Le Guin 4.3: A Repetitive Story

Part Three: Structural Repetition

Write a short narrative (350-1000 words) in which something is said or done, and then something is said or done that echoes or repeats it…. (STC 57)

[Note: if you have no idea what’s going on here, please start at the beginning]

To understand Albin’s failure, it is necessary to understand the circumstances.

He had spent the evening playing whist in Jaimes’s rooms, accompanied by several young men of the hearty, excessively English type, as well as a number of bottles of port wine. Upon re-entering the sitting room after a call of nature, he trod on the cat, which had placed itself exactly in the way of the door. The cat and Albin yowled in unison, much to the amusement of the company, and they proceeded to make pointed remarks about French courage to which Albin replied with cold hauteur. Jaimes sought to redirect conversation by speaking of ghosts, which in turn led Varley to describe his aunt’s town-house and its reputed haunting. Rowbotham, by now swinishly drunk, most offensively bet twenty pounds that Albin would not spend a night alone in the place, and Albin accepted at once. Nothing the others said could dissuade them, and at last they took a growler to Hampstead, where Varley unlocked the house, Jaimes ensured that the young Frenchman had candles and matches, and Albin, with an irritable Gallic shrug, lit a candle and went inside, shutting the door behind him.

According to Varley, the manifestations generally occurred on the landing, whence some decades before a distraught young woman, cruelly deceived, had flung herself to her death. Albin therefore proceeded up the stairs and cast about for someplace to pass the night; finding a comfortable velvet wing chair in a corner, he drew it near to the landing and folded himself into it, first setting his candle into a heavy bronze smoking-stand, which he placed just within arm’s reach.

Albin was conscious of the ridiculousness of his position. He had allowed himself to be goaded by the beefy, red-faced Rowbotham, for whom he had only contempt. Why, then, had he not dismissed the man’s childish taunts? He had been too long in England, among men who firmly believed in the significance of a wager—any wager—and he had not wanted James to think less of him, nor Varley. Damn Rowbotham anyhow. “Bof,” he murmured. 

A low thump answered this ejaculation, and he looked up sharply. The sound had come from his left, at the far end of the landing, but he saw nothing to account for it. He felt the hair prickle on his neck. Sneering at himself, he rose to his feet and took up the candle. “C’est des conneries,” he remarked, more loudly than he intended. And yet, he could not bring himself to investigate, but stood rooted to the spot. All at once he espied a flicker of movement in the gloom, followed by a small tortoiseshell cat; it seated itself on the landing, gazing at him unblinking, and then disappeared down the stairs.

Albin resumed his chair. His heart was racing; he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. The thing was humiliating. He was a rationalist, for all love, a student of the grand Enlightenment spirit of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; now here he was, just the same, nearly frightened out of his wits by a cat in a London house shut up for the season. He had intended to stay in the chair all night, to doze comfortably, his head drooping, and in the morning collect his twenty pounds with a disdainful, well-rested smile, but now he felt he must move around. The incident had made him nervy, unable to relax: if he merely waited, his mind would conjure all sorts of images, inventing terrors from the ordinary creaks and bumps of an old, settling house. With a curse, he rose and once more took up the candle.

For several hours he wandered, exploring. The furniture he found heavy and tasteless, the hangings ill-colored, the portraits uninspired. Why did the English insist on littering rooms with mismatched bits and pieces, he wondered, as for the dozenth time he tripped over an unseen scrap of bric-a-brac. Growing bolder, he looked inside drawers and cabinets; finding a cache of thick candles in a sideboard, he pocketed several before continuing his rounds—Varley would not begrudge them. At last, catching himself yawning, he betook himself to the wing chair and a well-deserved rest.

As he set down the thick candle and lowered himself gratefully, something moved beneath him, and he leapt up in terror; whirling, he saw the retreating form of the little tortoiseshell, startled out of a sound sleep. Albin passed a tremulous hand over his brow and sat down once more. He checked his watch: 3.15. For a moment he held himself still, breathing heavily, but then with a muttered curse drew out the remaining candles and lit them; they made a cheerful light upon the smoking-stand, and Albin tried to pretend he did not find it reassuring. Crossing his arms on his breast, he leant his head back, composed himself, and was soon asleep.

The candles had guttered when he awoke, but the house remained in darkness. At first this mystified him, then he realized that the curtains were drawn, and the pale light of a London winter would penetrate but little. What then had awakened him? There was no sound whatever, yet he was conscious of a presence, something close by. His heart began once more to pound. Slowly, slowly he reached for the matches in his jacket pocket—and encountered something large and hairy. With a shrill scream he leapt to his feet, dumping the sleeping cat unceremoniously, and raced for the stair. In the darkness he tripped over the smoking-stand and pitched headlong, nearly breaking his neck as he tumbled down, and fetched up with a shattering crash against a large vase. Enough was enough: he groped for the door and flung himself onto the stoop, where he cannoned into Rowbotham, who went sprawling into the street.

“I have spent the night in this house,” Albin announced, hastily pulling together the tattered shreds of his dignity and brushing off ceramic dust. “As for the money, you may keep it—or better, give it to Varley, to feed the cat.”

Next time, I’ll do some evaluation of what, if anything, I have learned from these two weeks of exercises on repetition.

Thanks for reading!