Expatriate

mrs nevill tyson she was an illusion and a distraction from head to foot her beauty made a promise to the senses and broke it to the intellect coil upon coil and curl upon curl of dark hair the dark eyes of some ruminant animal a little frivolous curve in an intelligent nose a lower jaw like a boy's the full white throat of a woman and the mouth and cheeks of a child just waked from sleep tyson had escaped one misfortune that had been prophesied for him his wife was not vulgar she sat at her ease much more at her ease than miss batchelor and chattered away about her honeymoon her bad french the places she had been to the people she had seen and all without any consciousness of her delightful self now it was a continuous stream of minute talk growing shallower and shallower as it spread over a larger surface and now her mind had hardly settled on its subject before it was off and away again like a butterfly there was one advantage in this excessive lightness of touch that it left great things as it found them for great things lay lightly on her soul she told everybody she had been to rome but imagination simply refused to picture mrs nevill tyson in rome her presence in the eternal city seems something less than her footprint in its dust or her shadow on its walls nothing is more irritating than to have your dream of a place destroyed by the light-hearted gabble of some idiot who has seen it but mrs nevill tyson spared your dreams the most delicate ideal would have been undisturbed by the soft sweep of her generalities or the graceful flight of her fancy from the matter in hand there are a great many beautiful statues in the vatican said sir peter in his dream oh no end and talking of beautiful statues we were introduced to the most beautiful woman in rome the countess countess countess nevill what was that woman's name oh i forget her name but she was the loveliest woman i ever saw in my life everybody was in love with her down on their knees grovelling you couldn't help it fancy she was engaged to ten people at once i suppose she had ten engagement rings one for each finger one for each man i should never have known which was which but oh i oughtn't to have told you my husband said i wasn't to talk about her i don't see why everybody was talking about her there was a chorus of protestation and why shouldn't they talk about her and why shouldn't she be engaged to ten gentlemen at once the more the merrier and you haven't told us the lady's name so we're none the wiser i forgot it but it would have been all the same if i hadn't i never can remember not to tell things oh countess polidori there you see my husband says i'm the soul of indiscretion there was a sudden silence mrs nevill tyson's last sentence seemed to detach itself and float about the room and miss batchelor perceived with a pang of pleasure that if tyson's wife was not vulgar she was an arrant fool i suppose you visited all the great cathedrals said the rector perhaps he wished to change the subject perhaps he felt that by talking about cathedrals to mrs nevill tyson he was giving a serious not to say sacerdotal character to a frivolous occupation well only st peter's and the one at milan and which did you prefer i am told that st peter's is very like our own st paul's or i should say st paul's please don't ask me i know no more than the man in the moon i mean the man in the honeymoon that joke was tyson's and a lot he knows about it there's the man in the honeymoon she explained nodding merrily in her husband's direction meanwhile tyson was making himself agreeable to miss batchelor and this is how he did it i hear miss batchelor that you are a lady of genius there was a rumour that miss batchelor was engaged on a work of fiction which indeed may have been true though not exactly in the sense intended indeed who told you that scandal but i never listened to scandal and i didn't believe it i don't suppose you believe that a woman could be a genius no i have seen women who were geniuses before now but in every instance it meant i shall hurt your feelings if i tell you what it meant not at all i have no feelings it meant either devilry or disease tyson's eyes twinkled wickedly as he stroked his blond mustache he felt a diabolical delight in teasing miss batchelor there was a time when miss batchelor had admired tyson he was not handsome but his face had character and she liked character now she hated him and his face and everything belonging to him his wife included but there was no denying that he was clever cleverer than any man she had ever met in her life even a great intellect here tyson looked hard at miss batchelor and her faded nervous face seemed to shrink under the look is a great misfortune to a woman look at my wife now she has about as much intellect as a guinea pig and the consequence is she is not only happy herself but a cause of happiness to others there see miss batchelor saw she saw sir peter morley contending with the rector for the honour of handing mrs nevill tyson her tea they were joined by stanistreet yes stanistreet the rector seemed to have drawn the line nowhere that day there was no mistaking the tall figure alert and vigorous the lean dark face a little eager a little hard and that very clever woman miss batchelor sat hungry and thirsty very hungry and very thirsty and tyson stood behind her stroking his moustache he was not looking at her now nor thinking of her he was contemplating that adorable piece of folly his wife End of chapter two.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

Chapter three of The Tysons by May Sinclair.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

Chapter three.

mr and mrs tyson at home perhaps it was well that mrs nevill tyson took things so lightly otherwise she might have been somewhat oppressed by her surroundings at thornytoft that hideous old barrack stared with all the uncompromising truculence of bare white stone on nature that smiled agreeably round it in lawn and underwood old tyson had bought the house as it stood from an impecunious nobleman supplying its deficiencies according to his own very respectable fancy the result was a little startling worm-eaten oak was flanked by mahogany veneer brocade and tapestry were eked out with horsehair and green rep gules and azure from the stained glass lozenge lattices were reflected in a hundred twinkling dangling lustres and you came upon lions rampant in a wilderness of wax flowers what with antique heraldry and utilitarian furniture you would have said there was no place there for anything so frivolously pretty as mrs nevill tyson unless indeed her figure served to give the finishing touch to the ridiculous medley the sight of thornytoft would have taken the heart out of mrs wilcox if anything could mrs wilcox herself looked remarkably crisp and fresh and cheerful in her widow's dress tyson rather liked mrs wilcox than otherwise perhaps because she was a little afraid of him and showed it he noticed with relief that his mother-in-law was beginning to look almost like a lady and he attributed this pleasing effect to the fact that she was now unable to commit any of her former atrocities of colour he respected her too for wearing her weeds with an air of genial worldliness there was something about mrs wilcox that evaded the touch of sorrow but from certain things food clothes furniture she seemed to catch as it were the sense of tears suggestions of the human tragedy she was peculiarly sensitive to interiors and a drawing-room without any of the little refinements and luxuries you know not so much as a flower-pot or a basket-table weighed heavily on her happy soul needless to say she had never dreamed that nevill would let the house remain in its present state her intellect could never have grasped so melancholy a possibility and the fact was somewhat unsettling to her faith in nevill tyson isn't it for a young bride you know just a little a little triste and being more than a little afraid of her son-in-law she waved her hands to give an inoffensive vagueness to her idea Tyson said he didn't care to spend money on a place like Thornytoft.

Were you ever engaged to anybody but me? No, I was never engaged to anybody but you.

recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatriate

in Bangor, Maine.

Translators Preface the existence of the russian skazki or mrchen was first made generally known to the british public by mr w r s ralston in his russian folk tales that excellent and most engrossing volume was primarily a treatise on slavonic folk-lore illustrated with admirable skill and judgment by stories mainly selected from the vast collection of afanasyev who did for the russian what osbjrnson has done for the norwegian folktale a year after the appearance of mr ralston's book the eminent russian historian and archaeologist peter nikolaevitch pullivoy well known too as an able and ardent shakespearean scholar selected from the inexhaustible stores of afanasyev some three dozen of the skazki and worked them up into a fairy-tale book which was published at st petersburg in eighteen

none of these tales had seen the light in an english dress before the

publication of the first edition of my book for though both ralston and polivoy drew for the most part from the same copious stock their purposes were so different that their selections naturally proved to be different also as to the merits of these skazki they must be left to speak for themselves It is a significant fact, however, that scholars who are equally familiar with the Russian Skazki and the German Merchen unhesitatingly give the poem both for fun and fancy to the former.

R.N.B. End of Translator's Preface Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine

The Golden Mountain in Russian Fairy Tales by Peter Polivoy, translated by R. Nisbet Bain, 1854-1909.

A lamb.

End of chapter 1 Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine chapter two of the flaw in the crystal chapter she kept on saying to herself why shouldn't they come what difference did it make up till now she had not admitted that anything could make a difference that anything could touch could alter by a shade the safe the intangible the unique relation between her and rodney it was proof against anything that anybody could think and the powells were not given to thinking things agatha's own mind had been a crystal without a flaw in its clearness its sincerity it had to be to ensure the blessed working of the gift as again it was by the blessed working of the gift that she had kept it so she could only think of that the secret the gift the inexpressible thing as itself a flawless crystal a charmed circle or rather as a sphere that held all the charmed circles that you draw round things to keep them safe to keep them holy she had drawn her circle round rodney lanyon and herself nobody could break it they were supernaturally safe and yet the presence of the powells had made a difference she was forced to own that though she remained untouched it had made a difference in him it was as if in the agitation produced by them he had brushed aside some veil and had let her see something that up till now her crystal vision had refused to see something that was more than a lurking possibility she discovered in him a desire and intention that up till now he had concealed from her it had left its hiding-place it rose on terrifying wings and fluttered before her troubling her she was reminded that though there were no lurking possibilities in her with him it might be different for him the tie between them might come to mean something that it had never meant and could not mean for her something that she had refused not only to see but to foresee and provide for she was aware of a certain relief when monday came and he had left her without any further unveilings and revealings she was even glad when about the middle of the week the powells came with a cartload of luggage and settled at the farm she said to herself that they would take her mind off him they had a way of seizing on her and holding her attention to the exclusion of all other objects She could hardly not have been seized and held by a case so pitiful, so desperate as theirs.

How pitiful and desperate.

Hey, it's Bobby Bones.

She went down with slow, soft footsteps, as if she carried herself, her whole fragile being, as a vessel, a crystal vessel for the holy thing, and was careful lest a touch of the earth should jar and break her.

End of chapter 3.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

Chapter 4 of The Flaw in the Crystal by May Sinclair.

Make it.

Hello and welcome to Expat of the Day.

You fucking

melon.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

The Quintessence of Ibsenism by George Bernard Shaw.

Authors' Prefaces.

With this account of the origin of the book, and a reminder that it is not a critical essay on the poetic beauties of Ibsen, but simply an exposition of Ibsenism, I offer it to my readers to make what they can of.

London, June 1891.

End of author's prefaces, recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

Chapter 1 of The Quintessence of Ibsenism by George Bernard Shaw.

Now that my own stream is nearer the sea, I am more inclined to encourage myself in haste and recklessness by reminding myself that le mieux est l'ennomie du bien and that I had better cobble up a new edition as best I can than not supply it at all.

I have taken all possible precautions to keep the reader's mind free from verbal confusion in following Ibsen's attack on ideals and idealism, a confusion that might have been avoided could his plays, without losing the naturalness of their dialogue, have been translated into the language of the English Bible.

It is not too much to say that the works of Ibsen furnish one of the best modern keys to the prophecies of Scripture.

Read the prophets, major and minor, from Isaiah to Malachi without such a key, and you will be puzzled and bored by the almost continuous protest against and denunciation of idolatry and prostitution.

For idols and idolatry read ideals and idealism.

For the prostitution of Piccadilly Circus read not only the prostitution of the journalist, the political lawyer, the parson selling his soul to the squire, the ambitious politician selling his soul for office, but the much more intimate and widespread idolatries and prostitutions of the private snob, the domestic tyrant and voluptuary, and the industrial adventurer.

At once the prophetic warnings and curses take on meaning and proportion, and lose that air of exaggerated righteousness and tiresome conventional rant which repels readers who do not possess Ibsen's clue.

I have sometimes thought of reversing the operation, and substituting in this book the words idol and idolatry for ideal and idealism, but it would be impossible without spoiling the actuality of Ibsen's criticism of society.

At home he always read lying down.

End of Section 1 Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine Chapters 3 and 4 of Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov Translated by Constance Garnett 1861-1946 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine Chapter 3 One autumn morning Ivan Dmitrich, turning up the collar of his greatcoat and splashing through the mud, made his way by side streets and back lanes to see some artisan, and to collect some payment that was owing.

He was in a gloomy mood, as he always was in the morning.

In one of the side streets he was met by two convicts and fetters, and four soldiers with rifles in charge of them.

Consequently, the intellect is the only possible source of enjoyment.

we see and hear of no trace of intellect about us so we are deprived of enjoyment we have books it is true but that is not at all the same as living talk and converse if you will allow me to make a not quite apt comparison books are the printed score while talk is the singing perfectly true a silence would follow daryushka would come out of the kitchen and with an expression of blank dejection would stand in the doorway to listen with her face propped on her fist eh mihail averyanitch would sigh to expect intelligence of this generation and he would describe how wholesome entertaining and interesting life had been in the past how intelligent the educated class in russia used to be and what lofty ideas it had of honour and friendship how they used to lend money without an i o u and it was thought a disgrace not to give a helping hand to a comrade in need and what campaigns what adventures what skirmishes what comrades what women and the caucasus what a marvellous country the wife of a battalion commander a queer woman used to put on an officer's uniform and drive off into the mountains in the evening alone without a guide it was said that she had a love affair with some princeling in the native village queen of heaven holy mother daryushka would sigh and how we drank and how we ate and what desperate liberals we were andrey yefimitch would listen without hearing he was musing as he sipped his tea i often dream of intellectual people in conversation with them he said suddenly interrupting mihail my father gave me an excellent education but under the influence of the ideas of the sixties made me become a doctor i believe if i had not obeyed him then by now i should have been in the very centre of the intellectual movement most likely i should have become a member of some university of course intellect too is transient and not eternal but you know why i cherish a partiality for it life is a vexatious trap when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape indeed he is summoned without his choice by fortuitous circumstances from non-existence into life what for he tries to find out the meaning and object of his existence he is told nothing or he is told absurdities he knocks and it is not open to him death comes to him also without his choice and so just as in prison men held together by common misfortune feel more at ease when they are together so one does not notice the trap in life when people with a bent for analysis and generalisation meet together and pass their time in the interchange of proud and free ideas in that sense the intellect is the source of an enjoyment nothing can replace perfectly true not looking his friend in the face andrey yefimitch would go on quietly and with pauses talking about intellectual people in conversation with them and mihail averyanitch would listen attentively and agree perfectly true and you do not believe in the immortality of the soul he would ask suddenly no honoured mihail averyanitch i do not believe it and have no grounds for believing it i must own i doubt it too and yet i have a feeling as though i should never die oh i think to myself old fogey it is time you were dead but there is a little voice in my soul says don't believe it you won't die soon after nine o'clock mihail averyanitch would go away as he put on his fur coat in the entry he would say with a sigh what a wilderness fate has carried us to though really what's most vexatious of all is to have to die here End of chapter six.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

And my favorite is Kathy McDaniel, where she is.

She's got a book called Misfit in Hell, Expat in Heaven.

It's how she got like figured out the hell was of her own creation.

And yeah.