Les-Miserables

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century— the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light— are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.
HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862.

FANTINE

CHAPTER I

M. MYRIEL
In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.
Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry.

The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from which she had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate of M. Myriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall of his own family, the tragic spectacles of ‘93, which were, perhaps, even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance, with the magnifying powers of terror,—did these cause the ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life, suddenly smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public catastrophes would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.

In 1804, M. Myriel was the Cure of B—— [Brignolles]. He was already advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner.
About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with his curacy—just what, is not precisely known—took him to Paris. Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day, when the Emperor had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Cure, who was waiting in the anteroom, found himself present when His Majesty passed. Napoleon, on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, turned round and said abruptly:—
‘Who is this good man who is staring at me?’
‘Sire,’ said M. Myriel, ‘you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man. Each of us can profit by it.’
That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Cure, and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that he had been appointed Bishop of D——
What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as to the early portion of M. Myriel’s life? No one knew. Very few families had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the Revolution.
M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name was connected were rumors only,—noise, sayings, words; less than words— palabres, as the energetic language of the South expresses it.
However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of residence in D——, all the stories and subjects of conversation which engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one would have dared to recall them.
M. Myriel had arrived at D—— accompanied by an elderly spinster, Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior.
Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as Mademoiselle Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having been the servant of M. le Cure, now assumed the double title of maid to Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur.
Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she realized the ideal expressed by the word ‘respectable”; for it seems that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever drooping;— a mere pretext for a soul’s remaining on the earth.
Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and bustling; always out of breath,—in the first place, because of her activity, and in the next, because of her asthma.
On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop immediately after a major-general. The mayor and the president paid the first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general and the prefect.
The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work. Click here continue reading.....

Tale of Two Cities

The Period

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. South-cott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellowtradesman whom he stopped in his character of ‘the Captain,’ gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, ‘in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:’ after which the mall was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond cross es from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence.
All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them. Click here to continue.....

Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot

Towards the end of November, during a thaw, at nine o’clock one morning, a train on the Warsaw and Petersburg railway was approaching the latter city at full speed. The morning was so damp and misty that it was only with great difficulty that the day succeeded in breaking; and it was impossible to distinguish anything more than a few yards away from the carriage windows.
     Some of the passengers by this particular train were returning from abroad; but the third-class carriages were the best filled, chiefly with insignificant persons of various occupations and degrees, picked up at the different stations nearer town. All of them seemed weary, and most of them had sleepy eyes and a shivering expression, while their complexions generally appeared to have taken on the colour of the fog outside.
     When day dawned, two passengers in one of the thirdclass carriages found themselves opposite each other. Both were young fellows, both were rather poorly dressed, both had remarkable faces, and both were evidently anxious to start a conversation. If they had but known why, at this particular moment, they were both remarkable persons, they would undoubtedly have wondered at the strange chance which had set them down opposite to one another in a thirdclass carriage of the Warsaw Railway Company.

     One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent, ironical—it might almost be called a malicious—smile; but his forehead was high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen, self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur—or rather astrachan— overcoat, which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it—the sort of cloak one sees upon travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy—was by no means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St. Petersburg.
     The wearer of this cloak was a young fellow, also of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, slightly above the middle height, very fair, with a thin, pointed and very light coloured beard; his eyes were large and blue, and had an intent look about them, yet that heavy expression which some people affirm to be a peculiarity. as well as evidence, of an epileptic subject. His face was decidedly a pleasant one for all that; refined, but quite colourless, except for the circum stance that at this moment it was blue with cold. He held
a bundle made up of an old faded silk handkerchief that apparently contained all his travelling wardrobe, and wore thick shoes and gaiters, his whole appearance being very un-Russian.
     His black-haired neighbour inspected these peculiarities, having nothing better to do, and at length remarked, with that rude enjoyment of the discomforts of others which the common classes so often show:
‘Cold?’
‘Very,’ said his neighbour, readily. ‘and this is a thaw, too. Fancy if it had been a hard frost! I never thought it would be so cold in the old country. I’ve grown quite out of the way of it.’
‘What, been abroad, I suppose?’
‘Yes, straight from Switzerland.’
‘Wheugh! my goodness!’ The black-haired young fellow
whistled, and then laughed.
     The conversation proceeded. The readiness of the fairhaired young man in the cloak to answer all his opposite neighbour’s questions was surprising. He seemed to have no suspicion of any impertinence or inappropriateness in the fact of such questions being put to him. Replying to them, he made known to the inquirer that he certainly had been long absent from Russia, more than four years; that he had been sent abroad for his health; that he had suffered from some strange nervous malady—a kind of epilepsy, with convulsive spasms. His interlocutor burst out laughing several times at his answers; and more than ever, when to the question, ‘ whether he had been cured?’ the patient replied:
‘No, they did not cure me.’
‘Hey! that’s it! You stumped up your money for nothing, and we believe in those fellows, here!’ remarked the blackhaired individual, sarcastically.
‘Gospel truth, sir, Gospel truth!’ exclaimed another passenger, a shabbily dressed man of about forty, who looked like a clerk, and possessed a red nose and a very blotchy face.
‘Gospel truth! All they do is to get hold of our good Russian money free, gratis, and for nothing. ‘
‘Oh, but you’re quite wrong in my particular instance,’ said the Swiss patient, quietly. ‘Of course I can’t argue the matter, because I know only my own case; but my doctor gave me money—and he had very little—to pay my journey back, besides having kept me at his own expense, while there, for nearly two years.’
‘Why? Was there no one else to pay for you?’ asked the blackhaired one.
‘No—Mr. Pavlicheff, who had been supporting me there, died a couple of years ago. I wrote to Mrs. General Epanchin at the time (she is a distant relative of mine), but she did not answer my letter. And so eventually I came back.’
‘And where have you come to?’
‘That is—where am I going to stay? I—I really don’t quite know yet, I—‘
Both the listeners laughed again. ‘I suppose your whole set-up is in that bundle, then?’
asked the first. (Readmore the whole story from this book)

Poems

In the Tree House at Night
By James L. Dickey

And now the green household is dark.
The half-moon completely is shining
On the earth-lighted tops of the trees.
To be dead, a house must be still.
The floor and the walls wave me slowly;
I am deep in them over my head.
The needles and pine cones about me

Are full of small birds at their roundest,
Their fist without mercy gripping
Hard down through the tree to the roots
To sing back at light when they feel it.
We lie here like angels in bodies,
My brothers and I, one dead,
The other asleep from much living,

In mid-air huddled beside me.
Dark climbed to us here as we climbed
Up the nails I have hammered all day
Through the sprained, comic rungs of the ladder
Of broom handles, crate slats, and laths
Foot by foot up the trunk to the branches
Where we came out at last over lakes

Of leaves, of fields disencumbered of earth
That move with the moves of the spirit.
Each nail that sustains us I set here;
Each nail in the house is now steadied
By my dead brother’s huge, freckled hand.
Through the years, he has pointed his hammer
Up into these limbs, and told us

That we must ascend, and all lie here.
Step after step he has brought me,
Embracing the trunk as his body,
Shaking its limbs with my heartbeat,
Till the pine cones danced without wind
And fell from the branches like apples.
In the arm-slender forks of our dwelling

I breathe my live brother’s light hair.
The blanket around us becomes
As solid as stone, and it sways.
With all my heart, I close
The blue, timeless eye of my mind.
Wind springs, as my dead brother smiles
And touches the tree at the root;

A shudder of joy runs up
The trunk; the needles tingle;
One bird uncontrollably cries.
The wind changes round, and I stir
Within another’s life. Whose life?
Who is dead? Whose presence is living?
When may I fall strangely to earth,

Who am nailed to this branch by a spirit?
Can two bodies make up a third?
To sing, must I feel the world’s light?
My green, graceful bones fill the air
With sleeping birds. Alone, alone
And with them I move gently.
I move at the heart of the world.

Short story: Teenage Love Story

She walks into the hallway and I catch my breath. My eyes light up when she smiles at me, but  she doesn't notice it. She walks up to me and gives me a casual greeting and I reply hoping I  said the right thing. We stand there conversing and not knowing what to say I talk about some  girl I have just met looking at her all the time trying to tell her that if she would just let me love  her no one else would mean anything to me. She says a casual goodbye and walks away  hurriedly likes she's eager to get away from me and I stand there faking a smile and saying "see  you later", when all I want to do is pull her to me, turn her around and say give me that chance  and we could be everything.

But she's doesn't care for me like that.
It's graudation and I stand there looking at her as she walks down the stage with her certificate. Even now I still loved her, she still was my best friend. I turned and headed to the door where she was standing.
 "Jake, can you believe  it!" she said as she hugged me.
"Yes Kate", we're finally out of high school"

She pulled out of my arms and smiled up at me.

"I'll miss you Jake."

I was a bit puzzled, "Miss me? I'm not going anywhere, we still have prom."

"Yes but it won't be just us forever. There will be new people in our lives sooner or later."

I sighed. "Yes Kate I know, but  I'll always remember you."

With that I watched her walk away thinking that if she could just give me that chance it would be us two forever.

But I knew she didn't care for me like that.

I gave up wishing. It had been years ago since we were teenagers and she would never love me the way I love her, but still as I stood there looking at her as she fixed my tie I couldn't help but to wish she was the one I was marrying in a few minutes.
"I am so happy you came Katy"
She smiled at me, "You didn't think I would miss my best friend's wedding?"
There was a rap on the door, "It's time Jake" a voice on the other end said.
I looked at her, I had to tell her how I felt

"Katy … " I said, "Have you found your special someone?"

She looked a me a sad look in her eyes,

"Yes Jake, I found him, I had him for a long time".

The word I was about to tell her died in my throat.

"Oh , I am happy for you then." I said  and couldn't help feeling a bit sad  that it wasn't me.

"Jake … I'm going now" she said her eyes filled with tears.

"Katy …"I said, not knowing what to say to her.

"Bye Jake, I will always remember you" she said as she walked out the door.

I stared at her retreating back knowing that this was the end.

Ten years later I stand looking at the coffin of the girl who was my best friend as I listened to what her friend was saying …

"I walk into the hallway and I see him. I catch his eyes and give him a smile hoping that it came out alright. My heart was racing. The sight of him takes my breath away. I go up to him and he greets me casually like he would rather be anywhere but here talking to me. He talks about his new love interest and I stay there trying not to burst out in tears. He looks at me and I avoid his eyes thinking he's picturing me as her. I couldn't take it anymore so I mutter goodbye hoping he would stop me. But all he says is "see you later" and I walk away my heart breaking while I wished he would give me the chance to be with him.

Page 3

We'd be perfect together. But he doesn't care for me like that …"

And I leaned over and cried my heart out.

Short Romantic Love Stories

A girl and guy were speeding over 100 mph on a motorcycle.
Girl: Slow down. I'm scared.
Guy: No this is fun.
Girl: No its not. Please, it's too scary!
Guy: Then tell me you love me.
Girl: Fine, I love you. Slow down! Guy: Now give me a big hug. (Girl hugs him)
Guy: Can you take my helmet off and put it on? It's bugging me.
In the paper the next day: A motorcycle had crashed into a building because of brake failure. Two people were on the motorcycle, but only one survived. The truth was that halfway down the road, the guy realized that his brakes broke, but he didn't want to let the girl know. Instead, he had her say she loved him, felt her hug one last time, then had her wear his helmet so she would live even though it meant he would die.

 

---------0000--------

 

There was a girl named Becca and a boy named Joe. Becca was in a burning house. None of the firefighters could get in the house because the fire was too big. Joe dressed in one of the fire suits and got into the house. When he got up the stairs, the steps fell off behind him. When he got into her room he sealed the door up behind him. He held her tight, kissed her, huged her, then said that he loved her. She asked what was wrong, and he said that he was going to die. Her eyes widened as she began to cry. He picked her up and jumped out of the four story house. He landed on his back with her on top of him. He died to save her life.

 

--------0000-------

 

There was a blind girl who was filled with animosity and despised the world. She didn't have many friends, just a boyfriend who loved her deeply, like no one else. She always used to say that she'd marry him if she could see him. Suddenly, one day someone donated her a pair of eyes. And that's when she finally saw her boyfriend. She was astonished to see that her boyfriend was blind. He told her, "You can see me now, can we get married?" She replied, "And do what? We'd never be happy. I have my eye sight now, but you're still blind. It won't work out, I'm sorry."
With a tear in his eye and a smile on his face, he meekly said, "I understand. I just want you to always be happy. Take care of yourself, and my eyes."

 

 

Journey of Lifa, Heart and Love

Saat sedih
Bukanlah saat kita kehilangan
Apa yang kita cintai
Tetapi
Saat sedih
Adalah saat dimana,
Kita menyadari bahwa
Kita selalu menyia-nyiakan hidup ini
-Raymond Alfred-

Semua Layak Bahagia Seorang Pria
Berusaha menyakinkan Sang Kekasih
Agar mau menjadikan dirinya
Sebagai seorang suami
Sang pria
Melakukan berbagai macam cara
Meluluhkan hati sang kekasih
Hingga pada akhirnya,
Sang kekasih pun takluk
Sang kekasih awalnya menolak,
Sang kekasih bukannya tak mau
Sang kekasih bukannya tak ingin
Namun,
Sang kekasih berusaha menyakinkan diri sendiri
Sang kekasih berusaha melihat
Seberapa besar usaha si pria
Dan,
Pada akhirnya ia pun mau
Ada standar yang harus dilakukan
Ada syarat yang harus dipenuhi
Ada aturan yang harus dihormati
Keduanya ingin bahagia,
Keduanya layak bahagia,
Namun semuanya,
Butuh proses dan usaha
Serta tak lupa DOA-Raymond Alfred-
“Lakukan hal apapun dengan maksimal, apapun hasilnya, tetaplah bersyukur”

Doa
Tuhan begitu mencintai
Anak-anak kecil,
Bukan karena usia mereka yang masih belia
Tetapi,
Karena tingkah laku mereka
Yang begitu polos dan penuh ketulusan
Namun,
Bukan berarti Tuhan tidak mencintai
Orang-orang dewasa
Hanya saja,
Orang-orang dewasa sudah mampu berpikir
Sehingga,
Kepolosan dan ketulusan jarang sekali terlihat
Biasanya,
Doa yang diucapkan oleh anak-anak
Akan didengar dan dikabulkan oleh Tuhan
Sebab,
Segala doa yang mereka ucapkan
Dilakukan dengan penuh ketulusan dan demi kebaikan
Namun,
Bukan berarti Tuhan tidak akan mendengar dan mengabulkan
Doa yang diucapkan oleh orang-orang dewasa
Sebab,
Tuhan itu adil, bagi mereka yang percaya
Hanya saja,
Akan butuh proses yang dinamakan
Kesabaran dan usaha agar doa tersebut terkabul
Maka,
Jika ingin doa anda didengar dan dikabulkan
Berdoalah seperti anak-anak
Yang melakukan setiap tindakan, dengan penuh ketulusan
Bersikaplah layaknya orang dewasa
Yang melakukan setiap tindakan, dengan penuh pertimbangan
Dan yakinlah, cepat atau lambat
Doa anda pasti akan terkabul
-Raymond Alfred-

Wanita
Wanita adalah makhluk yang paling mulia
Makhluk paling mulia ketika ia menjadi seorang ibu
Makhluk paling mulia ketika ia menyayangi seorang pria
Makhluk paling mulia ketika ia mengasihi anaknya
Wanita adalah makhluk yang berpikir dengan emosi
Makhluk dengan emosi ketika ia harus menentukan keputusan
Makhluk dengan emosi ketika ia mencintai
Makhluk dengan emosi ketika harus memilih
Wanita memang karya terindah ciptaan Tuhan
Mereka dibekali kekuatan, meski tak tampak secara lahiriah
Mereka dibekali kemampuan, mengasihi dan merawat
Terkadang mereka bisa menjadi seperti seekor singa
Yang mengaum dan terlihat ganas
Namun,
Terkadang mereka bisa menjadi seperti seekor malaikat
Yang mengasihi dan menyayangi
Karena mereka cenderung menggunakan emosi
Ketimbang logika
Bersyukurlah para pria,
Yang telah memiliki wanita di dekatnya
Bersyukurlah, lindungi dan sayangilah mereka
Karena mereka adalah titipan Tuhan
Yang paling indah di muka bumi ini
Bagi para pria,
Yang belum memiliki wanita di dekatnya
Tetaplah bersemangat dan temukan wanita
Yang telah di sediakan Tuhan bagimu,
Kemudian,
Hargailah mereka sebaik mungkin
Perlakukanlah mereka dengan cara yang indah
Dengarkanlah setiap kata yang mereka ucapkan
-Raymond Alfred-

Nicolo Machiavelli: The Prince

INTRODUCTION
Nicolo Machiavelli was born at Florence on 3rd May 1469. He was the second son of Bernardo di Nicolo Machiavelli, a lawyer of some repute, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli, his wife. Both parents were members of the old Florentine nobility. His life falls naturally into three periods, each of which singularly enough constitutes a distinct and important era in the history of Florence. His youth was concurrent with the greatness of Florence as an Italian power under the guidance of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Il Magnifico. The downfall of the Medici in Florence occurred in 1494, in which year Machiavelli entered the public service. During his official career Florence was free under the government of a Republic, which lasted until 1512, when the Medici returned to power, and Machiavelli lost his office. The Medici again ruled Florence from 1512 until 1527, when they were once more driven out. This was the period of Machiavelli’s literary activity and increasing influence; but he died, within a few weeks of the expulsion of the Medici, on 22nd June 1527, in his fifty-eighth year, without having regained office.

YOUTH Aet. 1-25—1469-94
Although there is little recorded of the youth of Machiavelli, the Florence of those days is so well known that the early environment of this representative citizen may be easily imagined. Florence has been described as a city with two opposite currents of life, one directed by the fervent and austere Savonarola, the other by the splendourloving Lorenzo. Savonarola’s influence upon the young Machiavelli must have been slight, for although at one time he wielded immense power over the fortunes of Florence, he only furnished Machiavelli with a subject of a gibe in ‘The Prince,’ where he is cited as an example of an unarmed prophet who came to a bad end. Whereas the magnificence of the Medicean rule during the life of Lorenzo appeared to have impressed Machiavelli strongly, for he frequently recurs to it in his writings, and it is to Lorenzo’s grandson that he dedicates ‘The Prince.’

Machiavelli, in his ‘History of Florence,’ gives us a picture of the young men among whom his youth was passed. He writes: ‘They were freer than their forefathers in dress and living, and spent more in other kinds of excesses, consuming their time and money in idleness, gaming, and women; their chief aim was to appear well dressed and to speak with wit and acuteness, whilst he who could wound others the most cleverly was thought the wisest.’ In a letter to his son Guido, Machiavelli shows why youth should avail itself of its opportunities for study, and leads us to infer that his own youth had been so occupied. He writes: ‘I have received your letter, which has given me the greatest pleasure, especially because you tell me you are quite restored in health, than which I could have no better news; for if God grant life to you, and to me, I hope to make a good man of you if you are willing to do your share.’ Then, writing of a new patron, he continues: ‘This will turn out well for you, but it is necessary for you to study; since, then, you have no longer the excuse of illness, take pains to study letters and music, for you see what honour is done to me for the little skill I have. Therefore, my son, if you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself.’

OFFICE Aet. 25-43—1494-1512
The second period of Machiavelli’s life was spent in the service of the free Republic of Florence, which flourished, as stated above, from the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 until their return in 1512. After serving four years in one of the public offices he was appointed Chancellor and Secretary to the Second Chancery, the Ten of Liberty and Peace. Here we are on firm ground when dealing with the events of Machiavelli’s life, for during this time he took a leading part in the affairs of the Republic, and we have its decrees, records, and dispatches to guide us, as well as his own writings. A mere recapitulation of a few of his transactions with the statesmen and soldiers of his time gives a fair indication of his activities, and supplies the sources from which he drew the experiences and characters which illustrate ‘The Prince.’

His first mission was in 1499 to Catherina Sforza, ‘my lady of Forli’ of ‘The Prince,’ from whose conduct and fate he drew the moral that it is far better to earn the confidence of the people than to rely on fortresses. This is a very noticeable principle in Machiavelli, and is urged by him in many ways as a matter of vital importance to princes.
In 1500 he was sent to France to obtain terms from Lou is XII for continuing the war against Pisa: this king it was who, in his conduct of affairs in Italy, committed the five capital errors in statecraft summarized in ‘The Prince,’ and was consequently driven out. He, also, it was who made the dissolution of his marriage a condition of support to Pope Alexander VI; which leads Machiavelli to refer those who urge that such promises should be kept to what he has written concerning the faith of princes.

Machiavelli’s public life was largely occupied with events arising out of the ambitions of Pope Alexander VI and his son, Cesare Borgia, the Duke Valentino, and these characters fill a large space of ‘The Prince.’ Machiavelli never hesitates to cite the actions of the duke for the benefit of usurpers who wish to keep the states they have seized; he can, indeed, find no precepts to offer so good as the pattern of Cesare Borgia’s conduct, insomuch that Cesare is acclaimed by some critics as the ‘hero’ of ‘The Prince.’ Yet in ‘The Prince’ the duke is in point of fact cited as a type of the man who rises on the fortune of others, and falls with them; who takes every course that might be expected from a prudent man but the course which will save him; who is prepared for all eventualities but the one which happens; and who, when all his abilities fail to carry him through, exclaims that it was not his fault, but an extraordinary and unforeseen fatality.

On the death of Pius III, in 1503, Machiavelli was sent to Rome to watch the election of his successor, and there he saw Cesare Borgia cheated into allowing the choice of the College to fall on Giuliano delle Rovere (Julius II), who was one of the cardinals that had most reason to fear the duke. Machiavelli, when commenting on this election, says that he who thinks new favours will cause great personages to forget old injuries deceives himself. Julius did not rest until he had ruined Cesare.
It was to Julius II that Machiavelli was sent in 1506, when that pontiff was commencing his enterprise against Bologna; which he brought to a successful issue, as he did many of his other adventures, owing chiefly to his impetuous character. It is in reference to Pope Julius that Machiavelli moralizes on the resemblance between Fortune and women, and concludes that it is the bold rather than the cautious man that will win and hold them both.

It is impossible to follow here the varying fortunes of the Italian states, which in 1507 were controlled by France, Spain, and Germany, with results that have lasted to our day; we are concerned with those events, and with the three great actors in them, so far only as they impinge on the personality of Machiavelli. He had several meetings with Louis XII of France, and his estimate of that monarch’s character has already been alluded to. Machiavelli has painted Ferdinand of Aragon as the man who accomplished great things under the cloak of religion, but who in reality had no mercy, faith, humanity, or integrity; and who, had he allowed himself to be influenced by such motives, would have been ruined. The Emperor Maximilian was one of the most interesting men of the age, and his character has been drawn by many hands; but Machiavelli, who was an envoy at his court in 1507-8, reveals the secret of his many failures when he describes him as a secretive man, without force of character—ignoring the human agencies necessary to carry his schemes into effect, and never insisting on the fulfilment of his wishes.
The remaining years of Machiavelli’s official career were filled with events arising out of the League of Cambrai, made in 1508 between the three great European powers already mentioned and the pope, with the object of crushing the Venetian Republic. This result was attained in the battle of Vaila, when Venice lost in one day all that she had won in eight hundred years. Florence had a difficult part to play during these events, complicated as they were by the feud which broke out between the pope and the French, because friendship with France had dictated the entire policy of the Republic. When, in 1511, Julius II finally formed the Holy League against France, and with the assistance of the Swiss drove the French out of Italy, Florence lay at the mercy of the Pope, and had to submit to his terms, one of which was that the Medici should be restored. The return of the Medici to Florence on 1st September 1512, and the consequent fall of the Republic, was the signal for the dismissal of Machiavelli and his friends, and thus put an end to his public career, for, as we have seen, he died without regaining office.

LITERATURE AND DEATH Aet. 43-58—1512-27
On the return of the Medici, Machiavelli, who for a few weeks had vainly hoped to retain his office under the new masters of Florence, was dismissed by decree dated 7th November 1512. Shortly after this he was accused of complicity in an abortive conspiracy against the Medici, imprisoned,

and put to the question by torture. The new Medicean people, Leo X, procured his release, and he retired to his small property at San Casciano, near Florence, where he devoted himself to literature. In a letter to Francesco Vettori, dated 13th December 1513, he has left a very interesting description of his life at this period, which elucidates his methods and his motives in writing ‘The Prince.’ After describing his daily occupations with his family and neighbours, he writes: ‘The evening being come, I return home and go to my study; at the entrance I pull off my peasantclothes, covered with dust and dirt, and put on my noble court dress, and thus becomingly re-clothed I pass into the ancient courts of the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone; where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me; and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men. And because Dante says: Knowledge doth come of learning well retained,
Unfruitful else, I have noted down what I have gained from their conversation, and have composed a small work on ‘Principalities,’ where I pour myself out as fully as I can in meditation on the subject, discussing what a principality is, what kinds there are, how they can be acquired, how they can be kept, why they are lost: and if any of my fancies ever pleased you, this ought not to displease you: and to a prince, especially to a new one, it should be welcome: therefore I dedicate it to his Magnificence Giuliano. Filippo Casavecchio has seen it; he will be able to tell you what is in it, and of the discourses I have had with him; nevertheless, I am still enriching and polishing it.’

The ‘little book’ suffered many vicissitudes before attaining the form in which it has reached us. Various mental influences were at work during its composition; its title and patron were changed; and for some unknown reason it was finally dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Although Machiavelli discussed with Casavecchio whether it should be sent or presented in person to the patron, there is no evidence that Lorenzo ever received or even read it: he certainly never gave Machiavelli any employment. Although it was plagiarized during Machiavelli’s lifetime, ‘The Prince’ was never published by him, and its text is still disputable.
Machiavelli concludes his letter to Vettori thus: ‘And as to this little thing [his book], when it has been read it will be seen that during the fifteen years I have given to the study of statecraft I have neither slept nor idled; and men ought ever to desire to be served by one who has reaped experience at the expense of others. And of my loyalty none could doubt, because having always kept faith I could not now learn how to break it; for he who has been faithful and honest, as I have, cannot change his nature; and my poverty is a witness to my honesty.’
Before Machiavelli had got ‘The Prince’ off his hands he commenced his ‘Discourse on the First Decade of Titus Liv11

ius,’ which should be read concurrently with ‘The Prince.’ These and several minor works occupied him until the year 1518, when he accepted a small commission to look after the affairs of some Florentine merchants at Genoa. In 1519 the Medicean rulers of Florence granted a few political concessions to her citizens, and Machiavelli with others was consulted upon a new constitution under which the Great Council was to be restored; but on one pretext or another it was not promulgated.
In 1520 the Florentine merchants again had recourse to Machiavelli to settle their difficulties with Lucca, but this year was chiefly remarkable for his re-entry into Florentine literary society, where he was much sought after, and also for the production of his ‘Art of War.’ It was in the same year that he received a commission at the instance of Cardinal de’ Medici to write the ‘History of Florence,’ a task which occupied him until 1525. His return to popular favour may have determined the Medici to give him this employment, for an old writer observes that ‘an able statesman out of work, like a huge whale, will endeavour to overturn the ship unless he has an empty cask to play with.’

When the ‘History of Florence’ was finished, Machiavelli took it to Rome for presentation to his patron, Giuliano de’ Medici, who had in the meanwhile become pope under the title of Clement VII. It is somewhat remarkable that, as, in 1513, Machiavelli had written ‘The Prince’ for the instruction of the Medici after they had just regained power in Florence, so, in 1525, he dedicated the ‘History of Florence’ to the head of the family when its ruin was now at which still furnish some European and eastern statesmen with principles of action, ‘The Prince’ is bestrewn with truths that can be proved at every turn. Men are still the dupes of their simplicity and greed, as they were in the days of Alexander VI. The cloak of religion still conceals the vices which Machiavelli laid bare in the character of Ferdinand of Aragon. Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be—and are ruined. In politics there are no perfectly safe courses; prudence consists in choosing the least dangerous ones. Then —to pass to a higher plane—Machiavelli reiterates that, although crimes may win an empire, they do not win glory. Necessary wars are just wars, and the arms of a nation are hallowed when it has no other resource but to fight.

It is the cry of a far later day than Machiavelli’s that government should be elevated into a living moral force, capable of inspiring the people with a just recognition of the fundamental principles of society; to this ‘high argument’ ‘The Prince’ contributes but little. Machiavelli always refused to write either of men or of governments otherwise than as he found them, and he writes with such skill and insight that his work is of abiding value. But what invests ‘The Prince’ with more than a merely artistic or historical interest is the incontrovertible truth that it deals with the great principles which still guide nations and rulers in their relationship with each other and their neighbours.
In translating ‘The Prince’ my aim has been to achieve at all costs an exact literal rendering of the original, rather than a fluent paraphrase adapted to the modern notions of style and expression. Machiavelli was no facile phrasemonger; the conditions under which he wrote obliged him to weigh every word; his themes were lofty, his substance grave, his manner nobly plain and serious. ‘Quis eo fuit unquam in partiundis rebus, in definiendis, in explanandis pressior?’ In ‘The Prince,’ it may be truly said, there is reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word. To an Englishman of Shakespeare’s time the translation of such a treatise was in some ways a comparatively easy task, for in those times the genius of the English more nearly resembled that of the Italian language; to the Englishman of to-day it is not so simple. To take a single example: the word ‘intrattenere,’ employed by Machiavelli to indicate the policy adopted by the Roman Senate towards the weaker states of Greece, would by an Elizabethan be correctly rendered ‘entertain,’ and every contemporary reader would understand what was meant by saying that ‘Rome entertained the Aetolians and the Achaeans without augmenting their power.’ But to-day such a phrase would seem obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning: we are compelled to say that ‘Rome maintained friendly relations with the Aetolians,’ etc., using four words to do the work of one. I have tried to preserve the pithy brevity of the Italian so far as was consistent with an absolute fidelity to the sense. If the result be an occasional asperity I can only hope that the reader, in his eagerness to reach the author’s meaning, may overlook the roughness of the road that leads him to it.
The following is a list of the works of Machiavelli:

Principal works. Discorso sopra le cose di Pisa, 1499; Del modo di trattare i popoli della Valdichiana ribellati, 1502; Del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino nell’ ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, etc., 1502; Discorso sopra la provisione del danaro, 1502; Decennale primo (poem in terza rima), 1506; Ritratti delle cose dell’ Alemagna, 1508-12; Decennale secondo, 1509; Ritratti delle cose di Francia, 1510; Discorsi sopra la prima deca di T. Livio, 3 vols., 1512-17; Il Principe, 1513; Andria, comedy translated from Terence, 1513 (?); Mandragola, prose comedy in five acts, with prologue in verse, 1513; Della lingua (dialogue), 1514; Clizia, comedy in prose, 1515 (?); Belfagor arcidiavolo (novel), 1515; Asino d’oro (poem in terza rima), 1517; Dell’ arte della guerra, 1519-20; Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze, 1520; Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca, 1520; Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca, 1520; Istorie fiorentine, 8 books, 1521-5; Frammenti storici, 1525.
Other poems include Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, and Canti carnascialeschi.
Editions. Aldo, Venice, 1546; della Tertina, 1550; Cambiagi, Florence, 6 vols., 1782-5; dei Classici, Milan, 10 1813; Silvestri, 9 vols., 1820-2; Passerini, Fanfani, Milanesi, 6 vols. only published, 1873-7.
Minor works. Ed. F. L. Polidori, 1852; Lettere familiari, ed. E. Alvisi, 1883, 2 editions, one with excisions; Credited Writings, ed. G. Canestrini, 1857; Letters to F. Vettori, see A. Ridolfi, Pensieri intorno allo scopo di N. Machiavelli nel libro Il Principe, etc.; D. Ferrara, The Private Correspondence of Nicolo Machiavelli, 1929.

DEDICATION
To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De’ Medici:
Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight; whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness.
Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence.

And although I may consider this work unworthy of your countenance, nevertheless I trust much to your benignity that it may be acceptable, seeing that it is not possible for me to make a better gift than to offer you the opportunity of understanding in the shortest time all that I have learnt in so many years, and with so many troubles and dangers; which work I have not embellished with swelling or magnificent words, nor stuffed with rounded periods, nor with any extrinsic allurements or adornments whatever, with which so many are accustomed to embellish their works; for I have wished either that no honour should be given it, or else that the truth of the matter and the weightiness of the theme shall make it acceptable.

Nor do I hold with those who regard it as a presumption if a man of low and humble condition dare to discuss and settle the concerns of princes; because, just as those who draw landscapes place themselves below in the plain to contemplate the nature of the mountains and of lofty places, and in order to contemplate the plains place themselves upon high mountains, even so to understand the nature of the people it needs to be a prince, and to understand that if princes it needs to be of the people.
Take then, your Magnificence, this little gift in the spirit in which I send it; wherein, if it be diligently read and considered by you, you will learn my extreme desire that you should attain that greatness which fortune and your other attributes promise. And if your Magnificence from the summit of your greatness will sometimes turn your eyes to these lower regions, you will see how unmeritedly I suffer a great and continued malignity of fortune.

Musik yang Mungkin Takkan Pernah Terdengar

Musim semi sudah lelah menyelinap memasuki pemukiman kami dan bentangan pegunungan dengan membawa bunga-bunga liar dan aroma tanah yang segar, ini mengingatkanku pada masa lalu yang bahagia. Saat itu Hari Ibu dan kami merayakannya bersama ketiga anak kami yang sudah dewasa beserta keluarga mereka, berpiknik dan bermain voli di halam belakang kami. Kami menjalani saat yang indah, tapi aku merindukan satu ekor domba yang hilang.

Anak laki-laki bungsu kami, Brian, tidak ada. Ia telah berubah dari pribadi penyayang, lembut, dan pencinta keluarga menjadi sosok orang asing yang menjengkelkan sebelum meninggalkan bangku sekolah dan tim tenis, dan menghilang ke dalam kehidupan jalanan enam bulan lalu.

   Aku merindukan hari-hari ketika ia meloncat-loncat masuk ke dalam rumah sambil berteriak, "Ibu mau ke sekolah dan melihatku berlatih service?" Setiap minggu siang, ia memasang rintangan 'olimpik' untuk para keponakannya dan bersorak sorai membangkitkan semangat mereka meraih kemenangan, memastikan mereka semua mendapat pita. Kadang, ia membuatkan tempat tidur untuk kami semua di atas geladak, menimbulkan keinginan untuk berpesta semalam suntuk dan mengamatibintang di musim panas.

   Kami merindukannya.

   Meskipun kepekaan dan bela rasa Brian membuatnya disyangi orang dewasa dan anak-anak, ia tidak mudah berkawan dengan anak seusianya dan menghadapi siksaan yang tak pernah berhenti sepanjang masa sekolah.

   Di usia tujuh belas, ia berperang melawan depresi. Tak sanggup menghadapinya, ia melarikan diri dan hidup di jalanan di mana ia diterima, tapi tak lama kemudian, ia kembali ke rumah dengan janji akan menaati peraturan rumah dan mengendalikan hidupnya. Di suatu siang musim dingin, isak tangisnya bergema di rumah, "Ibu, kemarilah, " katanya. "Aku takut. Dunia ini sangat jelek."

   Aku berlari menghampiri anak laki-lakiku yang tingginya seratus sembilan puluh sentimeter lebih dan membuainya dalam pelukanku. Keringat bercampur dengan air mata di pipinya. Aku menyeka dahinya. Aku bisa melicinkan rambutnya tapi tidak jalan hidupnya. "Brian," kataku. "Kau akan melewati masa-masa sulit ini. Dunia membutuhkan anak laki-laki sepertimu. Kita akan mencari bantuan profesional, dan kita semua akan menghadapi kesulitan ini bersama-sama."

   Tapi beberapa hari kemudian ia menghilang lagi.

   Aku tahu ketika Brian lahir bahwa suatu hari aku akan harus melepaskannya-tapi tidak dengan cari ini.
Di usia tiga tahun ia selau bermain di luar rumah entah cuaca hujan atau cerah, tertawa kepada awan di atas, menyekop sinar matahari, membangun jalanan dan terowongan untuk truknya. Suatu pagi ia berlari masuk dengan napas tersengal-sengal. "Ibu," teriaknya, melambai-lambaikan tangan, lalu membisikkan rahasianya, "Ibu, hatiku begitu bahagia sampai terasa menggelegak."
   Di bangku SMU, ia berteman dengan orang-orang yang ia jumpai di sepanjang rute korannya. Ia pulang dengan tangan penuh tanaman untuk membuat kebun. Seorang janda memberinya satu koleksi perangko lengkap. Seorang pelanggannya yang lain sedang mengikuti pencalonan ulang sebagai wakil negara bagian. Brian meninggalkan pesan dalam surat kabarnya. "Ibu North, aku menonton pemilihan di TV tadi malam. Aku senang anda menang." Ia kemudian bekerja sebagai pegawai parlemen di Gedung Capitol dengan rekomendasi wanita itu.
   Seorang mantan guru termasuk salah satu pelanggannya, dan iamembantu merawat anjingnya yang sakit. Ia sering duduk menemani mereka pada malam hari dan mendengarkan kisah-kisah tentang Chiquita, yang bisa disimpan di dalam saku Ibu Hall. Pada hari Chiquita meninggal, ia membawakan bunga lilac bagi temannya yang berdukacita dan tidak menyentuh makan malamnya.
   Aku telah membuainya ketika ia bermimpi buruk dan menderita demam, menyharing "emas" bersamanya di sungai, menjadi penunjuk jalan menyelusuri lereng pegunungan, dan berlari bersamanya di perlombaan maraton 5K. Aku takkan menyerah sekarang!.
   Aku membuka pintu kamarnya, disengat sisa aroma lotion cukurnya yang kukenal ketika keheningan menjerit kepadaku. Aku melicinkan selimut perca di ranjangnya dan berlutut, membenamkan kepala dalam kelembutannya, mencengkeram kehadirannya, berdoa seperti seperti semua ibu diseluruh dunia berdoa ketika anaknya sedang dalam kesulitan.
   Aku berduka untuk musik dalam dirinya yang mungkin takkan pernah terdengar, mengingat nada-nada masa kecilnya-pesan corat-coret di secarik kertas-diselipkan di bawah pintu kamar mandi ketika aku sedang mandi, ketukan remajanya di dinding untuk mengucapkan selamatmalam setelah semua lampu dimatikan.
   Semua kenangan itu membantuku melewati malam-malam ketika aku tak bisa tidur dan hari-hari yang gelap. Setelah beberapa minggu, Brian menelpon lagi. "Ibu, apa menurut Ibu aku bisa pulang? Di sini tidak enak. Kurasa aku akan gila. Bisakah kita bertemu untuk bicara?"
   Kakiku nyaris tak menyentuh tanah ketika aku bergegas meraih kunciku dan berlari ke mobil, berdoa sepanjang perjalanan. Disana, di restoran yang gelap, duduklah anak laki-lakiku, mata kosong menatap dari wajahnya yang tirus. Ia kelihatan seperti orang tua, dan sekaligus, seorang anak yang hilang. Ketika aku mendekati bangkunya, sesaat ia tampak agak cerah. "Hai Bu. Terima kasih mau datang."
   Aku duduk menghadapnya, dan ia berkata, "Aku sangat bingung. Kepalaku rasanya seperti mau pecah."
   Aku memegang lengannya. "Jika kau bisa menaati peraturan kau boleh pulang. Kau melangkah kearah yang benar."
   Ia menangkup dagunya dengan satu tangan dan melihat keluar jendela. "Minggu lalu aku berjalan ke taman tempat aku dulu main tenis. Jika tidak mengacaukannya, aku sebenarnya bisa mendapat beasiswa tenis keperguruan tinggi. Aku mendaki bukit di mana Ibu biasanya duduk untuk memberiku semangat. Di sana sepi dan tenang. Aku duduk di sanadalam derai hujan sampai gelap, lalu berjalan kembali ke tempat aku tinggal dan tidur di dalam mobil seseorang."
   Penderitaan di mata anakku menyayat hatiku yang sudah memendam kepedihan.
   Ia pulang ke rumah hanya untuk menghilang lagi beberapa hari kemudian. Sekali lagi kami kehilangan dirinya. Yang lebih buruk, kami harus hidup dari bulan ke bulan dengan dihantui ketidakpastian.
   Entah bagaimana, waktu berlalu. Hari Ibu datang, yang pertama kurayakana tanpa Brian. Dengan tabah aku ikut piknik dan bermain, tapi pada malam harinya, setelah anak-anak kami kembali ke rumah masing-masing, kekosongan menusuk-nusuk hatiku. aku menikmati memanjakan cucu-cucu kami, bersykur bisa melewati hari keluarga bersama-sama, tapi rumah terasa terlalu sepi dalam remang petang yang lembut. Ketika kudengar ketukan di pintu, aku menyambut gangguan itu dengan penuh syukur.
   Di sana berdirilah Brian, wajahnya kurus, bajunya kusut dan bau apek, tapi matanya memancarkan sedikit cahaya dibalik penderitaannya. "Aku harus datang," katanya. "Aku tidak bisa membiarkan Hari Ibu berlalu tanpa memberitahukan bahwa aku memikirkan Ibu." Ia menegakkan bahunya dan tersenyum, menyodorkan dua tangkai anyelir merah muda berselimutkan kuntum putih bunga baby's breath. Aku membaca kartunya: "Ibu, aku mencintaimu, dan kau lebih sering dipikirkan daripada yang pernah kau tahu."
   Lengannya memelukku seperti sinar matahari menembus badai hitam, suaranya hanya berupa bisikan lirih, "Ibu, aku berniat bunuh diri, mengakhiri penderitaan ini, tapi aku tidak pernah bisa melakukannya kepadamu." Aku bersandari di bahunya dan membenamkan wajah dalam keringatnya yang apek.
   Kali ini Brian menetap. Pada awalnya sulit, tapi sekarang sepuluh tahun kemudian, keadaannya baik. Dan setiap tahun pada Hari Ibu, aku merayakan kepulangan terakhir anakku, dan jauh di dalam, aku mengenang perayaan rahasia hatiku ini.

Cinta Seorang Ibu

Aku yakin bahwa warisan terbesar yang bisa kita tinggalkan bagi anak-anak kita adalah kenangan bahagia

Ketika aku memikirkan keluarga Clara Harden, yang muncul dalam benakku adalah kesan bahagia. Suara tawa selalu menyambut kunjunganku.

   Gaya hidup mereka begitu berbeda dari gaya hidupku. Ibu Clara berpendapat bahwa memupuk jiwa lebih penting daripada tugas-tugas yang tak berarti. Pekerjaan rumah tangga tidak menempati prioritas nomor satu. Dengan lima anak dari yang berusia 12 tahun, Clara, sampai bayi yang berusia dua tahun, ketidakteraturan itu kadang mengganguku tapi tak pernah lama. Kediaman mereka selalu berada dalam situasi kacau di mana sedikitnya hidup satu orang sedang mengalami krisis, entah nyata atau hanya khayalan. Tapi aku suka menjadi bagian kelompok yang hiruk pikuk ini, dengan sikap ceria mereka dalam menghadapi hidup. Ibu Clara tak pernah terlalu sibuk untuk kami. Ia akan berhenti menyeterika untuk membantu sebuah proyek pemandu sorak, atau mematikan penyedot debu dan memanggil kami semua untuyk menjelajahi hutan dan mengumpulkan spesimen bagi sebuah proyek sains seorang anaknya.

   Kau tak pernah tahu apa yang mungkin akan kaujlakukan ketika berkunjung ke sana. Hidup mereka penuh kegembiraan dan cinta--banyak cinta.

   Jadi, ketika suatu hari anak-anak keluarga Harden turun dari bus sekolah dengan mata bengkak merah, aku tau ada sesuatu yang sangat tidak beres. Aku bergegas menghampiri Clara, menariknya ke pinggir, minta diceritakan apa yang terjadi tapi tidak siap mendengar jawabannya. Malam sebelumnya, ibu Clara memberitahu mereka bahwa ia menderita tumor otak mematikan, dan hanya bisa hidup beberapa bulan lagi. Aku ingat pagi itu. Aku dan Clara pergi ke belakang bangunan sekolah di mana kami terisak-isak, berpelukan, tidak tahu bagaimana caranya menghentikan kepedihan yang tak bisa kami percayai itu. Kami berdiri di sana, berbagi duka sampai bel jam pelajaran pertama berbunyi.

   Beberapa hari berlalu sebelum aku mengunjungi kediaman keluarga Harden lagi. Takut menghadapi suasana sedih dan muram, dan dipenuhi perasaan bersalah yang sangat besar karena hidupku tetap sama, aku menunda-nunda kedatanganku sampi ibuku meyakinkanku bahwa aku tidak bisa mengabaikan temanku dan keluarganya dalam saat-saat sedih mereka.

    Jadi, aku mengunjungi mereka. Ketika memasuki rumah keluarga Harden, aku heran dan senang mendengar bunyi musik dan suara percakapan gembira, diskusi hangat yang penuh tawa dan keluh kesah. Ibu Harden duduk di sofa bermain. Monopoli dengan dikitari anak-anaknya. Semua orang menyambutku dengan senyuman sementara aku berusaha menyembunyikan keherananku. Aku sama sekali tidak menyangka.

    Akhirnya Clara membebaskan diri dari permainan itu, dan kami pergi ke kamarnya di mana ia menjelaskan. Ibunya telah memberitahu mereka bahwa hadiah terbesar yang bisa mereka berikan kepadanya adalah bersikap seperti biasa seolah-olah tak ada yang terjadi. Ia ingin kenangan terakhirnya dipenuhi kebahagiaan, jadi, mereka sepakat untuk sebaik mungkin.

   Suatu hari ibu Clara mengundangku menghadiri sebuah acara istimewa. Aku bergegas ke sana dan menemukannya mengenakan turban besar berwarna emas. Ia menjelaskan bahwa ia telah memutuskan akan menggunakannya sebagai pengganti rambut palsu karena sekarang rambutnya mulai rontok. Ia meletakkan butiran manik-manik, lem, spidol warna-warni, gunting, dan kain di atas meja, serta menginstruksikan kami untuk menghias turban itu, sementara ia duduk seperti seorang maharaja agung. Kami mengubah turban polos itu menjadi benda indah, masing-masding menambahkan sentuhannya. Bahkan saat kami ribut menentukandi mana akan meletakkan hiasan berikutnya, aku sadar betapa pucat dan rapuhnya Ibu Harden. Sesudahnya, kami berfoto bersama dengan ibu Clara, masing-masing dengan bangga menunjuk ke arah hasil karyanya yang menempel di turban. Sebuah kenangan menyenangkan untuk selalu diingat, meskipun kami selalu dibayangi ketakutan tak terucap akan ditinggal olehnya.

   Akhirnya tiba hari menyedihkan ketika ibu Clara meninggal. Pada minggu-minggu berikutnya, kesedihan dan kepedihan keluarga Harden tak bisa digambarkan.

   Lalu disuatu hari aku tiba disekolah dan melihat Clara tertawa ceria, bercerita penuh semangat kepada temen-teman sekelasnya. Aku mendengar nama ibunya berkali-kali disebut. Clara yang dulu sudah kembali. Ketika aku sampai disebelahnya, ia menjelaskan kebahagiaannya. Pagi itu ketika sedang mendandani adik perempuannya untuk ke sekolah, ia menemukan pesan lucu yang disembunyikan ibunya di dalam kaus kaki anak itu. Membaca surat itu membuatnya merasa seolah ibunya kembali ketengah-tengah mereka.

   Siang itu keluarga Harden mengobrak abrik rumah mereka berburu pesan. Setiap pesan yang ditemukan dibaca bersama-sama, tapi ada beberapa yang tidakketahuan. Saat Natal tiba, ketika mengeluarkan hiasan dari gudang loteng, mereka menemukan sebuah pesan natal yang indah.

   Tahun-tahun berikutnya, pesan terus bermunculan secara sporadis. Bahkan ada satu pesan yang datang di hari wisuda Clara serta satu lagi di hari pernikahannya. Ibunya telah mempercayakan surat-surat itu kepada teman-temannya yang mengirimkannya pada setiap hari istimewa. Bahkan ketika anak pertama Clara lahir, sepucuk kartu dengan pesan yang bermakna dalam tiba. Setiap anak menerimapesan-pesan pendek yang lucu itu, atau surat penuh cinta sampai yang bungsu mencapai usia dewasa.

   Pak Harden menikah lagi, dan pada hari pernikahannya seorang teman memberinya sepucuk surat dari isterinya untuk dibacakan kepada anak-anaknya. Di dalam surat itu, Ibu Harden mendoakan semoga suaminya berbahagia dan menginstruksikan anak-anaknya supaya merengkuh ibu tiri mereka dengan cinta, karena ia sangat yakin bahwa ayah mereka tidak akan pernah memilih seorang wanita yang takkan bersikap baik kepada anak-anaknya.

   Aku memikirkan kepedihan yang pasti dirasakan ibu Clara ketika iamenulis surat-surat itu bagi anak-anaknya. Aku juga membayangkan kegembiraan nakal yang dirasakannya ketika ia menyembunyikan pesan-pesan pendek itu. Dan, selain itu, aku juga mengagumi kenangan indah yang ia tinggalkan bagi anak-anaknya, meskipun ia mengalami rasa sakit dan penderitaan karena harus meninggalkan keluarga yang ia puja. Tindakan yang tidak mementingkan diri sendiri itu mencerminkan cinta ibu yang terbesar yang pernah kuketahui......

(Pay Laye)

Dracula: Chapter 5

LETTER FROM MISS MINA MURRAY TO MISS LUCY
WESTENRA

9 May.
My dearest Lucy, Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are  married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard.
He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don’t mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sundaysqueezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined.
I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people, but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do, interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day.
However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we, I mean Jonathan and I, shall ever see them together. There is the ten o’clock bell ringing. Goodbye.
Your loving
Mina
Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???
LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY
17, Chatham Street
Wednesday
My dearest Mina,
I must say you tax me very unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote you twice since we parted, and your last letter was only your second. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you.
Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a great deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Someone has evidently been telling tales.
That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and Mamma get on very well together, they have so many things to talk about in common.
We met some time ago a man that would just do for you, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one’s thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass.
Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it.
He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions.
Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind. Arthur says that every day.
There, it is all out, Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children. We have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together, and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But, oh, Mina, I love him. I love him! There, that does me good.
I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit, and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don’t want to stop, for I do so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you at once, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, pray for my happiness.
Lucy
P.S.—I need not tell you this is a secret. Goodnight again.
L.

LETTER, LUCY WESTENRA TO MINA MURRAY
24 May
My dearest Mina,
Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy.
My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I had three. Just fancy! Three proposals in one day! Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas, and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity.
Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one except, of course, Jonathan.
You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything. Don’t you think so, dear? And I must be fair.
Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be.
Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to
me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman’s heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that If I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best.
Oh, Mina dear, I can’t help crying, and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn’t at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy.
Evening.
Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day.
Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has such adventures. I sympathize with poor Desdemona when she had such a stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don’t, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet …
My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincy P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t, for Arthur tried twice to make a chance, and I helping him all I could, I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang, that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners, but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits
exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang. I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet.
Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly …
‘Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?’
Well, he did look so good humoured and so jolly that it didn’t seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward. So I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn’t broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, and occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number Two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free …
‘Lucy, you are an honest hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul.
Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.’
My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly.
Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris’ brave eyes, and I told him out straight …
‘Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.’ I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine, I think I put them into his, and said in a hearty way …
‘That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack, and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t know his happiness, well, he’d better look for it soon, or he’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover, it’s more selfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you
give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow, or you could not love him, hasn’t spoken yet.’
That quite won me, Mina, for it was brave and sweet of him, and noble too, to a rival, wasn’t it? And he so sad, so I lean over and kissed him.
He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face, I am afraid I was blushing very much, he said, ‘Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will.
Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and goodbye.’
He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause, and I am crying like a baby.
Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free, only I don’t want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it, and I don’t wish to tell of the number Three until it can be all happy. Ever your loving …
Lucy
P.S.—Oh, about number Three, I needn’t tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused. It seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend.
Goodbye.

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY (Kept in phonograph)
25 May.—Ebb tide in appetite today. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery.
I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination.
In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the
point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell.
(Mem., Under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Romae venalia sunt. Hell has its price! If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so, therefore …
R. M, Renfield, age 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of  gloom,
ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.

LETTER, QUINCEY P. MORRIS TO HON. ARTHUR
HOLMOOD
25 May.
My dear Art,
We’ve told yarns by the campfire in the prairies, and dressed one another’s wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas, and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca.
There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won’t you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He’s coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart
that God has made and best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come!
Yours, as ever and always,
Quincey P. Morris

TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO
QUINCEY P. MORRIS
26 May
Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle.
Art

The mysterious message

When Liza woke up the next morning, she saw a paper on her window screen.
"Now what could that be?" she asked.
She went over th the window.
"It looks as if a ghost wrote it, sure enough," she said. "Welcome to your new home. Follow the clues to a treasure." Now what does that mean? I better get the boys."
Liza started to go. Then she said, "No, I'm still mad with them. I'll do this myself."
She tried to get the paper, but she could not reach it. It was fastened to the  outside of the screen.
"I'll have to go outside for it," said Liza.
"But Mom will never let me get out before breakfast. Maybe I will tell the boys after all."
The boys were awake, too.
"Oh, gosh," said Jed. "I forgot. Dad is going to tell us our punishment this morning."
"I wonder what it will be?" asked Bill.
"He'll probably take our allowance away for a while, "said Jed.
"I wish we hadn't done that to Liza," said Bill.
"It was your idea," said Jed.
"But you thought it was a good one," said Bill.
"So now we both get punished," said Jed.
Then Liza  came in. She said, "I've got the strangest message on my window."
"Your window?" said Bill.
"Yes, on the screen," said Liza. "It looks as if a ghost really wrote it."
"Come on. Let's go and see," said Jed.
But just at that moment Mom called, "Breakfast!"
"Now," said Bill, "we'll have to wait."
The children went into the kitchen. Their father was already seated at the table.
"Good morning, Dad," said the children.
Jed and Bill waited to see what he was going to say.
"Your mother and I talked this over, boys," said Dad, "and we thin your punishment should be to restrict you to the immediate grounds for the rest of the week. And the grounds do not include the woods. The only exception to that is if Mom or I go with you."
"But, Dad," said Bill, "we'll never get our tree house built before school starts."
"Sorry," said Dad. "That's the way it is."
"Dad," said Jed.
"We'll hear no more about it," said Dad. "That's the punishment."
After they had eaten Dad said, "I must go. I'll meet you people at the restaurant tonight."
"Are we going to eat out?" asked Bill.
"Yes" said Mom. "We'll eat out tonight and tomorrow I'll go grocery shopping."
"Let's go to your room, Liza," said Bill.
The children went into Liza's room. Bill and Jed saw the not on the windo.
"Gee," said Bill, "that does look ghosty. But what does the last part say?"
"'Follow the clues to a treasure,'" said Jed.
"Underneath that it says, 'is gate firs the garden clue at.' "
"That sure doesn't make sense," said Liza.
"Let me get the paper," said Jed. "The we can figure it out."
Jed went outside. He wqas back in just a few minutes, holding the note.
"It's a scframbled sentence," he said.
"Let's unscramble it," said Liza.
"Let's see, " said Bill. "I think 'first' and 'clue' go together."
"Yes," said Jed. "And I'll bet 'garden' and 'gate' go together."
"Why couldn't it be, 'gardengate is the first clue?"
"But that leaves out 'at' " said Bill.
"Wait a minute," said Jed. "It's  first clue is at the garden gate..." said Liza. "Come on!"
The children went outside. They ran back of the barn and out to the garden.
"Something is there," said Bill. "I can see it already."
Bill untied a paper from the gate. He nodded as he said, "Yep, this is it." asked Liza.
"No," said Bill. "It's worse than that. This time it's scrambled words."
"This is like when we were trying to figure out the key tothe treasure at Granpa's," said Liza.
"But that time we knew what the treasure was," said Jed. "This time we don't know what we're getting into."
"Here," said Bill, "take a look at this."
Bill held out the paper to Liza and Jed.
They saw: "idfn a cork ttha saw tapinde thiwe."
"Gosh," said Jed. "We'll need pencil and paper for that."
"I'll get some," said Liza.
She run to the house, and came back quickly with a pencil and paper. She said, "I'll write it down."
Bill said, "Well, at least we know the second word is 'a.' There's no way to scramble that."
"I think the firs word is 'find'," said Jed.
"I'll bet 'saw' is 'was',' " said Liza.
.........continued



























"

Haunted House: The true story

A Big Surprise!

"Home" shouted Jed.
"Milk and cookies" shouted Bill.
Liza ran to the front door.
"That's funny" She said. "The door  is locked. Mom didn't say anything about going out, did she?"
"Not to me" Said Bill. "Ring the bell. Maybe the door just slummed shut....."
Liza rang the bell, but there was no answer. "Just our luck" Said Bill. "And I could almost taste milk and cookies. Maybe we could go in through a window."
"Mom will probably be here in a few minutes" Said Jed. "Your stomach can wait."
There three children sat down on the steps. A few minutes later Liza said, "Here's the car now. And Dad's wit Mom. I wonder if anything is wrong."
Mrs. Robert got out of the car. She said, "Children I'm sorry. I was sure I would be back before you got home." "Where have you been?" ask Bill.
"Buying a house." said Mrs. Roberts.
"Buying a house!" said the children.
"Yes, we just bought the marvelous place." Said Mrs. Roberts. "It's just what you children wanted, a house with lots of woods."
"Hurray!" shouted the Children
"Do we know the house?" asked Liza.
"I think so" said Dad. "It's  the old. Black place ."

"The haunted house" Said the children.
"Oh, no!" said Liza. "You can't do that to us. I won't live in a haunted house."
"Now just a minute, Liza." said Dad. "It's true  people call it that, but there's never been any proud of it. Any house that stays vacant for a long time is likely to gain that reputation."
"Dad, why did no one live there....?" asked Jed.
"Because it was haunted, stupid." said Bill.
"Nobody wants to live in haunted house."
"The real reason," said Dad, "was a legal tangle which would not permit the house to be sold or rented. but that's been cleared up."
"Jack Hobbs has been the caretaker," said Mom, "so the place is in quite good condition. You children are going to love it."
No, I'm not!" said Liza. "I'll lose all my friends. Nobody will come to see me in a haunted house."
"Is that a promise.?" said Bill. "No more giggling girls!Let's move today."
"And just think," said Jed, 'we can have Halloween all year round with real live ghosts."
"Oh, you're both mean!" screamed Liza.
"You're trying to scare me."
"Don't worry, Liza," said Bill. "Your screams would unhaunt any house. No respectable ghost could stand it."
"Liza," said Dad, "you're being silly. You know there's no such thing as a ghost."
But Liza stamped out of the room. Seconds later they heard the door to her room slam.
"She's really mad," said Dad.
"She'll get over it," said bill. "Dad, could it have been the caretaker who haunted the house? You know, just to keep people away?"
"Bo," saif Dad. "The first two caretakers lived in the house, but each of them left because they said they heard strange noises there. Then Jack Hobbs took over, but he never lived in the house. He had his own place. I think it was because of the first caretakers that the house began to be called haunted. Thenwhen it stayed empty the stories grew."
"Do you think we should take the house?" asked Bill. "I love mysteries, but I don't know about tangling with a ghost."
"You're as bad as Liza" said Dad. "You just wait. You're going to love it as much as Mom and I do."
"When are we going to move?" asked Jed.
"The first of the month," said Dad.
"The forst of the month!" said Bill. "That's just a few days away."
"That's right," said Mom, "and it means work for all of us. I want you children to sort through your things and get rid of all you no longer use."
"Get rid of!" said Bill. "I thought we were moving so we would have more space."
"True," said Mom. "But knowing you children there will never be enough space for all you collect."
"Oh, all right," said Bill. "We'll start tomorrow."
Liza came back in the room. She was crying.
"Why the tears?" asked Mom.
"Oh, Mom!" said Liza. "I just realized that if we move Mary and Jimmy won't be our next-door neighbors anymore."
"That's right!" said Bill. "We've live next door to Mary and Jimmy all our lives. Why, they're our very best friends."
"Don't worry about it," said Dad. "You can have Mary and Jimmy out to visit."
"But it won't be the same," said Liza.
"Do we have to move, Dad?" asked Bill.
"Yes, we're going to move," said Dad.
"And I'll bet all  three of you are going to love it."
But that night all three children went to bed unhappy about the move.

------------------------------000000------------------------------

The New House

The next morning Liza was very quiet as she walked to school with Bill and Jed.
"Cheer up, Liza," said Jed. "It may not be too bad."
"Are you fellows going to tell?" asked Liza.
"Tell what?" said Bill.
"About the new house," said Liza.
"Of course," said Bill. "It will make celebrities of us."
"Don't you want to tell?" asked Jed.
"I'm just not ready to talk about it yet," said Liza.
"Maybe Liza's right," said Jed. "Maybe we shouldn't."
"Why not?" said Bill. "We've got big news and I'm all for telling it. Not everybody gets to live in a haunted house."
"But everybody will ask questions and we can't answer them," said Jed. "Remember, we haven't even been in the place. We'll feel dumb when we don't know anything to tell them."
"Yeah," said Bill. " I guess I would feel  pretty stupid having to say 'I don't know' all the time. Let's not tell."
"Agreed," said Jed. "Okay, Liza?"
"Agreed," said Liza.
When the children got home from school Mom was waiting on the porch.
"There your are," she said. "I was hoping you would come straight home."
"Wjat's the rush, Mom?" asked Jed. "Is something wrong?"
"Oh, no," said Mom. "But we have a cleaning crew working in the new house. I want to be sure everything is done properly. And I'm sure you three want to seethe place. So get yourselves a quick snack and we'll go over there."
The children went to the kitchen.
"Things sure are moving fast," said Bill.
"Too fast for me," said Liza.
"Oh, I don't know," said Jed. "I'm beginning to get kind of excited about it all."
"Come to think of it," said Bill, "so am I."
The children ate their snack and rushed back to their mother.
"That was quick," said Mom. "Hop into the car."
As they were riding along Liza said,
"Mom, how will we ever get to school?" We sure can't walk."
"Don't worry," said Mom. "There's bus service. Your father has already checked that."
"That will be the life," said Bill. "I hope it's door-to-door service."
"It is, " said Mom.
"This moving has its good points after all," said Jed.
"I think you will like the house," said Mom, "especially when you see the nice basement it has."
Mom turned into a long driveway.
"I never saw the house close up," said Jed.
"It sure is sprawly."
"Now," said Mom, "I'm going to leave you children to explore as you will. Just stay out of the way of the cleaning people."
The children took agood long look at the house.
"Our very own haunted house," said Bill.
"Who's supposed to haunt it?" asked Jed.
"Gee," said Bill, "I never thought of that. I mean that it had to be somebody. I thought it was just a ghost."
"It doesn'' look haunted to me," said Liza.
"It looks just like an ordinary house."
"Time will tell," said Bill. "Anyway, let's go in. What are we waiting for?"
Inside it was all confusion. The cleaning people were everywhere.
"Ugh," said Bill. "I can't stand this. Let's explore outside."
"But I want to see my room," said Liza.
"I forgot that," said Bill. "Hey, Mom!"
"Right here," answered Mom.
"Where do we sleep?" asked Bill.
"I'll show you," said Mom. "Come along."
"This house goes on and on," said Bill.
"You children will have to make a decision about rooms," said Mom. "Jed and Bill can have this room and Liza can havethe one next to it, or if you want separate rooms there's an extra one upstairs next to ours. But that's your decision to make."
The children looked at one another. Then slowly they shook their heads.
"We'll stick together," said Jed.
Mom laughed and said, "I thought you would say that."
"Okay," said Jed. "We've seen our rooms. Now let's go look at the basement."
"All right," said Bill. "Then we'll go outside and explore."
"Come back in an hour or so," said Mom. "I do have to get home and make some dinner for us."
"Yeah, man." said Bill. "Haunted house or not, we've still got to eat."
"Don't worry, Mom," said Jed. "Bill will get us back in plenty of time."

-----------------------000000-----------------

In The News

That night at supper everybody wanted at once. "Dad," said Jed, "that place is really neat. It's even better than at Grandpa's."
"I never tghought I'd hear you say that," said Dad.
"And, Dad," said Bill, "we found just the right tree for a tree house. We never got one built last summer, but this is a better tree thanthe one at Grandpa's"
"Better let me check it before you begin," said Dad. "Let's make sure it is a safe tree."
"Okay," said Jed.
"I forgot to look," said Liza. "Does the house have an attic? I've always wanted to live in a house with an attic."
"It has a real old-fashioned attic," said Dad.
"And one that is full of junk," said Mom.
"That will be a rainy-day job for you children."
"You mean stuff was left in it?" asked Bill.
"Yes," said Dad. "We said we would be responsible for cleaning it up."
"Maybe we'll find something valuable," said Jed.
"I doubt it," said Mom. "But then you nver can tell about old places like that."
"I wish moving day was tomorrow," said Bill.
"Don't worry," said Mom. "It will come soon enough."
"You children were so full of talk I forgot to tell you the big news," said Dad.
"Big news!" said Liza. "What big news?"
"We made the paper today," said Dad.
"There's a piece in the afternoon adition about our buying the house."
"Ypies!" said Bill. "Where's the paper?"
All three children tore away from the table.
:Bring it in here," said Mom, "I want to hear it, too,"
Jed reached the paper first.
"Look," he ssaid. "here it is on the front page, 'Haunted House Has New Owners.'"
"That's us, "said Bill.
"Do hush, Bill," said Liza. "Hurry up, Jed."
The children went back to the dining room.
"You read it, Jed," said Mom.
"Okay, here goes," said Jed." "The haunted house," which has been vacant for many years, has new owners. Thne Jack Roberts family has bought the old Blake place.
" "The house was built in 1920 by John Blake. He lived in it until his death ten years ago. Since that time, because of legal complications, the house has remained vacant. Caretakers refused to live in it. They say John Blake come back at night.
"Perhaps the Robertses will clear up this mystery. We wish them luck intheir venture.'"
"That makes me feel all creepy," said Liza.
"Anyway, we know who is supposed to haunt the house, "said Bill.
"I wonder why John Blake comes back," said Jed.
"Maybe he left a buried treasure or something," said Bill.
"Why couldn't we have just an ordinary house?" asked Liza.
"Pooh!" said Bill. "That would be no fun. Anybody can have an ordinary house. Give me a good old haunted one anytime."
"Mom!" said Jed. "I just realized we start our spring vacation at the same time as we move."
"I know," said Mom. "And I'm delighted. I'm going to need all the help I can get."
Liza was very quiet.
"What happened to you, Liza?" asked Dad.
"You haven't said anything for at least two minutes."
"Do you really think my friends will come to see me in a haunted house?" asked Liza.
"You just wait," said Dad. "They'll be begging for invitations."
"Sure," said Mom. "And when we get settled you children can have a party and invite all your friends to see a real haunted house."
"That will be neat," said Jed.
"Okay," said Dad, "off to bed with you. Tomorrow is another school day."

---------------------------

Moving Day

The next few days were busy ones. The movers brought over packing boxes, and Liza, Jed, and Bill were responsible for packing their own things. They had to make up their minds about what to throw away and what to keep.
Finally moving day came. The whole family was up and waiting when the van arrived. When the van was loaded, Mom said, "All right, children, we'll go ahead so we can tell them where to put things."
Everybody piled into the car.
"This just doesn't seem real," said Liza.
"We're leaving the house we've lived in all our lives."
"Up and on to better things." said Dad
"But I'm not sure it's better," said Liza. "I already feel homesick for my old room."
"That's all right," said Mom. "To tell the truth, I feel a little bit that way myself. But I'm sure we'll both get over it as soon as we get the new house fixed up."
"Ah, girls," said Bill. "You never are sure of what yhou want."
"But that's a fact of life," said Dad. "We have just have to take them as they are."
"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Bill.
After that everybody was quiet until they reached their new home. The moving van wasn't far behind them.
"Now you children stay out of the way until they get the furniture unloaded," said Dad. "Then we'll need you to pitch in."
"That's right," said Mom. "You're responsible for doing your own rooms."
"Okay," said Jed. "We'll stay outside until the moving men have finished."
The children watched the movers carry in the furniture. As soon as they had finished the children went to their rooms and began to unpack their things. Finally that afternoon Bill said, "That's enough. I've got to take a break."
"I'm with you on that," said Jed. "Let's get Liza and go to the woods."
"Good idea," said Bill.
Liza was ready to stop, too. She said, "I've never worked that hard in one day. What are we going to do?"
"Go to the woods," said Bill.
The children went outside. Dad was there.
"We've had enough of workjing," said Jed.
"Is it all right if we go to the woods?"
"Sure," said Dad. "I feel the same way."
"Then would you go with us and check our tree for the tree house?" asked Bill
"All right," said Dad. "I can show you the boundary line for our woods, too."
"Boundary line!" said Jed. "I thought we owned all of the woods."
"Oh, no," said Dad. "We only own half of them."
Jed and Bill ran ahead to the woods. But Liza held her father's hand and skipped along beside him.
"Okay, Dad," said Jed. "This is it."
"It's a nice one, too," said Dad.
Dad went around testing the limbs. Then he said, "This is a good tree for a tree house."
"Yippee!" said Bill.
"Now where is the boundary line, Dad?" asked Jed.
"Back this way." said Dad. They walked through the woods. Finally they came to a fence.
"Is this it?" asked Bill.
"Yes," said Dad. "We own the land up to the fence."
"Who owns the rest?" asked Jed.
"Mr. Dan Coleman," said Dad.
On the way back home Jed said, "How can we get wood for our tree house? Will our allowances cover it?"
"I doubt it," said Dad. "But I've got a proposition to make.
"What is it?" asked Bill.
"There's a shed out back that's falling down. If you will take it apart and take out all the old nails, you can have the wood for your tree house."
"You've got yourself a deal," said Jed.
"Sure," said Bill. "We'll start tomorrow."
"Just be careful ofthe nails," said Dad.
"They may be rusty and it could be dangerous if you get scratched."
That night everybody was tired. After a picnic supper Dad lit the fire in the living room. The family was all ready to relax for a while.
"I didn't know moving was such hard work," said Bill.
"There's still lots to do," said Mom. "But the worst of it is over."
"And let's hope we don't ever have to do it again," said Dad. "I like this place and there's plenty of room."
"You know," said Liza, "I think I'm going to like it here after all. My room's really great."
"Hallelujah," said Jed. "That's the first nice thing Liza has said about the house."
"I can't help it if I don't like a haunted house," said Liza. "But I don't think this one really is.It feels just like any other house."
"You wait until John Blake starts walking," said Bill. "You'll believe it then."
"You're just being silly," said Liza. "You don't believe in ghosts either."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," said Bill. "I have an honest respect for them. Dad, do you think we'll see John Blake, or does he just walk when everybody is asleep?"
"You've got me," said Dad. "Never having been aquainted with a ghost, I don't know their habits."
"Stop it, both of you," said Liza.
"Oh, well,"said Jed. "If you don't believe in ghosts you won't be able to see them anyway."
"Where did you pic up that bit of wisdom?" asked Dad.
 "That's what they say about fairies," said Jed. "So I expect it's true for ghosts, too."
"Who cares?" said Liza. "John Blake can walk all he wants to tonight. I'm so sleepy I'll never know it."
"That's quite enough talk about ghosts," said Mom. "I think it's bedtime for everybody."

--------------------000000------------------

 Scare For Liza

Nobody fussed about going to bed that night. Mom and Dad went upstairs to their room at the same time the children went to theirs.
Liza undressed and got into bed.
"Gee," she said. "There must be a full moon tonight. It's so light in here."
She got up and went to the window to see. Sure enough, the moon was big and round.
"The moonlight makes everything look so ghosty," thought Liza. "I wish Mom and Dad were downstairs with us. But I don't care. I'm going to sleep."
Liza climbed into bed and was asleep minutes later.
A hush settled over the house. Only the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs broke the stillness of the night.
Then suddenly a white figure appeared in Liza's doorway. An eerie voice began to chant, "Who is it?Who is there?"
Liza turned and opened her eyes. Then her scream rang through the night. The white figure glided from the doorway and disappeared. But Liza continued to scream.
Mom and Dad come running. Jed and Bill came soon after.
"What is it? What is it?" they asked.
"Liza do stop screaming and tell us what happened." said Mom.
Liza began to sob. She said, "The ghost, the ghost was right here, right in my room."
"Oh, come on, baby," said Dad. "You were just having a bad dream."
"No!" shrieked Liza. "It woke me up saying, 'Who is it?Who is there?"
Jed and Bill were shifting from one foot to the other. They both looked very uncomfortable. Dad saw this.
"All right, boys," he said. "Is this your doing?" Jed hung his head and said, "Yes."
"But, Dad, we didn't know it would scare her like that," said Bill.
"You knew she was already uneasy about this house. Now look at what you've caused," said Dad.
Both boys looked ashamed.
"We apologize," said Jed. "We really didn't mean to scare you."
"You mean it was you!" sobbed Liza.
"It was Bill with a sheet around him," said Jed. "But I was with him."
"You're mean!" screamed Liza. "You're the most hateful boys I ever saw."
"Shh," said Mom. "That's enough. Just calm down now."
"I think you boys had better go back to your room," said Dad. "But you must be punished for this thoughtlessness. We'll talk about it at breakfast."
The boys went back to their room without a word.
Mom said, "I'll stay with Liza until she gets to sleep."
"In that case," said Dad, "I'll go back to bed. Don't worry, baby. It's all right."
Liza was still clinging to her mother, but she said, "Good night, Dad."

The Mysterious Message