Speaker 1: The Night's School by James Hopper. Having laid my last
hope beneath heavy flowers, I had drifted back to the
village of my youth. The little village was now a
large city, a clamorous city. And on the first day
I met Dorman. It was on a stone sidewalk beneath
a pale, faint sun. How he recognized me, God only knows.
We both had grown very old, and at first I
could see nothing in him of the boy with whom
I had gone to school. He stopped and fixed me silently.
Then from the folds of his cloak, his arms stretched
out and gripped me as with a claw. You are Halton,
he said, Jack Halton, whose desk was next to mine
at school. I am, I said, I am Jack Halton.
He stood there, looking at me with eyes gray and round,
beneath the bristles of his heavy brows. I am Dorman,
he said, Not Dorman, who sat next to you at school.
Of late age has been in wrapping me with its
frigid haze, and I have taken to the resource of
the old. I stare persistently at the golden days that
are gone, and so I remembered I remember, I said.
His hand was still on my arm. His eyes were
on my eyes. You have a wife, children, he asked,
I have had a wife. I have no wife. I answered,
I've had children. I have no children. I have never
had either wife or children, he said. We stood there
on the stone sidewalk beneath the cheerless sun. Wife nor children.
He nodded, wife nor children. But it was on my answer.
He pondered for Finally he said, come with me to
my house to night. A vast indifference held me. I said,
very well, I will go with you to your house
for to night. He raised his stick, and a carriage,
which had been wheeling slowly back and forth, rushed in
sudden animation to the curb. We sank upon the dark
cushions within. The door shut upon us. As we rolled
along the streets I had known. Now unknown to me,
I noticed that his hands folded beneath his chin. On
the top of his cane trembled incessantly. How old he is?
I thought it was a palace, his house of stone,
thick wall, the interior full of fine somber things, and
muffled with elastic carpets. We dined in a high sealed
oaken hall before a blazing grate. We held up our
glasses to the flame and looked at the golden sun
of our youth, the ruby blood of our youth. We
drank the sun, We drank the blood, but our veins
remained cold. We went upstairs to his room. Two beds
heavily curtained, were in it, against opposite walls. There are
two beds. He said, you will sleep here with me
in my room. I did not care. I answered, yes,
I will sleep here in your room with you. I
slept badly. The bed was heaped with blankets, but they
were as heavy as a lid. And between the sheets
I was as cold as in the tomb. I dreamed.
A bell was ringing somewhere in someone's hand. It had
a brazen, persistent sound. When it had ceased with the
last rattle of clapper, a drum began to beat. Feet
march to the beat, many of them light feet, marching
a little shufflingly. I could hear their passing from crunched
gravel to a resonance of hollow wood. They united in
a rhythmic murmur, above which, like gulls eddying over the sea,
sharp cries of command hovered female cries of women. A
door slam too, with a clack as of a whip.
The drum died abruptly. There was a silence. Then a
charse of fresh, young voices rose in song, a song
which my bearded critical self judged harshly, but which was
soft to the heart of my youth. Though I thought
that I must be asleep, thought that my eyes must
be closed, I was aware of my host in white,
standing at one of the three southern windows. He too,
seemed to listen to the song. I heard him sigh,
a long, dolorous sigh. Then he must have returned to
his bed. The song trailed away in a last, long,
gentle note. And now I slept undisturbed, a tenderness tugging
at my soul. I awoke after the long night. The
room was still dark, but when to my gesture a
curtained word opened with a noise as of wings, the
day came in, warm with sun. I stood at the
window and looked out. I was looking deep into a
large bare yard. Children were playing there, many children, brown
headed and yellow haired boys and girls. Above them, the
layers of air, striated with suns, seemed liquid. They were
like goldfish in an aquarium. They zigzagged like butterflies in
their bright garments. Their cries, muffled to me, came as
the little cries of birds. The front of the yard,
to my right was a big brick building, pierced with
many windows. Do you recognize the place, Dorman asked. I
turned and saw him standing at the casement next to mine.
He seemed speaking to the glass, not to me. It
is a school, is it? Not? I fenced? It is
our school, he said. I looked back far into my
memory and saw that it indeed must be the school
to which we had when young. But it had changed.
The yard had been much wider than without bonds, to
the south, where now rose a forest of chimneys and roofs.
Then it had stretched away to the south in a
grassy meadow that sloped away gently to a brook, And
the schoolhouse had not been the big brick pile it
now stood. I shut my eyes and saw again the
schoolhouse that had been. I saw clearly the little wooden house,
its overlapping board softly gray, its peaked roof as green
as moss, the red veins of the carpeting vine, and
the long outside stairway slanting upward to the gallery, along
which we marched up to our classroom under the twittering eaves.
They have changed it our school, I exclaimed, absurdly resentful
when I returned to this city, he said, I built
here next to the school. I don't know why I
built here next to the school. A bell began to
ring in the yard beneath me. The children's criss crossing
play halted abruptly and petrified, and longed to chorus lines.
A drum began to beat, and the little ones marched
into school. The many little feet stamped the ground together.
The lines flowed forward, They coiled, straightened rows, and slid
like ribbons into the yawning portals. The drum beat, the
little feet tramped, tramp tramped along halls, up flights of stairs.
The whole building trembled to the tremendous union of their light,
firm tread. And above this basic rumor, the commands of
the women teachers eddied like the gull's nostalgic cry. The
drum stopped, the outer doors clang shut. A silence followed.
Then fresh young voices rose, and choral song. Why it
must be what I heard last night, I cried, but
Dorman said it was not they, you heard the others.
I did not understand him. I stayed again at Dorman's house,
for he insisted, and I did not care. My sleep
was troubled again that night. The covers lay upon me
like a stone, and I was tomb cold. A bell
began to ring. It rang persistently. Its clangs winged off
in brazen waves, struck and rebounded to mingle with new clangs,
till my brain pained. I rose at length to its
continued attack, and, groping through the velvet darkness, reached one
of the windows. I parted the ponderous curtains, looked and
saw nothing. I was looking into the night and saw
only night. Little by little, through the fixity of my stare,
the blackness seemed to recede, and at last I saw,
in a brown obscurity, I saw a yard and a schoolhouse.
It was a small school house of wood. The roof
was peaked, vines veined one wall, stairs along another wall
slanted upward to a gallery beneath the eaves below me.
The distinct floor of the yard was dimly striated with lines.
These were animated with a fluid pulsation. After a time
when I understood them. Children were lying there, grave, little children,
many of them with books under their arms, or swinging
at the end of straps. I tried to count the children,
but there were too many. I tried to count the lines,
but they fluctuated like tide water. There were many. They
ran east and west from the little school house to
the fence at the back, then turned flexibly and streamed
off to the south, where in my youth the land
lay open. I could not see them end over there.
My eyes followed them till they merged in the darkness.
But even there, and beyond the void, held an undulation
of fluid multitudes. Multitudes of children waited in line. Over there,
in the vague region, beyond the reading of my sight.
The bell came to a stop with a last wicked rattle,
and a drum began to beat. A shiver passed along
the lines like a breeze, and the small forms bent
slightly forward. The lines began to flow, and the night
became filled with a measured, soft and tender tramping sound,
which was as the muffled heartbeat of the night. The
lions passed by. They came glidingly from the void in
the south, swung into the yard with a lithe torsion
of a fish that turns crushed across the gravel, stamped
up the planking of the stairs, flowed into the yawn
of the doors. They passed the children by hundreds, by thousands.
The stairs shook, the frail building trembled. The night was
rhythmic with the soft beat of their feet, the drum
beat they passed. And still the vastness to the south
palpitated obscurely, with unnumbered reserves above the basic rumor. The
cries of women were sharp. It's our class coming now,
our own class, said a voice within the room. I
turned toward it. Dorman was at the window next to mine,
seated in his rich red armchair. He was looking as
I looked, his brow against the pane. How are class?
How are our class? I said, peevishly. It is our class,
you see if it is not our class? And then
it was truly our class that passed the little companions
of our childhood. They came in line from the dim
reservoir to the south, turned into the yard, crunched upon
its gravel, and rose along the stairway to the small room.
Beneath the eaves. Their familiar little feet hissed gently against
the wooden steps, and we stood there, the two old men,
each at his window, watching with cold brows upon the panes. Dorman,
as they passed, told them off to me one by one,
their names and their fate. I saw Jack Bennett, the
butcher's son, and I remembered that I still owed him
a marble. I saw red headed Jack Sterns, with his pale,
up tilted nose, and the glass eye which had been
our marvel and our pride. And ruscolle Miller, who had
become a banker and star who had ended in the gutter.
And Perry, who had wrecked himself against the things it
will not move. Up the other stairs, which we could
not see, I guess the girls were passing, and I
knew that among them was a frail, blue eyed girl. Ah,
how well I remembered her. But I said, all those
you tell me of have died. From his window, Dorman said,
I have noticed that all those that pass here have died.
He added, after a moment, and all those with whom
we went to school pass here. The class is almost complete.
And still they passed, and still Dorman told them off.
Some had been poor, some had been rich, some had
been comic, and some tragic, but all had died. Ralph
Dorn passed by. He had been my best chalm at school.
Ralph Ralph went my lips, but made no sound, and
he did not hear. But I knew now that all
my life I had missed him, him and the frail
blue eyed girl. I knew now what had been ailing
my life. He said, Dorman, watch him. He's always funny.
To the stairs came a hunchback boy. He toiled up
with much labor, but did not know that he toiled,
for his eyes were ahead, far amid vapory visions. Beneath
his cap, his hair was like a wreath of gold.
He wrote verse, and he starved, said Dorman. I have
his book in the library. It is funny. The poet
boy toiled up uncertainly. He zigzagged a bit from side
to side. The cries of the women teachers eddied over him.
He slowed up the line and disordered the march. His
eyes were far. The boy behind him mischievously wiped his
feet upon his stockings, but he was unaware of it.
The same boy reached within his pocket and took his
pencil and his knife, But still he did not notice.
He let a book slip from beneath his elbow, and
the boy behind trampled upon it. Finally, the boy behind
gave him a push. The poet boy fell, his cap
jerked off his head, his books scattered down the step.
A woman teacher picked him up and shook him ragefully,
while the boy behind looked grave and reproachful. If I
were there, I would protect him, I thought, If I
were there, I would understand him. Who is the boy behind,
I asked Dorman. It's Spike Martin. He answered he has
been the most successful of us. All his sons are
multi millionaires. I notice now that this was the end
of all the marching. This was the last line. A
length of it was still on the stairs, but the
yard behind was already empty. It is the end, I said, Yes,
he answered, they have all passed now. Our class is
always the last. But wait, I said, here comes another boy.
I think, Are you sure, said Dorman, I have not
missed anyone. Yes, yes, I am sure. From the vague
somberness to the south, a dim form was flitting towards us.
It neared it was a boy running very fast, his
books under his arm, his cap in hand. Who is
that boy? Who is that boy? Dorman murmured. The boy
was still in the twilight, not quite distinct, but he
was nearing very fast. He seemed to pant for his
school despite his fast running. His hair was orderly and
a little damp, with late combing, as though to the
ring of the bell. He had broken away from a
mother's lingering touch. Who is that boy? Who is that boy?
Mumbled Dorman. The boy was near, and something about his
square shoulders, his sturdy legs, the way he swayed slightly
from right to left as he ran gave my memory
unrest Who is that boy? Who is that boy? Dorman cried.
It seems to me. I know, it seems to me,
I know, I said, my memory more and more restless.
Who is that boy? Halton? Who is that boy? And
suddenly I knew it is you, Dorman, It is you,
I cried, No, no, Halton, don't say that. Who is
that boy? It is you? It is you, I cried.
The boy came swiftly across the yard, leaped up the steps.
He came to the poet boy drew him aside, eagerly
took his place. Then, with incredible quickness, he pulled aside
boy after boy till he was first, and at the
door he vanished within. The boys behind, one after the other,
vanished within. The poet boy, last of the line, vanished
within the door. Slap shut, the drums stopped beating. There
was a silence. I left my window, and going up
to Dorman, placed a friendly hand upon his shoulder, and
he was dead, dead there in his rich red armchair,
his brow still upon the cold pane. I think I
shall stay here always, and stand at the window at
night till out of the vague region to the south
I see a boy come running, A last late boy
come running to join his dear comrades. End of the
night school