Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you donât realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Silas Marner by George Eliot (popular books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: George Eliot
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Yes, there was a sort of refuge which always comes with the prostration of thought under an overpowering passion: it was that expectation of impossibilities, that belief in contradictory images, which is still distinct from madness, because it is capable of being dissipated by the external fact. Silas got up from his knees trembling, and looked round at the table: didnât the gold lie there after all? The table was bare. Then he turned and looked behind himâlooked all round his dwelling, seeming to strain his brown eyes after some possible appearance of the bags where he had already sought them in vain. He could see every object in his cottageâ
and his gold was not there.
Again he put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild ringing scream, the cry of desolation. For a few moments after, he stood motionless; but the cry had relieved him from the first maddening pressure of the truth. He turned, and tottered towards his loom, and got into the seat where he worked, instinctively seeking this as the strongest assurance of reality.
And now that all the false hopes had vanished, and the first shock of certainty was past, the idea of a thief began to present itself, and he entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made to restore the gold. The thought brought some new strength with it, and he started from his loom to the door. As he opened it the rain beat in upon him, for it was falling more and more heavily.
There were no footsteps to be tracked on such a nightâfootsteps?
When had the thief come? During Silasâs absence in the daytime the door had been locked, and there had been no marks of any inroad on his return by daylight. And in the evening, too, he said to himself, everything was the same as when he had left it. The sand and bricks looked as if they had not been moved. Was it a thief who had taken the bags? or was it a cruel power that no hands could reach, which had delighted in making him a second time desolate? He shrank from this vaguer dread, and fixed his mind with struggling effort on the robber with hands, who could be reached by hands. His thoughts glanced at all the neighbours who had made any remarks, or asked any questions which he might now regard as a ground of suspicion. There was Jem Rodney, a known poacher, and otherwise disreputable: he had often met Marner in his journeys across the fields, and had said something jestingly about the weaverâs money; nay, he had once irritated Marner, by lingering at the fire when he called to light his pipe, instead of going about his business. Jem Rodney was the manâthere was ease in the thought. Jem could be found and made to restore the money: Marner did not want to punish him, but only to get back his gold which had gone from him, and left his soul like a forlorn traveller on an unknown desert. The robber must be laid hold of. Marnerâs ideas of legal authority were confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss; and the great people in the villageâthe clergyman, the constable, and Squire Cassâwould make Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up the stolen money. He rushed out in the rain, under the stimulus of this hope, forgetting to cover his head, not caring to fasten his door; for he felt as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, till want of breath compelled him to slacken his pace as he was entering the village at the turning close to the Rainbow.
The Rainbow, in Marnerâs view, was a place of luxurious resort for rich and stout husbands, whose wives had superfluous stores of linen; it was the place where he was likely to find the powers and dignities of Raveloe, and where he could most speedily make his loss public. He lifted the latch, and turned into the bright bar or kitchen on the right hand, where the less lofty customers of the house were in the habit of assembling, the parlour on the left being reserved for the more select society in which Squire Cass frequently enjoyed the double pleasure of conviviality and condescension. But the parlour was dark to-night, the chief personages who ornamented its circle being all at Mrs. Osgoodâs birthday dance, as Godfrey Cass was. And in consequence of this, the party on the high-screened seats in the kitchen was more numerous than usual; several personages, who would otherwise have been admitted into the parlour and enlarged the opportunity of hectoring and condescension for their betters, being content this evening to vary their enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-water where they could themselves hector and condescend in company that called for beer.
The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with embarrassing sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences as those of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcherâ
âSome folks âud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, Bob?â
The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed to answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat and replied, âAnd they wouldnât be fur wrong, John.â
After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely as before.
âWas it a red Durham?â said the farrier, taking up the thread of discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.
The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of answering.
âRed it was,â said the butcher, in his good-humoured husky trebleâ
âand a Durham it was.â
âThen you neednât tell me who you bought it of,â said the farrier, looking round with some triumph; âI know who it is has got the red Durhams oâ this country-side. And sheâd a white star on her brow, Iâll bet a penny?â The farrier leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly.
âWell; yesâshe might,â said the butcher, slowly, considering that he was giving a decided affirmative. âI donât say contrairy.â
âI knew that very well,â said the farrier, throwing himself backward again, and speaking defiantly; âif I donât know Mr. Lammeterâs cows, I should like to know who doesâthatâs all.
And as for the cow youâve bought, bargain or no bargain, Iâve been at the drenching of herâcontradick me who will.â
The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcherâs conversational spirit was roused a little.
âIâm not for contradicking no man,â he said; âIâm for peace and quietness. Some are for cutting long ribsâIâm for cutting âem short myself; but I donât quarrel with âem. All I say is, itâs a lovely carkissâand anybody as was reasonable, it âud bring tears into their eyes to look at it.â
âWell, itâs the cow as I drenched, whatever it is,â pursued the farrier, angrily; âand it was Mr. Lammeterâs cow, else you told a lie when you said it was a red Durham.â
âI tell no lies,â said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as before, âand I contradick noneânot if a man was to swear himself black: heâs no meat oâ mine, nor none oâ my bargains. All I say is, itâs a lovely carkiss. And what I say, Iâll stick to; but Iâll quarrel wiâ no man.â
âNo,â said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company generally; âand pârhaps you arenât pig-headed; and pârhaps you didnât say the cow was a red Durham; and pârhaps you didnât say sheâd got a star on her browâstick to that, now youâre at it.â
âCome, come,â said the landlord; âlet the cow alone. The truth lies atween you: youâre both right and both wrong, as I allays say.
And as for the cowâs being Mr. Lammeterâs, I say nothing to that; but this I say, as the Rainbowâs the Rainbow. And for the matter oâ
that, if the talk is to be oâ the Lammeters, you know the most upoâ that head, eh, Mr. Macey? You remember when first Mr. Lammeterâs father come into these parts, and took the Warrens?â
Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlordâs appeal, and saidâ
âAye, aye; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. Iâve laid by now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at Tarley: theyâve learnt pernouncing; thatâs come up since my day.â
âIf youâre pointing at me, Mr. Macey,â said the deputy clerk, with an air of anxious propriety, âIâm nowise a man to speak out of my place. As the psalm saysâ
âI know whatâs right, nor only so,
But also practise what I know.ââ
âWell, then, I wish youâd keep hold oâ the tune, when itâs set for you; if youâre for prac_tis_ing, I wish youâd prac_tise_ that,â
said a large jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his weekday capacity, but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of the company, who were known officially as the âbassoonâ and the âkey-bugleâ, in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the musical profession in Raveloe.
Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to deputies, turned very red, but replied, with careful moderationâ
âMr. Winthrop, if youâll bring me any proof as Iâm in the wrong, Iâm not the man to say I wonât alter. But thereâs people set up their own ears for a standard, and expect the whole choir to follow âem. There may be two opinions, I hope.â
âAye, aye,â said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this attack on youthful presumption; âyouâre right there, Tookey: thereâs allays two âpinions; thereâs the âpinion a man has of himsen, and thereâs the âpinion other folks have on him. Thereâd be two âpinions about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself.â
âWell, Mr. Macey,â said poor Tookey, serious amidst the general laughter, âI undertook to partially fill up the office of parish-clerk by Mr. Crackenthorpâs desire, whenever your infirmities should make you unfitting; and itâs one of the rights thereof to sing in the choirâelse why have you done the same yourself?â
âAh! but the old gentleman and you are two folks,â said Ben Winthrop. âThe old gentlemanâs got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to take a glass, only to hear him sing the âRed Rovierâ; didnât he, Mr. Macey? Itâs a natâral gift. Thereâs my little lad Aaron, heâs got a giftâhe can sing a tune off straight, like a throstle.
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