by Ruskin Bond
‘Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,’ said the sergeant-major, ‘but I warn you of the consequences.’
‘Sounds like the Arabian Nights,’ said Mrs White, as she rose and began to set the supper. ‘Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs of hands for me?’
Her husband drew the talisman from his pocket and then all three burst into laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face, caught him by the arm.
‘If you must wish,’ he said gruffly, ‘wish for something sensible.’
Mr White dropped it back into his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures in India.
‘If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he has been telling us,’ said Herbert, as the door closed behind their guest, just in time for him to catch the last train, ‘we shan’t make much out of it.’
‘Did you give him anything for it, father?’ inquired Mrs White, regarding her husband closely.
‘A trifle,’ said he, colouring slightly. ‘He didn’t want it, but I made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.’
‘Likely,’ said Herbert, with pretended horror. ‘Why, we’re going to be rich, and famous, and happy? Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin with; then you can’t be henpecked.’
He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs White armed with an antimacassar.
Mr White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. ‘I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,’ he said slowly. ‘It seems to me I’ve got all I want.’
‘If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?’ said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, wish for two hundred pounds, then; that’ll just do it.’
His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.
‘I wish for two hundred pounds,’ said the old man distinctly.
A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.
‘It moved,’ he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor. ‘As I wished it twisted in my hands like a snake.’
‘Well, I don’t see the money,’ said his son, as he picked it up and placed it on the table, ‘and I bet I never shall.’
‘It must have been your fancy, father,’ said his wife, regarding him anxiously.
He shook his head. ‘Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it gave me a shock all the same.’
They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes. Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual and depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old couple rose to retire for the night.
‘I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of your bed,’ said Herbert, as he bade them goodnight, ‘and something horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket your ill-gotten gains.’
He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw over it. His hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his hand on his coat and went up to bed.
II
In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the breakfast table Herbert laughed at his fears. There was an air of prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night, and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the sideboard with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its virtues.
‘I suppose all old soldiers are the same,’ said Mrs White. ‘The idea of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?’
‘Might drop on his head from the sky,’ said the frivolous Herbert.
‘Morris said the things happened so naturally,’ said his father, ‘that you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.’
‘Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,’ said Herbert, as he rose from the table. ‘I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean, avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.’
His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the road, and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous habits when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.
‘Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he comes home,’ she said, as they sat at dinner.
‘I dare say,’ said Mr White, pouring himself out some beer; ‘but for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.’
‘You thought it did,’ said the old lady soothingly.
‘I say it did,’ replied the other. ‘There was no thought about it; I had just—what’s the matter?’
His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house, appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental connection with the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger was well dressed and wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand upon it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the path. Mrs White at the same moment placed her hands behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.
She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s coat, a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then waited as patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his business, but he was at first strangely silent.
‘I—was asked to call,’ he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers. ‘I come from Maw and Meggins.’
The old lady started. ‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is it?’
Her husband interposed. ‘There, there, mother,’ he said hastily. ‘Sit down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m sure, sir,’ and he eyed the other wistfully.
‘I’m sorry—’ began the visitor.
‘Is he hurt?’ demanded the mother.
The visitor bowed in assent. ‘Badly hurt,’ he said quietly, ‘but he is not in any pain.’
‘Oh, thank God!’ said the old woman, clasping her hands. ‘Thank God for that! Thank—’
She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned upon her and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long silence.
‘He was caught in the machinery,’ said the visitor at length, in a low voice.
‘Caught in the machinery,’ repeated Mr White, in a dazed fashion, ‘yes.’
He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old courting days nearly forty years before.
‘He was the only one left to us,’ he said, turning gently to the visitor. ‘It is
hard.’
The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. ‘The firm wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great loss,’ he said, without looking round. ‘I beg that you will understand I am only their servant and merely obeying orders.’
There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.
‘I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,’ continued the other. ‘They admit no liability at all, but in consideration of your son’s services they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation.’
Mr White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words, ‘How much?’
‘Two hundred pounds,’ was the answer.
Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the floor.
III
In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to happen—something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.
But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, and their days were long to weariness.
It was about a week after that that the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened.
‘Come back,’ he said tenderly. ‘You will be cold.’
‘It is colder for my son,’ said the old woman, and wept afresh.
The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
‘The paw!’ she cried wildly. ‘The monkey’s paw!’
He started up in alarm. ‘Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?’
She came stumbling across the room toward him. ‘I want it,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve not destroyed it?’
‘It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,’ he replied, marvelling. ‘Why?’
She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
‘I only just thought of it,’ she said hysterically. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?’
‘Think of what?’ he questioned.
‘The other two wishes,’ she replied rapidly. ‘We’ve only had one.’
‘Was not that enough?’ he demanded fiercely.
‘No,’ she cried, triumphantly; ‘we’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.’
The man sat up in bed and flung the bedclothes from his quaking limbs. ‘Good God, you are mad!’ he cried, aghast.
‘Get it,’ she panted; ‘get it quickly, and wish—oh, my boy, my boy!’
Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. ‘Get back to bed,’ he said unsteadily. ‘You don’t know what you are saying.’
‘We had the first wish granted,’ said the old woman feverishly; ‘why not the second?’
‘A coincidence,’ stammered the old man.
‘Go and get it and wish,’ cried the old woman, quivering with excitement.
The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. ‘He has been dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how now?’
‘Bring him back,’ cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. ‘Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?’
He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his hand.
Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her.
‘Wish!’ she cried, in a strong voice.
‘It is foolish and wicked,’ he faltered.
‘Wish!’ repeated his wife.
He raised his hand. ‘I wish my son alive again.’
The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked to the window and raised the blind.
He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle end, which had burnt below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.
Neither spoke, but both lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, the husband took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs for a candle.
At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike another, and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
The matches fell from his hand. He stood motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A third knock sounded through the house.
‘What’s that?’ cried the old woman, starting up.
‘A rat,’ said the old man, in shaking tones—‘a rat. It passed me on the stairs.’
His wife sat up in bed, listening. A loud knock resounded through the house.
‘It’s Herbert!’ she screamed. ‘It’s Herbert!’
She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.
‘What are you going to do?’ he whispered hoarsely.
‘It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!’ she cried, struggling mechanically. ‘I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must open the door.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t let it in,’ cried the old man, trembling.
‘You’re afraid of your own son,’ she cried, struggling. ‘Let me go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming.’
There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting.
‘The bolt,’ she cried loudly. ‘Come down. I can’t reach it.’
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish.
The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes
of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
Dracula’s Guest
Bram Stoker
When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer.
Just as we were about to depart, Herr Delbruck (the maitre d’hotel of the Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down bareheaded to the carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door, ‘Remember you are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright but there is a shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But I am sure you will not be late.’ Here he smiled and added, ‘For you know what night it is.’
Johann answered with an emphatic, ‘Ja, mein Herr,’ and, touching his hat, drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said, after signalling to him to stop:
‘Tell me, Johann, what is tonight?’
He crossed himself, as he answered laconically: ‘Walpurgis Nacht.’ Then he took out his watch, a great, old-fashioned German silver thing as big as a turnip and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders. I realized that this was his way of respectfully protesting against the unnecessary delay and sank back in the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed. He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost time. Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up their heads and sniff the air suspiciously. On such occasions I often looked round in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of high windswept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that looked but little used and which seemed to dip through a little winding valley. It looked so inviting that, even at the risk of offending him, I called Johann to stop—and when he had pulled up, I told him I would like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of excuses and frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest.
