UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION TO
LITERATURE

1


THE STORY OF AN HOUR

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to
her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half
concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the
newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's
name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a
second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the
sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to
accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.
When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no
one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed
down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the
new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was
crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly,
and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled
one above the other in the west facing her window.

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She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a
sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to
sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on
one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a
suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did
not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching
toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her
two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word
escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The
vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and
bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted
perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again
when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with
love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long
procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her
arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There
would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women
believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a
cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of

illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love,
the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she
suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for
admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are
you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that
open window.

3


Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all
sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was
only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish
triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped
her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the
bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a
little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the
scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's
piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

4



THE COP AND THE ANTHEM
O. Henry (1862 – 1910)

ON HIS BENCH in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of
nights, and when women without seal-skin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy
moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter is near at hand.
A dead leaf fell in Soapy's lap. That was Jack Frost's card. Jack is kind to the regular denizens of
Madison Square, and gives fair warning of his annual call. At the corners of four streets he hands
his pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the mansion of All Outdoors, so that the
inhabitants thereof may make ready.
Soapy's mind became cognizant of the fact that the time had come for him to resolve himself into
a singular Committee of Ways and Means to provide against the coming rigor. And therefore he
moved uneasily on his bench.
The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them there were no
considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific Southern skies drifting in the Vesuvian
Bay. Three months on the Island was what his soul craved. Three months of assured board and
bed and congenial company, safe from Boreas and bluecoats, seemed to Soapy the essence of
things desirable.
For years the hospitable Blackwell's had been his winter quarters. Just as his more fortunate
fellow New Yorkers had bought their tickets to Palm Beach and the Riviera each winter, so
Soapy had made his humble arrangements for his annual hegira to the Island. And now the time
was come. On the previous night three Sabbath newspapers, distributed beneath his coat, about
his ankles and over his lap, had failed to repulse the cold as he slept on his bench near the
5


spurting fountain in the ancient square. So the Island loomed big and timely in Soapy's mind. He
scorned the provisions made in the name of charity for the city's dependents. In Soapy's opinion
the Law was more benign than Philanthropy. There was an endless round of institutions,
municipal and eleemosynary, on which he might set out and receive lodging and food accordant

with the simple life. But to one of Soapy's proud spirit the gifts of charity are encumbered. If not
in coin you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of
philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its toll of a bath, every
loaf of bread its compensation of a private and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is better to be a
guest of the law, which though conducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gentleman's
private affairs.
Soapy, having decided to go to the Island, at once set about accomplishing his desire. There were
many easy ways of doing this. The pleasantest was to dine luxuriously at some expensive
restaurant; and then, after declaring insolvency, be handed over quietly and without uproar to a
policeman. An accommodating magistrate would do the rest.
Soapy left his bench and strolled out of the square and across the level sea of asphalt, where
Broadway and Fifth Avenue flow together. Up Broadway he turned, and halted at a glittering
café, where are gathered together nightly the choicest products of the grape, the silkworm and
the protoplasm.
Soapy had confidence in himself from the lowest button of his vest upward. He was shaven, and
his coat was decent and his neat black, ready-tied four-in-hand had been presented to him by a
lady missionary on Thanksgiving Day. If he could reach a table in the restaurant unsuspected
success would be his. The portion of him that would show above the table would raise no doubt
in the waiter's mind. A roasted mallard duck, thought Soapy, would be about the thing—with a
bottle of Chablis, and then Camembert, a demitasse and a cigar. One dollar for the cigar would
be enough. The total would not be so high as to call forth any supreme manifestation of revenge
from the café management; and yet the meat would leave him filled and happy for the journey to
his winter refuge.
But as Soapy set foot inside the restaurant door the head waiter's eye fell upon his frayed trousers
and decadent shoes. Strong and ready hands turned him about and conveyed him in silence and
haste to the sidewalk and averted the ignoble fate of the menaced mallard.
Soapy turned off Broadway. It seemed that his route to the coveted island was not to be an
epicurean one. Some other way of entering limbo must be thought of.
At a corner of Sixth Avenue electric lights and cunningly displayed wares behind plate-glass
made a shop window conspicuous. Soapy took a cobblestone and dashed it through the glass.

People came running around the corner, a policeman in the lead. Soapy stood still, with his hands
in his pockets, and smiled at the sight of brass buttons.
“Where's the man that done that?” inquired the officer excitedly.

6


“Don't you figure out that I might have had something to do with it?” said Soapy, not without
sarcasm, but friendly, as one greets good fortune.
The policeman's mind refused to accept Soapy even as a clue. Men who smash windows do not
remain to parley with the law's minions. They take to their heels. The policeman saw a man half
way down the block running to catch a car. With drawn club he joined in the pursuit. Soapy, with
disgust in his heart, loafed along, twice unsuccessful.
On the opposite side of the street was a restaurant of no great pretensions. It catered to large
appetites and modest purses. Its crockery and atmosphere were thick; its soup and napery thin.
Into this place Soapy took his accusive shoes and telltale trousers without challenge. At a table
he sat and consumed beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts and pie. And then to the waiter he betrayed
the fact that the minutest coin and himself were strangers.
“Now, get busy and call a cop,” said Soapy. “And don't keep a gentleman waiting.”
“No cops for youse,” said the waiter, with a voice like butter cakes and an eye like the cherry in a
Manhattan cocktail. “Hey, Con!”
Neatly upon his left ear on the callous pavement two waiters pitched Soapy. He arose, joint by
joint, as a carpenter's rule opens, and beat the dust from his clothes. Arrest seemed but a rosy
dream. The Island seemed very far away. A policeman who stood before a drug store two doors
away laughed and walked down the street.
Five blocks Soapy traveled before his courage permitted him to woo capture again. This time the
opportunity presented what he fatuously termed to himself a “cinch.” A young woman of a
modest and pleasing guise was standing before a show window gazing with sprightly interest at
its display of shaving mugs and inkstands, and two yards from the window a large policeman of
severe demeanor leaned against a water plug.

It was Soapy's design to assume the role of the despicable and execrated “masher.” The refined
and elegant appearance of his victim and the contiguity of the conscientious cop encouraged him
to believe that he would soon feel the pleasant official clutch upon his arm that would insure his
winter quarters on the right little, tight little isle.
Soapy straightened the lady missionary's ready-made tie, dragged his shrinking cuffs into the
open, set his hat at a killing cant and sidled toward the young woman. He made eyes at her, was
taken with sudden coughs and “hems,” smiled, smirked and went brazenly through the impudent
and contemptible litany of the “masher.” With half an eye Soapy saw that the policeman was
watching him fixedly. The young woman moved away a few steps, and again bestowed her
absorbed attention upon the shaving mugs. Soapy followed, boldly stepping to her side, raised
his hat and said:
“Ah there, Bedelia! Don't you want to come and play in my yard?”

7


The policeman was still looking. The persecuted young woman had but to beckon a finger and
Soapy would be practically en route for his insular haven. Already he imagined he could feel the
cozy warmth of the station-house. The young woman faced him and, stretching out a hand,
caught Soapy's coat sleeve.
“Sure, Mike,” she said joyfully, “if you'll blow me to a pail of suds. I'd have spoke to you sooner,
but the cop was watching.”
With the young woman playing the clinging ivy to his oak Soapy walked past the policeman
overcome with gloom. He seemed doomed to liberty.
At the next corner he shook off his companion and ran. He halted in the district where by night
are found the lightest streets, hearts, vows and librettos. Women in furs and men in greatcoats
moved gaily in the wintry air. A sudden fear seized Soapy that some dreadful enchantment had
rendered him immune to arrest. The thought brought a little of panic upon it, and when he came
upon another policeman lounging grandly in front of a transplendent theatre he caught at the
immediate straw of “disorderly conduct.”

On the sidewalk Soapy began to yell drunken gibberish at the top of his harsh voice. He danced,
howled, raved and otherwise disturbed the welkin.
The policeman twirled his club, turned his back to Soapy and remarked to a citizen.
“'Tis one of them Yale lads celebratin' the goose egg they give to the Hartford College. Noisy;
but no harm. We've instructions to lave them be.”
Disconsolate, Soapy ceased his unavailing racket. Would never a police man lay hands on him?
In his fancy the Island seemed an unattainable Arcadia. He buttoned his thin coat against the
chilling wind.
In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a swinging light. His silk umbrella
he had set by the door on entering. Soapy stepped inside, secured the umbrella and sauntered off
with it slowly. The man at the cigar light followed hastily.
“My umbrella,” he said, sternly.
“Oh, is it?” sneered Soapy, adding insult to petit larceny. “Well, why don't you call a policeman?
I took it. Your umbrella! Why don't you call a cop? There stands one on the corner.”
The umbrella owner slowed his steps. Soapy did likewise, with a presentiment that luck would
again run against him. The policeman looked at the two curiously.
“Of course,” said the umbrella man—“that is—well, you know how these mistakes occur—I—if
it's your umbrella I hope you'll excuse me—I picked it up this morning in a restaurant—If you
recognize it as yours, why—I hope you'll—”

8


“Of course it's mine,” said Soapy, viciously.
The ex-umbrella man retreated. The policeman hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak
across the street in front of a street car that was approaching two blocks away.
Soapy walked eastward through a street damaged by improvements. He hurled the umbrella
wrathfully into an excavation. He muttered against the men who wear helmets and carry clubs.
Because he wanted to fall into their clutches, they seemed to regard him as a king who could do
no wrong.

At length Soapy reached one of the avenues to the east where the glitter and turmoil was but
faint. He set his face down this toward Madison Square, for the homing instinct survives even
when the home is a park bench.
But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. Here was an old church, quaint and
rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt,
the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem.
For there drifted out to Soapy's ears sweet music that caught and held him transfixed against the
convolutions of the iron fence.
The moon was above, lustrous and serene; vehicles and pedestrians were few; sparrows twittered
sleepily in the eaves—for a little while the scene might have been a country churchyard. And the
anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the
days when his life contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and
immaculate thoughts and collars.
The conjunction of Soapy's receptive state of mind and the influences about the old church
wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the pit into
which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and
base motives that made up his existence.
And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this novel mood. An instantaneous and
strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate fate. He would pull himself out of the
mire; he would make a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken
possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old
eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set
up a revolution in him. Tomorrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work.
A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him tomorrow and ask for
the position. He would be somebody in the world. He would—
Soapy felt a hand laid on his arm. He looked quickly around into the broad face of a policeman.
“What are you doin' here?” asked the officer.
“Nothin',” said Soapy.

9



“Then come along,” said the policeman.
“Three months on the Island,” said the Magistrate in the Police Court the next morning.

10


THE HAPPY PRINCE

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all
over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby
glowed on his sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed.'He is as beautiful as a weathercock,' remarked one of the
Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic taste; 'only not quite so
useful,' he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.
'Why can't you be like the Happy Prince?' asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was
crying for the moon. 'The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.'
'I am glad there is someone in the world who is quite happy', muttered a disappointed man as
he gazed at the wonderful statue.
'He looks just like an angel,' said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in
their bright scarlet cloaks, and their clean white pinafores.
'How do you know?' said the Mathematical Master, 'you have never seen one.'
'Ah! but we have, in our dreams,' answered the children; and the Mathematical Master
frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.
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One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six
weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had

met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been
so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
'Shall I love you said the Swallow', who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed
made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and
making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.
'It is a ridiculous attachment,' twittered the other Swallows, 'she has no money, and far too
many relations;' and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they
all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. 'She has no
conversation,' he said, 'and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the
wind.' And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtsies. I admit
that she is domestic,' he continued, 'but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love
travelling also.'
'Will you come away with me?' he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so
attached to her home.
'You have been trifling with me,' he cried, 'I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!' and he flew
away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. 'Where shall I put up?' he said 'I
hope the town has made preparations.'
Then he saw the statue on the tall column. 'I will put up there,' he cried; 'it is a fine position
with plenty of fresh air.' So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.
'I have a golden bedroom,' he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go
to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing, a large drop of water fell on
him.'What a curious thing!' he cried, 'there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite
clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The
Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.'
Then another drop fell.
'What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?' he said; 'I must look for a good
chimney-pot,' and he determined to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw - Ah! what

did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden
cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.

12


'Who are you?' he said.
'I am the Happy Prince.'
'Why are you weeping then?' asked the Swallow; 'you have quite drenched me.'
'When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, 'I did not know what tears
were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime
I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall.
Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything
about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if
pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up
here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is
made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.'
'What, is he not solid gold?' said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any
personal remarks out loud.
'Far away,' continued the statue in a low musical voice,'far away in a little street there is a
poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her
face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a
seamstress. She is embroidering passion-fowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's
maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is
lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river
water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of
my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.'
'I am waited for in Egypt,' said the Swallow. 'My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and
talking to the large lotus flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The

King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with
spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.'
'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince,'will you not stay with me for one night,
and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so sad.
'I don't think I like boys,' answered the Swallow. 'Last summer, when I was staying on the
river, there were two rude boys, the miller's sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They
never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family
famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.'
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. 'It is very cold here,' he
said 'but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.'
'Thank you, little Swallow,' said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince's sword, and flew away with it in
his beak over the roofs of the town.

13


He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed
by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her
lover. 'How wonderful the stars are,' he said to her,'and how wonderful is the power of love!' 'I
hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,' she answered; 'I have ordered passionflowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.'
He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed
over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in
copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly
on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great
ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the
boy's forehead with his wings. 'How cool I feel,' said the boy, 'I must be getting better;' and he
sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. 'It is
curious,' he remarked, 'but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.'

'That is because you have done a good action,' said the Prince. And the little Swallow began
to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him sleepy.
When day broke he flew down to the river and had a bath.
'What a remarkable phenomenon,' said the Professor of Omithology as he was passing over
the bridge. 'A swallow in winter!' And he wrote a long letter about it to the local newspaper.
Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words that they could not understand.
'To-night I go to Egypt,' said the Swallow, and he was in high spirits at the prospect. He
visited all the public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he
went the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, 'What a distinguished stranger!' so he
enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. 'Have you any commissions for
Egypt?' he cried; 'I am just starting.'
'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'will you not stay with me one night
longer?'
'I am waited for in Egypt,' answered the Swallow. To-morrow my friends will fly up to the
Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes, and on a great granite
throne sits the God Memnon. All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star
shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to the
water's edge to drink. They have eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of
the cataract.'
'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince,'far away across the city I see a young man
in a garret. He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler by his side there is a
bunch of withered violets. His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and
14


he has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre, but he
is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.'
'I will wait with you one night longer,' said the Swallow, who really had a good heart. 'Shall I
take him another ruby?'

'Alas! I have no ruby now,' said the Prince; 'my eyes are all that I have left. They are made of
rare sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and
take it to him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood, and finish his play.'
'Dear Prince,' said the Swallow,'I cannot do that;' and he began to weep.
'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'do as I command you.'
So the Swallow plucked out the Prince's eye, and flew away to the student's garret. It was
easy enough to get in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and came into the
room. The young man had his head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird's
wings, and when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.
'I am beginning to be appreciated,' he cried; 'this is from some great admirer. Now I can finish
my play,' and he looked quite happy.
The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on the mast of a large vessel and
watched the sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes. 'Heave a-hoy!' they shouted as
each chest came up. 'I am going to Egypt!' cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and when the
moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.
'I am come to bid you good-bye,' he cried.
'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince,'will you not stay with me one night
longer?'
'It is winter,' answered the Swallow, and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is
warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud and look lazily about them. My
companions are building a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are
watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget
you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful jewels in place of those you have given
away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire shall be as blue as the great sea.
'In the square below,' said the Happy Prince, 'there stands a little match-girl. She has let her
matches fall in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring
home some money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare.
Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and her father will not beat her.
'I will stay with you one night longer,' said the Swallow,'but I cannot pluck out your eye. You
would be quite blind then.'

'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'do as I command you.'
15


So he plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the
match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. 'What a lovely bit of glass,' cried the
little girl; and she ran home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. 'You are blind now,' he said, 'so I will stay with
you always.'
'No, little Swallow,' said the poor Prince, 'you must go away to Egypt.'
'I will stay with you always,' said the Swallow, and he slept at the Prince's feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince's shoulder, and told him stories of what he had seen in
strange lands. He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and
catch gold fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the
desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and
carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as
ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has
twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large
flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.
'Dear little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous
than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly
over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.'
So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful
houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white
faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a
bridge two little boys were lying in one another's arms to try and keep themselves warm. 'How
hungry we are' they said. 'You must not lie here,' shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out
into the rain.
Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
'I am covered with fine gold,' said the Prince, 'you must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to

my poor; the living always think that gold can make them happy.'
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull
and grey. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew
rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. 'We have bread nod' they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The streets looked as if they were
made of silver, they were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down
from the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet caps
and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would not leave the Prince, he loved
him too well. He picked up crumbs outside the baker's door when the baker was not looking, and
tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.
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But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince's
shoulder once more.'Good-bye, dear Prince!' he murmured, 'will you let me kiss your hand?'
'I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'you have stayed
too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.'
'It is not to Egypt that I am going,' said the Swallow. I am going to the House of Death. Death
is the brother of Sleep, is he not?'
And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The
fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.
Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in company with the
Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked up at the statue: 'Dear me! how shabby
the Happy Prince looks!' he said.
'How shabby indeed!' cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with the Mayor, and
they went up to look at it.
'The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is golden no longer,' said the
Mayor; 'in fact, he is little better than a beggar!'

'Little better than a beggar,' said the Town Councillors.
'And there is actually a dead bird at his feet,' continued the Mayor. 'We must really issue a
proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die here.' And the Town Clerk made a note of the
suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. 'As he is no longer beautiful he is no
longer useful,' said the Art Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to
decide what was to be done with the metal. 'We must have another statue, of course,' he said,
'and it shall be a statue of myself.'

17


FLIGHT

Above the old man's head was the dovecote, a tall wire-netted shelf on stilts, full of strutting,
preening birds. The sunlight broke on their grey breasts into small rainbows. His ears were lulled
by their crooning, his hands stretched up towards the favourite, a homing pigeon, a young
plump-bodied bird which stood still when it saw him and cocked a shrewd bright eye.
'Pretty, pretty, pretty,' he said, as he grasped the bird and drew it down, feeling the cold coral
claws tighten around his finger. Content, he rested the bird lightly on his chest, and leaned
against a tree, gazing out beyond the dovecote into the landscape of a late afternoon. In folds and
hollows of sunlight and shade, the dark red soil, which was broken into great dusty clods,
stretched wide to a tall horizon. Trees marked the course of the valley; a stream of rich green
grass the road.
His eyes travelled homewards along this road until he saw his granddaughter swinging on the
gate underneath a frangipani tree. Her hair fell down her back in a wave of sunlight, and her long
bare legs repeated the angles of the frangipani stems, bare, shining-brown stems among patterns
of pale blossoms.
She was gazing past the pink flowers, past the railway cottage where they lived, along the road to

the village. His mood shifted. He deliberately held out his wrist for the bird to take flight, and
caught it again at the moment it spread its wings. He felt the plump shape strive and strain under
his fingers; and, in a sudden access of troubled spite, shut the bird into a small box and fastened
the bolt. 'Now you stay there,' he muttered; and turned his back on the shelf of birds. He moved
warily along the hedge, stalking his granddaughter, who was now looped over the gate, her head
loose on her arms, singing.The light happy sound mingled with the crooning of the birds, and his
anger mounted.
`Hey!' he shouted; saw her jump, look back, and abandon the gate. Her eyes veiled themselves,
and she said in a pert neutral voice: 'Hullo, Grandad.' Politely she moved towards him, after a
18


lingering backward glance at the road.
'Waiting for Steven, hey?' he said, his fingers curling like claws into his palm. Any objection?'
she asked lightly, refusing to look at him.
He confronted her, his eyes narrowed, shoulders hunched, tight in a hard knot of pain which
included the preening birds, the sunlight, the flowers. He said: `Think you're old enough to go
courting, hey?'
The girl tossed her head at the old-fashioned phrase and sulked, 'Oh, Grandad!'
'Think you want to leave home, hey? Think you can go running around the fields at night?'
Her smile made him see her, as he had every evening of this warm end-of-summer month,
swinging hand in hand along the road to the village with that red-handed, red throated, violentbodied youth, the son of the postmaster. Misery went to his head and he shouted angrily: 'I'll tell
your mother!'
'Tell away!' she said, laughing, and went back to the gate. He heard her singing, for him to hear:
'I've got you under my skin, I've got you deep in the heart of ...'
'Rubbish,' he shouted. 'Rubbish. Impudent little bit of rubbish!' Growling under his breath he
turned towards the dovecote, which was his refuge from the house he shared with his daughter
and her husband and their children. But now the house would be empty. Gone all the young girls
with their laughter and their squabbling and their teasing. He would be left, uncherished and
alone, with that square-fronted, calm-eyed woman, his daughter.

He stopped, muttering, before the dovecote, resenting the absorbed cooing birds. From the gate
the girl shouted: 'Go and tell! Go on, what are you waiting for?'
Obstinately he made his way to the house, with quick, pathetic persistent glances of appeal back
at her. But she never looked around. Her defiant but anxious young body stung him into love and
repentance. He stopped, 'But I never meant...' he muttered, waiting for her to turn and run to him.
'I didn't mean...'
She did not turn. She had forgotten him. Along the road came the young man Steven, with
something in his hand. A present for her? The old man stiffened as he watched the gate swing
back, and the couple embrace. In the brittle shadows of the frangipani tree his granddaughter, his
darling, lay in the arms of the postmaster's son, and her hair flowed back over his shoulder.
'I see you!' shouted the old man spitefully. They did not move. He stumped into the little
whitewashed house, hearing the wooden veranda creak angrily under his feet. His daughter was
sewing in the front room, threading a needle held to the light.
He stopped again, looking back into the garden. The couple were now sauntering among the

19


bushes, laughing. As he watched he saw the girl escape from the youth with a sudden
mischievous movement, and run off through the flowers with him in pursuit. He heard shouts,
laughter, a scream, silence.
'But it's not like that at all,' he muttered miserably. 'It's not like that. Why can't you see? Running
and giggling, and kissing and kissing. You'll come to something quite different.'
He looked at his daughter with sardonic hatred, hating himself. They were caught and finished,
both of them, but the girl was still running free.
'Can't you see?' he demanded of his invisible granddaughter, who was at that moment lying in
the thick green grass with the postmaster's son.
His daughter looked at him and her eyebrows went up in tired forbearance.
'Put your birds to bed?' she asked, humouring him.
'Lucy,' he said urgently, 'Lucy...'

'Well, what is it now?'
'She's in the garden with Steven.'
'Now you just sit down and have your tea.'
He stumped his feet alternately, thump, thump, on the hollow wooden floor and shouted: 'She'll
marry him. I'm telling you, she'll be marrying him next!'
His daughter rose swiftly, brought him a cup, set him a plate. 'I don't want any tea. I don't want
it, I tell you.' 'Now, now,' she crooned. 'What's wrong with it? Why not?' 'She's eighteen.
Eighteen!'
'I was married at seventeen and I never regretted it.'
'Liar,' he said. 'Liar. Then you should regret it. Why do you make your girls marry? It's you who
do it. What do you do it for? Why?'
'The other three have done fine. They've three fine husbands. Why not Alice?'
'She's the last,' he mourned. 'Can't we keep her a bit longer?'
'Come, now, Dad. She'll be down the road, that's all. She'll be here every day to see you.'
'But it's not the same.' He thought of the other three girls, transformed inside a few months from
charming petulant spoiled children into serious young matrons.

20


'You never did like it when we married,' she said. 'Why not? Every time, it's the same. When I
got married you made me feel like it was something wrong. And my girls the same. You get
them all crying and miserable the way you go on. Leave Alice alone. She's happy.' She sighed,
letting her eyes linger on the sunlit garden. 'She'll marry next month. There's no reason to wait.'
'You've said they can marry?' he said incredulously.
'Yes, Dad, why not?' she said coldly, and took up her sewing.
His eyes stung, and he went out on to the veranda. Wet spread down over his chin and he took
out a handkerchief and mopped his whole face. The garden was empty. From around the corner
came the young couple; but their faces were no longer set against him. On the wrist of the
postmaster's son balanced a young pigeon, the light gleaming on its breast.

'For me?' said the old man, letting the drops shake off his chin. 'For me?'
'Do you like it?' The girl grabbed his hand and swung on it. 'It's for you, Grandad. Steven
brought it for you.' They hung about him, affectionate, concerned, trying to charm away his wet
eyes and his misery. They took his arms and directed him to the shelf of birds, one on each side,
enclosing him, petting him, saying wordlessly that nothing would be changed, nothing could
change, and that they would be with him always. The bird was proof of it, they said, from their
lying happy eyes, as they thrust it on him. 'There, Grandad, it's yours. It's for you.'
They watched him as he held it on his wrist, stroking its soft, sun-warmed back, watching the
wings lift and balance.
'You must shut it up for a bit', said the girl intimately. 'Until it knows this is its home.' 'Teach
your grandmother to suck eggs,' growled the old man.
Released by his half-deliberate anger, they fell back, laughing at him. 'We're glad you like it.'
They moved off, now serious and full of purpose, to the gate, where they hung, backs to him,
talking quietly. More than anything could, their grown-up seriousness shut him out, making him
alone; also, it quietened him, took the sting out of their tumbling like puppies on the grass. They
had forgotten him again. Well, so they should, the old man reassured himself, feeling his throat
clotted with tears, his lips trembling. He held the new bird to his face, for the caress of its silken
feathers. Then he shut it in a box and took out his favourite.
'Now you can go, he said aloud. He held it poised, ready for flight, while he looked down the
garden towards the boy and the girl. Then, clenched in the pain of loss, he lifted the bird on his
wrist, and watched it soar. A whirr and a spatter of wings, and a cloud of birds rose into the
evening from the dovecote.
At the gate Alice and Steven forgot their talk and watched the birds.
On the veranda, that woman, his daughter, stood gazing, her eyes shaded with a hand that still
held her sewing.
21


It seemed to the old man that the whole afternoon had stilled to watch his gesture of selfcommand, that even the leaves of the trees had stopped shaking. Dry-eyed and calm, he let his
hands fall to his sides and stood erect, staring up into the sky.

The cloud of shining silver birds flew up and up, with a shrill cleaving of wings, over the dark
ploughed land and the darker belts of trees and the bright folds of grass, until they floated high in
the sunlight, like a cloud of motes of dust.
They wheeled in a wide circle, tilting their wings so there was flash after flash of light, and one
after another they dropped from the sunshine of the upper sky to shadow, one after another,
returning to the shadowed earth over trees and grass and field, returning to the valley and the
shelter of night.
The garden was all a fluster and a flurry of returning birds. Then silence, and the sky was empty.
The old man turned, slowly, taking his time; he lifted his eyes to smile proudly down the garden
at his granddaughter. She was staring at him. She did not smile. She was wide-eyed, and pale in
the cold shadow, and he saw the tears run shivering off her face.

22


MR. KNOW-ALL

I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the
passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy.
Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to
offer you.
You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there
were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It
suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin
for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have
looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger's name had been Smith or Brown).
When I went on board I found Mr Kelada's luggage already below.
I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suit-cases, and the wardrobe trunk
was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the
excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair-wash and his

brilliantine.
Mr Kelada's brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a
scrub. I did not at all like Mr Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack
of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked
me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.

23


"I am Mr Kelada," he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
"Oh, yes, we're sharing a cabin, I think."
"Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you're going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I
heard you were English. I'm all for us English sticking together when we're abroad, if you
understand what I mean."
I blinked.
"Are you English?" I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
"Rather. You don't think I look like an American, do you? British to the backbone, that's what I
am."
To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George has many strange subjects. Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven
and dark-skinned, with a fleshy hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long
black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and
his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport
would have betrayed the fact that Mr Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in
England.
"What will you have?" he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearance the ship was bone-dry.
When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale or lemon squash. But Mr
Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
"Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word."

From each of his hip pockets he fished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the
martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.
"A very good cocktail," I said.
"Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you've got any friends on board, you
tell them you've got a pal who's got all the liquor in the world."
Mr. Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays,
pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but
when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses
somewhat in dignity. Mr. Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help
feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put "mister" before my name when he addresses me.
Mr. Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr. Kelada. I
24


had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our
conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.
"The three on the four," said Mr Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put
the card you have turned up before you have had a chance to look for yourself.
"It's coming out, it's coming out," he cried. "The ten on the knave."
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished.
Then he seized the pack.
"Do you like card tricks?"
"No, I hate card tricks," I answered.
"Well, I'll just show you this one."
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at table.
"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I've already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the
same state-room we might just as well sit at the same table."
I did not like Mr. Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not

walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to
him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see
you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face
without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer,
and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps,
conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches,
organized the concert and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was
certainly the best hated man in the ship. We called him Mr. Know-All, even to his face. He took
it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an
hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew
everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you
should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought
you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to
him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor's table. Mr. Kelada would certainly have
had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man
called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr. Kelada and resented bitterly the
Levantine's cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.

25