Pan's garden : $b a volume of nature stories
| Language | en |
|---|---|
| First published | 2025-12-15 |
| Rights | Public domain in the USA. |
| Gutenberg ID | #77472 |
Description
"Lord Lister No. 0037: De Diamantenkoningin" by Kurt Matull and Theo von Blankensee is a serial crime adventure novella written in the early 20th century. It likely follows the suave gentleman-thief Lord Lister as he becomes entangled with a “Diamond Queen,” pitting his wit and charm against rivals and the law in a high-stakes caper filled with disguises and clever ruses. The opening of the provided text introduces a very different tale: an English couple, David Bittacy (a retired forestry official) and his devout wife, living on the edge of a vast forest as an artist named Sanderson visits to paint their cedar tree. Sanderson and Bittacy share an intense feeling for trees, speaking of plant “consciousness” and the powerful personality of woods at night, while Mrs. Bittacy grows uneasy and fearful. One evening an eerie, smoke-like movement seems to surge from the forest toward the house and is strangely “checked” by the cedar; later, Bittacy sleepwalks, murmuring that the trees are “roaring further out” and “need” him. After the visitor departs, fierce winds break great branches from the cedar, the family piles them as a defensive barrier at the forest’s edge, and Mrs. Bittacy’s dread deepens as her husband’s bond with the trees intensifies. He refuses their usual trip abroad, insists his life and happiness are rooted in the forest, and spends his days and nights among the trees, leaving his wife quietly alarmed and watchful. (This is an automatically generated summary.)