"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I have brought, you must
promise me to accept it. Your father said I was not to leave you till
you had done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his dying
blessing."
After due demur George gave his promise, and I took him to the place
where I had hidden my knapsack.
"I brought it up yesterday," said I.
"Yesterday? but why?"
"Because yesterday--was it not?--was the first of the two days agreed
upon between you and our father?"
"No--surely to-day is the first day--I was to come XXI. i. 3, which would
be your December 9."
"But yesterday was December 9 with us--to-day is December 10."
"Strange! What day of the week do you make it?"
"To-day is Thursday, December 10."
"This is still stranger--we make it Wednesday; yesterday was Tuesday."
Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap year with the Erewhonians,
and 1891 in England had not. This, then, was what had crossed my
father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had vainly tried to tell
me. It was also what my unconscious self had been struggling to tell my
conscious one, during the past night, but which my conscious self had
been too stupid to understand. And yet my conscious self had caught it
in an imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the moment that my
dream had left me I had been composed, and easy in my mind that all would
be well.
Pages:
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325