（外文电子版资料）Chaz Brenchley - The Keys To Desperance.pdf

The Keys to DEsp茅rance a short story by Chaz Brenchley Actually, by the time the keys came, he no longer believed in the house. It was like God, he thought; they oversold it. Say too often that a thing is so, and how can people help but doubt? Most facts prove not to be the case after all, under any serious examination. Even the Earth isnt round. One day, they said, DEsp茅rance will be yours. You will receive it in sorrow, they said, and pass it on in joy. That is as it is, they said, as it always is, as it should be. But they said it when he was five and he thought they meant for Christmas, theyd never make him wait to be six. When he was six they said it, and when he was seven and eight and nine. At ten, he asked if he could visit. Visit DEsp茅rance? they said, laughing at him. Of course you cant, you havent been invited. You cant just visit. You cant call at DEsp茅rance. In passing, looking at each other, laughing. You cant pass DEsp茅rance. But if it was going to be his, he said at twelve, wasnt he entitled? Didnt he have a right to know? Hed never seen a painting, even, never seen a photograph... There are none, they said, and, Be patient. And, No, dont be foolish, of course youre not entitled. Title to DEsp茅rance does not vest in you, they said. Yet, they said. And somewhere round about fifteen he stopped believing. The guns still thundered across the Channel, and he believed in those; he believed in his own death to come, glorious and dreadful; he believed in Rupert Brooke and Euclidean geometry and the sweet breath of a girl, her name whispered into his bolster but never to be uttered aloud, never in hearing; and no, he did not believe in DEsp茅rance. Two years later the girl was dead and his parents also, and none of them in glory. His school would have no more of him, and the war was