The whispering gallery 2 │ Uč sa angličtinu pomocou príbehov

Vypočuj si pokračovanie príbehu. Koniec zaskočil aj mňa, keď som to čítala, tak verím, že to bude šokujúce aj pre vás. Príbeh môžeš počúvať a zároveň si ho aj čítať očami. Text nájdeš pod videom :)

Text:

When he woke up, his legs and shoulders hurt after being curled up in that tight little corner. Rubbing them, he went exploring in the dark. How could he find the secret stairs to the apple? He wished he had remembered to bring a torch, but he hadn’t intended to fall asleep and stay here until after it was dark.

He was not afraid because the ball shining in the sunlight still shone in his memory, and he felt that it was still shining somewhere above him. When he reached it and picked it (for it was just an apple really), it would continue to shine and light his way back down the stairs and along the streets to the hotel.

He bumped into and half-fell along the wall, then fell through a doorway. As he lay there, his foot discovered the top of some stairs.

And then, quite clearly, he heard the slow steady sound of feet coming up those dark stairs.

He must not be discovered! He got up quickly and went on through the doorway. He was in the Whispering Gallery now, lit by the pale yellow light of the moon.

He hesitated. There was only one door, which was both the entrance to and exit from the Gallery. The footsteps were louder now and began to echo. He ran from them, trying to make no noise, and keeping close to the seat along the curving wall.

Yet he was still not really frightened – only excited.

At a place exactly opposite the door, the place where they had all stood listening that afternoon, he sat on a seat, curled against the wall, trying to make himself small so that he could not be seen. He held his breath, afraid that the wall would catch the small sound and send it echoing noisily round the dome.

A cloud moved away from the moon, and the dark doorway on the far side of the Gallery became visible. Below, in the Cathedral, he saw now that there were a few little circles of electric light in the darkness.

But now he watched the doorway opposite – and waited.

Soon a thin black shadow separated itself from the doorway. Then the cloud thickened under the moon and the shadow became part of the blackness.

He sat holding the edge of the seat, trembling a little but not really afraid. Then his heart jumped into his throat as the voice spoke right beside him. A voice coldly polite but full of evil. ‚ Now, if you will just come this way…‘

His trembling became a violent shaking and a pain grabbed his stomach. His breath came in loud rapid gasps and, for what seemed a long time, he sat staring with terror through the rail at the lights below – as far away as stars – afraid to look up at Skeleton-face standing over him. Afraid to look at the deep, shadowed eye-holes and the white fixed smile. Shrinking from the imagined touch of a thin hand.

But no hand touched him.

Then the moon broke free of the cloud, throwing silvery light around him, and he saw that the shadow remained small and distant by the door. He began to hope it was not a man at all but the shadow of some ordinary thing he had not noticed before. Yet it had seemed to move…

He watched it, relaxing slowly as the thin shadow remained still and unmoving.

But he had not imagined the voice, which had been real enough. Perhaps everything you said in the Whispering Gallery went echoing round the Gallery for ever and ever because there was no way for it to get out. Like a fly caught in an upside-down bowl.

All he had heard was an echo of the words Skeleton-face had kept using in the afternoon.

Then he jumped again, as the same cold voice said right beside him, ‚If you will just come this way…‘

He began sweating, but he told himself that it was all right. The shadow hadn’t moved, it was only that old echo again.

He noticed it had dropped a word this time. How could the sound of the word ‚Now‘ have escaped? But of course! It would have slipped out through the doorway as the echo went past. That was how echoes died, losing a piece every time they went slowly round. That had to be true, otherwise everything everybody ever said would go round and round for ever, like a great crowd shouting all the time.

Well, he couldn’t just sit there. He had to find the stairs that went up to the golden apple. His mother might have already discovered that he wasn’t in the hotel, and would guess where he had gone and come after him.

He stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off the shadow by the door. It remained still. And then the clouds covered the moon and the silvery light disappeared, and it was darker than ever.

He could not go around the Gallery in the darkness. But if there was no light, there could be no shadow. However, his fear was too strong, and he stood there holding the rail and looking down at the little lights below. Suddenly he wished he was down there in the safe steady light that did not go out and leave you trapped on a high shelf and at the mercy of unseen shadows.

But if he was down there he would be further away from the shining golden apple. To obtain that prize he had to be brave.

His fingers became tight on the rail as the voice from the dark said, ‚You will just come this way…‘

This time it sounded less like a request and more like an order. ‚You will just come this way…‘

Frederic thought, ‚It’s all right really. If I stay here long enough, the echo will have no more words left, it will die and perhaps the shadow will go with it.‘

He was glad when the bright moonlight suddenly flooded the dome again. Or he was until…

He screamed as he saw that the shadow had moved nearly halfway around the Gallery in the darkness and was still moving steadily towards him.

He turned and ran in the opposite direction. But the shadow had turned back and was moving quickly the other way to get to him before he could reach the door. And it was moving faster than he could run.

He turned round, gasping with terror, thin little screams coming from his mouth as he ran. For now he knew that the shadow was the shadow of Death. And Death wanted to take him and put him with the other dead people under the cold floor of the Cathedral.

He was opposite the door again, and the shadow was back at the doorway. He fell on to the seat, gasping for breath.

Then the voice came again, quietly this time, and softly persuasive, ‚Just come this way…‘

It was a trap! He would not go. But there was still hope, because the voice had lost two of its words this time.

The great dome was now full of moonlight and the human figures in the pictures were like a silent audience, looking down at him. St Paul seemed to be watching him. He stood up there, one hand pointing towards the top of the dome and the golden apple. ‚That’s the way you want to go, Frederic,‘ his face said.

‚I know, I know,‘ whispered the boy. ‚But how do I get up there?‘

And the voice of Death spoke again, calling, ‚Come this way…‘

‚No!‘ cried Frederic, jumping up and moving away from the seat. The shadow moved in the same direction, coming around to meet him. He ran back and the shadow stopped, as if it were watching him and trying to guess what he intended to do, then it moved back to the doorway.

And so Frederic stopped again, knowing that he could never reach the door safely because the shadow could always get there first. Was there to be no end to this horrible game?

‚Yes,‘ he thought desperately, ‚there must be an end when the echo dies. And that must be soon now.‘

He put his hot forehead against the cool iron rail. There were, he noticed, pictures of angels just under the Gallery. Angels flying confidently.

He thought, ‚If only I had wings! I could escape Death and I could fly up there and pick the golden apple.‘

His forehead burned and his head ached. The angels seemed to advance and move away again as if they were flying over the back wall. He watched them for some time, and they seemed to smile and indicate that it was quite easy to fly. Anyone could do it. He could do it if only he tried.

Then suddenly he remembered the shadow and looked at the opposite side of the Gallery. And it was gone!

But he saw a movement to his right, and there was a shadow, much taller, well past the halfway mark on its way to him. Even if Frederic ran his fastest, the shadow could catch him easily before he could reach the door.

It was Skeleton-face. He could see the dark eye-holes and the white teeth as the tall thin figure approached.

Frederic climbed up onto the rail, balancing there. He looked up. Somewhere beyond the dome was the shining prize he would never now reach.

But St Paul still pointed up and seemed to say, ‚Have faith! Have faith!‘

And the angels seemed to be calling to him: ‚Have faith, Frederic, and you can fly like us. Have faith and you can fly up to the apple.‘

Skeleton-face was almost beside Frederic now, his mouth open to speak.

‚This way…‘

‚You can fly. You can fly. Have faith,‘ called the angels.

‚I have faith. I’m coming,‘ said Frederic, with a new strength, He began to step forward, quite steadily and calmly.

‚Frederic!‘ It was his mother’s voice, loud with alarm.

A warm relief flooded over him. Mom had found him, had got here just in time. She would save him. She would pay Skeleton-face to go away. She could pay anything, she was so rich.

He looked eagerly around but he couldn’t see her. There was only Skeleton-face reaching for him.

Suddenly he realized that the cry was only the echo of his mother’s exclamation that afternoon. It must have been slowly moving in circles, round the Gallery, ever since.

He was sick with disappointment.

And then a bony hand reached for his ankle… and he jumped out into space.

It wasn’t a jump of faith. It was a jump to avoid death.

In confusion and misery he fell past the angels, fell into darkness. The electric lights grew bigger as he fell and they shone on something that lay below them.

A golden disc…

He was going straight towards it. Could it be that somehow he was succeeding after all? That he was to reach?

The golden disc flashed up hugely now, blinding him.

***

The night verger had glanced up to see what looked like a tiny figure balancing on the rail of the Whispering Gallery. And as he watched, it jumped out into space.

‚My God!‘ he said, and rushed forward.

A thin shout came from above. ‚Way…!‘

He watched the figure fall until it hit the large round brass plate on the floor. It was immediately above the place where Nelson was buried, and immediately under the ball and cross 365 feet above. The verger hid his eyes.

When he looked again, small rivers of blood were spreading from the broken little shape that lay on the brass plate.

It was a small boy, a child. Dead, of course.

He went to find the other night verger and brought him to see it. But now the brass plate shone clean and bright – and clear. There was no body. There was no blood.

The second verger put his arm round the other, who had suddenly began to shake. He led him to a chair.

‚Don’t worry, Alex,‘ he said. ‚It’s all right. It once happened to me.‘

Alex looked at him in slow surprise, his hands shaking like those of a very old man.

‚Nor are we the only ones,‘ said the second verger. ‚It happens – every now and then.‘

‚When did it first – really – happen?‘

‚More than twenty years ago. It was a boy named Stagg – an American boy. He somehow found his way here and got up there. He had been here in the afternoon and for some reason wanted very much to return. He was due to go home the next day, so his mother guessed he might have come here. But she got here just too late – he was already on the rail, just as you and I saw him. She shouted his name, but he fell.‘

Alex looked up at the dome. ‚He jumped,‘ he said in a low voice. ‚But he saw me. He must have thought he was going to hit me. He shouted „Way!“‚

‚Someone shouted „Way!“ I heard it too when it happened to me. But it didn’t sound like a boy’s voice. He was only five.‘

‚Then who was it?‘

The second verger looked around uneasily. ‚There have been many temples in this place, going back centuries,‘ he said. ‚Before this there were at least three other Christian churches, and long before that the Romans had a temple here – for very different gods…‘ His voice faded away, then he looked at Alex. ‚What terrifies me is this: does that poor child have to suffer his dreadful experience over and over again, every time it happens? Is he caught in some cruel circle of time and unable to escape?‘

‚I don’t think so‘ said Alex. ‚What’s past is past. By some trick of time we have seen that past – like looking at an old film where the characters are only shadows.‘

They sat side by side under the great dome in a little pool of light, each grateful that the other was there. All around them were black shadows, and under their fees were the bones of the dead. The great and the small. The famous and the forgotten. The human and the – possibly non-human.

‚Now, if you will just come this way…‘

The voice was smooth and silky. It suggested that wonders existed which would make all you had seen so far become thin and flat and forgotten. Amazing things lay just around the corner and the voice knew the way…