Scary Stories
Phantasmagoria - Lewis Carrol
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- Duration:
- 30m
- Broadcast on:
- 23 Jun 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
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At Saulgoodmedia.com, we believe in the power of stories to transform lives. Whether you're a lifelong learner, a parent seeking bedtime stories for your children, or someone looking to unwind after a long day, we have something just for you. We invite you to try Saul Good Media free for one month. Explore our extensive collection and find the perfect audio content that resonates with you. Join our community of passionate listeners and unlock a world of knowledge, relaxation, and inspiration. Visit www.soulgoodmedia.com today and start your free trial. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D-M-E-D-I-A dot com. 1 Winter Night At Half Past Nine Cold, Tired and Cross and Muddy. I had come home too late to dine and supper with cigars and wine was waiting in the study. There was a strangeness in the room and something white and wavy was standing near me in the gloom. I took it for the carpet broom left by that careless slavy. But presently the thing began to shiver and to sneeze on which I said come come my man, that I most inconsiderate plan, lest noise there if you please. I've caught a cold, the thing replies, out there upon the landing. I turned to look in some surprise and there before my very eyes a little ghost was standing. He trembled when he caught my eye and got behind a chair. "How came you here?" I said. "And why?" I never saw a thing so shy. "Come out, don't shiver there." He said, "I'll gladly tell you how, and also tell you why, but here he gave a little bow. You're in so bad a temper now you think it all a lie, and as to being in a fright allow me to remark that ghosts have just as good a right in every way to fear the light as men fear the dark." "No, please," said I, "can well excuse such cowardice in you, for ghosts can visit when they choose whereas we humans can't refuse to grant the interview." He said, "A flutter of alarm is not unnatural, is it? I only feared you really meant some harm, but now I see that you are calm. Let me explain my visit. Houses are classed, I beg to state according to the number of ghosts that they accommodate. The tenant merely counts his weight with cold and other lumber. This is a one ghost house, and you, when you arrived last summer, may have remarked a spectra who was doing all that ghosts can do to welcome the newcomer. In villas this is always done, however cheaply rented, for though of course there's less fun when there is only room for one, ghosts have to be contented. That spectra left you on the third, since then you've not been haunted, for as he never sent us word, was quite the accident we heard, that anyone was wanted. A spectra has first choice by right in filling up a vacancy, then Phantom Goblin Elphin sprite, if all of these fail, then they invite the nicest ghoul that they can see. The spectra said the place was low and that you kept bad wine, so as a phantom had to go, and I was first, of course, you know, I couldn't well decline. No doubt, said I, they settled on who was fittest to be sent, yet still to choose a brat like you to haunt a man of forty-two was no great compliment. I'm not so young sir, he replied, as you might think the fact is in caverns by the waterside and other places that I've tried, I've had a lot of practice. But I have never taken yet a strict domestic part, and in my flurry I forget the five good rules of etiquette we have to know my heart. My sympathies were warming fast towards the little fellow, he was so utterly aghast at having found a man at last and looked so scared and yellow. "At least," I said, "I'm glad to find a ghost is not a dumb thing, but praise it down you'll feel inclined, if like myself you have not dined, to take a snack of something. Though certainly you don't appear a thing to offer food to, and then I shall be glad to hear, if you will say them loud and clear, the rules that you elude to. Thanks, you shall hear them bind by. "This is a piece of luck. What may I offer you," said I. "Well, since you are so kind, I'll try a little bit of duck. One slice, and may I ask you for another drop of gravy. I sat and looked at him in awe, for certainly I never saw a thing so white and wavy. And still he seemed to grow more white, more vapoury, and wavier, seen in the dim and flickering light, as he proceeded to recite his maxims of behaviour." "Kanto to his five rules." "My first, but don't suppose," he said, "I'm setting you a riddle, is, if your victim is in bed, don't touch the curtains at his head, but take them in the middle, and wave them slowly in and out while drawing them a sunder, and in a minute's time no doubt he'll raise his head and look about with eyes of wrath and wonder. And here you must on no pretense make the first observation. Wait for the victim to commence, no ghost of any common sense begins a conversation. If he should say, "How came you hear the way you begin, sir?" "In such case your course is clear. On the bat's back, my little dear," is the appropriate answer. "If after this he says no more, you'd best perhaps curtail your exertions go and shake the door, and then if he begins to snore you'll know the things of failure. By day if he should walk alone, at home or on a walk, you merely give a hollow groan to indicate the kind of tone in which you mean to talk. But if you find him with his friends, the thing is rather harder. In such a case success depends on picking up some candlelands or butter in the larder. With this you make a kind of slide, it answers best with sweet. On which you must contrive to glide and swing yourself from side to side, one learns how to do it. The second tells us what is right in ceremonious calls, first burn a candle or crimson light, a thing I quite forgot tonight, then scratch the door or walls. I said, "You'll visit here no more if you attempt the guy, I'll have no bonfires on my floor, and as for scratching at the door I'd like to see you try." The third was written to protect the interest of the victim, and tells us as I recollect to treat him with grave respect and not to contradict him. "That's plain," said I, "as tear and tread to any comprehension I only wish some ghost I've met would not so constantly forget the maxim that you mention. Perhaps," he said, "you first transgressed the laws of hospitality, all ghost instinctively to test the man that fails to treat his guest with pumper cordiality. If you addressed a ghost as thing or strike him with a hatchet, he is permitted by the king to drop all formal, parlaying, and then you're sure to catch it. The fourth prohibits trespassing where other ghosts are quartered, and those convicted of the thing, unless they're pardoned by the king, must instantly be slaughtered. That simply means be cut up small, ghosts soon unite anew. The process scarcely hurts at all, no more than when you're what you call "cut up" by a review. The fifth is one you may prefer that I should quote entire. The king must be addressed as sir, this from a simple courtier is all the laws require, but should you wish to do the thing without an out politeness a cost him as my goblin king, and always use in answering the phrase your royal whiteness. I'm getting rather hoarse, I fear, after so much reciting, so if you don't object, my dear, we'll try a glass of bitter beer, I think it looks inviting. Kento three, scarmages. "And did you really walk?" said I, on such a wretched night. I've always fancied ghosts could fly, if not exactly in the sky yet at a fairish height. "It's very well," said he, "for kings to soar above the earth, but phantoms often find that wings, like many other pleasant things, cost more than they are worth. Spectres, of course, are rich, and so can buy them from the elves, but we prefer to keep below their stupid company, you know, for any but themselves." For though they claim to be exempt from pride, they treat a phantom, as if something quite beneath contempt, just as no turkey ever dreamt, of noticing a phantom. "They seem too proud," said I, "to go to houses such as mine, pray how did they contrive to know so quickly that the place was low, and that I kept bad wine." "Inspector Colwald came to you," the little ghosts began, "here I broke in. Inspector who?" "Inspecting ghost is something new, explain yourself, my man." "His name is Colwald," said my guest, one of the spectra-order. "You'll very often see him dressed in a yellow gown, a crimson vest, and a nightcap with a border." He tried to brocken business first, he caught a sort of chill, so it came to England to be nursed, and here it took the form of thirst, which he complains of still. "Port wine," he says, "when rich in sound, warms his bones like nectar, and as the inns where it is found, are his especial hunting-ground. We call him the inn spectra." "I bore it, bore it like a man, this agonizing witticism, and nothing could be sweeter than my temper till the ghost begins, so most provoking criticism. Cooks need not be indulged in waste, yet still you'd better teach them. Dishes have some sort of taste; pray why are all the cruets placed, where nobody can reach them. That man of yours will never earn his living as a waiter, is that queer thing is supposed to burn, it's far too dismal, concerned to call a moderator. The duck was tender, but the peas were very much too old, and just remember, if you please, the next time you have toasted cheese, don't let them scent it cold. You'll find the bread improved, I think, by getting better flour and have you anything to drink that looks a little less like ink and isn't quite so sour. Then peering round with curious eyes, he muttered goodness gracious, and so went on to criticize your room's an inconvenient size, it's neither snug nor spacious, that narrow window I expect serves but to let the dusk in. But please, said I, to recollect, 'twas fashioned by an architect whose pinned his faith on Ruskin. I don't care who he was, sir, or on whom he pinned his faith, constructed by whatever law so poor a job I never saw, as I'm a living-rate. What a remarkable cigar, how much are they a dozen. I growled, no matter what they are, you're getting as familiar as if you were my cousin.' 'Now that's a thing I will not stand, and so I tell you flat. Aha, said he, we're getting grand, taking a bottle in his hand. I'll soon arrange for that.' And here he took careful aim, and Gailie cried, 'Here goes!' I tried to dodge it as it came, but somehow caught it all the same, exactly on my nose, and I remember nothing more than I can clearly fix till I was sitting on the floor repeating two and five are four, but five and two are six. Would really past I never learned nor guessed I only know, that when at last my sense returned, blampt neglected, dimly burned, the fire was getting low. Through driving mist I seemed to see a thing that smirked and smiled, and found that he was giving me a lession in biography as if I were a child. 'Canto 4, his nurture.' 'Oh, when I was a little ghost, a merry time had we, each seated on his favorite post, we chumped and chawed the butter toast they gave us for our tea.' 'That story is in print,' I cried, 'don't say it's not, because it's known as well as Bradshaw's guide,' the ghost uneasily replied, he hardly thought it was. 'It's not a nursery rhymes, and yet I almost think it is, three little ghosteses were set on a posteses, you know, and ate their buttered toasteses.' 'I have the book, so if you doubt it,' I turned to search the self, 'don't stare,' he cried, 'we'll do without it.' I now remember all about it, I wrote the thing myself. It came out in a monthly, or at least my agent said it did, some literary swell who saw, it seemed to think it adapted for the magazine he edited. 'My father was a brownie, sir, my mother was a fairy, the notion had occurred to her that children would be happier if they were taught to vary.' The notion soon became a craze, and when it once begun she brought us all out in different ways, one was a pixie, two were a phase, another was a banshee, the fetching kelpie went to school and gave a lot of trouble, next came a poltergeist and ghoul, and then two trolls, which broke the rule, a goblin and a double. 'If that's a snuffbox on the shelf,' he added with a yawn, 'I'll take a pinch,' next came an elf, and then a phantom, that's myself, and last a leprechaun. One day some specters can chance the call, dressed in the usual white, I stood and watched them in the hall and couldn't make them out at all, they seemed so strange a sight. I wondered what on earth they were, they looked all head and sack, but mother told me not to stare and then she twitched me by the hair and punched me in the back. Since then I've often wished that I had been a specter born, but what's the use?' he heave the sigh. 'They are ghost nobility and on us they look with scorn. My phantom life was soon begun when I was barely six, I went out with an older one and just at first I thought it was fun and learned a lot of tricks. I've haunted dungeons, castles, towers, wherever I was sent. I've often sat and howled for hours drenched through the skin with driving showers upon a battle-ment. It's quite old-fashioned now to groan when you speak, this is the newest thing in tone and here, it chilled me to the bone he gave an awful squeak. 'Perhaps,' he added, 'to your ear, that sounds an easy thing, try it yourself, my little deer, it took me something like a year with constant practicing, and when you've learned to squeak my man and caught the double sob, you're pretty much where you begin, just try and jibber if you can, that's something like a job. I've tried it and can only say, 'I'm sure you couldn't do it, even if you practiced at night and day, unless you have a turn that way and natural ingenuity.' Shakespeare, I think it is who treats of ghosts and days of old, who jibbered in the Roman streets, dressed a few recollect in sheets, they must have found it cold. I've often spent ten pounds on stuff in dressing as a double, but though it answers as a puff, it never has effect enough to make it worth the trouble. Longbills soon quench the little thirst I had for being funny, the setting up is always worse. Such heaps of things you wanted first, one must be made of money. For instance, take a haunted tower with skull, crossbones, and sheet, blue lights to burn, say, two an hour, condensing lens of extra power, and set of chains complete. What with the things you have to hire, the fitting on the robe, and testing all the coloured fire, the outfit of itself retire, the patience of a job, and then they're so fastidious, the haunted house committee, I've often known them to make a fuss because a ghost was French or Russ, or even from the city. Some dialects are objected to for one the Irish brogus, and then for all you have to do, one pound a week they offer you, and find yourself in bogeys. Kanto 5, biggerment 'Don't they consult the victims though?' I said. 'They should buy rights, give them a chance, because you know the taste of people differ so, especially in sprites.' The phantom shook his head and smiled. 'Consult them, not a bit. It would be a job to drive one wild, to satisfy one single child. There'd be no end to it.' 'Of course you can't leave children free,' said I, 'to pick and choose, but in the case of men like me I think mine host might be fairly allowed to state his views.' He said, 'It really wouldn't pay, folk are so full of fancies we visit for a single day, and whether then we go or stay depends on the circumstances. And though we don't consult mine host, before the things arranged still if he often quits his post or is not a well-mannered ghost then you can have him changed. But if the host's a man like you I mean a man of sense, and if the house is not too new, why, what has that?' said I, 'to do with a ghost's convenience.' A new house does not suit you no, it's such a job to trim it, but after 20 years or so the Wayne's coatings began to go, so 20 is the limit. 'To trim was not a phrase I could remember having heard. Perhaps,' I said, 'you'll be so good, as to tell me what is understood exactly by that word. It means the loosening all the doors, the ghost replied and laughed, it means the drilling by scores in all the skirting-boards and floors to make a thorough drought. You'll sometimes find that one or two are all you really need to let the wind come listening through, but here there'll be a lot to do, I faintly gasp. 'Indeed!' If I had been rather later I'll be bound,' I added, trying most unsuccessfully to smile. 'You'd been busy all this while trimming and beautifying.' 'Why no,' said he, 'perhaps I should have stayed another minute, but still no ghost that's any good without any introduction would have ventured to begin it. The proper thing, as you were late, was certainly to go, but with the roads in such a state I got the nightmare's leave to wait for half an hour or so. 'Who's the nightmare?' I cried, instead of answering my question. 'Well, if you don't know that,' he said, 'either you never go to bed or you've a grand digestion.' He goes about and sits on folk that eat too much at night. His duties are to pinch and poke and squeeze them till they nearly choke. I said it serves them right. 'And folk who supple on things like these,' he muttered, 'eggs and bacon, lobster and duck and toasted cheese. If they don't get an awful squeeze, I'm very much mistaken.' He is immensely fat, and so well suits the occupation. In point of fact, if you must know, we used to call him years ago the mayor and corporation. The day he was elected mayor I know that every sprite meant to vote for me, but did not dare. He was so frantic with despair and furious with excitement. When it was over for a whim, he ran to tell the king, and being the reverse of slim, a two-mile trap was not for him a very easy thing. So to reward him for his run, as it was baking hot and he was over twenty stone, the king proceeded half and one to night him on the spot. It was a great liberty to take. I fired up like a rocket. He did it just for punting sake the man, says Johnson, that would make a pun would pick a pocket. A man said he is not a king. I argued for a while and did my best to prove the thing, the phantom merely listening with a contemptuous smile. At last, when breath and patience spent I had recourse to smoking. Your aim, he said, is excellent, but when you call it an argument, of course you all are joking. Stung by his cold and sneaky eye, I roused myself at length to say, at least I do defy the very skeptic to deny that union is strength. That's true enough, said he, yet stay. I listened in all meekness. Union is strength, I'm bound to say, in fact, things as clear as day, but onions are a weakness. Kent who, six, discomfiture. As one who strives a hill to climb, who never climb before, who finds it in a little time, grow every moment, less sublime, and votes the thing abour, yet having once begin to try, dares not desert his quest, but climbing ever keeps his eye on one small hut against the sky wherein he hopes to rest, who climbs till nerve and force are spent with many a puff and panned, who still as rises the ascent in language grows more violent, although in breath more scanned, who climbing gains at length a place that crowns the upward track, and entering with unsteady pace receives a buffet in the face that lands him on his back, and feels himself like one in sleep, glides swiftly down again, a helpless wait from steep to steep till with a headlong giddy sweep he drops upon the plane, so I that had resolved to bring conviction to a ghost and found it quite a different thing from any human arguing, yet dared not quit my post, but keeping still the end in view to which I hoped come, I strove to prove the matter true by putting everything I knew into an axiom, commencing every single phrase with therefore or because I blindly reeled 100 ways about the syllogistic maze unconscious where I was, quote he that's a regular clap trap don't bluster anymore, now do be cool and take a nap such ridiculous old chap was never seen before, you're like a man I used to meet who got one day so furious and arguing the simple heat, scorched both slippers off his feet, I said that's very curious, well it is curious I agree and sounds perhaps like fibs, but still it's true as true can be as sure your name is Tibs, said he, I said my name's not Tibs, not Tibs he cried his tone became a shade or two less hearty, why no said I my proper name is Tibbets, Tibbets, I the same, why then you're not the party, with that he struck the board a blow that shivered half the glasses, why can't you have told me so three quarters of an hour ago you prince of all the asses, to walk four miles through mud and rain to spend the night in smoking and then to find that it's in vain and I have to do it all again it's really too provoking, don't talk he cried as I began to mutter some excuse who can have patience with a man that's got no more discretion than an idiotic goose to keep me waiting here instead of telling me at once that this was not the house he said there that'll do be off to bed don't gape like that you dunce it's very fine to throw the blame on me in such a fashion why didn't you inquire my name the very minute that you came I answered in a passion of course it worries you a bit to come so far on foot but how is I to blame for it well well said he I must admit that isn't badly put and certainly you've given me the best of wine and ritual excuse my violence said he but accidents like this you see they put one out a little towards my fault after all I find shake hands old turn up top the name was hardly to my mind but as no doubt he meant it kind I'd let the matter drop good night old turn up top good night when I am gone perhaps they'll send you some inferior sprite who will keep you in some constant fright and spoil in your soundest naps tell him you'll stand no sort of trick then if you leers and chuckles you'll just be handy with a stick line that's pretty hard and thick and wrap him on the knuckles then carelessly remark old coon perhaps you're not aware that if you don't behave you'll soon be chuckling to another tune so you'd best take care that's the right way to cure a sprite of such like going on but gracious me it's getting light good night old turn up top good night and nod and he was gone kanto seven said saffenauts what's this I pondered have I slept or can I have been drinking but soon a gentler feeling crept upon me and I sat and wept an hour or so like winging no need for bones to hurry so I sobbed in fact I doubt if it was worth his while to go and who his tibs I'd like to know to make such work about if tibs is anything like me it's possible I said he won't be over pleased to be dropped in upon at half past three after each snug in bed and if bones plagues him anyhow squeaking in all the rest of it and he was doing here just now I prophesy there'll be a row and tibs will have the best of it then as my tears could never bring the friendly phantom back it seemed to me the proper thing to mix another glass and sing the following karuna and art thou gone beloved ghost best of familiars nay then farewell my duckling rose farewell farewell my tea and toast my marshal men cigars the hues of life are dull and gray the sweets of life and sippin when thou my charmer art away old brick or rather let me say old parallel apiped instead of singing verse the third I ceased abruptly rather but after such a splendid word I felt that if it would be absurd to try it any farther so with a yawn I went my way to seek the welcome downy and slept and dreamed till break of day of poltergeist and fetch and fey and leprechaun and brownie for a year i've not been visited by any kind of sprite it's still they echo in my head those parting words so kindly said old turn up top good night end of fantasmagora by louis carol