W. H. D. Rouse
speaker
684 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 1 Aug
W. H. D. Rouse’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
he was a great clumsy boy of fourteen dark-faced very slow of speech dull-eyed and uncared for he was clumsy because it is impossible to move gracefully when you are growing very big and fast on quite insufficient food
he was dull-eyed because all eyes met his unlovingly uncared for because none knew the beauty of his soul but his heavy young hands could carve simple things like flowers and birds and beasts to perfection as the cure pointed out
simon has a tobacco jar carved with pine cones and squirrels and the cure has a pipe whose bowl is the bloom of a moccasin flower that i have seen but it is all very long ago and facts in those lonely villages easily become transfigured touched upon their gray with a golden gleam
thy hand shall smooth the wood migaud and i shall render it beautiful said pierre laurier and went off to drink brandy at the cinq chateaux hyacinth knew that the making of the cabinet would fall to him as most of the other work did he also touched the strange sweet wood and at last laid his cheek against it while the fragrance caught his breath
how it is beautiful said hyacinth and for a moment his eyes glowed and he was happy then the light passed and with bent head he shuffled back to his bench through a foam of white shavings curling almost to his knees
madame perhaps will want the cabinet next week for that is christmas said hyacinth and fell to work harder than ever though it was so cold in the shed that his breath hung like a little silver cloud and the steel stung his hands
there was a tiny window to the right through which when it was clear of frost one looked on terminezon and that was cheerful and made one whistle but to the left through the chink of the ill-fitting door there was nothing but the forest and the road dying away in it and the trees moving heavily under the snow
Yet from there came all Hyacinth's dumb dreams and slow, reluctant fancies, which he sometimes found himself able to tell.
In wood, not in words.
brandy was good at the cinq chateaux and pierre laurillard gave hyacinthe plenty of directions but no further help with the cabinet that is to be finished for madame on the festival gros escargots said he cuffing hyacinthe's ears furiously finished and with a prettiness about the corners hearest thou
i suffer from a delicacy of the constitution and a little feebleness in the legs on these days so that i cannot handle the tools i must leave this work to thee see that it is done properly and stand up and touch a hand to thy cap when i address thee orvette great slow worm yes monsieur said hyacinth wearily
it is hard when you do all the work to be cuffed into the bargain and fourteen is not very old he went to work on the cabinet with slow exquisite skill but on the eve of noel he was still at work and the cabinet unfinished it meant a thrashing from pierre if the morrow came and found it still unfinished and pierre's thrashings were cruel
but it was growing into a thing of perfection under his slow hands and hyacinths would not hurry over it then work on it all night and show it to me all completed in the morning or thy bones shall mourn thine idleness said pierre with a flicker of his little eyes and he shut hyacinths into the workshop with a smoky lamp his tools and the sandalwood cabinet
it was nothing unusual the boy had often been left before to finish a piece of work overnight while pierre went off to his brandies but this was christmas eve and he was very tired the cold crept into the shed until even the scent of the sandalwood could not make him dream himself warm and the roof cracked sullenly in the frost
there came upon hyacinth one of those awful hopeless despairs that children know i cannot endure to think of hyacinth poor lad shut up despairing in the workshop with his loneliness his cold and his hunger on the eve of christmas he was but an overgrown unhappy child and for unhappy children no aid at this season seems too divine for faith
so madame says and she is very old and very wise hyacinth even looked at the chisel in his hand and thought that by a touch of that he might lose it all and be at peace somewhere not far from god only it was forbidden then came the tears and great sobs that sickened and deafened him so that he scarcely heard the gentle rattling of the latch
at least i suppose it came then but it may have been later the story is all so vague here so confused with fancies that have spoiled the first simplicity i think that heisen must have gone to the door opening it upon the still woods and the frosty stars and that the lad who stood outside in the snow must have said i see you are workingly comrade may i come in or something like it
hyacinth brushed his ragged sleeve across his eyes and opened the door wider with a little nod to the other to enter those little lonely villages strung along the great river see strange wayfarers adrift inland from the sea hyacinth said to himself that surely here was such a one
afterwards he told the cure that for a moment he had been bewildered dolly blinking into the stranger's eyes he lost for a flash
the first impression of youth and received one of some incredible age or sadness but this also passed and he knew that the wanderer's eyes were only quiet like the little pools in the wood where the wild does went to drink as he turned within the door smiling at hyacinth and shaking some snow from his fur cap he did not seem more than sixteen or so
Showing 201–220 of 684 · page 11 of 35
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