The Lesson Read Online Free PDF Page A

have perhaps at some time been in a house of this sort, then you will know exactly what I mean. One feels an enlarging of the self in these places—because our personalities, our selves, border on the possible, and when the possible grows, well, so then do we.
    Of course, it should be clear by now that this house, no. 32 Oaken Lane, was such a place.
    —I have a question.
    —Yes?
    —Will you read to me from one of these books?
    He was standing by a large bookshelf in the hall. Loring had gone on ahead into the parlor.
    —I can’t see all the titles, it is too dark.
    —There is no light in the hall, said Loring. It was an idea my husband had—that halls should only be lit by light coming through doors. I still hold to it.
    —How about this one? asked the boy.
    He started to pull out a large volume, and it began to tip. It was far too heavy for him, and it fell heavily, splaying open.
    The page it opened to had an illustration of a vulture sitting in a barber’s chair. Beside the picture it said, the history of barbers is the history of blood and hair.
    —I haven’t read this book, said Loring. That’s something to know: owning books is not the same as having read them, although I suppose for some people it is.
    —I have read all the books that I own, said Stan, and some that my parents have.
    —Perhaps this one, said Loring.
    She took down a thin book from a high shelf. It was called
The Hour Is Late & Therefore Early.
The author was C. P. Dodds.
    —I believe you will enjoy this, she said.
    —Why do you close your eyes so much when I am here?
    —I am trying to hear what you’re saying, she said. Very carefully, I am trying.
    —Would it help for me to speak louder?
    —No, no.
    She laughed.
    —I can hear you perfectly well. I am simply trying to hear exactly what you’re saying. It’s not easy, you know, to pay real attention to what people say. It isn’t always exact the same as the words they are saying.
    —Your eyes are closed right now.
    She opened her eyes.
    —We will now play one game, and then I will read from this book a little. But, you mustn’t tell your parents that we are reading. That is not why they are sending you here.
    The boy put his finger over his lips.

The Second Visit, 3
    So it was that a portion of their bargain was fulfilled: before the day was through, the boy would be read to, which apparently was what he wanted. They played a game of chess, and he lost, this time miserably. Perhaps it was that she simply tried a bit more than usual, or perhaps he was thinking of something else. In any case, it was a disapproving look that Loring gave him, and he appeared to feel it keenly.
    —Let’s read in the kitchen, said Loring. That was another of Ezra’s rules, that the kitchen is a good place for reading aloud. Whether it is true or not, or whether it was just so for him and for me, is something else.
    —I am ready to be read to in the kitchen.
    —Well, good, let’s go then.
    And so into the kitchen they went. To get there, one proceeds down the dark hall (for although it is day, all the shutters are closed), to the very end, where there is a quick right turn and then a left. One opens a door and goes into the pantry, a small room, and through the pantry into the kitchen, which occupies the rear of the house.
    Loring remembered a poem about kitchens that went like this:
Let me die in a kitchen,
    Where bread is baking,
    and the hour is nigh to three.
    For in the marshes,
    a little house goes running
    on long legs,
    and I begin to remember
    the places I have been
    when things are newly made.
    One might say, and I cannot object, that this is not really a poem about kitchens. But it mentions a kitchen, and does so in the very first line.

To Say a Few Things About the Kitchen
    Where the table was, in relation to the pantry, one could not see beneath it, but a child might.
    What a child would see is this: a
trap door
!
    How that had come to be there no one could say, but both Ezra