Short Fiction Edgar Allan Poe (books for men to read .txt) đ
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Book online «Short Fiction Edgar Allan Poe (books for men to read .txt) đ». Author Edgar Allan Poe
âWell I have been absent just one year.â âJust one year today, as I liveâ âlet me see! yes!â âthis is October the tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called, this day year to bid you goodbye. And by the way, it does seem something like a coincidence, does it notâ âthat our friend, Captain Smitherton, here, has been absent exactly a year alsoâ âa year today!â
SmithertonâYes! just one year to a fraction. You will remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, that I called with Capt. Pratol on this very day, last year, to pay my parting respects.â
UncleâYes, yes, yesâ âI remember it very wellâ âvery queer indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence, indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an extraordinary concurrence of events. Doctor Dubâ ââ
KateInterrupting. âTo be sure, papa, it is something strange; but then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didnât go altogether the same route, and that makes a difference, you know.â
UncleâI donât know any such thing, you hussy! How should I? I think it only makes the matter more remarkable, Doctor Dubble L. Deeâ ââ
KateâWhy, papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope.â
UncleâPrecisely!â âthe one went east and the other went west, you jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the by, Doctor Dubble L. Deeâ ââ
MyselfHurriedly. âCaptain Pratt, you must come and spend the evening with us tomorrowâ âyou and Smithertonâ âyou can tell us all about your voyage, and weâll have a game of whist andâ ââ
PrattâWist, my dear fellowâ âyou forget. Tomorrow will be Sunday. Some other eveningâ ââ
KateâOh, no, fie!â âRobertâs not quite so bad as that. Todayâs Sunday.â
PrattâI beg both your pardonsâ âbut I canât be so much mistaken. I know tomorrowâs Sunday, becauseâ ââ
SmithertonMuch surprised. âWhat are you all thinking about? Wasnât yesterday, Sunday, I should like to know?â
AllâYesterday indeed! you are out!â
UncleâTodayâs Sunday, I sayâ âdonât I know?â
PrattâOh no!â âtomorrowâs Sunday.â
SmithertonâYou are all madâ âevery one of you. I am as positive that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I sit upon this chair.â
KateJumping up eagerly. âI see itâ âI see it all. Papa, this is a judgment upon you, aboutâ âabout you know what. Let me alone, and Iâll explain it all in a minute. Itâs a very simple thing, indeed. Captain Smitherton says that yesterday was Sunday: so it was; he is right. Cousin Bobby, and uncle and I say that today is Sunday: so it is; we are right. Captain Pratt maintains that tomorrow will be Sunday: so it will; he is right, too. The fact is, we are all right, and thus three Sundays have come together in a week.â
SmithertonAfter a pause. âBy the by, Pratt, Kate has us completely. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter stands thus: the earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles in circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own axisâ ârevolvesâ âspins roundâ âthese twenty-four thousand miles of extent, going from west to east, in precisely twenty-four hours. Do you understand, Mr. Rumgudgeon?â ââ
UncleâTo be sureâ âto be sureâ âDoctor Dubâ ââ
SmithertonDrowning his voice. âWell, sir; that is at the rate of one thousand miles per hour. Now, suppose that I sail from this position a thousand miles east. Of course I anticipate the rising of the sun here at London by just one hour. I see the sun rise one hour before you do. Proceeding, in the same direction, yet another thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by two hoursâ âanother thousand, and I anticipate it by three hours, and so on, until I go entirely round the globe, and back to this spot, when, having gone twenty-four thousand miles east, I anticipate the rising of the London sun by no less than twenty-four hours; that is to say, I am a day in advance of your time. Understand, eh?â
UncleâBut Double L. Deeâ ââ
SmithertonSpeaking very loud. âCaptain Pratt, on the contrary, when he had sailed a thousand miles west of this position, was an hour, and when he had sailed twenty-four thousand miles west, was twenty-four hours, or one day, behind the time at London. Thus, with me, yesterday was Sundayâ âthus, with you, today is Sundayâ âand thus, with Pratt, tomorrow will be Sunday. And what is more, Mr. Rumgudgeon, it is positively clear that we are all right; for there can be no philosophical reason assigned why the idea of one of us should have preference over that of the other.â
UncleâMy eyes!â âwell, Kateâ âwell, Bobby!â âthis is a judgment upon me, as you say. But I am a man of my wordâ âmark that! you shall have her, boy, (plum and all), when you please. Done up, by Jove! Three Sundays all in a row! Iâll go, and take Dubble L. Deeâs opinion upon that.â
The Oval PortraitThe chĂąteau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chĂąteau rendered necessaryâ âin these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps,
Comments (0)