Wait!” he said. “Hold your scolding till you know what I have come to tell you!
To think a book could have so much paper in it!
Anyone would think you’d seen a ghost!
There’s a great many things hard to fathom in darkness that set themselves straight in the light of day.
One should always pay attention to ghosts, shouldn’t one, Miss Lea?
Time was of the essence. For at eight o’clock the world came to an end. It was reading time.
The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours.
Why do you come here, Aurelius?
Do you mean to tell me, Aurelius, that you are a foundling?” “Yes. That is the word for what I am. A foundling.
The mist was almost gone. The magical shapes of the topiary had lost their charm and looked like the unkempt bushes and hedges they were.
But you know it was here? In this house?” Aurelius shoved his hands into the depths of his pockets. His shoulders tightened. “I wouldn’t expect other people to understand. I haven’t got any proof. But I do know.” He sent me a quick glance, and I encouraged him, with my eyes, to continue. “Sometimes you can know things. Things about yourself. Things from before you can remember. I can’t explain it.
Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you.
I believe you,” I repeated, my tongue thick with all the waiting words. “I’ve had that feeling, too. Knowing things you can’t know. From before you can remember.” And there it was again! A sudden movement in the corner of my eye, there and gone in the same instant.
All my unsaid words went back to wherever they had been all these years.
For it looked as if the walls were simply dissolving in the rain; those stones still standing, pale and insubstantial as rice paper, seemed ready to melt away under my very eyes if I just stood there long enough.
There is something about words.
Pigs are remarkable creatures and, though most men are too blind to see it, have intelligence that they show in their eyes.
My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.
Have you got a birthday?” Aurelius asked. “Yes. I’ve got a birthday.” All my unsaid words went back to wherever they had been all these years. “I’ll make a note of it, shall I?” he said brightly. “Then I can send you a card.” I feigned a smile. “It’s coming up soon, actually. “ Aurelius opened a little blue notebook divided into months. “The nineteenth,” I told him, and he wrote it down with a pencil so small it looked like a toothpick in his huge hand.
Moments came back to him when he had behaved less honorably than he wished. He remembered instances of neglect and ingratitude. He felt the pang of remorse and resolved not to do the same again.