The LISTENER AND OTHER STORIES. By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD F.W. von Junzt Dusseldorf - Stregoicavar - Corvallis Bibliothekspreße Published 2016 by F.W. von Junzt Bibliothekspreße New material, book design, and layout copyright ©2016 by F.W. von Junzt Bibliothekspreße, with the exceptions noted below: Copyright protections on The Listener and Other Stories have expired worldwide. In the spirit of good stewardship of the public domain, no copyright claim is made over any of Algernon Blackwood's original text as presented in this book, including any and all corrections and style changes made to the original text. Original edition published in 1917 by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 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The Listener (Audiobook Chapter 2)............... 3 Whether you’re here checking it out to see if you might want to Max Hensig: Bacteriologist and Murderer own a copy, or doing a quick search, or even retrieving a clean digital (Audiobook Chapter 3-6)..................... 43 copy of the story for a project of your own — welcome! The Willows (Audiobook Chapter 7-11)......... 117 But, of course, PDF is hardly the most convenient format in The Insanity of Jones (Audiobook Chapter 12-14) . 193 which to read a book. Here are a few other options, followed by a The Dance of Death (Audiobook Chapter 15) .... 233 link to follow for more information: The Old Man of Visions • 51/2-by-81/2 cloth-bound hardcover with dustjacket; (Audiobook Chapter 16-18) ................... 249 • Pocket-size softcover; May Day Eve (Audiobook Chapter 19-23)........ 265 • E-book in EPUB and Kindle formats; Miss Slumbubble — and Claustrophobia • Audiobook (8 hours). (Audiobook Chapter 24) . 303 To learn more about these other formats, please click here to go The Woman’s Ghost Story to the Listener Book Support Page at http://pulp-lit.com/600. (Audiobook Chapter 25) . 325 html. Thank you for reading our books! ix The LISTENER AND OTHER STORIES. [ return to table of contents ] The LISTENER. eptember 4. — I have hunted all over London for rooms suited to my income — £120 a year — and have at last found them. Two rooms, without Smodern conveniences, it is true, and in an old, ramshackle building, but within a stone’s throw of P — Place and in an eminently respectable street. The rent is only £25 a year. I had begun to despair when at last I found them by chance. The chance was a mere chance, and unworthy of record. I had to sign a lease for a year, and I did so willingly. The furniture from our old place in Hampshire, which has been stored so long, will just suit them. October 1. — Here I am in my two rooms, in the centre of London, and not far from the offices of the 3 4 ALGERNON BLACKWOOD The LISTENER 5 periodicals, where occasionally I dispose of an article or far is reasonable. Milk and sugar 7d., bread 6d., butter 8d., two. The building is at the end of a cul-de-sac. The alley is marmalade 6d., eggs 1s. 8d., laundress 2s. 9d., oil 6d., atten- well paved and clean, and lined chiefly with the backs of dance 5s.; total 12s. 2d. sedate and institutional-looking buildings. There is a stable The landlady has a son who, she told me, is “somethink in it. My own house is dignified with the title of “Chambers.” on a homnibus.” He comes occasionally to see her. I think I feel as if one day the honour must prove too much for it, he drinks, for he talks very loud, regardless of the hour of and it will swell with pride — and fall asunder. It is very the day or night, and tumbles about over the furniture old. The floor of my sitting-room has valleys and low hills downstairs. on it, and the top of the door slants away from the ceiling All the morning I sit indoors writing — articles; verses with a glorious disregard of what is usual. They must have for the comic papers; a novel I’ve been “at” for three years, quarrelled — fifty years ago — and have been going apart and concerning which I have dreams; a children’s book, in ever since. which the imagination has free rein; and another book which is to last as long as myself, since it is an honest record October 2. — My landlady is old and thin, with a of my soul’s advance or retreat in the struggle of life. Besides faded, dusty face. She is uncommunicative. The few words these, I keep a book of poems which I use as a safety valve, she utters seem to cost her pain. Probably her lungs are half and concerning which I have no dreams whatsoever. choked with dust. She keeps my rooms as free from this Between the lot I am always occupied. In the afternoons commodity as possible, and has the assistance of a strong I generally try to take a walk for my health’s sake, through girl who brings up the breakfast and lights the fire. As I Regent’s Park, into Kensington Gardens, or farther afield have said already, she is not communicative. In reply to to Hampstead Heath. pleasant efforts on my part she informed me briefly that I was the only occupant of the house at present. My rooms October 10. — Everything went wrong to-day. I have had not been occupied for some years. There had been other two eggs for breakfast. This morning one of them was bad. gentlemen upstairs, but they had left. I rang the bell for Emily. When she came in I was reading She never looks straight at me when she speaks, but the paper, and, without looking up, I said, “Egg’s bad.” fixes her dim eyes on my middle waistcoat button, till I get “Oh, is it, sir?” she said; “I’ll get another one,” and went nervous and begin to think it isn’t on straight, or is the out, taking the egg with her. I waited my breakfast for her wrong sort of button altogether. return, which was in five minutes. She put the new egg on the table and went away. But, when I looked down, I saw October 8. — My week’s book is nicely kept, and so that she had taken away the good egg and left the bad 6 ALGERNON BLACKWOOD The LISTENER 7 one — all green and yellow — in the slop basin. I rang again. next gust of wind and repeat their impertinence. On the “You’ve taken the wrong egg,” I said. other side of my room a single square window opens into a “Oh!” she exclaimed; “I thought the one I took down sort of shaft, or well, that measures about six feet across to didn’t smell so very bad.” In due time she returned with the the back wall of another house. Down this funnel the wind good egg, and I resumed my breakfast with two eggs, but dropped, and puffed and shouted. Such noises I never heard less appetite. It was all very trivial, to be sure, but so stupid before. Between these two entertainments I sat over the fire that I felt annoyed. The character of that egg influenced in a great-coat, listening to the deep booming in the chimney. everything I did. I wrote a bad article, and tore it up. I got It was like being in a ship at sea, and I almost looked for a bad headache. I used bad words — to myself. Everything the floor to rise in undulations and rock to and fro. was bad, so I “chucked” work and went for a long walk. I dined at a cheap chop-house on my way back, and October 12. — I wish I were not quite so lonely — and reached home about nine o’clock. so poor. And yet I love both my loneliness and my poverty. Rain was just beginning to fall as I came in, and the The former makes me appreciate the companionship of wind was rising.