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00:00Gates of Imagination presents The Door in the Wall by Herbert George Wells. Read by Arthur Lane.
00:12Chapter 1. One confidential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace told me this story
00:19of the door in the wall, and at the time I thought that so far as he was concerned it was a true story.
00:24He told it me with such a direct simplicity of conviction that I could not do otherwise than
00:30believe in him. But in the morning, in my own flat, I woke to a different atmosphere,
00:37and as I lay in bed and recalled the things he had told me, stripped of the glamour of his earnest,
00:43slow voice, denuded of the focused, shaded table light, the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped about
00:49him and the pleasant, bright things, the dessert and glasses and napery of the dinner we had shared,
00:55making them, for the time, a bright little world quite cut off from everyday realities.
01:01I saw it all as frankly incredible. He was mystifying, I said, and then, how well he did it!
01:09It isn't quite the thing I should have expected him, of all people, to do well.
01:13Afterwards, as I sat up in bed and sipped my morning tea, I found myself trying to account
01:20for the flavour of reality that perplexed me in his impossible reminiscences, by supposing
01:25they did in some way suggest, present, convey. I hardly know which word to use. Experiences it
01:33was otherwise impossible to tell. Well, I don't resort to that explanation now. I have got over
01:39my intervening doubts. I believe now, as I believed at the moment of telling, that Wallace did,
01:46to the very best of his ability, strip the truth of his secret for me. But whether he himself saw,
01:53or only thought he saw, whether he himself was the possessor of an inestimable privilege,
02:00or the victim of a fantastic dream, I cannot pretend to guess. Even the facts of his death,
02:07which ended my doubts forever, throw no light on that. That much the reader must judge for himself.
02:14I forget now what chance, comment, or criticism of mine moved so reticent a man to confide in me.
02:20He was, I think, defending himself against an imputation of slackness and unreliability I had
02:25made in relation to a great public movement in which he had disappointed me. But he plunged suddenly.
02:32I have, he said, a preoccupation. I know, he went on after a pause that he devoted to the study of
02:40his cigar ash. I have been negligent. The fact is, it isn't a case of ghosts or apparitions, but…
02:48It's an odd thing to tell of, Redmond. I am haunted. I am haunted by something.
02:54That rather takes the light out of things. That fills me with longings. He paused,
03:01checked by that English shyness that so often overcomes us when we would speak of moving or
03:06grave or beautiful things. You were at St Athelstan's all through, he said. And for a moment that seemed
03:14to me quite irrelevant. Well, and he paused. Then very haltingly at first, but afterwards more easily.
03:23He began to tell of the thing that was hidden in his life. The haunting memory of a beauty and a
03:29happiness that filled his heart with insatiable longings that made all the interests and spectacle
03:36of worldly life seem dull and tedious and vain to him. Now that I have the clue to it,
03:42the thing seems written visibly in his face. I have a photograph in which that look of detachment
03:49has been caught and intensified. It reminds me of what a woman once said of him. A woman who had
03:56loved him greatly. Suddenly, she said, the interest goes out of him. He forgets you. He doesn't care a
04:04rap for you under his very nose. Yet the interest was not always out of him. And when he was holding his
04:11attention to a thing, Wallace could contrive to be an extremely successful man. His career, indeed,
04:18is set with successes. He left me behind him long ago. He soared up over my head and cut a figure in
04:25the world that I couldn't cut. Anyhow, he was still a year short of forty, and they say now that he would
04:31have been in office and very probably in the new cabinet if he had lived. At school he always beat me
04:37without effort, as it were by nature. We were at school together at St Athelstan's College in West
04:43Kensington for almost all our school time. He came into the school as my co-equal, but he left far
04:49above me, in a blaze of scholarships and brilliant performance. Yet I think I made a fair average
04:55running. And it was at school I heard first of the door in the wall, that I was to hear of a second
05:02time only a month before his death. To him at least the door in the wall was a real door leading
05:07through a real wall to immortal realities. Of that I'm now quite assured. And it came into his life
05:15early, when he was a little fellow between five and six. I remember how, as he sat making his
05:20confession to me with a slow gravity, he reasoned and reckoned the date of it. There was, he said,
05:28a crimson Virginia creeper in it. All one bright uniform crimson in a clear amber sunshine against
05:35a white wall. That came into the impression somehow, though I don't clearly remember how.
05:41And there were horse chestnut leaves upon the clean pavement outside the green door.
05:46They were blotched yellow and green, you know, not brown nor dirty, so that they must have been
05:51new fallen. I take it that means October. I look out for horse chestnut leaves every year.
05:58And I ought to know. If I'm right in that, I was about five years and four months old.
06:05He was, he said, rather a precocious little boy. He learned to talk at an abnormally early age.
06:11And he was so sane and old-fashioned, as people say, that he was permitted an amount of initiative
06:17that most children scarcely attain by seven or eight.
06:20His mother died when he was born, and he was under the less vigilant and authoritative care
06:27of a nursery governess. His father was a stern, preoccupied lawyer, who gave him little attention
06:35and expected great things of him. For all his brightness he found life a little grey and dull,
06:41I think. And one day he wandered. He could not recall the particular neglect that enabled him to get away,
06:48nor the course he took among the West Kensington roads. All that had faded among the incurable blurs of
06:55memory. But the white wall and the green door stood out quite distinctly. As his memory of that remote
07:02childish experience ran, he did at the very first sight of that door experience a peculiar emotion,
07:08an attraction, a desire to get to the door and open it, and walk in. And at the same time he had
07:15the clearest conviction that either it was unwise or it was wrong of him, he could not tell which,
07:20to yield to this attraction. He insisted upon it as a curious thing that he knew from the very beginning,
07:26unless memory has played him the queerest trick, that the door was unfastened, and that he could
07:34go in as he chose. I seemed to see the figure of that little boy, drawn and repelled, and it was
07:41very clear in his mind too, though why it should be so was never explained, that his father would be
07:47very angry if he went through that door. Wallace described all these moments of hesitation to me with
07:54the utmost particularity. He went right past the door, and then, with his hands in his pockets and
08:01making an infantile attempt to whistle, strolled right along beyond the end of the wall. There he
08:07recalls a number of mean, dirty shops, and particularly that of a plumber and decorator, with a dusty
08:14disorder of earthenware pipes, sheet-lead ball taps, patterned books of wallpaper, and tins of enamel.
08:21He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting, passionately desiring the green door.
08:29Then, he said, he had a gust of emotion. He made a run for it, lest hesitation should grip him again,
08:35he went plump with outstretched hand through the green door, and let it slam behind him. And so, in a
08:42trice, he came into the garden that has haunted all his life. It was very difficult for Wallace to give me
08:49his full sense of that garden into which he came. There was something in the very air of it that
08:54exhilarated, that gave one a sense of lightness and good happening and well-being. There was something in
09:02the sight of it that made all its colour clean and perfect and subtly luminous. In the instant of coming
09:09into it, one was exquisitely glad, as only in rare moments, and when one is young and joyful,
09:15one can be glad in this world. And everything was beautiful there,
09:20Wallace mused, before he went on telling me. You see, he said, with the doubtful inflection of a
09:27man who pauses at incredible things. There were two great panthers there. Yes, spotted panthers,
09:35and I was not afraid. There was a long wide path with marble-edged flower borders on either side,
09:42and these two huge velvety beasts were playing there with a ball.
09:47One looked up and came towards me, a little curious as it seemed. It came right up to me,
09:54rubbed its soft round ear very gently against the small hand I held out and purred.
09:59It was, I tell you, an enchanted garden. I know. And the size? Oh, it stretched far and wide,
10:06this way and that. I believe there were hills far away. Heaven knows where West Kensington had
10:12suddenly got to. And somehow, it was just like coming home.
10:20You know, in the very moment the door swung to behind me, I forgot the road with its fallen
10:26chestnut leaves, its cabs and tradesmen's carts. I forgot the sort of gravitational pull back to the
10:33discipline and obedience of home. I forgot all hesitations and fear, forgot discretion,
10:39forgot all the intimate realities of this life. I became, in a moment, a very glad and wonder-happy
10:47little boy in another world. It was a world with a different quality, a warmer, more penetrating
10:54and mellower light, with a faint clear gladness in its air, and wisps of sun-touched cloud in the
11:01blueness of its sky. And before me ran this long, wide path, invitingly, with weedless beds on either
11:09side, rich with untended flowers, and these two great panthers. I put my little hands fearlessly on
11:16their soft fur, and caressed their round ears, and the sensitive corners under their ears, and played
11:24with them. And it was as though they welcomed me home. There was a keen sense of homecoming in my mind, and when presently
11:33a tall, fair girl appeared in the pathway, and came to meet me, smiling, and said,
11:38well, to me, and lifted me, and kissed me, and put me down, and led me by the hand. There was no amazement,
11:49but only an impression of delightful rightness, of being reminded of happy things that had in some
11:56strange way been overlooked. There were broad steps, I remember, that came into view between
12:02spikes of delphinium, and up these we went to a great avenue between very old and shady dark trees.
12:10All down this avenue, you know, between the red chapped stems, were marble seats of honour and
12:16stature, and very tame and friendly white doves. And along this avenue my girlfriend led me,
12:23looking down. I recall the pleasant lines, the finely modelled chin of her sweet kind face,
12:29asking me questions in a soft, agreeable voice, and telling me things, pleasant things I know,
12:35though what they were I was never able to recall. And presently, a little capuchin monkey,
12:41very clean, with a fur of ruddy brown and kindly hazel eyes, came down a tree to us, and ran beside
12:47me, looking up at me and grinning, and presently leapt to my shoulder. So we went on our way in great
12:53happiness. He paused. Go on, I said. I remember little things. We passed an old man, musing among
13:01laurels, I remember, and a place gay with parroquets, and came through a broad shaded colonnade, to a
13:09spacious cool palace, full of pleasant fountains, full of beautiful things, full of the quality and
13:16promise of heart's desire. And there were many things and many people, some that still seem to
13:23stand out clearly, and some that are a little vague. But all these people were beautiful and kind.
13:29In some way, I don't know how, it was conveyed to me that they all were kind to me, glad to have me
13:37there, and filling me with gladness by their gestures, by the touch of their hands, by the
13:43welcome and love in their eyes. Yes. He mused for a while. Playmates I found there. That was very much
13:53to me. Because I was a lonely little boy. They played delightful games in a grass-covered court
13:59where there was a sundial set about with flowers. And as one played, one loved. But it's odd. There's
14:08a gap in my memory. I don't remember the games we played. I never remembered. Afterwards, as a child,
14:15I spent long hours trying, even with tears, to recall the form of that happiness. I wanted to play it all
14:22over again, in my nursery, by myself. No. All I remember is the happiness and two dear
14:29playfellows who were most with me. Then presently came a sombre dark woman, with a grave, pale face
14:35and dreamy eyes. A sombre woman wearing a soft long robe of pale purple, who carried a book and
14:41beckoned and took me aside with her into a gallery above a hall, though my playmates were loath to have
14:47me go, and ceased their game, and stood watching as I was carried away. Come back to us, they cried.
14:55Come back to us soon. I looked up at her face, but she heeded them not at all. Her face was very
15:03gentle and grave. She took me to a seat in the gallery, and I stood beside her, ready to look at
15:10her book as she opened it upon her knee. The pages fell open. She pointed, and I looked,
15:17marvelling, for in the living pages of that book I saw myself. It was a story about myself,
15:24and in it were all the things that had happened to me since ever I was born.
15:30It was wonderful to me because the pages of that book were not pictures you understand,
15:34but realities. Wallace paused gravely, looked at me doubtfully. Go on, I said. I understand.
15:46They were realities. Yes, they must have been. People moved, and things came and went in them.
15:54My dear mother, whom I had near forgotten. Then my father, stern and upright. The servants,
16:00the nursery. All the familiar things of home. Then the front door, and the busy streets,
16:07with traffic to and fro. I looked and marvelled, and looked half doubtfully again into the woman's
16:13face, and turned the pages over, skipping this and that, to see more of this book, and more.
16:21And so at last I came to myself hovering and hesitating outside the green door in the long
16:25white wall, and felt again the conflict and the fear. And next I cried, and would have turned on,
16:34but the cool hand of the grave woman delayed me. Next, I insisted, and struggled gently with her hand,
16:43pulling up her fingers with all my childish strength, and as she yielded and the page came
16:48over she bent down upon me like a shadow and kissed my brow. But the page did not show the enchanted
16:55garden, nor the panthers, nor the girl who had led me by the hand, nor the playfellows who had been so
17:00loth to let me go. It showed a long grey street in West Kensington, on that chill hour of afternoon
17:06before the lamps are lit. And I was there, a wretched little figure, weeping aloud, for all that I could
17:14do to restrain myself. And I was weeping because I could not return to my dear playfellows who had
17:19called after me. Come back to us. Come back to us soon. I was there. This was no page in a book,
17:28but harsh reality. That enchanted place and the restraining hand of the grave mother, at whose knee
17:34I stood, had gone. Whither have they gone? He halted again and remained for a time staring into the fire.
17:42Oh, the wretchedness of that return, he murmured. Well, I said after a minute or so. Poor little
17:52wretch I was, brought back to this grey world again. As I realised the fullness of what had
17:58happened to me, I gave way to quite ungovernable grief. And the shame and humiliation of that public
18:04weeping and my disgraceful homecoming remain with me still. I see again the benevolent-looking
18:10old gentleman in gold spectacles who stopped and spoke to me, prodding me first with his umbrella.
18:17Poor little chap, said he. And are you lost then? And me, a London boy of five and more.
18:24And he must needs bring in a kindly young policeman and make a crowd of me, and so march me home.
18:31Sobbing, conspicuous and frightened, I came from the enchanted garden to the steps of my father's house.
18:37That is as well as I can remember my vision of that garden, the garden that haunts me still.
18:44Of course, I can convey nothing of that indescribable quality of translucent unreality,
18:50that difference from the common things of experience that hung about it all. But that,
18:55that is what happened. If it was a dream, I am sure it was a daytime, an altogether extraordinary dream.
19:02Hmm. Naturally there followed a terrible questioning, by my aunt, my father, the nurse,
19:10the governess, everyone. I tried to tell them, and my father gave me my first thrashing for telling lies.
19:19When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished me again for my wicked persistence.
19:24Then, as I said, everyone was forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word about it. Even my fairy tale books
19:31were taken away from me for a time, because I was too imaginative. Eh? Yes, they did that.
19:40My father belonged to the old school, and my story was driven back upon myself.
19:45I whispered it to my pillow, my pillow that was often damp and salt to my whispering lips with childish
19:52tears. And I added always to my official and less fervent prayers this one heartfelt request.
20:00Please God, I may dream of the garden. Oh, take me back to my garden. Take me back to my garden.
20:07I dreamt often of the garden. I may have added to it, I may have changed it, I do not know.
20:13All this, you understand, is an attempt to reconstruct from fragmentary memories a very early experience.
20:21Between that and the other consecutive memories of my boyhood, there is a gulf.
20:27A time came when it seemed impossible I should ever speak of that wonder glimpse again.
20:33I asked an obvious question. No, he said. I don't remember that I ever attempted to find my way back
20:41to the garden in those early years. This seems odd to me now, but I think that very probably,
20:47a closer watch was kept on my movements after this misadventure to prevent my going astray.
20:53No, it wasn't until you knew me that I tried for the garden again. And I believe there was a period,
20:59incredible as it seems now, when I forgot the garden altogether. When I was about eight or nine,
21:06it may have been. Do you remember me as a kid at St Athelstan's?
21:11Rather, I didn't show any signs, did I, in those days of having a secret dream?
21:20Chapter Two
21:20He looked up with a sudden smile.
21:24Did you ever play Northwest Passage with me?
21:27No, of course you didn't come my way.
21:29It was the sort of game, he went on, that every imaginative child plays all day.
21:35The idea was the discovery of a Northwest Passage to school.
21:40The way to school was plain enough. The game consisted in finding some way that wasn't plain,
21:46starting off ten minutes early in some almost hopeless direction,
21:49and working one's way round through unaccustomed streets to my goal.
21:52And one day I got entangled among some rather low-class streets on the other side of Campton Hill,
21:59and I began to think that for once the game would be against me,
22:03and that I should get to school late.
22:06I tried rather desperately a street that seemed a cul-de-sac,
22:09and found a passage at the end.
22:11I hurried through that with renewed hope.
22:14I shall do it yet, I said,
22:17and passed a row of frowsy little shops that were inexplicably familiar to me,
22:20and behold, there was my long white wall and the green door that led to the enchanted garden.
22:26The thing whacked upon me suddenly.
22:29Then, after all, that garden, that wonderful garden, wasn't a dream.
22:33He paused.
22:34I suppose my second experience with the green door marks the world of difference there
22:40is between the busy life of a schoolboy and the infinite leisure of a child.
22:45Anyhow, this second time,
22:47I didn't for a moment think of going in straight away.
22:51You see, for one thing my mind was full of the idea of getting to school in time,
22:57set on not breaking my record for punctuality.
23:00I must surely have felt some little desire at least to try the door,
23:03yes, I must have felt that.
23:05But I seem to remember the attraction of the door,
23:07mainly as another obstacle to my over-mastering determination to get to school.
23:11I was immediately interested by this discovery I'd made, of course.
23:16I went on with my mind full of it, but I went on.
23:18It didn't check me.
23:20I ran past, tugging out my watch, found I had ten minutes still to spare,
23:23and then I was going downhill into familiar surroundings.
23:26I got to school, breathless, it is true, and wet with perspiration.
23:29But in time.
23:32I can remember hanging up my coat and hat, went right by it, and left it behind me.
23:37Odd, eh?
23:39He looked at me thoughtfully.
23:41Of course.
23:42I didn't know then that it wouldn't always be there.
23:46Schoolboys have limited imaginations.
23:48I suppose I thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my way back to it.
23:53But there was the school tugging at me.
23:56I expect I was a good deal distraught and inattentive that morning,
24:01recalling what I could of the beautiful, strange people I should presently see again.
24:06Oddly enough, I had no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me.
24:10Yes, I must have thought of the garden that morning just as a jolly sort of place
24:15to which one might resort in the interludes of a strenuous, scholastic career.
24:20I didn't go that day at all.
24:22The next day was a half-holiday, and that may have weighed with me.
24:27Perhaps, too, my state of inattention brought down impositions upon me
24:31and docked the margin of time necessary for the detour.
24:34I don't know.
24:37What I do know is that in the meantime the enchanted garden was so much upon my mind
24:42that I could not keep it to myself.
24:43I told what was his name, a ferretty-looking youngster we used to call Squiff.
24:51Young Hopkins, said I.
24:53Hopkins it was.
24:54I did not like telling him.
24:57I had a feeling that in some way it was against the rules to tell him, but I did.
25:01He was walking part of the way home with me.
25:04He was talkative.
25:05And if we had not talked about the enchanted garden,
25:08we should have talked of something else.
25:09And it was intolerable to me to think about any other subject.
25:14So I blabbed.
25:16Well, he told my secret.
25:19The next day in the play interval,
25:21I found myself surrounded by half a dozen bigger boys,
25:24half-teasing and wholly curious to hear more of the enchanted garden.
25:28There was that big faucet.
25:31You remember him?
25:32And Carnaby and Morley Reynolds?
25:35You weren't there by any chance?
25:37No.
25:38I think I should have remembered if you were.
25:41A boy is a creature of odd feelings.
25:44I was, I really believe, in spite of my secret self-disgust,
25:48a little flattered to have the attention of these big fellows.
25:51I remember particularly a moment of pleasure
25:54caused by the praise of Crawshaw.
25:57You remember Crawshaw Major,
25:59the son of Crawshaw the composer,
26:01who said it was the best lie he had ever heard.
26:04But at the same time,
26:05there was a really painful undertow of shame
26:07at telling what I felt was indeed a sacred secret.
26:11That beast faucet made a joke about the girl in green.
26:17Wallace's voice sank with the keen memory of that shame.
26:20I pretended not to hear, he said.
26:25Well then, Carnaby suddenly called me a young liar
26:27and disputed with me when I said the thing was true.
26:31I said I knew where to find the green door,
26:34could lead them all there in ten minutes.
26:37Carnaby became outrageously virtuous
26:39and said I'd have to,
26:41and bear out my words or suffer.
26:43Did you ever have Carnaby twist your arm?
26:47Then perhaps you'll understand how it went with me.
26:50I swore my story was true.
26:52There was nobody in the school then
26:54to save a chap from Carnaby,
26:55though Crawshaw put in a word or so.
26:58Carnaby had got his game.
27:00I grew excited and red-eared,
27:02and a little frightened.
27:04I behaved altogether like a silly little chap.
27:07And the outcome of it all
27:08was that instead of starting alone
27:10for my enchanted garden,
27:12I led the way presently.
27:15Cheeks flushed, ears hot, eyes smarting,
27:18and my soul one burning misery and shame
27:21for a party of six mocking,
27:23curious and threatening schoolfellows.
27:25We never found the white wall
27:28and the green door.
27:30You mean?
27:31I mean I couldn't find it.
27:33I would have found it if I could.
27:35And afterwards,
27:36when I could go alone,
27:38I couldn't find it.
27:39I never found it.
27:41I seem now to have been
27:42always looking for it
27:43through my schoolboy days.
27:46But I've never come upon it again.
27:49Did the fellows
27:49make it disagreeable?
27:52Beastly.
27:53Carnaby held a council over me
27:55for wanton lying.
27:56I remember how I sneaked home
27:57and upstairs
27:58to hide the marks of my blubbering.
28:00But when I cried myself
28:01to sleep at last,
28:02it wasn't for Carnaby,
28:03but for the garden,
28:05for the beautiful afternoon
28:06I had hoped for,
28:07for the sweet friendly women
28:08and the waiting playfellows
28:10and the game I had hoped
28:11to learn again.
28:13That beautiful forgotten game.
28:15I believed firmly
28:16that if I had not told,
28:18I had bad times after that.
28:21Crying at night
28:22and wool-gathering by day.
28:24For two terms,
28:25I slackened
28:25and had bad reports.
28:27Do you remember?
28:28Of course you would.
28:30It was you.
28:31You're beating me
28:31in mathematics
28:32that brought me back
28:33to the grind again.
28:37Chapter 3
28:38For a time,
28:40my friend stared silently
28:42into the red heart
28:43of the fire.
28:44Then he said,
28:45I never saw it again
28:47until I was seventeen.
28:49It leapt upon me
28:50for the third time
28:51as I was driving
28:52to Paddington
28:53on my way to Oxford
28:54and a scholarship.
28:56I had just one
28:57momentary glimpse.
28:59I was leaning over
29:00the apron
29:00of my handsome
29:01smoking a cigarette
29:02and no doubt
29:03thinking myself
29:04no end
29:04of a man of the world
29:05and suddenly
29:07there was the door,
29:08the wall,
29:10the dear sense
29:10of unforgettable
29:11and still attainable things.
29:14We clattered by,
29:15I too taken by surprise
29:17to stop my cab
29:18until we were well past
29:19and round a corner.
29:21Then I had a queer moment,
29:23a double and divergent
29:24movement of my will.
29:26I tapped the little door
29:27in the roof of the cab
29:28and brought my arm down
29:30to pull out my watch.
29:32Yes, sir,
29:33said the cabman smartly.
29:35Er, well, it's nothing,
29:37I cried.
29:38My mistake.
29:40We haven't much time.
29:41Go on.
29:42And he went on.
29:44I got my scholarship
29:46and the night after
29:48I was told of that
29:48I sat over my fire
29:50in my little upper room,
29:51my study in my father's house
29:53with his praise,
29:55his rare praise
29:56and his sound counsels
29:58ringing in my ears
29:59and I smoked
30:00my favourite pipe,
30:02the formidable bulldog
30:03of adolescence
30:04and thought of that door
30:05in the long white wall.
30:07If I had stopped,
30:09I thought,
30:10I should have missed
30:11my scholarship,
30:12I should have missed Oxford,
30:13muddled all the fine career
30:15before me.
30:16I begin to see things better.
30:19I fell musing deeply,
30:21but I did not doubt then
30:23this career of mine
30:24was a thing
30:25that merited sacrifice.
30:27Those dear friends
30:28and that clear atmosphere
30:29seemed very sweet to me,
30:32very fine,
30:33but remote.
30:34My grip was fixing now
30:35upon the world.
30:37I saw another door opening,
30:39the door of my career.
30:40He stared again
30:42into the fire.
30:44Its red light
30:44picked out a stubborn strength
30:46in his face
30:46for just one flickering moment
30:48and then it vanished again.
30:51Well,
30:52he said and sighed,
30:53I have served that career.
30:56I have done much work,
30:58much hard work,
30:59but I have dreamt
31:00of the enchanted garden
31:01a thousand dreams
31:02and seen its door
31:04or at least glimpsed its door
31:06four times since then.
31:08Yes,
31:09four times.
31:11For a while this world
31:12was so bright and interesting,
31:14seemed so full of meaning
31:15and opportunity,
31:17that the half-effaced charm
31:18of the garden
31:19was by comparison
31:20gentle and remote.
31:22Who wants to pat panthers
31:24on the way to dinner
31:25with pretty women
31:26and distinguished men?
31:28I came down to London
31:29from Oxford,
31:31a man of bold promise
31:32that I have done something
31:33to redeem.
31:35Something,
31:35and yet there have been
31:37disappointments.
31:39Twice I have been in love.
31:41I will not dwell on that.
31:43But once,
31:44as I went to someone
31:45who, I knew,
31:46doubted whether I dared to come.
31:49I took a shortcut
31:50at a venture
31:51through an unfrequented road
31:52near Earl's Court
31:53and so happened
31:55on a white wall
31:56and a familiar green door.
31:58Odd,
31:59said I to myself,
32:00but I thought this place
32:02was on Campton Hill.
32:03It's the place
32:04I never could find somehow,
32:06like counting Stonehenge,
32:08the place of that
32:09queer daydream of mine,
32:11and I went by it
32:12intent upon my purpose.
32:14It had no appeal
32:15to me that afternoon.
32:17I had just a moment's impulse
32:19to try the door.
32:21Three steps aside
32:21were needed at the most,
32:23though I was sure enough
32:24in my heart
32:25that it would open to me.
32:27And then I thought
32:27that doing so
32:28might delay me
32:29on the way
32:29to that appointment
32:30in which I thought
32:31my honour was involved.
32:34Afterwards,
32:34I was sorry
32:35for my punctuality,
32:36might at least
32:37have peeped in,
32:38I thought,
32:38and waved a hand
32:39to those panthers.
32:41But I knew enough
32:42by this time
32:43not to seek again
32:44belatedly
32:44that which is not
32:45found by seeking.
32:48Yes,
32:49that time
32:50made me very sorry.
32:52Years of hard work
32:53after that
32:54and never a sight
32:55of the door.
32:56It's only recently
32:57it has come back to me.
32:59With it,
33:01there has come a sense
33:02as though some
33:02thin tarnish
33:03had spread itself
33:05over my world.
33:07I began to think
33:08of it as a sorrowful
33:09and bitter thing,
33:10that I should never
33:11see that door again.
33:13Perhaps I was suffering
33:14a little from overwork.
33:16Perhaps it was what
33:17I've heard spoken of
33:18as the feeling of forty.
33:20I don't know.
33:21But certainly
33:22the keen brightness
33:23that makes effort easy
33:24has gone out of things
33:25recently.
33:26And that just at a time
33:27with all these
33:28new political developments,
33:29when I ought to be working.
33:31Odd,
33:32isn't it?
33:33But I do begin
33:34to find life toilsome,
33:36its rewards
33:37as I come near them,
33:38cheap.
33:40I began a little while ago
33:41to want the garden
33:42quite badly.
33:43Yes,
33:44and I've seen it
33:45three times.
33:47The garden.
33:48No,
33:49the door.
33:50And I haven't gone in.
33:52He leant over the table
33:53to me
33:53with an enormous sorrow
33:55in his voice
33:56as he spoke.
33:57Thrice I have had
33:58my chance.
33:59Thrice.
34:01If ever that door
34:02offers itself to me again,
34:03I swore
34:04I will go in,
34:05out of this dust and heat,
34:07out of this dry glitter
34:08of vanity,
34:09out of these
34:10toilsome futilities.
34:11I will go
34:12and never return.
34:14This time
34:14I will stay.
34:16I swore it.
34:18And when the time came,
34:19I didn't go.
34:21Three times in one year
34:23have I passed that door
34:24and failed to enter.
34:25Three times
34:26in the last year.
34:29The first time
34:30was on the night
34:31of the Snatch Division
34:32on the Tenants' Redemption Bill
34:34on which the government
34:36was saved
34:37by a majority of three,
34:38you remember.
34:40No one on our side,
34:41perhaps very few
34:42on the opposite side,
34:44expected the end
34:45that night.
34:46Then the debate
34:47collapsed
34:48like eggshells.
34:50I and Hotchkiss
34:51were dining
34:51with his cousin
34:52at Brentford.
34:52We were both unpaired
34:54and we were called up
34:56by telephone
34:56and set off at once
34:58in his cousin's motor.
35:00We got in barely in time
35:01and on the way
35:02we passed my wall
35:03and door,
35:04livid in the moonlight,
35:05blotched with hot yellow
35:07as the glare
35:07of our lamps lit it,
35:09but unmistakable.
35:11My God!
35:12cried I.
35:14What?
35:15said Hotchkiss.
35:16Nothing,
35:17I answered,
35:18and the moment passed.
35:19I've made a great sacrifice,
35:21I told the whip
35:22as I got in.
35:23They all have,
35:24he said,
35:25and hurried by.
35:26I do not see
35:27how I could have done
35:28otherwise then,
35:29and the next occasion
35:30was as I rushed
35:31to my father's bedside
35:33to bid that stern
35:34old man farewell.
35:36Then too,
35:37the claims of life
35:38were imperative.
35:39But the third time
35:40was different.
35:42It happened a week ago.
35:44It fills me with
35:44hot remorse
35:45to recall it.
35:46I was with Gurkha
35:47and Ralphs.
35:49It's no secret now,
35:50you know,
35:50that I've had my talk
35:51with Gurkha.
35:53We had been dining
35:53at Frobisher's,
35:54and the talk had become
35:55intimate between us.
35:57The question of my place
35:59in the reconstructed ministry
36:00lay always just over
36:01the boundary
36:02of the discussion.
36:03Yes,
36:04yes,
36:05that's all settled.
36:06It needn't be talked
36:07about yet,
36:08but there's no reason
36:09to keep a secret from you.
36:11Yes,
36:12thanks,
36:13thanks.
36:14But let me tell you
36:15my story.
36:17Then,
36:17on that night,
36:18things were very much
36:19in the air.
36:21My position was a very
36:22delicate one.
36:23I was keenly anxious
36:24to get some definite word
36:25from Gurkha,
36:26but was hampered
36:27by Ralph's presence.
36:29I was using the best power
36:30of my brain
36:31to keep that light
36:32and careless talk
36:33not too obviously
36:34directed to the point
36:35that concerned me.
36:37I had to.
36:39Ralph's behaviour since
36:40has more than justified
36:41my caution.
36:44Ralph's I knew
36:44would leave us
36:45beyond the Kensington
36:46High Street.
36:47And then I could
36:48surprise Gurkha
36:49by a sudden frankness.
36:51One has sometimes
36:52to resort to
36:52these little devices.
36:54And then it was
36:55that in the margin
36:56of my field of vision
36:57I became aware
36:58once more
36:59of the white wall,
37:01the green door
37:02before us
37:02down the road.
37:04We passed it talking.
37:06I passed it.
37:08I can still see
37:09the shadow
37:09of Gurkha's
37:10marked profile,
37:11his opera hat
37:12tilted forward
37:13over his prominent nose,
37:14the many folds
37:16of his neck wrap
37:17going before my shadow
37:18and Ralph's
37:19as we sauntered past.
37:22I passed within
37:23twenty inches
37:23of the door.
37:25If I say goodnight
37:26to them
37:26and go in
37:27I asked myself
37:28what will happen
37:29and I was all a tingle
37:31for that word
37:31with Gurkha.
37:33I could not answer
37:34that question
37:35in the tangle
37:35of my other problems.
37:37They will think me mad
37:38I thought
37:39and suppose I vanish now.
37:42Amazing disappearance
37:43of a prominent politician.
37:45That weighed with me.
37:47A thousand
37:48inconceivably
37:49petty worldlinesses
37:50weighed with me
37:51in that crisis.
37:53Then he turned on me
37:55with a sorrowful smile
37:56and speaking slowly.
37:58Here I am,
38:00he said.
38:01Here I am,
38:02he repeated,
38:03and my chance
38:03has gone from me.
38:05Three times
38:06in one year
38:07the door
38:08has been offered me.
38:09The door
38:10that goes into peace,
38:11into delight,
38:12into a beauty
38:13beyond dreaming.
38:14A kindness
38:15no man on earth
38:17can know.
38:18And I have rejected it,
38:19Redmond,
38:20and it has gone.
38:21How do you know?
38:23I know.
38:24I know.
38:25I am left now
38:26to work it out,
38:27to stick to the tasks
38:28that held me so strongly
38:29when my moments came.
38:30You say I have success.
38:32This vulgar,
38:33tawdry,
38:34irksome,
38:35envied thing.
38:36I have it.
38:37He had a walnut
38:38in his big hand.
38:39If that was my success,
38:41he said,
38:42and crushed it
38:43and held it out
38:44for me to see.
38:45Let me tell you something,
38:47Redmond.
38:48This loss
38:48is destroying me.
38:51For two months,
38:52for ten weeks
38:53nearly now,
38:53I have done
38:54no work at all
38:55except the most necessary
38:57and urgent duties.
38:59My soul is full
39:00of inappeasable regrets.
39:03At nights,
39:04when it is less likely
39:05I shall be recognised,
39:06I go out.
39:08I wander.
39:10Yes,
39:10I wonder what people
39:11would think of that
39:12if they knew.
39:14A cabinet minister,
39:15the responsible head
39:16of that most vital
39:17of all departments,
39:19wandering alone,
39:20grieving,
39:21sometimes near audibly lamenting,
39:23for a door,
39:24for a garden.
39:27Chapter 4
39:28I can see now
39:30his rather pallid face
39:31and the unfamiliar
39:33sombre fire
39:34that had come
39:34into his eyes.
39:35I see him
39:37very vividly tonight.
39:38I sit recalling
39:39his words,
39:40his tones,
39:42and last evening's
39:43Westminster Gazette
39:44still lies on my sofa,
39:46containing the notice
39:47of his death.
39:48At lunch today,
39:49the club was busy
39:50with his death.
39:52We talked of nothing else.
39:54They found his body
39:54very early yesterday morning
39:56in a deep excavation
39:57near East Kensington Station.
40:00It is one of two shafts
40:01that have been made
40:02in connection
40:02with an extension
40:03of the railway southward.
40:05It is protected
40:06from the intrusion
40:07of the public
40:08by a hoarding
40:09upon the high road,
40:10in which a small doorway
40:11has been cut
40:12for the convenience
40:13of some of the workmen
40:14who live in that direction.
40:16The doorway was left
40:18unfastened
40:18through a misunderstanding
40:19between two gangers,
40:22and through it
40:22he made his way.
40:25My mind is darkened
40:26with questions and riddles.
40:28It would seem
40:29he walked all the way
40:30from the house
40:31that night.
40:32He has frequently
40:33walked home
40:34during the past session.
40:37And so it is,
40:37I figure,
40:38his dark form
40:39coming along
40:39the late and empty streets,
40:41wrapped up
40:42in tent.
40:44And then,
40:45did the pale electric lights
40:46near the station
40:47cheat the rough planking
40:49into a semblance
40:49of white?
40:51Did that fatal
40:52unfastened door
40:53awaken some memory?
40:55Was there,
40:56after all,
40:56ever any green door
40:57in the wall at all?
40:59I do not know.
41:01I have told his story
41:03as he told it to me.
41:05There are times
41:06when I believe
41:06that Wallace
41:07was no more than
41:08the victim
41:08of the coincidence
41:09between a rare
41:10but not unprecedented
41:12type of hallucination
41:13and a careless trap.
41:16But that,
41:16indeed,
41:17is not my profoundest belief.
41:19You may think me
41:20superstitious,
41:21if you will,
41:21and foolish,
41:22but, indeed,
41:23I am more than half convinced
41:24that he had,
41:25in truth,
41:26an abnormal gift
41:27and a sense something
41:28I know not what,
41:30that in the guise
41:31of wall and door
41:32offered him an outlet,
41:33a secret
41:34and peculiar
41:35passage of escape
41:36into another
41:36and altogether
41:37more beautiful world.
41:40At any rate,
41:40you will say,
41:41it betrayed him
41:42in the end.
41:44But did it betray him?
41:46There you touch
41:47the inmost mystery
41:48of these dreamers,
41:49these men of vision
41:50and the imagination.
41:52We see our world
41:53fair and common,
41:55the hoarding
41:56and the pit.
41:57By our daylight standard,
41:59he walked out of security
42:00into darkness,
42:02danger,
42:02and death.
42:04But did he see like that?
42:10Thank you for listening.
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