Markheim - Robert Louis Stevenson

0:00pessimism. It's never going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we're working every day to connect primary, specialty, and pharmacy care and to help lower prescription costs. Will we fix it all overnight? No. But we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's Healthy Optimism. Learn more at Optum.com. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. We've been talking about Cupid Mayo for a minute now. And wow. So many of you already love this stuff. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Cupid? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap. What makes it different? Egg yolks. Cupid is made with egg yolks only, giving it this rich, umami flavor that elevates everything. Chefs use it.

1:00Restaurants use it. Where chefs work, of course. Food and flavor lovers use it. You haven't tried it yet? We'll find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. Why don't you? Cupid. The original Japanese mayonnaise. Cupid. Now at Ralph's, your points go even further. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pub. Same points. More choices. And with low prices in every aisle, plus digital and personalized coupons, it all adds up to more ways to save every trip. Ralph's. Fresh for everyone. The weight is over. Deal days at Ralph's are happening now through October 6th. Catch these deep discounts before they're gone. Ralph's. Fresh for everyone. Mark Kahn. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Yes, sir, the dealer. Windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge.

2:02Some are dishonest, and he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor. And in that case, he continued, I profit by my virtue. Mark Kahn had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked painfully, and looked aside. The dealer chuckled. You come to me on Christmas Day, he resumed. When you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business, well, you will have to pay for that. You will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books. You will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you today very strongly.

3:06I am the essence of discretion, and ask no all good questions. But when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for it. The dealer once more chuckled, and then changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, you can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object he continued. Still, your uncle's cabinet are remarkable, collect us, sir. And the little pale, round-shelled dealer stood almost on tiptoe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markime returned his gaze, with one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror. This time, said he, you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curious to dispose of my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wingscut, even where it's still intact I have done well on the stock exchange,

4:08and should more likely act to it than otherwise, and my errand today is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a lady, he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared, and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter, but the thing was neglected yesterday. I must produce my little complimented dinner, and as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected. The Apollo de Poe's, during which the dealer, seemed to weigh the statement incredulously, the ticking of many clocks among the curious number of the shop, on the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence. Well, sir, said the dealer-be-it-so, you are an old customer after all, and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far be it from me to be an obstacle, here is a nice thing for a lady now, he went on, this hand glass,

5:11fifteenth century warranted, comes from a good collection too, but I reserve the name and the interest of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and so, a remarkable collector. The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped to take the object from its place, and as he had done so, a chocolate pass through a mark-ime, a star-bath of hand and foot, a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face, it passed as swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand, but now received the glass, a glass, he said, hortcely and then paused and repeated it more clearly, a glass for Christmas surely not, and why not, cried the dealer why not a glass. Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. You asked me why not, he said, why look here,

6:12look in it, look at yourself, do you like to see it, no, nor I, nor any man. The little man had jumped back, where Markheim had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror, but now perceiving there was nothing worse on hand, he chuckled. A yoke future lady, sir, must be pretty heart-bavoured, said he, I ask you, said Markheim, for a Christmas present, and you give me this, the stand, the reminder of years and sins and follies, this hand conscience, did you mean it, had you thought in your head, tell me, it will be better for you if you do come, tell me about yourself, I hazard a guest now, that you are in secret a very charitable man. The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing. There was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of the nerve. What are you driving at, the dealer asked? Not charitable, return the other gloomily,

7:15not charitable, not pious, not scrupulous, unloving, unbeloved, and to get money a safe to keep it. Is that all dear God, man? Is that all? I will tell you what it is, began the dealer with some sharpness, and then broke up again into a chuckle, but I see this is a lot much of yours, and you have been drinking the latest health. Ah, cried Markheim with a strange curiosity. Ah, have you been in love? Tell me about that. I cried the dealer, I in love, I never had the time, nor have I the time to day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass? Where is the hurry, returned Markheim? It is very pleasant to stand here talking, and life is so short and insecure, that I would not hurry away from any pleasure. No, not even from some mild or one as this.

8:17We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man that a clip said. Every second is a clip, if you think upon it, a clip a mile high, high enough if we fall to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other. Why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows we might become friends? I have just one word to say to you, said the dealer, either make your purchase or walk out of my shop. True, true, said Markheim, enough fooling to business, show me something else. The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the shelf. His then blunt hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer with one hand in the pocket of his great coat. He drew himself up and filled his lungs at the same time, many different emotions were depicted together on his face, terror, horror and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion,

9:19and through a haggard lift of his upper lip his teeth looked out. This perhaps may suit observed the dealer, and then as he began to re-arrise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The lungs skewer like dagger flashed and fell, the dealer struggled like a hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a heap. Time had some score of small voices in that shelf. Some staply and slow was becoming to their great age. Others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad's speed, heavily running on the pavement, broken upon these smaller voices, and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings, he looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flames solemnly wagging in a draught, and by that inconsiderable movement the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle,

10:23kept heaving like a sea. The tall shadows nodding the gross blots of darkness, swelling and dwindling as with respiration. The faces of the portraits and the china guards changing and wavering like images in water. The in-adores stood a jar and peered into that league of shadows with a long slit of daylight, like a pointing finger. From these piercetric enrovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both humtons sprawling incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, maisly clothes in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much soared us. Markheim had feared to see it and low, it was nothing, and yet as he gazed, this bond-level clothes and pooled of blood began to find eloquent voices, there it must lie, there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion,

11:27there it must lie till it was found found eye, and then, then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and all the world with the echoes of pursuit eye, dead or not, this was still the enemy. Time was that when the brains were out, he thought, and the first word struck into his mind, time, now that the deed was accomplished, time, which it closed for the victim had become instant and momentous for this layer. The thought was yet in his mind when, first one, and then another, with every variety of pace and voice, one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz, the clocks began to strike the hour at three in the afternoon. The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him. He began to bestur himself going to and fro with the candle,

12:31beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designed some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of spies, his own eyes met and detected him, and the sound of his own steps likely as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet, and still, as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him with a sickening iteration, as a thousand faults of his design, he should have chosen a more quiet hour, he should have prepared an alibi, he should not abuse the knife, he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer and not killed him, he should have been more bold and killed the servant also, he should have done all things otherwise, poignant regrets, weary, incessant, toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable

13:35past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors like the scurrying of rats in the desert it attic filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot, the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooged fish, or he beheld, and galloping defile, the duck, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army, it was impossible he thought, but that some rumour. Pessimism, it's never going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we're working every day to connect primary, specialty, and pharmacy care, and tell flower prescription costs. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's Healthy Optimism.

14:41Learn more at Optum.com. This is Matt Rodgers from Lost Cultures, thus with Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Cultures, thus Matt Rodgers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about Cupid male for a minute now, Bowen. Wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Cupid. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Cupid? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know what, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo? Will the answer? Egg yolks. Cupid is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Cupid hit. So if you haven't tried Cupid yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's

15:43talking about. You'll understand, Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Now at Ralph's, your points go even further. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. Same points, more choices. And with low prices in every aisle, plus digital and personalized coupons, it all adds up to more ways to save every trip. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. The wake is over. Deal days at Ralph's are happening now through October 6th. Catch these deep discounts before they're gone. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. Of the struggle, must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity. And now, when all the neighboring houses, he divine them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear, solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past. And now startlingly recalled from that tender exercise. Happy family parties struck into

16:48silence around the table. The mother still with raised finger. Ever a degree and age and humor, but all by their own haves, prying and harkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes, it seemed to him he could not move too softly. The clink of the tall bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell. And alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the pass of buy, and he would step more boldly and bustle the loud among the contents of the shop and imitate with elaborate bravado,

17:51the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house. But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbour, harkening with white face beside his window, the pass of buy arrested by a horrible semi is on the pavement. These could at worst suspect they could not know. Through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate, but here, within the house, was he alone. He knew he was. He had watched the servants at fourth, sweethearting, in her poor best, out for the day, written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course, and yet in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a

18:59stir of delicate footing. He was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious, of some presence. I, surely, to every room and corner of the house, his imagination followed it, and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had eyes to see with, and again it was a shadow of himself, and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and hatred. At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door, which still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind with fog, and the light that filtered down to the ground's door was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly

19:59on the threshold of the shop. And yet in that strip of doubtful brightness, did they not hang wavering a shadow? Suddenly from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to beat with a stop on the shop door, accompanying his blows with shots and brailers, in which the dealer was continually called upon by name. Markheim smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man, but no, he lay quite still. He was blood-away far beyond earshot of these blows and shoutings. He was sunk beneath seas of silence, and his name, which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had become an empty sand. And presently, the jovial gentleman desisted from his knocking and departed. Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done,

21:00to get forth from this accusing neighborhood, to plunge into a bath of London multitudes, and to reach on the other side of day that haven of safety and apparent innocence is bed. One visitor had come, at any moment, another might follow, and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, will be too abhorrent of failure. The money, that was now Markheim's concern, and as a means to that, the keys. He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow was still lingering and shivering, and with no conscious repugnance of the mind, yet with the tremor of the belly, he drew near the body of his victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit half-stuffed with brand, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled on the floor, and yet the thing repheld him.

22:08Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all expression, but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with blood to bat one temple. That was for Markheim the one displeasing circumstance. It carried him back upon the instant to a certain fair day in a fish's village. A grey day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of trums, the nasal voice of a balloting-singer, and a boy going to and fro, buried overhead in the crowd, and divided between interesting fear,

23:13until coming out upon the chief place of concoarse, he beheld a booth, and a great screen with pictures, dismal-designed, garishly coloured, brown rigged with her apprentice, the mannings with their murdered guests, weir, in the death-drip of Thurtal, and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear as an illusion. He was once again that little boy. He was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt of these vile pictures, he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums, a bar of that day's music returned upon his memory, and at that, for the first time a quam came over him, a breath of nausea, a certain weakness of the joints, which he must instantly resist and conquer. He judged it more prudent to confront, than to flee from these

24:21considerations, looking the more hardly in the dead face, bending his mind to realize the nature and greatness of his crime. So little a while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment, that pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with guv'nable energies, and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been arrested as the horologist with interjected finger arrests the beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain, he could rise to know more remorseful consciousness, the same heart which had shuddered before the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmooked. At best he pelted gleam of pity for one, who had been endowed in vain, with all those buckleters that can make the world a garden of enchantment,

25:27one who had never lived and who was now dead, but of penitence, no, not a tremor. With that shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found the keys and advanced towards the open door of the show. Outside it had begun to rain smartly, and the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished silence. Like some dripping capp'n the chambers of the house were haunted by an incessant echoing which filled the ear and mingled with the ticking of the clocks, and as Marquine approached the door, he seemed to hear in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still pulpitated loosely on the threshold, he threw a tons' weight of resolve upon his muscles and drew back the door.

26:35The faint foggy daylight climmed dimly on the bare floor and stairs, on the bright suit of armour, posted, halbered in hand upon the landing, and on the dark woodcarvings and framed pictures that hung against the yellow panels of the wingscot. So loud was the beating of the rain through all the house that in Marquine's ears it began to be distinguished into many different sands, foot steps in size, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the pattern of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and

27:41beguirt by presences, he had the moving in the upper chambers, from the sharpie her the dead man getting to his legs, and as he began with a great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf he thought, how tranquilly he would possess his soul, and then again, and harkening with ever-fresh attention, he blessed himself with that unresting sense which held the outposts, unstood a trusty suntonal upon his life. His head turned continually on his neck, his eyes which seemed starting from their orbits, scattered on ever-ricide, and on ever-ricide were half rewarded as with the tale of something nameless banishing. The four and twenty steps to the first floor were four and twenty agoners.

28:47On that foot. Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected health care system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patience. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's Healthy Optimism. Learn more at Optum.com. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East US with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Okay, we've been talking about Cupid male for a minute now, bow, and wow, the feedback we're getting. I mean, so many of y'all love this stuff. You're stopping us in the street going, I love Cupid. And if you're thinking, wait, what is Cupid? Do you not have the internet? It's the OG Japanese mayonnaise. The one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. Once you know what, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo? Will the

29:51answer? Egg yolks. Cupid is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavor that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles, chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really love food and flavor use it. Whatever you're eating, Cupid. So if you haven't tried Cupid yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand, Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. The story. The door stood a jar. Three of them, like three ambushes, shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon. He could never again, he felt, be sufficiently immured and fortified from men's observing eyes. He longed to be home, get in by walls buried among bedclothes and invisible to all but God. And at that thought,

30:51he wondered a little, recollecting tales of other murderers and the fear they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It was not so at least with him. He feared the laws of nature, less than their callous and immutable procedure. They should preserve some damning evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold more with a slavish superstitious terror. Some sission in the continuity of man's experience, some wolfful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on the rules, calculating consequence from cause, and what if nature, as the defeated tyrant overthrew the chessboard, should break the mold of their succession. The like had before the Napoleon, so writers said, when the winter changed the time of its appearance, the like might before Marcon, the solid walls

31:59might become transparent, and reveal his doings, like those abys in a glass hive, the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands, and detain him in their clutch eye, and there were sober accidents that might destroy him. If, for instance, the house should fall, and imprison him beside the body of his victim, or the house next door should fly on fire, and the fireman evade him from all sides. These things he feared, and in a sense, these things might be called the Huns of God, reached forth against sin, but about God himself he was at ease. His act was doubtless exceptional, but so were his excuses which God knew. It was there, and not among men, that he felt sure of justice. When he had got sape into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite dismantled,

33:04uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and in congruence furniture. Several great peer-glasses, in which he beheld himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage. Many pictures, framed and unframed, standing with their faces to the wall. A fine, shawwritten side-board, a cabinet of marketery, and a great old bed with tapestry hangings. The windows opened to the floor, but by great good fortune, the lower part of the shutters have been closed, and this concealed him from the neighbours. Here then, Marquain drew in a packing case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It was a long business, but there were many, and it was irksome besides, for after all there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation soared him. With the tail of his eye he saw the door,

34:08he even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander, pleased to verify the good estate of his defences, but in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street, sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were waken to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody. How fresh the youthful voices. Marquain gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys, and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images. Church going children, and the peeling of the high organ. Children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite flyers in the windy and cloud navigated sky. And then at another cadence of the hymn,

35:15back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and the high gentile voice of the person, which he smiled a little to recall, and the painted Jacobian tombs, and the dim lettering of the ten commandments in the chancel. And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood went over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stairs, totally and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the lock clicked and the door opened. Fear held Marquain in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some chants witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows, but when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced around the room,

36:19looked at him, nodded and smiled, as if in friendly recognition, and then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it. His fear broke loose from his control in a horse cry. At the sound of this, the visitor returned. It did you call me, he asked pleasantly, and with that he entered the room and closed the door behind him. Marquain stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his side, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candlelight of the shop, and at times he thought he knew him, and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself, and always, like a lump of living terror, that lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing was not of the earth and not of God. And yet the creature had a strange air of

37:22a common place, as he stood looking on Marquain with a smile, and when he added, you are looking for the money, I believe. It was in the terms of every day politeness. Marquain made no answer. I should warn you, resume the other, that the maid has left us sweet heart earlier than usual, and will soon be here. If Mr. Marquain be found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences. You know me, cried the murderer. The visitor smiled. You have long been a favorite of mine, he said, and I have long observed and often sought to help you. What are you, cried Marquain? The devil! What I may be, return the other, cannot affect the service I propose to render you. It can, cried Marquain, it does be helped by you. No, never not by you. You do not know

38:33me yet. Thank God you do not know me. I know you, replied the visitor with a sort of kind severity or other firmness. I know you to the soul. Know me, cried Marquain, who can do so? My life is put a travesty and slandered on myself. I have lived to belive my nature, all men do, all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them, who see each dragged away by life, like one whom brabos have seized and muppled in a cloak. If they had their own control, if you could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they would shine out for heroes and saints. I am worse than most. Myself is more overlaid. My excuse is known to me and God, but had either time I could disclose myself to me, inquire the visitor, to you before all returned

39:41the murderer. I suppose you were intelligent. I thought since you exist, you would prove a reader of the heart, and yet you would propose to judge me by my acts. Think of it, my acts. I was born and I have lived in a land of giants. Giants have dragged me by the wrists since I was born out of my mother, the giants of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts. But can you not look within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? Can you not see within me the clear writing of conscience never blurred by any wilful stupistry, although too often disregarded? Can you not read me for a thing that surely must be common as humanity? The unwilling sinner? All this is very feeling-gly expressed was the reply, but it regards me not. These points of

40:49consistency are beyond my province, and I cannot in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away so as you are but carried in the right direction. But time flies, the servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd, and at the pictures on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer, and remember it is as if the gallows itself were striding towards you through the Christmas streets. Shall I help you? I, who know all? Shall I tell you, or where to find the money? For what price? Ask Markein. I offer you the service for a Christmas gift. Return the other. Markein could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. No, said he, I will take nothing at your hands. If I were dying at first, and it was your hand, but at the pitch to my lips,

41:55I should find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to commit myself to evil. I have no objection to a death-bed repentance observed the visitant, because you disbelieved the efficacy, Markein, cried. I do not say so, return the other, but I look on these things from a different side, and when the life is done, my interest falls. The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under colour of religion, or to sow tears in the weak field as you do, in a cross of weak compliance with desire. Now the teacher is so near to his deliverance, he can add but one act to serve it. Pessimism. It's never going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we're working every day to connect primary, specialty,

43:02and pharmacy care, and tell flower prescription costs. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com. Cap and a little baby on the bottle. Once you know what, you start seeing it everywhere. People ask what makes it different from basic mayo? Will the answer? Egg yolks. Cupid is made with egg yolks only, giving it this incredibly rich umami flavour that elevates everything. Burgers, fries, sandwiches, chicken, noodles, chefs use it, restaurants use it,

44:08people who really love food and flavour use it. Whatever you're eating, Cupid hit. So if you haven't tried Cupid yet, find the bottle with the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. You'll understand Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Spread your elbows at the board. And when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you for your greater comfort that you will find it even easy to compound your quarrel with your conscience and to make a truckling peace with God. I came but now from such a death bed, and the room was full of sincere mourners, the listening to the man's last words,

45:12and when I looked into that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with hope. And do you then suppose me such a creature as Marcan? Do you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin and sin and sin and at the last sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is this then your experience of mankind? How is it because you find me with red hands that you presume such baseness? And is this crime of murder indeed so impious as to try up the very springs of good? Murder is to me, no special category replied the other. All sins are murder even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each

46:13other's lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting. I find in awe that the last consequence is death. And to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwart some mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips a no less visibly with human gore than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I follow virtues also. They differ not by the thickness of a nail. They are both sides for the reaping angel of death. Evil for which I live consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me, not the bad act, whose fruits if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling cataract of the ages might yet be found more blessed than those

47:13of the raverest virtues. And it is not because you have killed the dealer, but because you are Markheim. That I offer to forward your escape. I will lay my heart open to you, answered Markheim. This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons. Itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hear that too I had been driven with revolt to what I would not. I was a bondslave to poverty driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations. Mine was not so. I had a thirst of pleasure. But today, and out of this deed, I plucked both warning and riches, but the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become, in all things, a free actor in the world. I begin to see myself all changed.

48:17These hams, the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of the past. Something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of the church organ of what I forecast when I shed tears over noble books, or taught an innocent child with my mother. There lies my life. I have wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city of destination. You ought to use this money on the stock exchange, I think, remarked the visitor, and there, if I mistake not, you have already lost some thousands. Ha said Markeim, but this time I have a sure thing. This time, again, you will lose.

49:18Replied the visitor quietly. Ah, but I keep back the half, cried Markeim. That also, you will lose, said the other. The sweat started upon Markeim's brow. Well, then what matter, he exclaimed, say it be lost. Say I am plunged again in poverty. Shall one part of me, and that the worse continue until the end to override the better. Evil and good run strong in me. Hailing me both ways, I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms, although I be fallen to such a crime as murder pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor. Who knows their trials better than myself? I pity and help them. I prized love. I love honest laughter.

50:18There is no good thing, no true thing on earth, but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my virtues to lie without effect like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so. Good also is a spring-gabak. But the visitor raised his finger. For six and thirty years that you have been in this world, said he, through many changes of fortune and varieties of humor, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started a theft. Three years back you would have blunched at the name of murder. Is there any crime? Is there any cruelty or meanness from which you still recoil? Five years from now I shall detect you in the fact. Downward. Downward lies your way. Nor can anything but death avail to stop you.

51:20It is true, Markheim, said uscally, I have in some degree complied with evil, but it is so with all the very saints in the mere exercise of living grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their surroundings. I will prepare to you one simple question, said the other, and as you answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many things more lax. Possibly you do right to be so, and at any account it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct? Or do you go in all things with a looser reign? In any one repeated Markheim with an anguish of consideration,

52:21no, he added with despair, and none I have gone down in all. Then, said the visitor, content yourself with what you are, for you will never change, and the words of your part on this stage are irrevocably written down. Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it was the visitor who first broke the silence. Of that being so, he said, I shall I show you the money. And grace cried Markheim. Have you not tried it, return the other two or three years ago, did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not your voice the loudest in the hymn? It is true, said Markheim, and I seek clearly what remains for me by way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul,

53:23my eyes are opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am. At this moment, the sharp note of the doorbell rang through the house, and the visitant, as though this was some concerted signal for which he had been waiting, changed at once in his demeanor. The maid, he cried, she has returned, as I forewarned you, and there is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master you must say is ill, you must let her in with an assure but rather serious cantinence, no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success. Once the girl within on the door closed, the same dexterity that is already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Then, Sporwood, you have the whole evening, the whole night, if needful, to ransack the treasures of the house, and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the

54:24mask of danger. Up, he cried, up, friend, your life hangs trembling in the scales, up, and act! Mark Ims steadily regarded his counsellor. If I be condemned to evil acts, he said, there is still one door of freedom open, I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down, though I be, as you say, truly, at the back of ever-is-mall temptation, I can yet by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to Baroness, it may and let it be, but I have still my hatred of evil, and from that to your galling disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and courage.

55:24The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely change. They brightened and softened with a tender triumph, and even as they brightened, faded and dislimbed. But Mark Ims did not pause to watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went downstairs very slowly thinking to himself. His past went so bleep before him, he beheld it as it was ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as chance medley, a scene of defeat. Life as he thus rebued it, tempted him no longer, but on the further side he perceived a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in the passage and looked into the shop, where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealers swarmed into his mind as he stood gazing,

56:29and then the bell once more broke out into impatient clumber. He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile. You had better go for the police said he. I have killed your master. End of Mark Ims by Robert Louis Diedensson. Pessimism. It's never going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we're working every day to connect primary, specialty and pharmacy care and tell flow or prescription costs. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's Healthy Optimism. Learn more at Optum.com. You know when you try new food and suddenly it's like wait, how did I not know about this? Ryan C. Crest here. That's how people are reacting to Cupid Mayo.

57:32The one with the red cap you probably seen on TikTok. What makes it different? Egg Yokes. Cupid uses egg yolks only, giving it this rich umami flavor that elevates just about anything. Chefs use it, restaurants use it, food lovers use it. You never tried it. Find the red cap and see what everyone's talking about. Cupid, the original Japanese mayonnaise.