Library of the World's Best Mystery & Detective Stories (cont). 3/29/16

Available through Gutenberg for free and through Kindle for 99 cents.

The Miracle of Zobeide by Pierre Mille
     Protestant missionary is tricked by Muslim into believing that a turtle is growing a finger's breadth every day.  Mildly amusing.

The Owl's Ear
   Erckmann-Chatrain  (I'm guessing a science background.  Stories are drawn to wavelengths of sound in particular.)

  An interesting meditation on sound and how it is taken for granted.

 "so also will my micracoustic ear trumpet extend the sense of the unbearable beyond all possible bounds. Thus, sir, the circulation of the blood and the fluids of the body will not give me pause; you shall hear them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent are dashing!"

And on genius ignored: 

Had I read the conceptions of an idiot—or the inspirations of a genius which had been realized? What am I to say? to think? So this man, this miserable creature, living at the bottom of a burrow like a fox, dying of hunger, had had perhaps one of those inspirations which the Supreme Being sends on earth to enlighten future generations!

And this man had hanged himself in disgust, despair! No one had answered his prayer, though he asked only for a crust of bread in exchange for his discovery. It was horrible. Long, long I sat there dreaming, thanking Heaven for having limited my intelligence to the needs of ordinary life—for not having desired to make me a superior man in the community of martyrs. 

THE WATERS OF DEATH

 Erckmann-Chatrain

This one could be used as the basis for a "B" movie sci-fi story:  Here's a moment early in the film:

You don't like spiders, Frantz, nor do I either. But thank Heaven, there aren't any dangerous ones in this country. The spider crab which your tutor has in his box comes from French Guiana. It inhabits the great, swampy forests filled with warm vapors, with scalding exhalations; this temperature is necessary to its life. Its web, or rather its vast snare, envelops an entire thicket. In it it takes birds as our spiders take flies. But drive these disgusting images from your mind, and drink a swallow of my old Burgundy."

I somehow guessed that spiders would come back and play a major role in the ending of the story, and amazingly I was right.

Nice passage at the moment as the boy stares into a cave where lurks the killer spider:  

I saw long lines wavering in a strange manner in the midst of the darkness, and that at a depth where no human eye had ever penetrated. Fear lent my sight, and all my senses, an unheard-of subtlety of perception.

THE INVISIBLE EYE   Erckmann-Chatrain

Another old fashioned horror film.  An old, creepy woman lives near an inn.  People who register at the inn have an odd habit of hanging themselves.  Turns out the creepy old woman makes a double of the guests that somehow induces them to kill themselves.  Our protagonist figures this out, so he makes a double of her and induces her to kill herself.  Cheery tale.  One striking passage of beauty lapsing into horror.

But an evening came, during which, while sleeping very soundly, I was awakened by a strange harmony. It was a kind of vibration, so sweet, so melodious, that the whispering of the breeze among the leaves can give but a faint idea of its charm.

For a long time I listened intently, with my eyes wide open, and holding my breath, so as not to lose a note. At last I looked toward the window, and saw two wings fluttering against the glass. I thought, at first, that it was a bat, caught in my room; but, the moon rising at that instant, I saw the wings of a magnificent butterfly of the night delineated upon her shining disk. Their vibrations were often so rapid that they could not be distinguished; then they reposed, extended upon the glass, and their frail fibers were again brought to view.

This misty apparition, coming in the midst of the universal silence, opened my heart to all sweet emotions. It seemed to me that an airy sylph, touched with a sense of my solitude, had come to visit me, and this idea melted me almost to tears.

"Be tranquil, sweet captive, be tranquil," said I; "your confidence shall not be abused. I will not keep you against your will. Return to heaven and to liberty." I then opened my little window. The night was calm, and millions of stars were glittering in the sky. For a moment I contemplated this sublime spectacle, and words of prayer and praise came naturally to my lips; but, judge of my amazement, when, lowering my eyes, I saw a man hanging from the crossbeam of the sign of the Boeuf-Gras, the hair disheveled, the arms stiff, the legs elongated to a point, and casting their gigantic shadows down to the street!