On a Saturday morning in early August in 1969, a series of bizarre and inexplicable events occurred aboard the fifty-five-thousand-ton luxury liner S.S. Bretagne as it was preparing to sail from the Port of New York to Le Havre. Claude Dessard, chief purser of the Bretagne, a capable and meticulous man, ran, as he was fond of saying, a "tight ship". In the fifteen years Dessard had served aboard the Bretagne, he had never encountered a situation he had not been able to deal with efficiently and discreetly. Considering that the S.S. Bretagne was a French ship, this was high tribute, indeed. H
The eyes behind the wide black rubber goggles were cold as flint. In the howling speed-turmoil of a BSA M20 doing seventy, they were the only quiet things in the hurtling flesh and metal. Protected by the glass of the goggles, they stared fixedly ahead from just above the centre of the handlebars, and their dark unwavering focus was that of gun muzzles. Below the goggles, the wind had got into the face through the mouth and had wrenched the lips back into a square grin that showed big tombstone teeth and strips of whitish gum. On both sides of the grin the cheeks had been blown out by the w
Book One Chapter 01 Behind every great fortune there is a crime. BALZAC Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her. The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand. "You acted like the worst kind of degenerates," the
The wind blew hard and joggled the water of the ocean, sending ripples across its surface.Then the wind pushed the edges of the ripples until they became waves, and shoved the waves around until they became billows.The billows rolled dreadfully high: higher even than the tops of houses.Some of them, indeed, rolled as high as the tops of tall trees, and seemed like mountains; and the gulfs between the great billows were like deep valleys. All this mad dashing and splashing of the waters of the big ocean, which the mischievous wind caused without any good reason whatever, resulted in a ter
Now, six months have passed since Anita has seen either Jean-Claude or Richard. Six months of celibacy. Six months of indecision. Six months of danger. For her body carries the marks of both vampire and werewolf, and until the triumvirate is consummated, all three remain vulnerable. But when a kidnapper targets innocents that Anita has sworn to protect, she needs all the help she can get. In an earth-shattering union, Anita, Jean-Claude, and Richard merge the marks and melt into one another. Suddenly, Anita can harness both their powers. She can feel their hearts ... hear their thoughts ...
SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE PROBLEM OF THOR BRIDGEby Sir Arthur Conan DoyleSomewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at CharingCross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with myname, John H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid.It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases toillustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had atvarious times to examine. Some, and not the least interesting, werecomplete failures, and as such will hardly bear narrating, since no...
The Firm of Nucingenby Honore de BalzacTranslated by James WaringTO MADAME ZULMA CARRAUDTo whom, madame, but to you should I inscribe this work; to you whose lofty and candid intellect is a treasury to your friends; to you that are to me not only a whole public, but the most indulgent of sisters as well? Will you deign to accept a token of the friendship of which I am proud? You, and some few souls as noble, will grasp the whole of the thought underlying The Firm of Nucingen, appended to Cesar Birotteau. Is there not a whole social lesson in the contrast between the two stories?
THE DORE LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCETHE DORE LECTURESON MENTAL SCIENCEby Thomas Troward1- Page 2-THE DORE LECTURES ON MENTAL SCIENCEENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT INDIVIDUALITY THENEW THOUGHT AND THE NEW ORDER THE LIPS OF THE SPIRITALPHA AND OMEGA THE CREATIVE POWER OF THOUGHTTHE GREAT AFFIRMATIVE CHRIST THE FULFILLING OF THE...
THE DESIRE OF AGESby ELLEN G.WHITEPREFACEIN THE HEARTS OF ALL MANKIND, OF WHATEVER RACE OR STATION IN LIFE, THERE ARE INEXPRESSIBLE LONGINGS FOR SOMETHING THEY DO NOT NOW POSSESS. THIS LONGING IS IMPLANTED IN THE VERY CONSTITUTION OF MAN BY A MERCIFUL GOD, THAT MAN MAY NOT BE SATISFIED WITH HIS PRESENT CONDITIONS OR ATTAINMENTS, WHETHER BAD, OR GOOD, OR BETTER. GOD DESIRES THAT THE HUMAN SHALL SEEK THE BEST, AND FIND IT TO THE ETERNAL BLESSING OF HIS SOUL.SATAN, BY WILY SCHEME AND CRAFT, HAS PERVERTED THESE LONGINGS OF THE HUMAN HEART. HE MAKES MEN BELIEVE THAT THIS DESIRE MAY BE SATISFIED BY
Notes from the Undergroundby Feodor DostoevskyPART IUNDERGROUND**The author of the diary and the diary itself are, of course,imaginary. Nevertheless it is clear that such persons as thewriter of these notes not only may, but positively must, exist inour society, when we consider the circumstances in the midst ofwhich our society is formed. I have tried to expose to the viewof the public more distinctly than is commonly done, one of thecharacters of the recent past. He is one of the representativesof a generation still living. In this fragment, entitled...
AEMILIUS PAULUS229-160 B.C.by Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenALMOST all agree that the Aemilii were one of the ancient andpatrician houses in Rome; and those authors who affirm that KingNuma was pupil to Pythagoras tell us that the first who gave name tohis posterity was Mamercus, the son of Pythagoras, who, for hisgrace and address in speaking, was called Aemilius. Most of thisrace that have risen through their merit to reputation also enjoyed...
The Love-Chaseby James Sheridan KnowlesDRAMATIS PERSONAE(AS ORIGINALLY PERFORMED AT THE HAYMARKET, IN l837.)Sir William Fondlove, an old BaronetMr. Strickland.Waller, in love with LydiaMr. Elton.Wildrake, a SportsmanMr. Webster.Trueworth, a Friend of Sir WilliamMr Hemmings.Neville, Friend to WallerMr. Worrell.Humphreys, Friend to WallerMr. Hutchings.LashMr. Ross.Chargewell, a LandlordMr. Edwards.George, a WaiterMr. Bishop.First LawyerMr. Ray.Widow GreenMrs. Glover.Constance, Daughter to Sir William Fondlove...
IT BEGINS IN DARKNESS Effigies of the Earth King festooned the city around Castle Sylvarresta. Everywhere the effigies could be seenhanging beneath shopwindows, standing upright against the walls of the city gates, or nailed beside doorwaysstationed any place where the Earth King might find ingress into a home. Many of the figures were crude things crafted by childrena few reeds twisted into the form of a man, often with a crown of oak leaves in its hair. But outside the doors of shops and taverns were more ornate figures of wood, the full size of a man, often elaborately painted and coifed
The Treloar Building was, and is, on Olive Street, near Sixth, on the west side. The sidewalk in front of it had been built of black and white rubber blocks. They were taking them up now to give to the government, and a hatless pale man with a face like a building superintendent was watching the work and looking as if it was breaking his heart. I went past him through an arcade of specialty shops into a vast black and gold lobby. The Gillerlain pany was on the seventh floor, in front, behind swinging double plate glass doors bound in platinum. Their reception room had Chinese rugs, dull
400 BCTHE FROGSby AristophanesCharacters in the PlayXANTHIAS, servant of dionysusDIONYSUSHERACLESA CORPSECHARONAEACUSA MAID SERVANT OF PERSEPHONEHOSTESS, keeper of cook-shopPLATHANE, her partnerEURIPIDESAESCHYLUSPLUTOCHORUS OF FROGSCHORUS OF BLESSED MYSTICSFROGS|The scene shows the house of HERACLES in thebackground. There enter two travellers: DIONYSUS on foot, in his...