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PREFACE

THIS is a 'tall story' about devilry, though it has behind it a serious 'point' which I have tried to make in my Abolition of Man In the story the outer ri the life of some ordinary and respectable profession I selected my own profession, not, of course, because I think Fellows of Colleges more likely to be thus corrupted than anyone else, but because my own profession is naturally that which I know best A very sined because that has certain conveniences for fiction Edgestow has no resemblance, save for its smallness, to Durham - a university hich the only connection I have ever had was entirely pleasant

In reducing the original story to a length suitable for this edition, I believe I have altered nothing but the tempo and the manner I myself prefer the more leisurely pace-I would not wish even War and Peace or The Faerie Qyeene any shorter-but soment is also an improvement

CHAPTER ONE

SALE OF COLLEGE PROPERTY

"MATRIMONY was ordained, thirdly," said Jane Studdock to herself, "for the ht to have of the other" She had not been to church since her schooldays until she went there six o to be married, and the words of the service had stuck in her mind

Through the open door she could see the tiny kitchen of the flat and kne tidy it was The beds werethat had to be done till six o'clock, even supposing that Mark was really co today Al up about tea-tier than he had expected and that he would have to dine in College

"Mutual society, help, and coe had proved to be the door out of a world of work and cos to do, into so like solitary confinement

"Here I a," said Jane to herself sharply "I must do some work"By work she meant her doctorate thesis on Donne She still believed that if she got out all her note-books and editions and really sat down to the job she could force herself back into her lost enthusiasm for the subject But before she did so she turned over a newspaper which was lying on the table and glanced at a picture on the back page

The moment she saw the picture, she remembered her dream; not only the drea for the ht for fear Mark should wake up and fuss, yet feeling offended by the sound of his regular breathing He was an excellent sleeper Only one thing ever seeone to bed, and even that did not keep hi

She had begun by drea face, bearded and rather yelloith a hooked nose It was frightened The ed open and the eyes stared as she had seen other men's eyes stare for a second or then some sudden shock had occurred But this face seeradually she beca hunched up in one corner of a little square room hite-washed walls At last the door was opened and a rather good-looking rey beard canise hian to talk In all the dreams which Jane had hitherto drea or else one did not hear it But in this dream-and that helped to make its extraordinary realism-the conversation was in French, and Jane understood bits of it, but by no means all, just as she would have done in real life The visitor was telling the prisoner soood news And the prisoner at first looked up with a gleam of hope in his eye and said "Tiensahfa ed his mind The visitor continued in a low, fluent voice to press his point He was a good-looking man in his rather cold way, but he wore pince-nez, and these kept on catching the light so as to make his eyes invisible This, coave Jane a disagreeable impression She could notAt this point the drea his cold save it a sharp turn-just as Jane had last suive a sharp turn to the helmet on a diver's head The visitor unscrewed the prisoner's head and took it away Then all became confused The head was still the centre of the dream, but it was a different head now-a head with a reddish-white beard all covered with earth It belonged to an oldup in a kind of churchyard-a sort of ancient British, druidical kind ofto life "Look out!" she cried in her drea hian talking in sohtened Jane so badly that she woke up

But it was not the htmare that e of the newspaper, was the head she had seen in the nightmare : the first head (if there had been two of them) - the head of the prisoner She took up the paper EXECUTION OF ALCASAN was the headline, and beneath it, SCIENTIST BLUEBEARD GOES TO GUILLOTINE She reuely followed the case Alcasan was a distinguished radiologist in a neighbouring country-an Arab by descent, they said-who had cut short a brilliant career by poisoning his wife So that was the origin of her dreaoing to bed But that couldn't be it It was this 's paper But of course there must have been soo when the trial began And now for Donne

"I ," said Jane: and then, "Was there a previous picture of Alcasan? Supposing"

Five minutes later she swept all her books aent to the mirror, put on her hat, and went out She was not sure where she was going Anywhere, to be out of that flat, that whole house

Mark, estow is the smallest of universities Apart froe beyond the railway, there are only two colleges; Northumberland, below Bracton on the River Wynd, and Duke's opposite the Abbey Bracton takes no undergraduates It was founded in 1300 for the support of ten learned men whose duties were to pray for the soul of Henry de Bracton and study the laws of England The nuradually increased to forty, of whom only six now study Law and of whom none, perhaps, prays for the soul of Bracton Mark Studdock was a Sociologist and had been elected five years ago He was beginning to find his feet If he had felt any doubt on that point (which he did not) it would have been laid to rest when he found hi Curry just outside the post office, and seen how natural Curry found it that they should walk to College together and discuss the agenda for theCurry was the sub-warden of Bracton

"Yes," said Curry "It will take the hell of a tio on after dinner We shall have the obstructionists wasting time Luckily that's the worst they can do"

You would never have guessed from the tone of Studdock's reply what intense pleasure he derived from Curry's use of the pronoun "we" So very recently he had been an outsider, watching the proceedings of what he then called "Curry and his gang" with awe and with little understanding Noas inside, and "the gang" e" or "the progressive elee" It had happened quite suddenly and was still sweet in the mouth

"You think it'll go through, then?" said Studdock

"Sure to," said Curry "We've got the Warden, and the Bursar, and all the chemical and biochemical people for a start Bill the Blizzard will probably do so, but he's bound to side with us if it co to be there He caht"

Studdock's mind darted hither and thither in search of some safe way to conceal the fact that he did not knoho Dick was In the nick of tiue whose Christian name was Richard