The Beautiful Suit / H.G. Wells

There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit of

clothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe how

delicate and fine it was, and there was a tie of orange fluffiness that

tied up under his chin. And the buttons in their newness shone like stars.

He was proud and pleased by his suit beyond measure, and stood before the

long looking-glass when first he put it on, so astonished and delighted

with it that he could hardly turn himself away. He wanted to wear it

everywhere, and show it to all sorts of people.

He thought over all the

places he had ever visited, and all the scenes he had ever heard

described, and tried to imagine what the feel of it would be if he were to

go now to those scenes and places wearing his shining suit, and he wanted

to go out forthwith into the long grass and the hot sunshine of the meadow

wearing it. Just to wear it! But his mother told him "No." She told him he

must take great care of his suit, for never would he have another nearly

so fine; he must save it and save it, and only wear it on rare and great

occasions. It was his wedding-suit, she said. And she took the buttons and

twisted them up with tissue paper for fear their bright newness should be

tarnished, and she tacked little guards over the cuffs and elbows, and

wherever the suit was most likely to come to harm. He hated and resisted

these things, but what could he do? And at last her warnings and

persuasions had effect, and he consented to take off his beautiful suit

and fold it into its proper creases, and put it away. It was almost as

though he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it, and

of the supreme occasions when some day it might be worn without the

guards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, utterly and delightfully,

never caring, beautiful beyond measure.

One night, when he was dreaming of it after his habit, he dreamt he took

the tissue paper from one of the buttons, and found its brightness a

little faded, and that distressed him mightily in his dream. He polished

the poor faded button and polished it, and, if anything, it grew duller.

He woke up and lay awake, thinking of the brightness a little dulled, and

wondering how he would feel if perhaps when the great occasion (whatever

it might be) should arrive, one button should chance to be ever so little

short of its first glittering freshness, and for days and days that

thought remained with him distressingly. And when next his mother let him

wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation just

to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed the buttons

were keeping as bright as ever.

He went trimly along on his way to church, full of this wild desire. For

you must know his mother did, with repeated and careful warnings, let him

wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for example, to and fro from church,

when there was no threatening of rain, no dust blowing, nor anything to

injure it, with its buttons covered and its protections tacked upon it,

and a sun-shade in his hand to shadow it if there seemed too strong a

sunlight for its colours. And always, after such occasions, he brushed it

over and folded it exquisitely as she had taught him, and put it away

again.

Now all these restrictions his mother set to the wearing of his suit he

obeyed, always he obeyed them, until one strange night he woke up and saw

the moonlight shining outside his window. It seemed to him the moonlight

was not common moonlight, nor the night a common night, and for awhile he

lay quite drowsily, with this odd persuasion in his mind. Thought joined

on to thought like things that whisper warmly in the shadows. Then he sat

up in his little bed suddenly very alert, with his heart beating very

fast, and a quiver in his body from top to toe. He had made up his mind.

He knew that now he was going to wear his suit as it should be worn. He

had no doubt in the matter. He was afraid, terribly afraid, but glad,

glad.

He got out of his bed and stood for a moment by the window looking at the

moonshine-flooded garden, and trembling at the thing he meant to do. The

air was full of a minute clamour of crickets and murmurings, of the

infinitesimal shoutings of little living things. He went very gently

across the creaking boards, for fear that he might wake the sleeping

house, to the big dark clothes-press wherein his beautiful suit lay

folded, and he took it out garment by garment, and softly and very eagerly

tore off its tissue-paper covering and its tacked protections until there

it was, perfect and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother had

given it to him--a long time it seemed ago. Not a button had tarnished,

not a thread had faded on this dear suit of his; he was glad enough for

weeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he went, soft

and quick, to the window that looked out upon the garden, and stood there

for a minute, shining in the moonlight, with his buttons twinkling like

stars, before he got out on the sill, and, making as little of a rustling

as he could, clambered down to the garden path below. He stood before his

mother's house, and it was white and nearly as plain as by day, with every

window-blind but his own shut like an eye that sleeps. The trees cast

still shadows like intricate black lace upon the wall.

The garden in the moonlight was very different from the garden by day;

moonshine was tangled in the hedges and stretched in phantom cobwebs from

spray to spray. Every flower was gleaming white or crimson black, and the

air was a-quiver with the thridding of small crickets and nightingales

singing unseen in the depths of the trees.

There was no darkness in the world, but only warm, mysterious shadows,

and all the leaves and spikes were edged and lined with iridescent jewels

of dew. The night was warmer than any night had ever been, the heavens

by some miracle at once vaster and nearer, and, spite of the great

ivory-tinted moon that ruled the world, the sky was full of stars.

The little man did not shout nor sing for all his infinite gladness. He

stood for a time like one awestricken, and then, with a queer small cry

and holding out his arms, he ran out as if he would embrace at once the

whole round immensity of the world. He did not follow the neat set paths

that cut the garden squarely, but thrust across the beds and through the

wet, tall, scented herbs, through the night-stock and the nicotine and the

clusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets of

southernwood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space of

mignonette. He came to the great hedge, and he thrust his way through it;

and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply and tore threads

from his wonderful suit, and though burrs and goose-grass and havers

caught and clung to him, he did not care. He did not care, for he knew it

was all part of the wearing for which he had longed. "I am glad I put on

my suit," he said; "I am glad I wore my suit."

Beyond the hedge he came to the duck-pond, or at least to what was the

duck-pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of silver moonshine all

noisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver moonshine twisted and

clotted with strange patternings, and the little man ran down into its

waters between the thin black rushes, knee-deep and waist-deep and to his

shoulders, smiting the water to black and shining wavelets with either

hand, swaying and shivering wavelets, amidst which the stars were netted

in the tangled reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He waded

until he swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the other

side, trailing, as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver in

long, clinging, dripping masses. And up he went through the transfigured

tangles of the willow-herb and the uncut seeding grasses of the farther

bank. He came glad and breathless into the high-road. "I am glad," he

said, "beyond measure, that I had clothes that fitted this occasion."

The high-road ran straight as an arrow flies, straight into the deep-blue

pit of sky beneath the moon, a white and shining road between the singing

nightingales, and along it he went, running now and leaping, and now

walking and rejoicing, in the clothes his mother had made for him with

tireless, loving hands. The road was deep in dust, but that for him was

only soft whiteness; and as he went a great dim moth came fluttering round

his wet and shimmering and hastening figure. At first he did not heed the

moth, and then he waved his hands at it, and made a sort of dance with it

as it circled round his head. "Soft moth!" he cried, "dear moth! And

wonderful night, wonderful night of the world! Do you think my clothes are

beautiful, dear moth? As beautiful as your scales and all this silver

vesture of the earth and sky?"

And the moth circled closer and closer until at last its velvet wings just

brushed his lips...

* * * * *

And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken, in the bottom

of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little bloody, and foul and

stained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of such

happiness that, had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how that

he had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for the

duckweed in the pond.