The Celestial Omnibus, and Other StoriesForster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
General
The Celestial Omnibus, and Other Stories
Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
We missed the train. Young couples had gone by it, several young
couples, and we heard of more young couples in London, as if all the
world were mocking Harcourt's solitude. In desperation we sought the
squalid suburb that is now Ford's home. We swept past the dirty maid and
the terrified aunt, swept upstairs, to catch him if we could red-handed.
He was seated at the table, reading the _Oedipus Coloneus_ of Sophocles.
"That won't take in me!" shouted Harcourt. "You've got Miss Beaumont
with you, and I know it."
"No such luck," said Ford.
He stammered with rage. "Inskip--you hear that? 'No such luck'! Quote
the evidence against him. I can't speak."
So I quoted her song. "'Oh Ford! Oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am
coming through you to my Kingdom! Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman,
I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you
from the sun.' Soon after that, we lost her."
"And--and on another occasion she sent a message of similar effect.
Inskip, bear witness. He was to 'guess' something."
"I have guessed it," said Ford.
"So you practically----"
"Oh, no, Mr. Worters, you mistake me. I have not practically guessed. I
have guessed. I could tell you if I chose, but it would be no good, for
she has not practically escaped you. She has escaped you absolutely, for
ever and ever, as long as there are branches to shade men from the sun."
THE CURATE'S FRIEND
It is uncertain how the Faun came to be in Wiltshire. Perhaps he came
over with the Roman legionaries to live with his friends in camp,
talking to them of Lucretius, or Garganus or of the slopes of Etna; they
in the joy of their recall forgot to take him on board, and he wept in
exile; but at last he found that our hills also understood his sorrows,
and rejoiced when he was happy. Or, perhaps he came to be there because
he had been there always. There is nothing particularly classical about
a faun: it is only that the Greeks and Italians have ever had the
sharpest eyes. You will find him in the "Tempest" and the "Benedicite;"
and any country which has beech clumps and sloping grass and very clear
streams may reasonably produce him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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