TO BE READ AT DUSK 1 TO BE READ AT DUSK by Charles Dickens TO BE READ AT DUSK 2 One two three four five There were five of them Five couriers sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St Bernard in Switzerland looking at the remote heights stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top and had not yet had time to sink into the snow This is not my simile It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier who was a German None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door smoking my cigar like them and also like them looking at the reddened snow and at the lonely shed hard by where the bodies of belated travellers dug out of it slowly wither away knowing no corruption in that cold region The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked the mountain became white the sky a very dark blue the wind rose and the air turned piercing cold The five couriers buttoned their rough coats There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier I buttoned mine The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation It is a sublime sight likely to stop conversation The mountain being now out of the sunset they resumed Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse for indeed I had not then broken away from the American gentleman in the travellers parlour of the convent who sitting with his face to the fire had undertaken to realise to me the whole progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honourable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country My God said the Swiss courier speaking in French which I do not hold as some authors appear to do to be such an all sufficient excuse for a naughty word that I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent if you talk of ghosts But I DON T talk of ghosts said the German Of what then asked the Swiss TO BE READ AT DUSK 3 If I knew of what then said the German I should probably know a great deal more It was a good answer I thought and it made me curious So I moved my position to that corner of my bench which was nearest to them and leaning my back against the convent wall heard perfectly without appearing to attend Thunder and lightning said the German warming when a certain man is coming to see you unexpectedly and without his own knowledge sends some invisible messenger to put the idea of him into your head all day what do you call that When you walk along a crowded street at Frankfort Milan London Paris and think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich and then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you ll meet your friend Heinrich which you do though you believed him at Trieste what do you call THAT It s not uncommon either murmured the Swiss and the other three Uncommon said the German It s as common as cherries in the Black Forest It s as common as maccaroni at Naples And Naples reminds me When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card party on the Chiaja as I heard and saw her for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine and I was overlooking the service that evening I say when the old Marchesa starts up at the card table white through her rouge and cries My sister in Spain is dead I felt her cold touch on my back and when that sister IS dead at the moment what do you call that Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy as all the world knows that it does regularly once a year in my native city said the Neapolitan courier after a pause with a comical look what do you call that THAT cried the German Well I think I know a name for that Miracle said the Neapolitan with the same sly face The German merely smoked and laughed and they all smoked and laughed Bah said the German presently I speak of things that really do happen When I want to see the conjurer I pay to see a professed one TO BE READ AT DUSK 4 and have my money s worth Very strange things do happen without ghosts Ghosts Giovanni Baptista tell your story of the English bride There s no ghost in that but something full as strange Will any man tell me what As there was a silence among them I glanced around He whom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar He presently went on to speak He was a Genoese as I judged The story of the English bride said he Basta one ought not to call so slight a thing a story Well it s all one But it s true Observe me well gentlemen it s true That which glitters is not always gold but what I am going to tell is true He repeated this more than once Ten years ago I took my credentials to an English gentleman at Long s Hotel in Bond Street London who was about to travel it might be for one year it might be for two He approved of them likewise of me He was pleased to make inquiry The testimo