Speaker 1: Before we begin, a word about another show from our network.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy a slower kind of attention, you may
Speaker 1: like the Verdict Room, where two legal minds sit down
Speaker 1: with real courtroom cases and walk through the evidence, the strategy,
Speaker 1: and the human decisions behind them. It is a different
Speaker 1: pace from this one, and it is worth your time
Speaker 1: when you are awake for it. For now, though, let
Speaker 1: us stay here, let us begin. You are walking beside
Speaker 1: him now, though you do not have to be anywhere.
Speaker 1: The evening has settled over the rooftops, and you have
Speaker 1: nowhere else to be. The day has already ended for you,
Speaker 1: has already been set down like a coat you are
Speaker 1: no longer wearing. Your shoulders are lower than they were
Speaker 1: an hour ago. Your breath has found a slower rhythm,
Speaker 1: and it matches the rhythm of the cobblestones beneath your feet,
Speaker 1: each stone a small flat island and a quiet river
Speaker 1: of old stone. The air is cool, and it carries
Speaker 1: the smell of rain that fell earlier, a smell that
Speaker 1: rises from the gutters and the dark spaces between the buildings.
Speaker 1: The street is narrow, and the houses lean toward each
Speaker 1: other slightly, as if they are sharing a secret or
Speaker 1: keeping one. There is a lamp lighter ahead of you,
Speaker 1: a man with a brass pole over his shoulder, and
Speaker 1: you are walking behind him at a distance that feels right,
Speaker 1: close enough to see what he does, far enough to
Speaker 1: give him room to work. You do not need to
Speaker 1: know his name yet, though you will learn it. You
Speaker 1: do not need to know where he is going, though
Speaker 1: you will follow him all the way to the end
Speaker 1: of the street and back again. For now, you only
Speaker 1: need to keep walking, one foot after the other, letting
Speaker 1: the evening take you deeper into itself. The light is
Speaker 1: leaving the sky, slowly, the way it always does at
Speaker 1: this time of year in this place, pulling away like
Speaker 1: a tide going out over a long, pale shore. The
Speaker 1: windows of the houses are lit now, one by one,
Speaker 1: not the sharp electric light of newer towns, but the warmer,
Speaker 1: more uncertainly height of candles and oil lamps and fires
Speaker 1: behind iron grates. The shadows between the houses are growing
Speaker 1: longer and thicker, but they are not dark, not yet.
Speaker 1: They are the color of deep water, the color of
Speaker 1: ink diluted in a glass, and they move gently as
Speaker 1: the last daylight shifts and bends. You follow the lamp lighter,
Speaker 1: and you let your shoulders drop, and you let the
Speaker 1: sounds of the street reach you without grasping at them.
Speaker 1: A door closing somewhere, the clatter of a cup sat
Speaker 1: down on a wooden table, the low murmur of a
Speaker 1: voice speaking to someone who is already asleep or nearly so.
Speaker 1: These are the sounds of the world winding down, the
Speaker 1: sounds of a day completing itself, and you are part
Speaker 1: of them, now, walking quietly beside a man who has
Speaker 1: been walking this street for longer than you have been alive.
Speaker 1: His name is Alder, and he lives in a small
Speaker 1: room at the corner of the street where the cobblestones
Speaker 1: turn and the baker's cart is stored over night. The
Speaker 1: room is not much larger than a large closet, but
Speaker 1: it has a window that faces east in a door
Speaker 1: that opens onto the street, and these two things are enough.
Speaker 1: There is a bed along one wall, narrow and neatly,
Speaker 1: made with a quilt that was his mother's, and then
Speaker 1: his grandmother's before that. The fabric has worn thin in places,
Speaker 1: and there are patches where the stitching has been redone
Speaker 1: so many times that the original pattern is lost. But
Speaker 1: it is warm, and it holds the heat of his
Speaker 1: body through the long winter nights. There is a chair
Speaker 1: by the window, wooden with a cushion that has faded
Speaker 1: from red to a color that is almost pink. On
Speaker 1: the table beside the chair there is a kettle, small
Speaker 1: and black from years of use, and a cup and
Speaker 1: a small tin of tea that he buys from the
Speaker 1: merchant who comes through on Thursdays. The kettle is already full.
Speaker 1: He filled it this morning when he woke, before the
Speaker 1: sun was fully up, and he set it on the
Speaker 1: small stove that sits in the corner of the room,
Speaker 1: the stove that is fed with coal and wood scraps,
Speaker 1: and sometimes with shavings from the keeper's shop down the street.
Speaker 1: The stove is cold now, it has been cold for hours.
Speaker 1: But the kettle is full, and the tea is in
Speaker 1: its tin. And there is a small flame wading in
Speaker 1: the hearth, a flame he will kindle when he returns,
Speaker 1: a flame that will heat the water and warm the room,
Speaker 1: and make ready the cup of tea that he drinks
Speaker 1: every night before he lies down. This is the ritual
Speaker 1: of the evening, the ritual of return, and it is
Speaker 1: as much a part of the walk as the walking itself.
Speaker 1: Alder stands by the door, and he is putting on
Speaker 1: his coat. The coat is old, older than most things
Speaker 1: in the room, and it has been patched at the
Speaker 1: elbows and the shoulders, and along the hem where the
Speaker 1: wet of the street has worn the fabric thin. The
Speaker 1: patches are not neat there the work of his own hands,
Speaker 1: needle and thread, and they are the color of rust
Speaker 1: and moss, and the dark brown of old bark. The
Speaker 1: coat is too large for him in some places, and
Speaker 1: too small in others, but it fits in the way
Speaker 1: that things fit when they have been worn for a
Speaker 1: very long time, when the body in the garment have
Speaker 1: reached an understanding. The brass pole leans by the door, waiting.
Speaker 1: It is taller than older, taller than most men, and
Speaker 1: it is smooth from decades of use, the brass worn
Speaker 1: to a warm gold where his hand has held it.
Speaker 1: At the top of the pole there is a small compartment,
Speaker 1: a hollow chamber, no larger than a thimble, where the
Speaker 1: flame lives. The flame is lit from a lantern that
Speaker 1: he carries, a lantern with a handle and a chimney
Speaker 1: of glass, and the lantern is already on the table
Speaker 1: by the door, already lit, its small flame, burning steady
Speaker 1: and sure. Alder picks up the pole in his right hand.
Speaker 1: He has carried it in his right hand for fifty
Speaker 1: one years, and his greepe at shore, his fingers, knowing
Speaker 1: exactly where to close around the smooth wood. He does
Speaker 1: not consider the pole when he holds it. He gives
Speaker 1: no attention to the weight of it or the way
Speaker 1: it balances in his hand. The pole is an extension
Speaker 1: of his arm, an extension of his intention, and when
Speaker 1: he walks with it over his shoulder, he feels the
Speaker 1: way he has always felt, which is ready, which is steady,
Speaker 1: which is exactly where he is supposed to be. He
Speaker 1: takes the lantern in his other hand, the left one,
Speaker 1: and he opens the door with his hip because both
Speaker 1: hands are full, and he steps out into the evening.
Speaker 1: The air touches his face, and it is cool, and
Speaker 1: it carries the smell of the street, the frinilier smell
Speaker 1: of stone and wood, and the faint ghost of bread
Speaker 1: from the bakery, and also the smell of the rain,
Speaker 1: the wet stone, the gutters running with the last of
Speaker 1: the water. He breathes in and his chest hills, and
Speaker 1: he stands for a moment on the threshold, looking up
Speaker 1: and down the street, orienting himself the way a sailor
Speaker 1: orients by the stars, though he has no need of stars.
Speaker 1: He knows this street the way he knows his own
Speaker 1: heart beat, the way he knows the lines in his palms,
Speaker 1: the way he knows the sound of his own breath
Speaker 1: in the silence of the early morning. The first lamp
Speaker 1: is at the corner of the street, the corner nearest
Speaker 1: his door, and it is mounted on an iron bracket
Speaker 1: that extends from the wall of the old apothecary shop,
Speaker 1: the shop that closed years ago and now sells nothing.
Speaker 1: The window dark, the door always locked, but the lamp
Speaker 1: is still there, as it has been for longer than
Speaker 1: Alder can remember. And it is his to light, as
Speaker 1: it has been every evening for fifty one years. And
Speaker 1: he walks toward it slowly, the brass pole over his shoulder,
Speaker 1: the lantern swinging gently in his hand. The lamp is
Speaker 1: made of glass and iron, the glass clear and slightly
Speaker 1: green at the edges where it has aged, the eye
Speaker 1: birn black and pitted from years of rain and frost.
Speaker 1: There is a small door at the front of the lamp,
Speaker 1: a door that hinges open to reveal the inside, the
Speaker 1: hollow space where the flame will burn. The door is
Speaker 1: frosted with age and handling, and Alder opens it carefully,
Speaker 1: his fingers, knowing the motion, feeling for the latch that
Speaker 1: holds it in place. Inside the lamp, there is a
Speaker 1: reservoir of oil, a small brass bowl that holds enough
Speaker 1: oil to burn for hours. And there is a wick,
Speaker 1: a strip of woven cotton that rises from the bowl
Speaker 1: and reaches up toward the top of the lamp where
Speaker 1: the flame will dance. The wick is dark at the
Speaker 1: edges used, and Alder touches it gently with his thumb
Speaker 1: and forefinger, checking the length, making shore it is not
Speaker 1: too long and not too short, making sure it is
Speaker 1: ready to receive the flame. He brings the lantern close.
Speaker 1: The flame in the lantern is small and steady, a
Speaker 1: tongue of light, no longer than his smallest finger, and
Speaker 1: it leans slightly toward him, toward the wick, as if
Speaker 1: it is eager, as if it has been waiting. He
Speaker 1: tips the lantern carefully, and the flame touches the wick
Speaker 1: and catches, and there is a moment, a single held breath,
Speaker 1: of a moment when the wick glows and darkens, and
Speaker 1: then slowly, surely the flame takes hold. The flame grows,
Speaker 1: it steadies, It rises, a small bright point at the
Speaker 1: center of the lamp, and then a small bright point
Speaker 1: with a halo, a circle of light that widens and
Speaker 1: deepens and reaches outward. The glass catches it and holds it,
Speaker 1: and the light passes through, and suddenly the street is different.
Speaker 1: Suddenly there is a circle of warm gold on the
Speaker 1: wet cobblestones at the foot of the lamp. And the
Speaker 1: light reaches up the wall of the apothecary shop and
Speaker 1: finds the old sign with its faded letters, and it
Speaker 1: touches the iron bracket and makes it shine, and it
Speaker 1: reaches across the street to the opposite wall, where the
Speaker 1: plaster is cracked and the paint is peeling, and the
Speaker 1: cracks and the peeling paint become part of the light,
Speaker 1: become part of the pattern, become something other than decay.
Speaker 1: Alder watches the flame for a moment. He always watches.
Speaker 1: He never rushes away from a lamp after lighting it.
Speaker 1: He stands and he watches, and he makes sure that
Speaker 1: the flame is steady, that it is not flickering in
Speaker 1: a draft, that it is burning clean and bright and true.
Speaker 1: This is not a task to be hurried. This is
Speaker 1: not a task that rewards heaste. The flame must be
Speaker 1: given time to find itself, to settle, to become what
Speaker 1: it is going to become. And Alder gives it that time,
Speaker 1: standing quietly, the brass pole over his shoulder, the lantern
Speaker 1: in his hand, his breath slow and even in his chest.
Speaker 1: The lamp is burning well, the light is spreading. He
Speaker 1: can see the cobblestones now, each one distinct, each one
Speaker 1: a small flat stone, worn smooth by generations of feet.
Speaker 1: And he can see the gutter where the water is
Speaker 1: still running, a thin thread of dark water finding its
Speaker 1: way down the street toward the drain. And he can
Speaker 1: see the shadows, the shadows that the lamp makes, the
Speaker 1: shadows that are not dark but soft, that are not
Speaker 1: harsh but gentle, that bend and fold and settle into
Speaker 1: the corners and the doorways and the spaces beneath the windows.
Speaker 1: He turns from the first lamp, and he walks on,
Speaker 1: and the street opens before him, and you follow behind,
Speaker 1: your feet, finding the same cobblestones, your eyes adjusting to
Speaker 1: the new light, the light that changes the street from
Speaker 1: a daytime place to an evening place, from a place
Speaker 1: of work and noise and motion to a place of
Speaker 1: quiet and rest, and the slow accumulation of darkness. The
Speaker 1: second lamp is outside the bakery, and the bakery is
Speaker 1: still open, though not for long. The baker is a
Speaker 1: woman named Greta, and she is cleaning the front window
Speaker 1: with a cloth, wiping away the flower dust that is
Speaker 1: settled on the glass during the day. She sees Alder
Speaker 1: coming and she pauses, leaning on the cloth, watching him approach.
Speaker 1: There is a smile on her face, a small smile,
Speaker 1: the kind that comes from familiarity, from the knowledge of
Speaker 1: a person seen every day, the kind that does not
Speaker 1: need to be large to be real. Alder raises one
Speaker 1: hand in greeting, a small gesture, the lifting of two fingers,
Speaker 1: and Greta nods and goes back to her window, And
Speaker 1: Alder stops at the lamp outside the bakery and opens
Speaker 1: the small door and lights the whi with the flame
Speaker 1: from his lantern, and the light spills out across the
Speaker 1: sidewalk and finds the bottom of the window and the
Speaker 1: flower dust that is still clinging to the glass, and
Speaker 1: the flower dust catches the light and holds it, and
Speaker 1: for a moment the window seems to glow from within,
Speaker 1: as if the bread and the rolls and the cakes
Speaker 1: that are already sold and gone have left something behind,
Speaker 1: some warmth, some memory of flower and heat and the
Speaker 1: labor of the day. The third lamp is outside the
Speaker 1: copper's shop, and the copper is inside, still working, still
Speaker 1: shaving the long, curly strips of wood that will become barrels,
Speaker 1: the shavings falling to the floor in a soft brown heap.
Speaker 1: The smell of the wood is strong here, cedar and oak,
Speaker 1: and it mixes with the smell of the oil from
Speaker 1: the lamp, and the smell of the rain, and the
Speaker 1: smell of the street. An alder breeds it in as
Speaker 1: he lights the lamp, and his mind is empty of everything,
Speaker 1: or rather it holds nothing at all. He simply stands
Speaker 1: and breathes and watches the flame catch and hold. The
Speaker 1: fourth lamp is at the corner where the street bends,
Speaker 1: and there is a low wall. Here a wall may
Speaker 1: of the same cobblestones as the street, and on the
Speaker 1: wall there sits a cat. The cat is called Pudding,
Speaker 1: though Alder is not sure who named it or why
Speaker 1: it is an orange cat, or perhaps it was orange
Speaker 1: once and is now more the color of autumn leaves,
Speaker 1: faded and soft. It sits on the wall and watches
Speaker 1: Alder with eyes that are half closed, and when he
Speaker 1: passes it does not move, does not startle, simply watches,
Speaker 1: knowing that the lamp lighter is not a threat, knowing
Speaker 1: that the lamp lighter has passed this way every evening
Speaker 1: for as long as the cat has been alive, longer,
Speaker 1: knowing that the lamplighter is part of the street, as
Speaker 1: much a part of the street as the walls and
Speaker 1: the windows and the stones beneath the feet. The fifth
Speaker 1: lamp is outside the tailor's shop, and the tailor there
Speaker 1: is an old man named Fenwick who sits by the
Speaker 1: window in a chair that faces the street, and he
Speaker 1: is looking out at the evening at the lamp lighter
Speaker 1: passing at the light spreading across the sidewalk. Fenwick does
Speaker 1: not wave. He simply watches, his hands resting on the
Speaker 1: arms of the chair, his eyes following Alder as he
Speaker 1: moves from lamp to lamp as he opens the small
Speaker 1: door and brings the flame close, and watches the wick
Speaker 1: catch and the light spread. Fenwick has watched this every
Speaker 1: evening for as long as he has lived on this street,
Speaker 1: and he will watch it for as long as he
Speaker 1: continues to live here. And there is comfort in this comfort,
Speaker 1: in the repetition, in the sameness, in the knowledge that
Speaker 1: some things do not change. The sixth lamp, the seventh,
Speaker 1: the eighth, the ninth. They pass in a slow procession,
Speaker 1: each one the same and each one different, each one
Speaker 1: with its own small details, its own small variations. A
Speaker 1: crack in the glass that catches the light, a bracket
Speaker 1: that has rusted slightly and leans a few degrees off center.
Speaker 1: A cobblestone directly beneath the lamp that is darker than
Speaker 1: the others, worn smooth by the drip of oil over
Speaker 1: many years. These are the things that Alder sees, the
Speaker 1: things that he has seen so many times that they
Speaker 1: have become part of him, part of the fabric of
Speaker 1: his days. And he moves among them as a musician
Speaker 1: moves among the notes of a familiar song, not attending
Speaker 1: to each one individually, but letting them flow together into
Speaker 1: the larger shape, the larger form, the melody of the evening.
Speaker 1: By the ninth lamp, the street has changed again. It
Speaker 1: is darker now, or rather the light is more concentrated,
Speaker 1: more defined, the circles of gold from the lamps overlapping
Speaker 1: and merging into a single ribbon of warm light that
Speaker 1: runs down the center of the street, like a river
Speaker 1: of honey, like a vein of gold in a piece
Speaker 1: of dark wood. The shadows are deeper in the doorways,
Speaker 1: in the alleys, but they are not frightening shadows. They
Speaker 1: are the shadows of home, the shadows of rest, the
Speaker 1: shadows that gather in the places where the day cannot reach.
Speaker 1: And Alder walks through them and pass them, and does
Speaker 1: not look at them with fear, because there is nothing
Speaker 1: in them to fear. The tenth lamp is outside the
Speaker 1: house with the blue door, the house where the family lives,
Speaker 1: the family with the three children who are always running
Speaker 1: in and out, the family with the mother who hangs
Speaker 1: laundry in the yard, and the father who repairs fishing
Speaker 1: nets in the workshop behind the house. The blue door
Speaker 1: is closed now, but the window is lit, and through
Speaker 1: the window Alder can see movement. The shapes of the
Speaker 1: children being shepherded toward bed, the shape of the mother
Speaker 1: bending to straighten a rug, the shape of the father
Speaker 1: setting down a tool and stretching his arms above his head.
Speaker 1: He stops at the lamp, and he lights it. And
Speaker 1: the light finds the blue door and makes it bluer,
Speaker 1: makes it stand out from the dark wood of the frame.
Speaker 1: And it finds the brass handle that is always polished,
Speaker 1: always shining, And it finds the step, the stone step
Speaker 1: worn smooth by the feet of the family, by the
Speaker 1: feet of visitors in neighbors, and the mail carrier who
Speaker 1: comes every morning except Sundays. The eleventh lamp, the twelfth,
Speaker 1: the thirteenth. The street is changing as he moves through it,
Speaker 1: or rather it is remaining the same, while his perception
Speaker 1: of it changes, his eyes adjusting to the growing darkness,
Speaker 1: his other senses sharpening to compensate. He can hear the
Speaker 1: sound of his own footsteps, the soft tap of his
Speaker 1: boots on the cobblestones, the faint creak of the brass
Speaker 1: pole over his shoulder. He can hear the sound of
Speaker 1: the flame in each lamp, a tiny hiss, a soft
Speaker 1: breath of light consuming oil, and he can hear beneath
Speaker 1: that the sounds of the houses, the muffled voices, the
Speaker 1: clink of dishes being washed, the creak of a floor board,
Speaker 1: the far off bark of a daub that is not
Speaker 1: on this street, but somewhere beyond, in another part of
Speaker 1: the town. The fourteenth lamp is outside the window where
Speaker 1: the child sits. The child is a girl, or perhaps
Speaker 1: a boy, Alder has never been quite sure. And the
Speaker 1: child is always at this window at this time of evening,
Speaker 1: sitting on a stool that brings them up to the
Speaker 1: level of the sill, their face lit from below by
Speaker 1: the light in the room behind them. The child waves
Speaker 1: every night, every night, without fail. As Alder passes, the
Speaker 1: child raises a hand and waves a small wave, a
Speaker 1: simple wave, the kind that a child gives to someone
Speaker 1: they know and trust and are glad to see. Alder
Speaker 1: waves back. He does not shout or call out. He
Speaker 1: simply raises one hand, the hand that is not holding
Speaker 1: the lantern, and he holds it there for a moment. Palm, open,
Speaker 1: fingers spread, a greeting that needs no words, that speaks
Speaker 1: for itself, that says I see you, and you see me,
Speaker 1: and we are both here to night, both of us
Speaker 1: in our places on this street, and there is comfort
Speaker 1: in that. There is a kind of quiet joy in
Speaker 1: that simple recognition. The child smiles and withdraws an Alder
Speaker 1: moves on, and the lamp at the corner of the
Speaker 1: house flares and settles and casts its light across the
Speaker 1: sidewalk and up the wall and into the window where
Speaker 1: the child was. Though the child is gone now, back
Speaker 1: to the warmth and the safety of the room. Behind
Speaker 1: the fifteenth lamp, the sixteenth, the seventeenth, The street is
Speaker 1: still changing, or rather it is completing itself, filling in
Speaker 1: the spaces between the lamps with the quality of the evening,
Speaker 1: with a particular quality of light that exists only in
Speaker 1: the hour after dusk and before full dark, when the
Speaker 1: world is neither day nor night, but something in between,
Speaker 1: something that holds both in suspension, both the memory of
Speaker 1: the light that was and the promise of the darkness
Speaker 1: that is coming. The eighteenth lamp is outside the house
Speaker 1: of the widow. The widow is a woman named Claire,
Speaker 1: and she has lived on this street for longer than
Speaker 1: Alder has been a lamp lighter, though not by much.
Speaker 1: Her husband was a fisherman, and he was lost at
Speaker 1: sea many years ago in a storm that Alder remembers,
Speaker 1: a storm that bent the trees and tore the roose
Speaker 1: from some of the houses, and left the street strewn
Speaker 1: with branches and debris. The fishermen did not come home,
Speaker 1: and the widow has lived alone ever since, in the
Speaker 1: house with the green shutters, the house with the small
Speaker 1: garden in the front, where she grows herbs and vegetables
Speaker 1: and sometimes flowers, though not many, not any more. Every night,
Speaker 1: when Alder passes, there is a cup on the step.
Speaker 1: The cup is filled with broth or sometimes tea, or
Speaker 1: sometimes just hot water, with a slice of lemon, and
Speaker 1: it is there for him, set down on the step
Speaker 1: while the lamp is still dark, waiting for him to
Speaker 1: find it. He does not always drink it. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: is not hungry, or the walk is too short, or
Speaker 1: the broth is too hot, and he simply lifts the
Speaker 1: cup and thanks her. Though she cannot hear him, or
Speaker 1: perhaps she can, perhaps she is listening from somewhere behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, watching him through the crack in the door.
Speaker 1: Tonight the cup is there, as it always is, and
Speaker 1: tonight it is broth, a thin broth with the smell
Speaker 1: of onion and carrot and the faintest trace of bay leaf.
Speaker 1: He lifts the cup and he holds it for a moment,
Speaker 1: feeling the warmth of it through the ceramic and he
Speaker 1: looks at the door, at the green shutter, at the
Speaker 1: window where the light is still burning, and he nods
Speaker 1: a small nod, a nod that is meant for her,
Speaker 1: even though she cannot see it. And he drinks. The
Speaker 1: broth is warm and it is good, and it spreads
Speaker 1: through his chest as he drinks it. And he stands
Speaker 1: there in the light of the eighteenth lamp, drinking the broth,
Speaker 1: and for a moment he is still completely still, the
Speaker 1: brass pole over his shoulder, the lantern in his hand,
Speaker 1: the cup at his lips, and the street is still
Speaker 1: around him, the houses and the windows and the lamps
Speaker 1: and the shadows, and all of it is quiet, all
Speaker 1: of it is waiting, and there is nowhere else he
Speaker 1: needs to be. He finishes the broth, and he sets
Speaker 1: the cup back on the step, gently, so gently, and
Speaker 1: he moves on. The nineteenth lamp is at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the old wall, the wall that runs along the
Speaker 1: side of the street for a long stretch. The wall
Speaker 1: that is made of stone and mortar and time, the
Speaker 1: stone weathered and worn, the mortar between the stones, crumbling
Speaker 1: in places, new moss growing in the cracks where the
Speaker 1: old mortar has fallen away. The wall is old, older
Speaker 1: than the houses, older than the street. And it has
Speaker 1: seen generations of people pass by, has seen the feet
Speaker 1: of children and the wheels of carts and the hoofs
Speaker 1: of horses, has seen the rain and the frost and
Speaker 1: the sun. And it stands still standing, though it leans
Speaker 1: in places and has been repaired in others, a record
Speaker 1: of its own history written in stone and mortar and
Speaker 1: the slow green growth of moss. Alder stops at the
Speaker 1: nineteenth lamp and he lights it, and the light finds
Speaker 1: the wall and follows it, tracing the line of stones,
Speaker 1: finding the moss, making the green deeper and richer, turning
Speaker 1: the wall into something almost alive, something that breathes and grows,
Speaker 1: something that holds the light and gives it back transformed.
Speaker 1: He runs his free hand along the top of the
Speaker 1: wall as he passes, feeling the cool stone, the rough texture,
Speaker 1: the places where the moss is soft and damp, and
Speaker 1: his hand comes away slightly wet, slightly green, and he
Speaker 1: wipes it on his coat without noticing the sure automatic,
Speaker 1: the gesture of a man who has touched this wall
Speaker 1: a thousand times and will touch it a thousand more.
Speaker 1: The twentieth lamp, the twenty first, the twenty second. The
Speaker 1: street is changing again, or rather the quality of the
Speaker 1: evening is changing. The way the light falls, and the
Speaker 1: way the shadows gather, the way the houses seem to
Speaker 1: lean closer together, the way the sounds of the street
Speaker 1: seem to come from further away, as if the street
Speaker 1: is not a single place, but a series of places,
Speaker 1: a sequence of rooms that he is walking through, each
Speaker 1: one different, each one familiar, each one holding its own
Speaker 1: particular quality of light and sound and smell. The twenty
Speaker 1: third lamp is at the church gate. The church is old,
Speaker 1: older than the wall, older than anything on the street
Speaker 1: except perhaps the hill itself. And the gate is iron,
Speaker 1: black iron, wrought in a pattern of leaves and vines,
Speaker 1: the leaves and vines closed and curled in on themselves,
Speaker 1: forming a barrier that is more decorative than function, a
Speaker 1: barrier that says, this is a sacred place, This is
Speaker 1: a place apart without saying in words. The gate is closed,
Speaker 1: but not locked, as it never is, And through the bars,
Speaker 1: Alder can see the path that leads to the church door,
Speaker 1: the path lined with graves, the graves marked with stones
Speaker 1: that are weathered and worn and covered in lichen, the
Speaker 1: names on the stones faded to allegibility, the dates worn
Speaker 1: away by centuries of rain and wind. He stops at
Speaker 1: the lamp and he lights it, and the light finds
Speaker 1: the iron gate and makes it shine, makes the leaves
Speaker 1: and vines stand out against the darkness, and it finds
Speaker 1: the path beyond, and the first of the graves, and
Speaker 1: it finds the church itself, the old stone building, with
Speaker 1: its tower and its bells, the bells silent, now resting,
Speaker 1: waiting for the morning when they will ring and call
Speaker 1: the town to worship, to the gathering, to the shared
Speaker 1: experience of being together in a place that is set apart.
Speaker 1: There's no one in the church, there is no one
Speaker 1: in the graveyard. But there is a presence, a sense
Speaker 1: of continuity, a sense that the people who are gone
Speaker 1: are still here in some way, still part of the street,
Speaker 1: still part of the fabric of the place. An Alder
Speaker 1: feels it as he stands at the lamp, the flame burning,
Speaker 1: the light, spreading the brass pole over his shoulder. He
Speaker 1: has buried people from this street. He has rung the
Speaker 1: bell for their funerals. He has stood in this graveyard
Speaker 1: in the rain and the snow and the cold. And
Speaker 1: he knows what it is to lose, and he knows
Speaker 1: what it is to continue. And he knows that the
Speaker 1: street holds both the living and the dead, the day
Speaker 1: and the night, the beginning and the end, all of
Speaker 1: it together, all of it part of the same long evening.
Speaker 1: He moves on the twenty fourth lamp, the twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: the twenty sixth. The street is quieter here, or rather,
Speaker 1: the sounds are different, softer, the voices from the houses fainter,
Speaker 1: the footsteps of other people rarer. The lamps are further
Speaker 1: apart in this section, or perhaps they seem further apart
Speaker 1: because the street is wider, because the houses are set
Speaker 1: further back, because there is more space between them and
Speaker 1: more darkness in the spaces between. The twenty seventh lamp
Speaker 1: is at the end of the old wall, where the
Speaker 1: wall meets the fence of the last house before the bridge.
Speaker 1: The wall is lower here, or perhaps it has been rebuilt.
Speaker 1: Lower and beyond it there is a field, a small
Speaker 1: field that is used for grazing in the summer and
Speaker 1: lies fallow in the winter, the grass brown and flattened,
Speaker 1: the soil dark and wet. The field is not visible
Speaker 1: from the street, not really, but Alder knows it is there.
Speaker 1: He has walked through it in the daytime, in the
Speaker 1: long summer evenings, when the light lasts longer and he
Speaker 1: has time to wander, time to explore, time to see
Speaker 1: the parts of the town that are not part of
Speaker 1: his route but are part of the larger world that
Speaker 1: surrounds the street. He lights the twenty seventh lamp, and
Speaker 1: he stands for a moment, looking at the wall, at
Speaker 1: the fence beyond, at the darkness that is gathering beyond
Speaker 1: the reach of the light. The night is here, now
Speaker 1: fully here, the day gone completely, the sky a deep
Speaker 1: blue black that is visible between the rooftops, the stars
Speaker 1: beginning to show faint and distant, the planets and the
Speaker 1: fixed stars, and the slow weel the galaxy that contains
Speaker 1: them all. The air is colder than it was, or
Speaker 1: it feels colder because the light is more concentrated, because
Speaker 1: the shadows are deeper, because the contrast between the lit
Speaker 1: places and the dark places is sharper. His mind holds nothing,
Speaker 1: It is entirely still. He simply stands and breathes, and
Speaker 1: lets the evening settle around him. Let the quality of
Speaker 1: the light and the darkness and the silence fill him.
Speaker 1: Let it become part of him, the way the street
Speaker 1: has become part of him, the way the lamps and
Speaker 1: the wicks and the flames have become part of him,
Speaker 1: The way the ridm of the walk has become part
Speaker 1: of his heart, beat, his breath, his blood. Alder begins
Speaker 1: to walk again. The twentieth lamp, the twenty ninth, the thirtieth.
Speaker 1: The street is narrowing again, or rather, the houses are
Speaker 1: coming closer together. The space is between them smaller, the
Speaker 1: light from the lamps overlapping more, the shadows between the
Speaker 1: pools of light thinner and more defined. He passes a
Speaker 1: window where a candle is burning, a single candle in
Speaker 1: a room that is otherwise dark, and the candle casts
Speaker 1: a moving shadow on the curtain, a shadow that might
Speaker 1: be a person, might be a hand, might be nothing
Speaker 1: at all, just the flame bending in some draft that
Speaker 1: he cannot feel the thirty first lamp, the thirty second,
Speaker 1: the thirty third. The street is quieter here, the house
Speaker 1: is fewer, the families that live in them older, or
Speaker 1: perhaps not older, but more settled, more set in their ways,
Speaker 1: more content to stay inside once the evening comes, to
Speaker 1: sit by the fire and talk quietly, and let the
Speaker 1: world go by without them. He can hear, faintly the
Speaker 1: sound of a fiddle being played somewhere, somewhere, not far,
Speaker 1: perhaps in the house with the red door, perhaps in
Speaker 1: the house beyond it. The music, thin and distant and sweet,
Speaker 1: a melody that he does not recognize, but that feels
Speaker 1: familiar anyway, feels like something he has heard before, in
Speaker 1: another life, in another version of this street, in another
Speaker 1: version of this evening. The first window he passes holds
Speaker 1: a young mother. She sits at a table with her
Speaker 1: hands around a cup, the steam rising and disappearing between
Speaker 1: her fingers. The pap has been there since before he
Speaker 1: lit the lamp beside her door, and she has not
Speaker 1: yet raised it to her lips. Her hair is loose
Speaker 1: around her shoulders. On the counter behind her, a wooden
Speaker 1: spoon rests in a bowl of something unbaked. The candle
Speaker 1: on her table gutters and recovers. She is looking at nothing,
Speaker 1: or perhaps she is looking at the grain of the wood,
Speaker 1: which has its own quiet geometry. Alder does not linger.
Speaker 1: He has learned that to watch too long is to intrude,
Speaker 1: and his lamp neads him. Two doors down there, a
Speaker 1: boy lies under a quilt with a book propped on
Speaker 1: his chest. The camp mendel stub beside him has burned
Speaker 1: to a nub, and he holds his place with one
Speaker 1: finger while his other hand rests on the coverlet. He
Speaker 1: is perhaps eight or nine. He is holding out against
Speaker 1: the end of the day, not because the story is unfinished,
Speaker 1: but because the day itself is not yet ready to end.
Speaker 1: His lips move slightly with the words. A dog sleeps
Speaker 1: at the foot of the bed, its ribs expanding and
Speaker 1: collapsing in slow rhythm. Outside the window, the lamp light
Speaker 1: catches the pane, and for a moment the room seems
Speaker 1: to glow from within, a small, warm box of oil
Speaker 1: and paper and boy. The next window shows an old couple.
Speaker 1: The woman washes at a basin while the man dries.
Speaker 1: They do not speak. They have not needed to speak
Speaker 1: for years, or perhaps they have simply said everything that
Speaker 1: needed saying, and what remains is only the doing of
Speaker 1: small things together. She hands him a plate, and he
Speaker 1: wipes it with a cloth and sets it on the shelf.
Speaker 1: His hands are liver spotted and slow. Her hair is
Speaker 1: white and pinned back with a comb. The water in
Speaker 1: the basin catches the lamp light. They move around each
Speaker 1: other the way water moves around stones in a stream,
Speaker 1: each knowing where the other will be. A fiddle sits
Speaker 1: in the window of the next house. No one plays it.
Speaker 1: A man sits beside it on a chair, with his
Speaker 1: elbows on his knees, turning the pegs one way and
Speaker 1: then the other, tuning and tuning. The strings respond with
Speaker 1: small sounds, a hum, a sigh. He is not preparing
Speaker 1: to play. He finds the tuning to be the pleasant part,
Speaker 1: the moment of almost music, the promise without the commitment.
Speaker 1: His face is half in shadow. The bow rests across
Speaker 1: his thighs. He turns a peg again, the note rises,
Speaker 1: He adjusts it down. He smiles at nothing. In the
Speaker 1: basket by the window, a cat sleeps among unfolded linen.
Speaker 1: The linen is white and stiff from washing. Still carrying
Speaker 1: the smell of the river where it was rinsed. The
Speaker 1: cat is orange and white, its paws tucked under its ears, relaxed.
Speaker 1: It does not stir as Alder's lamp passes. It has
Speaker 1: learned which sounds mean food and which sounds mean nothing,
Speaker 1: And the lamp lighter is nothing. Avoth circles the candle
Speaker 1: on the sill. The cat's tail twitches once, then is still.
Speaker 1: A shopkeeper counts coins at his desk. He counts them
Speaker 1: without hurry, stacking them in small piles, pushing one pile forward,
Speaker 1: then another. He has counted them twice now and gotten
Speaker 1: the same number both times, which satisfies him. He is
Speaker 1: not rich, he is not poor. He is a man
Speaker 1: with a desk and a drawer full of coins, and
Speaker 1: a shopful of goods he will sell tomorrow or the
Speaker 1: day after. He sets the coins down gently, one by one.
Speaker 1: They make small sounds against the wood. The lamp outside
Speaker 1: his window throws his shadow long across the room, a
Speaker 1: giant version of a small man doing small things. A
Speaker 1: girl sits at a slate board. She practices letters, pressing
Speaker 1: the chalk hard, dragging it in strokes, lifting, wiping, pressing again,
Speaker 1: her tongue pokes out from the corner of her mouth.
Speaker 1: The slate is gray and the ledge are white, and
Speaker 1: she writes the same letter over and over, trying to
Speaker 1: get the curve right. Her name perhaps, or the name
Speaker 1: of someone she loves. She wipes the slate with her
Speaker 1: sleeve and begins again. The lamp beside her window sends
Speaker 1: a stripe of light across her hands. She does not
Speaker 1: look up. She is learning that to make a thing
Speaker 1: well takes time, and she has time, and the night
Speaker 1: is still young enough to hold another try. He passes
Speaker 1: window after window, each one a small world. A man
Speaker 1: sits by the fire reading a newspaper that is three
Speaker 1: days old and does not mind. A woman mends a
Speaker 1: sock with a needle that catches the light. Two children
Speaker 1: sit on a floor with blocks, building something that will
Speaker 1: not last, but matters now. An old woman stands at
Speaker 1: her window, looking out at the street, looking at nothing,
Speaker 1: Looking at the lamp as it passes. She raises one hand,
Speaker 1: not a wave, just a gesture that says she sees him,
Speaker 1: that he is not unseen. He tips his hat to her.
Speaker 1: She nods. The window holds her like a frame holds
Speaker 1: a painting, and then he is past. The stones beneath
Speaker 1: his feet are wet from the earlier rain, and they
Speaker 1: gleam where the lamp light falls. Each lamp casts a
Speaker 1: circle of gold on the ground, and he walks from
Speaker 1: circle to circle, like a man moving through a series
Speaker 1: of small suns. The air smells of coal, smoke, and
Speaker 1: bread and wet stone. Somewhere a dog barks once and
Speaker 1: is still Somewhere a door closes softly. The night settles
Speaker 1: around him like a garment he has worn for many years,
Speaker 1: familiar and heavy in the right places, light in others.
Speaker 1: He pauses at the next lamp. The wick needs trimming.
Speaker 1: He takes a small tool from his belt and trims
Speaker 1: it with care, and the flame steadies and grows. The
Speaker 1: light pushes outward, touching the window across the street, where
Speaker 1: a man stands with his hands in his pockets, also
Speaker 1: watching the lamp, also watching the night. They do not speak.
Speaker 1: They do not need to. They are both men who
Speaker 1: tend to things in the dark, each in his own way.
Speaker 1: And now the street itself, the stones and walls, and
Speaker 1: wood and iron, the things that have learned from years
Speaker 1: are being stepped on and leaned against and weathered and worn.
Speaker 1: The third stone from the bakery door is smooth. It
Speaker 1: has been smooth for fifty one years because the same
Speaker 1: boot has pressed it every evening, the same foot, the
Speaker 1: same weight, the same arc of the step. The stone
Speaker 1: does not remember the stones, is not need to remember.
Speaker 1: It simply is smooth now, and that is enough. The
Speaker 1: boot has changed in fifty one years, the foot inside
Speaker 1: it has changed, but the step has not, and the
Speaker 1: stone holds the memory in its surface, the way a
Speaker 1: hand holds a habit. The iron ring on the wall
Speaker 1: was once for horses. Children use it now as a
Speaker 1: hand hold when they climb to see over the wall
Speaker 1: at the market square. The iron has worn smooth where
Speaker 1: small hands have gripped it, two generations of children pulling
Speaker 1: themselves up. Their face is bright with effort, their eyes
Speaker 1: looking out at something just beyond. The ring does not
Speaker 1: miss the horses. It is still being used. It is
Speaker 1: still holding something up. The gutter runs along the edge
Speaker 1: of the cobbles, carrying the last of the earlier rainfall
Speaker 1: to the drain at the low end of the street.
Speaker 1: The water makes a sound as it moves, a quiet
Speaker 1: conversation with itself, a murmur between stone and water. It
Speaker 1: is not urgent, it is not loud. It simply where
Speaker 1: gravity sends it, and the sound it makes is the
Speaker 1: sound of going Moss grows in the mortar between the bricks.
Speaker 1: It is green and soft, and it does not care
Speaker 1: that it is unwanted. It grows in the small places
Speaker 1: where the damp settles, where the sun does not reach.
Speaker 1: It holds moisture like a small sponge. It makes the
Speaker 1: wall look older than it is, which is perhaps what
Speaker 1: the wall wants to be mistaken for something that has
Speaker 1: been here forever. A door has been painted six times,
Speaker 1: red and blue, and green, and brown, and yellow and
Speaker 1: gray in the chipped places. All six colors show a
Speaker 1: history of choices, of moods, of seasons of life. The
Speaker 1: paint peels and thin strips. The wood beneath is pale
Speaker 1: and bare. The door has been open and closed ten
Speaker 1: thousand times, and it still swings true, the hinges still
Speaker 1: singing their small song. The smell of coal smoke curls
Speaker 1: from the chimneys and mingles with the smell of bread
Speaker 1: gone cool on the bakery shelf, and the smell of
Speaker 1: wet stone, and the smell of oil and brass from
Speaker 1: Alder's lamp. These smells are the street's language, the way
Speaker 1: it speaks to those who pass through it. Each smell
Speaker 1: tells a story. The coal smoke says someone is warm.
Speaker 1: The bread says someone has been baking. The wet stone
Speaker 1: says it has rained. The oil and brass say someone
Speaker 1: is walking, someone is tending, someone is keeping the dark
Speaker 1: at bay. And now you, you are listening. You are
Speaker 1: lying down or sitting still, and your hands are resting.
Speaker 1: Your jaw is unclinched, your shoulders have dropped from their
Speaker 1: place by your ears. You have been holding things all day,
Speaker 1: carrying them, lifting them, keeping them upright. You do not
Speaker 1: need to hold anything up right now. The things you
Speaker 1: are carrying can be set down on the stones beside you.
Speaker 1: They can rest there. They will still be there in
Speaker 1: the morning if you truly want them back, but for
Speaker 1: now they can wait. Your hands open, your palms, face upward.
Speaker 1: The weight leaves your fingers one by one, like small
Speaker 1: birds lifting off a branch. There is room for you
Speaker 1: to be still. There is room for you to be
Speaker 1: here in this street, in this night, with the lamp
Speaker 1: lighter walking slowly past. You do not need to tend anything.
Speaker 1: You do not need to light anything. You can simply
Speaker 1: be still and let the light pass over you. Each
Speaker 1: lamp a small sun, each sun a small moment, and
Speaker 1: the moments are adding up, and the night is deep
Speaker 1: and wide and holds you the way the street holds
Speaker 1: the stones gently with pati, without asking anything in return.
Speaker 1: Alder walks on his lamp, sways gently in his hand,
Speaker 1: casting its circle of gold on the wet stones. He
Speaker 1: has more lamps to light. He has the rest of
Speaker 1: the evening, and the evening has him, and neither of
Speaker 1: them is in a hurry. The street stretches ahead, a
Speaker 1: line of glowing windows and dark doorways and quiet corners,
Speaker 1: where things have been happening for a hundred years and
Speaker 1: will happen for a hundred more. He lifts the next lamp,
Speaker 1: He trims the wick, He watches the flame catch and hold.
Speaker 1: He moves on. The thirty fourth lamp is the last
Speaker 1: lamp before the bridge. It is mounted on a post
Speaker 1: at the edge of the stream, where the cobblestones give
Speaker 1: way to the wooden planking of the bridge, and the
Speaker 1: light from it reaches out over the water, finds the
Speaker 1: wooden railings, finds the dark surface of the stream that
Speaker 1: runs beneath, the stream that is slow and deep and
Speaker 1: carries the reflection of the lamps and the stone and
Speaker 1: the sky. Alder stops here at the thirty fourth lamp,
Speaker 1: and he does not light it right away. He stands
Speaker 1: and he looks at the bridge, at the water, at
Speaker 1: the darkness beyond. He has crossed this bridge thousands of times,
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of times, in all kinds of weather,
Speaker 1: in all kinds of mood. And he knows every boar
Speaker 1: and every nail, every post and every rail. He knows
Speaker 1: the sound his feet make on the planking, the way
Speaker 1: the wood creaks in certain places, the way it is
Speaker 1: silent in others. He knows the smell of the water,
Speaker 1: the particular smell of this stream, which is different from
Speaker 1: the smell of other streams, which carries the memory of
Speaker 1: rain and stone, and the slow decay of leaves. But
Speaker 1: tonight he does not cross. Tonight. He stops at the edge,
Speaker 1: and he looks, and then he turns back to the lamp,
Speaker 1: and he opens the small door and lights the wick
Speaker 1: in the flame, and the light spreads, and the bridge
Speaker 1: is lit. The boards and the railings and the water beneath,
Speaker 1: and he stands there for a moment longer, watching the
Speaker 1: light on the water, watching the ripples and the reflections,
Speaker 1: watching the way the darkness gathers at the edges and
Speaker 1: does not quite reach the center. The thirty fifth lamb
Speaker 1: is on the bridge, the first of the two lamps
Speaker 1: that stand on either side of the crossing, and he
Speaker 1: lights it, and the light joins the light of the
Speaker 1: thirty fourth lamp and makes a path across the water,
Speaker 1: a path of light that is reflected and broken and
Speaker 1: re formed, a path that leads from one side to
Speaker 1: the other and then fades into the darkness beyond. The
Speaker 1: thirty sixth lamp is at the far end of the bridge,
Speaker 1: where the wooden planking gives way to the cobblestones again.
Speaker 1: And the street continues, or rather it is about to continue,
Speaker 1: but the houses are fewer here farther apart, and the
Speaker 1: lamp lighter's rout is about to change, is about to
Speaker 1: reach the part of the street that is more field
Speaker 1: than town, more darkness than light, looks the minefix involvenskibiced
Speaker 1: bent of somba good, a fowm that haven stested with
Speaker 1: no bie believed clothed, the two air, the sucker for
Speaker 1: the perfects. The month mot knows thuff or another. But
Speaker 1: the houses are fewer here, farther apart, and the lamp
Speaker 1: lighter's rat is about to change, is about to reach
Speaker 1: the part of the street that is more field than town,
Speaker 1: more darkness than light. He lights the thirty six lamp,
Speaker 1: and he stands at the edge of the town, looking
Speaker 1: out at the dark that is waiting, the duck that
Speaker 1: is not empty, but full, full of grass and soil,
Speaker 1: on the distant shapes of trees, full of the sounds
Speaker 1: of the night, the chirp of crickets and the hoot
Speaker 1: of an owl somewhere far away, the rustle of a
Speaker 1: creature moving through the undergrowth, the breath of the wind
Speaker 1: in the grass. Bram comes to him. Bram has not
Speaker 1: come to him in a long time. Or rather, Bram
Speaker 1: has been with him every day without ever being named,
Speaker 1: has carried him in the way that he carries the
Speaker 1: brass pole and the lantern, as a part of himself,
Speaker 1: as an extension of his hand and his eye. But
Speaker 1: now Bram arrives fully clearly, the way he appears in memory,
Speaker 1: the way he has always appeared a man with gray
Speaker 1: hair and broad hands and a voice that was low
Speaker 1: and quiet and sure. Bram was the lamp lighter before Alder.
Speaker 1: Bram taught him the trade, taught him the root, taught
Speaker 1: him the way of the pole and the lantern and
Speaker 1: the flame. Bram was patient with him in the beginning,
Speaker 1: when he was young and nervous and unsure, when he
Speaker 1: was afraid of doing something wrong, of failing, of not
Speaker 1: being enough. Ram taught him to be steady, to be slow,
Speaker 1: to take his time, to understand that the lamps were
Speaker 1: not a task to be completed, but a ritual to
Speaker 1: be performed, a ritual that required at ten time and
Speaker 1: care and presence, that required him to be there fully,
Speaker 1: there in the moment, in the light, in the dark.
Speaker 1: And Braham gave him a sentence, a single sentence that
Speaker 1: Alder has carried with him for all these years, a
Speaker 1: sentence that he has turned over in his mind and
Speaker 1: examined and held up to the light, A sentence that
Speaker 1: has shaped him without his always knowing it. The sentence
Speaker 1: was this, there is no lamp that does not want
Speaker 1: to be lit. Alder has turned the sentence over many times.
Speaker 1: He has held it when the route was hard, when
Speaker 1: the weather was cruel, when his body was tired and
Speaker 1: his spirit was low. He has held it when the
Speaker 1: street was empty and the night was long, and he
Speaker 1: was the only person awake in a town gone entirely still.
Speaker 1: He has held it when the flame caught and held,
Speaker 1: and the light spread, and the world was different, was better,
Speaker 1: was warmer, was kinder. He has held it when he
Speaker 1: put the lamps out in the morning and watch the
Speaker 1: flames die and the darkness return. And he has held
Speaker 1: it when he lit them again in the evening and
Speaker 1: watch the darkness retreat. There is no lamp that does
Speaker 1: not want to be lit. The lamp is waiting, The
Speaker 1: lamp is ready. The lamp is hungry for the flame,
Speaker 1: for the oil, for the light. And the lamp lighter
Speaker 1: is the one who brings it, who makes it possible,
Speaker 1: who completes the circuit between the darkness and the light,
Speaker 1: who stands in the space between and makes the choice
Speaker 1: every evening to bring the light into the world. He
Speaker 1: lights the thirty seventh lamp, the thirty eighth, the thirty ninth.
Speaker 1: The street is ending here, or rather it is thinning out.
Speaker 1: The house is giving way to fields, the fields giving
Speaker 1: way to the darkness that is the countryside, the vast,
Speaker 1: dark countryside that surrounds the town and goes on for
Speaker 1: miles and miles until it meets the sea. The fortieth
Speaker 1: lamp is the last one before the final lamp, the
Speaker 1: one at the very end of the route, and it
Speaker 1: stands at the edge of the last house. A house
Speaker 1: that is dark, a house that has been dark for
Speaker 1: as long as Alder can remember. A house that belongs
Speaker 1: to someone who is never there, or someone who is
Speaker 1: always there but never visible. A house that is part
Speaker 1: of the street but not of it. A house that
Speaker 1: is a mystery, or perhaps not a mystery, but simply
Speaker 1: a fact, simply a place, simply a part of the
Speaker 1: landscape that does not need to be understood. He lights
Speaker 1: the fortieth lamp, and he stands there, looking at the
Speaker 1: darkness that is ahead, the darkness that is the end
Speaker 1: of the street, the darkness that is the beginning of
Speaker 1: the countryside. He can see the stars here, more stars
Speaker 1: than in the center of the town, fewer lights to
Speaker 1: compete with. In the milky way is a faint smear
Speaker 1: across the sky, a river of light that is also
Speaker 1: darkness that is also the space between the stars. You
Speaker 1: do not have to go any further. The knowledge comes
Speaker 1: to him, or rather it comes to you, the listener,
Speaker 1: the one who is walking beside him, the one who
Speaker 1: has followed him all this way. You do not have
Speaker 1: to go any further. You can stop here at the
Speaker 1: fortieth lamp and let him go on alone to the
Speaker 1: forty first, the last one, the one at the very end.
Speaker 1: You can stay in the light and let the darkness
Speaker 1: be his, just for these few minutes, just for this
Speaker 1: last little stretch of the walk. Or you can go
Speaker 1: with him. You can follow him to the very end
Speaker 1: and see what he sees, and stand where he stands,
Speaker 1: and look out at the darkness and the light and
Speaker 1: the place where they meet. It is up to you.
Speaker 1: There is no wrong choice. There is only a choice,
Speaker 1: the moment of deciding. The breath before the next step.
Speaker 1: Alder walks on. He does not know that you are there,
Speaker 1: or if he knows, he does not show it. And
Speaker 1: he walks to the forty first lamp, the last lamp,
Speaker 1: the one at the end of the street, And he stops,
Speaker 1: and he opens the small door, and he brings the
Speaker 1: flame close, and the wick catches and the flame grows,
Speaker 1: and the light spreads, and the whole street behind him,
Speaker 1: all forty lamps, all forty one lamps, is glowing. He
Speaker 1: stands at the forty first lamp, and he looks back.
Speaker 1: The street is a river of light, a golden thread
Speaker 1: running through the darkness, a line of warmth and safety
Speaker 1: and welcome. The houses are dark shapes on either side
Speaker 1: of the light, their windows reflecting the glow, their doors
Speaker 1: and shutters holding the light close, keeping it, using it
Speaker 1: to make the night more bearable, more kind. This is
Speaker 1: the work, This is what he has done every evening
Speaker 1: for fifty one years. He has taken the darkness, and
Speaker 1: he has pushed it back, not all of it, not completely,
Speaker 1: but enough enough to make a difference, enough to make
Speaker 1: the street walkable, visible safe. He has lit the lamps,
Speaker 1: and he has let the light do what light does,
Speaker 1: which is to illumine, to reveal, to make the hidden
Speaker 1: visible and the unseen known. There is no triumph in it,
Speaker 1: There is no celebration. There is simply the quiet satisfaction
Speaker 1: of work that is finished, of a task that is complete,
Speaker 1: of a job that is done. He has done what
Speaker 1: he set out to do. He has lit the lamps.
Speaker 1: He has brought the light, and now he can go home,
Speaker 1: back to his small room, back to his kettle and
Speaker 1: his cup of tea, back to his chair by the window,
Speaker 1: and his quilt that was his mother's, and then his grandmother's.
Speaker 1: He turns from the forty first lamp, and he begins
Speaker 1: to walk back back along the street, back past the
Speaker 1: fortieth lamp and the thirty ninth, and all the rest,
Speaker 1: back past the bridge and the church, and the baker's shop,
Speaker 1: and the copers and the tailors and the window where
Speaker 1: the child sits, Back past all of it, all the
Speaker 1: houses and all the lamps, and all the people who
Speaker 1: are resting now or nearly resting, who are safe in
Speaker 1: their beds, who will wake in the morning and go
Speaker 1: about their days, and come home in the evening and
Speaker 1: see the lamps and know that the lamp lighter has
Speaker 1: been here, has passed through, has done his work. The
Speaker 1: walk home is slower than the walk out. It is
Speaker 1: always slower. The work is done, and there is no urgency,
Speaker 1: no need to hurry, no reason to do anything but
Speaker 1: walk slowly and breathe the night air and let the
Speaker 1: quiet settle into his bones, his boots tap softly on
Speaker 1: the cobblestones, the brass pole over his shoulder, the lantern
Speaker 1: in his hand, the flame inside the lantern, dancing gently
Speaker 1: with each step. He passes the forty first lamp, the fortieth,
Speaker 1: the thirty ninth. The lights are steady, the flames burning clean,
Speaker 1: the circles of gold on the stones, bright and warm.
Speaker 1: He passes the bridge, and he pauses for a moment,
Speaker 1: looking down at the water, at the reflection of the lamps,
Speaker 1: at the dark shapes of the trees on the far bank.
Speaker 1: The water is moving slowly, imperceptibly, carrying the reflections away,
Speaker 1: dissolving them into the darkness, making them part of itself.
Speaker 1: He passes the church, and he pauses again, shorter, this
Speaker 1: time a moment of recognition, a moment of acknowledgment, the
Speaker 1: way you might nod to a friend in passing. The
Speaker 1: church is dark, the gate is dark, the graveyard is dark.
Speaker 1: But the lamp outside the gate is lit. And the
Speaker 1: light reaches in and touches the stones and the names
Speaker 1: that are worn away, and for a moment the names
Speaker 1: are visible, are readable, are known, And then the light
Speaker 1: moves on and the names fade again back into the stone.
Speaker 1: Back into the darkness. He passes the window where the
Speaker 1: child sits, and the window is dark now, the child
Speaker 1: in bed, the room behind empty, the stool pushed in
Speaker 1: against the wall. He passes the house with the blue door,
Speaker 1: and the door is closed and the light inside it dim,
Speaker 1: the family at rest, the day done, the work of
Speaker 1: living paused until morning. He passes the baker's shop and
Speaker 1: the coopers and the tailors. He passes the low wall
Speaker 1: where pudding sits, but Pudding is not there to night,
Speaker 1: or is curled somewhere else, in a box, or on
Speaker 1: a chair, or beneath a veranda, somewhere warm, somewhere safe.
Speaker 1: He passes the first lamp, the one at the corner,
Speaker 1: the one nearest his door, and the flame is still burning,
Speaker 1: steady and shore, and he pauses one last time, not
Speaker 1: to light it, not to check it, but just to
Speaker 1: stand in the light, just to be in the place
Speaker 1: where the walk began, to mark the end of the circle,
Speaker 1: the closing of the loop. Then he opens the door
Speaker 1: to his room, and he steps inside, and the warmth
Speaker 1: of the room touches his face, the smell of the
Speaker 1: room fills his nose, the familiar smell of wood and
Speaker 1: coal and old fabric, and the particular smell that is his,
Speaker 1: that is the smell of his life in this small space.
Speaker 1: He sets the lantern on the table, and he leans
Speaker 1: the brass pole against the wall by the door, and
Speaker 1: he takes off his coat and hangs it on the hook,
Speaker 1: the hook that has held this coat for as long
Speaker 1: as he can remember. The gothup was worn and darkened
Speaker 1: where his hand has reached for it day after day,
Speaker 1: evening after evening. The kettle is cold, but the fire
Speaker 1: in the hearth is ready, the kindling and the coal waiting.
Speaker 1: And he kneels and strikes a match and touches it
Speaker 1: to the kindling, and watches the flame catch and grow,
Speaker 1: watches the coal begin to glow, watches the fire establish
Speaker 1: itself steady and shore, the way the lamps are steady
Speaker 1: and shore, the way the flame in each lamp is
Speaker 1: steady and sure. He puts the kettle on the stove,
Speaker 1: and he sits in his chair by the window, the
Speaker 1: wooden chair with the cushion that was once red, And
Speaker 1: he sits and he rests, and his breathing slows, and
Speaker 1: his hands rest in his lap, and he looks out
Speaker 1: the window, at the street, at the lights of the lamps,
Speaker 1: at the darkness beyond, at the stars that are visible
Speaker 1: between the rooftops. The water in the kettle begins to heat.
Speaker 1: The sound of it is faint, a low hum, a
Speaker 1: thin thread of steam, and then a higher sound, a
Speaker 1: thin whistle. And he rises and takes the kettle off
Speaker 1: the stove and pours the water into the cup with
Speaker 1: the tea, and the smell of the tea rises, the
Speaker 1: smell of the leaves steeping, the smell of the warmth,
Speaker 1: and the rest and the evening done. He sits again,
Speaker 1: and he drinks the tea, slowly, savoring it, feeling the
Speaker 1: warmth spread through his chest and down into his stomach,
Speaker 1: Feeling the tiredness in his legs and his back and
Speaker 1: his shoulders, the good tiredness, the tiredness of war work
Speaker 1: that has been done, of a job that has been completed,
Speaker 1: of a purpose that has been served. Outside, the street
Speaker 1: is quiet, the lamps are burning. The darkness has settled
Speaker 1: fully now, the deep darkness of a winter night in
Speaker 1: a small northern town, the darkness that is not empty
Speaker 1: but full, full of the cold and the stars and
Speaker 1: the silence and the slow breathing of the world at rest.
Speaker 1: You are walking beside him now in a different way.
Speaker 1: You are in the room with him in the chair,
Speaker 1: and the warmth, and the light of the candle that
Speaker 1: he has lit, because the lantern is not enough for
Speaker 1: the small space. The candle on the table by the bed,
Speaker 1: the candle that throws moving shadows on the walls, that
Speaker 1: makes the room soft and close and safe. Your breathing
Speaker 1: is slowing. Your eyes are heavy, or they are not heavy,
Speaker 1: but they are closing, or they are not closing, but
Speaker 1: they are looking at the same thing for a long time,
Speaker 1: the same patch of light on the wall, the same
Speaker 1: shadow moving, the same pattern of flame and dark. He
Speaker 1: finishes the tea. He sets the cup down on the
Speaker 1: table beside the candle. He rises from the chair, and
Speaker 1: he undresses, slowly, removing his boots and his shirt and
Speaker 1: his trousers, folding each piece and setting it on the
Speaker 1: chair on the hook on the floor beside the bed.
Speaker 1: He puts on his night shirt, the one that is
Speaker 1: old and soft and reaches nearly to his ankles, and
Speaker 1: he sits on the edge of the bed, and he
Speaker 1: pulls the quilt over his legs, and he lies back,
Speaker 1: his head on the pillow, his eyes looking up at
Speaker 1: the ceiling, where the candle light makes shapes and shadows,
Speaker 1: moving shapes, changing shadows. The candle flickers, The room is warm,
Speaker 1: the street outside is lit. The work is done. You
Speaker 1: are with him here. You are in this room, in
Speaker 1: this bed, in this warmth. You are breathing the same air,
Speaker 1: seeing the same light, hearing the same silence. You are here,
Speaker 1: And the here is enough, and the now is enough,
Speaker 1: And the darkness outside is not a threat, but a blanket,
Speaker 1: a covering, a rest. He closes his eyes. His breathing
Speaker 1: slows further, slows and deepens, becomes regular, becomes the breathing
Speaker 1: of deep rest, not of anything else, but rest, of
Speaker 1: deep rest, of the kind of rest that comes from
Speaker 1: work that is done, and purpose that is served, and
Speaker 1: the day that has been lived and put away. The
Speaker 1: candle burns lower, the shadows change. The room is very
Speaker 1: quiet now, very still, and the street outside is very quiet,
Speaker 1: very still, and the town is very quiet, very still.
Speaker 1: And the night is very quiet, very still, and the
Speaker 1: world is very quiet, very still. Good night, good night,