they had thought of it at the time.

"The women grew hysterical. The men shouted contradictory directions to one

another. Tow of them made a bungling rush at the figure, which had the end

result of forcing it out of its orbit at the centre of the room, and sending

it crashing against the walls and furniture. A stream of blood showed itself

down the girl's white frock, and followed her along the floor. The affair

was becoming horrible. The women rushed screaming from the room. The men

followed them.

"One sensible suggestion was made: 'Find Geibel -- fetch Geibel.'

"No one had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party

went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the

ballroom, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady

whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun round and

round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden

against some opposing object and ricocheted off in a new direction.

"And everlastingly it talked in that thin ghostly voice, repeating over and

over the same formula: 'How charming you look to-night. What a lovely day it

has been. Oh, don't be so cruel. I could go on dancing for ever -- with you.

Have you had supper?'

"Of course they sought Geibel everywhere but where he was. They looked in

every room in the house, then they rushed off in a body to his own place,

and spent precious minutes waking up his deaf old housekeeper. At last it

occurred to one of the party that Wenzel was missing also, and then the idea

of the counting-house across the yard presented itself to them, and there

they found him.

"He rose up, very pale, and followed them; and he and old Wenzel forced

their way through the crowd of guests gathered outside, and entered the

room, and locked the door behind them.

"From within there came the muffled sound of low voices and quick steps,

followed by a confused scuffling noise, then silence, then the low voices

again.

"After a time the door opened, and those near it pressed forward to enter,

but old Wenzel's broad head and shoulders barred the way.

"I want you -- and you, Bekler,' he said, addressing a couple of the elder

men. His voice was calm, but his face was deadly white. 'The rest of you,

please go -- get the women away as quickly as you can.'

"From that day old Nicholaus Geibel confined himself to the making of

mechanical rabbits, and cats that mewed and washed their faces."

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How the Leopard Got His Spots by Rudyard Kipling www.world-english.org

In the days when everybody started fair, Best Beloved, the Leopard lived in a place called the High Veldt. 'Member it wasn't the Low Veldt, or the Bush Veldt, or the Sour Veldt, but the 'sclusively bare, hot shiny High Veldt, where there was sand and sandy-coloured rock and 'sclusively tufts of sandy-yellowish grass. The Giraffe and the Zebra and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Hartebeest lived there: and they were 'sclusively sandy-yellow-brownish all over; but the Leopard, he was the 'sclusivest sandiest-yellowest-brownest of them all -- a greyish-yellowish catty-shaped kind of beast, and he matched the 'sclusively yellowish-greyish-brownish colour of the High Veldt to one hair. This was very bad for the Giraffe and the Zebra and the rest of them: for he would lie down by a 'sclusively yellowish-greyish-brownish stone or clump of grass, and when the Giraffe or the Zebra or the Eland or the Koodoo or the Bush-Buck or the Bonte-Buck came by he would surprise them out of their jumpsome lives. He would indeed! And, also, there was an Ethiopian with bows and arrows (a 'sclusively greyish-brownish-yellowish man he was then), who lived on the High Veldt with the Leopard: and the two used to hunt together -- the Ethiopian with his bows and arrows, and the Leopard 'sclusively with his teeth and claws -- till the Giraffe and the Eland and the Koodoo and the Quagga and all the rest of them didn't know which way to jump, Best Beloved. They didn't indeed! After a long time -- things lived for ever so long in those days -- they learned to avoid anything that looked like a Leopard or an Ethiopian: and bit by bit -- the Giraffe began it, because his legs were the longest -- they went away from the High Veldt. They scuttled for days and days till they came to a great forest, 'sclusively full of trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows, and there they hid: and after another long time, what with standing half in the shade and half out of it, and what with the slippery-slidy shadows of the trees falling on them, the Giraffe grew blotchy, and the Zebra grew stripy, and the Eland and the Koodoo grew darker, with little wavy grey lines on their backs like bark on a tree-trunk: and so, though you could hear them and smell them, you could very seldom see them, and then only when you knew precisely where to look. They had a beautiful time in the 'sclusively speckly-spickly shadows of the forest, while the Leopard and the Ethiopian ran about over the 'sclusively greyish-yellowish-reddish High Veldt outside, wondering where all their breakfasts and their dinners and their teas had gone. At last they were so hungry that they ate rats and beetles and rock-rabbits, the Leopard and the Ethiopian, and then they had the Big Tummy-ache, both together: and then they met Baviaan -- the dog-headed, barking baboon, who is Quite the Wisest Animal in All South Africa. Said the Leopard to Baviaan (and it was a very hot day), 'Where has all the game gone?' And Baviaan winked. He knew. Said Ethiopian to Baviaan, 'Can you tell me the present habitat of the aboriginal Fauna?' (That meant just the same thing, but the Ethiopian always used long words. He was a grown-up.) And Baviaan winked. He knew. Then said Baviaan, 'The game has gone into other spots: and my advice to you, Leopard, is to go into other spots as soon as you can.' And the Ethiopian said, 'That is all very fine, but I wish to know whither the aboriginal Fauna has migrated.' Then said Baviaan, 'The aboriginal Fauna has joined the aboriginal Flora because it was high time for a change; and my advice to you, Ethiopian, is to change as soon as you can.' That puzzled the Leopard and the Ethiopian, but they set off to look for the aboriginal Flora, and presently, after ever so many days, they saw a great, high, tall forest full of tree-trunks all 'sclusively speckled and sprottled and spottled, dotted and splashed and slashed and hatched and cross-hatched with shadows. (Say that quickly aloud, and you will see how very shadowy the forest must have been.) 'What is this,' said the Leopard, 'that is so 'sclusively dark, and yet so full of little pieces of light?' 'I don't know,' said the Ethiopian, 'but it ought to be the aboriginal Flora. I can smell Giraffe, and I can hear Giraffe, but I can't see Giraffe.' 'That's curious,' said the Leopard. 'I suppose it is because we have just come in out of the sunshine. I can smell Zebra, and I can hear Zebra, but I can't see Zebra.' 'Wait a bit,' said the Ethiopian. 'It's a long time since we've hunted 'em. Perhaps we've forgotten what they were like.' 'Fiddle!' said the Leopard. I remember them perfectly on the High Veldt, especially their marrow- bones. Giraffe is about seventeen feet high, of a 'sclusively fulvous golden-yellow from head to heel: and Zebra is about four and a half feet high, of a 'sclusively grey-fawn colour from head to heel.' 'Umm,' said the Ethiopian, looking into the speckly-spickly shadows of the aboriginal Flora-forest. 'Then they ought to show up in this dark place like ripe bananas in a smoke-house.' But they didn't. The Leopard and the Ethiopian hunted all day; and though they could smell them and hear them, they never saw one of them. 'For goodness' sake,' said the Leopard at tea-time, 'let us wait till it gets dark. This daylight hunting is a perfect scandal.' So they waited till dark, and then the Leopard heard something breathing sniffily in the starlight that fell all stripy through the branches, and he jumped at the noise, and it smelt like Zebra, and it felt like Zebra, and when he knocked it down it kicked like Zebra, but he couldn't see it. So he said, 'Be quiet, O you person without any form. I am going to sit on your head till morning, because there is something about you that I don't understand.' Presently he heard a grunt and a crash and a scramble, and the Ethiopian called out, 'I've caught a thing that I can't see. It smells like Giraffe, and it kicks like Giraffe, but it hasn't any form.' 'Don't you trust it, said the Leopard. 'Sit on its head till the morning -- same as me. They haven't any form -- any of 'em.' So they sat down on them hard till bright morning-time, and then Leopard said, 'What have you at your end of the table, Brother?' The Ethiopian scratched his head and said, 'It ought to be 'sclusively a rich fulvous orange-tawny from head to heel, and it ought to be Giraffe; but it is covered all over with chestnut blotches. What have you at your end of the table, Brother?' And the Leopard scratched his head and said, 'It ought to be 'sclusively a delicate greyish-fawn, and it ought to be Zebra; but it is covered all over with black and purple stripes. What in the world have you been doing to yourself, Zebra? Don't you know that if you were on the High Veldt I could see you ten miles off? You haven't any form.' 'Yes,' said the Zebra, 'but this isn't the High Veldt. Can't you see?' 'I can now,' said the Leopard, 'But I couldn't all yesterday. How is it done?' 'Let us up,' said the Zebra, 'and we will show you.' They let the Zebra and the Giraffe get up; and Zebra moved away to some little thorn-bushes where the sunlight fell all stripy, and the Giraffe moved off to some tallish trees where the shadows fell all blotchy.

'Now watch,' said the Zebra and the Giraffe. 'This is the way it's done. One -- two -- three! And where's your breakfast?' Leopard stared, and Ethiopian stared, but all they could see were stripy shadows and blotched shadows in the forest, but never a sign of Zebra and Giraffe. They had just walked off and hidden themselves in the shadowy forest. 'Hi! Hi!' said the Ethiopian. 'That's a trick worth learning. Take a lesson by it, Leopard. You show up in this dark place like a bar of soap in a coal-scuttle.' 'Ho! Ho!' said the Leopard. 'Would it surprise you very much to know that you show up in this dark place like a mustard-plaster on a sack of coals?' 'Well, calling names won't catch dinner,' said the Ethiopian. 'The long and the little of it is that we don't match our backgrounds. I'm going to take Baviaan's advice. He told me I ought to change: and as I've nothing to change except my skin I'm going to change that.' 'What to?' said the Leopard, tremendously excited. 'To a nice working blackish-brownish colour, with a little purple in it, and touches of slaty-blue. It will be the very thing for hiding in hollows and behind trees.' So he changed his skin then and there, and the Leopard was more excited than ever: he had never seen a man change his skin before. 'But what about me?' she said, when the Ethiopian had worked his last little finger into his fine new black skin. 'You take Baviaan's advice too. He told you to go into spots.' 'So I did,' said the Leopard. 'I went into other spots as fast as I could. I went into this spot with you, and a lot of good it has done me.' 'Oh,' said the Ethiopian. 'Baviaan didn't mean spots in South Africa. he meant spots on your skin.' 'What's the use of that?' said the Leopard. 'Think of Giraffe,' said the Ethiopian. 'Or if you prefer stripes, think of Zebra. They find their spots and stripes give them per-fect satisfaction.' 'Umm,' said the Leopard. 'I wouldn't look like Zebra -- not for ever so.' 'Well, make up your mind,' said the Ethiopian, 'because I'd hate to go hunting without you, but I must if you insist on looking like a sunflower against a tarred fence.' 'I'll take spots, then,' said the Leopard; 'but don't make 'em too vulgar-big. I wouldn't look like Giraffe -- not for ever so.' 'I'll make 'em with the tips of my fingers,' said the Ethiopian. 'There's plenty of black left on my skin still. Stand over!' Then the Ethiopian put his five fingers close together (there was plenty of black left on his new skin still) and pressed them all over the Leopard, and wherever the five fingers touched they left five little black marks, all close together. You can see them on any Leopard's skin you like, Best Beloved. Sometimes the fingers slipped and the marks got a little blurred; but if you look closely at any Leopard now you will see that there are always five spots -- off five black finger-tips. 'Now you are a beauty!' said the Ethiopian. 'You can lie out on the bare ground and look like a heap of pebbles. You can lie out on the naked rocks and look like a piece of pudding-stone. You can lie out on a leafy branch and look like sunshine sifting through the leaves; and you can lie right across the centre of a path and look like nothing in particular. Think of that and purr!' 'But if I'm all this,' said the Leopard, 'why didn't you go spotty too?' 'Oh, plain black's best,' said the Ethiopian. 'Now come along and we'll see if we can't get even with Mr One-Two-Three-Where's-your-Breakfast!' So they went away and lived happily ever afterwards, Best Beloved. That is all. Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?' I don't think even grown-ups would keep on saying such a silly thing if the Leopard and the Ethiopian hadn't done it once -- do you? But they will never do it again, Best Beloved. They are quite contented as they are.

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The Winepress

by Josef Essberger

"You don't have to be French to enjoy a decent red wine," Charles Jousselin de Gruse used to tell his foreign guests whenever he entertained them in Paris. "But you do have to be French to recognize one," he would add with a laugh.

After a lifetime in the French diplomatic corps, the Count de Gruse lived with his wife in an elegant townhouse on Quai Voltaire. He was a likeable man, cultivated of course, with a well deserved reputation as a generous host and an amusing raconteur.

This evening's guests were all European and all equally convinced that immigration was at the root of Europe's problems. Charles de Gruse said nothing. He had always concealed his contempt for such ideas. And, in any case, he had never much cared for these particular guests.

The first of the red Bordeaux was being served with the veal, and one of the guests turned to de Gruse.

"Come on, Charles, it's simple arithmetic. Nothing to do with race or colour. You must've had bags of experience of this sort of thing. What d'you say?"

"Yes, General. Bags!"

Without another word, de Gruse picked up his glass and introduced his bulbous, winey nose. After a moment he looked up with watery eyes.

"A truly full-bodied Bordeaux," he said warmly, "a wine among wines."

The four guests held their glasses to the light and studied their blood-red contents. They all agreed that it was the best wine they had ever tasted.

One by one the little white lights along the Seine were coming on, and from the first-floor windows you could see the brightly lit bateaux-mouches passing through the arches of the Pont du Carrousel. The party moved on to a dish of game served with a more vigorous claret.

"Can you imagine," asked de Gruse, as the claret was poured, "that there are people who actually serve wines they know nothing about?"

"Really?" said one of the guests, a German politician.

"Personally, before I uncork a bottle I like to know what's in it."

"But how? How can anyone be sure?"

"I like to hunt around the vineyards. Take this place I used to visit in Bordeaux. I got to know the winegrower there personally. That's the way to know what you're drinking."

"A matter of pedigree, Charles," said the other politician.

"This fellow," continued de Gruse as though the Dutchman had not spoken, "always gave you the story behind his wines. One of them was the most extraordinary story I ever heard. We were tasting, in his winery, and we came to a cask that made him frown. He asked if I agreed with him that red Bordeaux was the best wine in the world. Of course, I agreed. Then he made the strangest statement.

"'The wine in this cask,' he said, and there were tears in his eyes, 'is the best vintage in the world. But it started its life far from the country where it was grown.'"

De Gruse paused to check that his guests were being served.

"Well?" said the Dutchman.

De Gruse and his wife exchanged glances.

"Do tell them, mon chéri," she said.

De Gruse leaned forwards, took another sip of wine, and dabbed his lips with the corner of his napkin. This is the story he told them.

At the age of twenty-one, Pierre - that was the name he gave the winegrower - had been sent by his father to spend some time with his uncle in Madagascar. Within two weeks he had fallen for a local girl called Faniry, or "Desire" in Malagasy. You could not blame him. At seventeen she was ravishing. In the Malagasy sunlight her skin was golden. Her black, waist-length hair, which hung straight beside her cheeks, framed large, fathomless eyes. It was a genuine coup de foudre, for both of them. Within five months they were married. Faniry had no family, but Pierre's parents came out from France for the wedding, even though they did not strictly approve of it, and for three years the young couple lived very happily on the island of Madagascar. Then, one day, a telegram came from France. Pierre's parents and his only brother had been killed in a car crash. Pierre took the next flight home to attend the funeral and manage the vineyard left by his father.

Faniry followed two weeks later. Pierre was grief-stricken, but with Faniry he settled down to running the vineyard. His family, and the lazy, idyllic days under a tropical sun, were gone forever. But he was very happily married, and he was very well-off. Perhaps, he reasoned, life in Bordeaux would not be so bad.

But he was wrong. It soon became obvious that Faniry was jealous. In Madagascar she had no match. In France she was jealous of everyone. Of the maids. Of the secretary. Even of the peasant girls who picked the grapes and giggled at her funny accent. She convinced herself that Pierre made love to each of them in turn.

She started with insinuations, simple, artless ones that Pierre hardly even recognized. Then she tried blunt accusation in the privacy of their bedroom. When he denied that, she resorted to violent, humiliating denouncements in the kitchens, the winery, the plantations. The angel that Pierre had married in Madagascar had become a termagant, blinded by jealousy. Nothing he did or said could help. Often, she would refuse to speak for a week or more, and when at last she spoke it would only be to scream yet more abuse or swear again her intention to leave him. By the third vine-harvest it was obvious to everyone that they loathed each other.

One Friday evening, Pierre was down in the winery, working on a new electric winepress. He was alone. The grape-pickers had left. Suddenly the door opened and Faniry entered, excessively made up. She walked straight up to Pierre, flung her arms around his neck, and pressed herself against him. Even above the fumes from the pressed grapes he could smell that she had been drinking.

"Darling," she sighed, "what shall we do?"

He badly wanted her, but all the past insults and humiliating scenes welled up inside him. He pushed her away.

"But, darling, I'm going to have a baby."

"Don't be absurd. Go to bed! You're drunk. And take that paint off. It makes you look like a tart."

Faniry's face blackened, and she threw herself at him with new accusations. He had never cared for her. He cared only about sex. He was obsessed with it. And with white women. But the women in France, the white women, they were the tarts, and he was welcome to them. She snatched a knife from the wall and lunged at him with it. She was in tears, but it took all his strength to keep the knife from his throat. Eventually he pushed her off, and she stumbled towards the winepress. Pierre stood, breathing heavily, as the screw of the press caught at her hair and dragged her in. She screamed, struggling to free herself. The screw bit slowly into her shoulder and she screamed again. Then she fainted, though whether from the pain or the fumes he was not sure. He looked away until a sickening sound told him it was over. Then he raised his arm and switched the current off.

The guests shuddered visibly and de Gruse paused in his story.

"Well, I won't go into the details at table," he said. "Pierre fed the rest of the body into the press and tidied up. Then he went up to the house, had a bath, ate a meal, and went to bed. The next day, he told everyone Faniry had finally left him and gone back to Madagascar. No-one was surprised."

He paused again. His guests sat motionless, their eyes turned towards him.

"Of course," he continued, "Sixty-five was a bad year for red Bordeaux. Except for Pierre's. That was the extraordinary thing. It won award after award, and nobody could understand why."

The general's wife cleared her throat.

"But, surely," she said, "you didn't taste it?"

"No, I didn't taste it, though Pierre did assure me his wife had lent the wine an incomparable aroma."

"And you didn't, er, buy any?" asked the general.

"How could I refuse? It isn't every day that one finds such a pedigree."

There was a long silence. The Dutchman shifted awkwardly in his seat, his glass poised midway between the table and his open lips. The other guests looked around uneasily at each other. They did not understand.

"But look here, Gruse," said the general at last, "you don't mean to tell me we're drinking this damned woman now, d'you?"

De Gruse gazed impassively at the Englishman.

"Heaven forbid, General," he said slowly. "Everyone knows that the best vintage should always come first."

A Dark Brown Dog Stephen Crane A child was standing on a street-corner. He leaned with one shoulder against a high board-fence and swayed the other to and fro, the while kicking carelessly at the gravel. Sunshine beat upon the cobbles, and a lazy summer wind raised yellow dust which trailed in clouds down the avenue. Clattering trucks moved with indistinctness through it. The child stood dreamily gazing. After a time, a little dark-brown dog came trotting with an intent air down the sidewalk. A short rope was dragging from his neck. Occasionally he trod upon the end of it and stumbled. He stopped opposite the child, and the two regarded each other. The dog hesitated for a moment, but presently he made some little advances with his tail. The child put out his hand and called him. In an apologetic manner the dog came close, and the two had an interchange of friendly pattings and waggles. The dog became more enthusiastic with each moment of the interview, until with his gleeful caperings he threatened to overturn the child. Whereupon the child lifted his hand and struck the dog a blow upon the head. This thing seemed to overpower and astonish the little dark-brown dog, and wounded him to the heart. He sank down in despair at the child's feet. When the blow was repeated, together with an admonition in childish sentences, he turned over upon his back, and held his paws in a peculiar manner. At the same time with his ears and his eyes he offered a small prayer to the child. He looked so comical on his back, and holding his paws peculiarly, that the child was greatly amused and gave him little taps repeatedly, to keep him so. But the little dark-brown dog took this chastisement in the most serious way, and no doubt considered that he had committed some grave crime, for he wriggled contritely and showed his repentance in every way that was in his power. He pleaded with the child and petitioned him, and offered more prayers. At last the child grew weary of this amusement and turned toward home. The dog was praying at the time. He lay on his back and turned his eyes upon the retreating form. Presently he struggled to his feet and started after the child. The latter wandered in a perfunctory way toward his home, stopping at times to investigate various matters. During one of these pauses he discovered the little dark-brown dog who was following him with the air of a footpad. The child beat his pursuer with a small stick he had found. The dog lay down and prayed until the child had finished, and resumed his journey. Then he scrambled erect and took up the pursuit again. On the way to his home the child turned many times and beat the dog, proclaiming with childish gestures that he held him in contempt as an unimportant dog, with no value save for a moment. For being this quality of animal the dog apologized and eloquently expressed regret, but he continued stealthily to follow the child. His manner grew so very guilty that he slunk like an assassin. When the child reached his door-step, the dog was industriously ambling a few yards in the rear. He became so agitated with shame when he again confronted the child that he forgot the dragging rope. He tripped upon it and fell forward. The child sat down on the step and the two had another interview. During it the dog greatly exerted himself to please the child. He performed a few gambols with such abandon that the child suddenly saw him to be a valuable thing. He made a swift, avaricious charge and seized the rope. He dragged his captive into a hall and up many long stairways in a dark tenement. The dog made willing efforts, but he could not hobble very skilfully up the stairs because he was very small and soft, and at last the pace of the engrossed child grew so energetic that the dog became panic-stricken. In his mind he was being dragged toward a grim unknown. His eyes grew wild with the terror of it. He began to wiggle his head frantically and to brace his legs. The child redoubled his exertions. They had a battle on the stairs. The child was victorious because he was completely absorbed in his purpose, and because the dog was very small. He dragged his acquirement to the door of his home, and finally with triumph across the threshold. No one was in. The child sat down on the floor and made overtures to the dog. These the dog instantly accepted. He beamed with affection upon his new friend. In a short time they were firm and abiding comrades. When the child's family appeared, they made a great row. The dog was examined and commented upon and called names. Scorn was leveled at him from all eyes, so that he became much embarrassed and drooped like a scorched plant. But the child went sturdily to the center of the floor, and, at the top of his voice, championed the dog. It happened that he was roaring protestations, with his arms clasped about the dog's neck, when the father of the family came in from work. The parent demanded to know what the blazes they were making the kid howl for. It was explained in many words that the infernal kid wanted to introduce a disreputable dog into the family. A family council was held. On this depended the dog's fate, but he in no way heeded, being busily engaged in chewing the end of the child's dress. The affair was quickly ended. The father of the family, it appears, was in a particularly savage temper that evening, and when he perceived that it would amaze and anger everybody if such a dog were allowed to remain, he decided that it should be so. The child, crying softly, took his friend off to a retired part of the room to hobnob with him, while the father quelled a fierce rebellion of his wife. So it came to pass that the dog was a member of the household. He and the child were associated together at all times save when the child slept. The child became a guardian and a friend. If the large folk kicked the dog and threw things at him, the child made loud and violent objections. Once when the child had run, protesting loudly, with tears raining down his face and his arms outstretched, to protect his friend, he had been struck in the head with a very large saucepan from the hand of his father, enraged at some seeming lack of courtesy in the dog. Ever after, the family were careful how they threw things at the dog. Moreover, the latter grew very skilful in avoiding missiles and feet. In a small room containing a stove, a table, a bureau and some chairs, he would display strategic ability of a high order, dodging, feinting and scuttling about among the furniture. He could force three or four people armed with brooms, sticks and handfuls of coal, to use all their ingenuity to get in a blow. And even when they did, it was seldom that they could do him a serious injury or leave any imprint. But when the child was present, these scenes did not occur. It came to be recognized that if the dog was molested, the child would burst into sobs, and as the child, when started, was very riotous and practically unquenchable, the dog had therein a safeguard. However, the child could not always be near. At night, when he was asleep, his dark-brown friend would raise from some black corner a wild, wailful cry, a song of infinite lowliness and despair, that would go shuddering and sobbing among the buildings of the block and cause people to swear. At these times the singer would often be chased all over the kitchen and hit with a great variety of articles. Sometimes, too, the child himself used to beat the dog, although it is not known that he ever had what could be truly called a just cause. The dog always accepted these thrashings with an air of admitted guilt. He was too much of a dog to try to look to be a martyr or to plot revenge. He received the blows with deep humility, and furthermore he forgave his friend the moment the child had finished, and was ready to caress the child's hand with his little red tongue. When misfortune came upon the child, and his troubles overwhelmed him, he would often crawl under the table and lay his small distressed head on the dog's back. The dog was ever sympathetic. It is not to be supposed that at such times he took occasion to refer to the unjust beatings his friend, when provoked, had administered to him. He did not achieve any notable degree of intimacy with the other members of the family. He had no confidence in them, and the fear that he would express at their casual approach often exasperated them exceedingly. They used to gain a certain satisfaction in underfeeding him, but finally his friend the child grew to watch the matter with some care, and when he forgot it, the dog was often successful in secret for himself. So the dog prospered. He developed a large bark, which came wondrously from such a small rug of a dog. He ceased to howl persistently at night. Sometimes, indeed, in his sleep, he would utter little yells, as from pain, but that occurred, no doubt, when in his dreams he encountered huge flaming dogs who threatened him direfully. His devotion to the child grew until it was a sublime thing. He wagged at his approach; he sank down in despair at his departure. He could detect the sound of the child's step among all the noises of the neighborhood. It was like a calling voice to him. The scene of their companionship was a kingdom governed by this terrible potentate, the child; but neither criticism nor rebellion ever lived for an instant in the heart of the one subject. Down in the mystic, hidden fields of his little dog-soul bloomed flowers of love and fidelity and perfect faith. The child was in the habit of going on many expeditions to observe strange things in the vicinity. On these occasions his friend usually jogged aimfully along behind. Perhaps, though, he went ahead. This necessitated his turning around every quarter-minute to make sure the child was coming. He was filled with a large idea of the importance of these journeys. He would carry himself with such an air! He was proud to be the retainer of so great a monarch. One day, however, the father of the family got quite exceptionally drunk. He came home and held carnival with the cooking utensils, the furniture and his wife. He was in the midst of this recreation when the child, followed by the dark-brown dog, entered the room. They were returning from their voyages. The child's practised eye instantly noted his father's state. He dived under the table, where experience had taught him was a rather safe place. The dog, lacking skill in such matters, was, of course, unaware of the true condition of affairs. He looked with interested eyes at his friend's sudden dive. He interpreted it to mean: Joyous gambol. He started to patter across the floor to join him. He was the picture of a little dark-brown dog en route to a friend. The head of the family saw him at this moment. He gave a huge howl of joy, and knocked the dog down with a heavy coffee-pot. The dog, yelling in supreme astonishment and fear, writhed to his feet and ran for cover. The man kicked out with a ponderous foot. It caused the dog to swerve as if caught in a tide. A second blow of the coffee-pot laid him upon the floor. Here the child, uttering loud cries, came valiantly forth like a knight. The father of the family paid no attention to these calls of the child, but advanced with glee upon the dog. Upon being knocked down twice in swift succession, the latter apparently gave up all hope of escape. He rolled over on his back and held his paws in a peculiar manner. At the same time with his eyes and his ears he offered up a small prayer. But the father was in a mood for having fun, and it occurred to him that it would be a fine thing to throw the dog out of the window. So he reached down and grabbing the animal by a leg, lifted him, squirming, up. He swung him two or three times hilariously about his head, and then flung him with great accuracy through the window. The soaring dog created a surprise in the block. A woman watering plants in an opposite window gave an involuntary shout and dropped a flower-pot. A man in another window leaned perilously out to watch the flight of the dog. A woman, who had been hanging out clothes in a yard, began to caper wildly. Her mouth was filled with clothes-pins, but her arms gave vent to a sort of exclamation. In appearance she was like a gagged prisoner. Children ran whooping. The dark-brown body crashed in a heap on the roof of a shed five stories below. From thence it rolled to the pavement of an alleyway. The child in the room far above burst into a long, dirgelike cry, and toddled hastily out of the room. It took him a long time to reach the alley, because his size compelled him to go downstairs backward, one step at a time, and holding with both hands to the step above. When they came for him later, they found him seated by the body of his dark-brown friend. Copyright: this story is in the public domain and not protected by copyright.

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The Black Cat Edgar Allan Poe For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror - to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point - and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered. Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets. Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character - through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish - even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck. When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place. One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before. I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife. For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence. What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures. With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly - let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own - that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous - of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS! - oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death! And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - incumbent eternally upon my heart! Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers. One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan. This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims. For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain." My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul! The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured. Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness. "Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb! Copyright: this story is in the public domain and not protected by copyright.

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References

Conde Nast Traveller. October 2011.

Escott John London OUP Oxford 2008.

Hornby A. S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, 7th edition, OUP Oxford, 2005.

O’Driscoll James Britain Publisher: OUP Oxford; 2nd edition 2009.

Rendell Ruth Tigerlily’s Orchids Arrow Books, London, 2011.

Wasielewska Agata Longman Essential Activator Pearson Education Limited 2007.

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