E. M. Forster,
The Story of the Siren
“ He leant back against the rock, breathing deep. Through all the blue-green reflections I saw him colour. I heard him say: "Silence and loneliness cannot last for ever. It may be a hundred or a thousand years, but the sea lasts longer, and she shall come out of it and sing." I would have asked him more, but at that moment the whole cave darkened, and there rode in through its narrow entrance the returning boat. ”
E. M. Forster,
The Story of the Siren
“ I watched the golden entrance rock and the quivering walls, and the magic water through which great bubbles constantly rose. At last he dropped his hot ash into the ripples and turned his head away, and said:"He came up without the coin. We pulled him into the boat, and he was so large that he seemed to fill it, and so wet that we could not dress him. I have never seen a man so wet. I and the gentleman rowed back, and we covered Giuseppe with sacking and propped him up in the stern." ”
E. M. Forster,
The Story of the Siren
“ As for Giuseppe, he went all over the world too, looking for someone else who has seen the Siren—either a man, or, better still, a woman, for then the child might still have been born. At last he came to Liverpool,—is the district probable?—and there he began to cough, and spat blood until he died."I do not suppose there is anyone living now who has seen her. There has seldom been more than one in a generation, and never in my life will there be both a man and a woman from whom that child can be born, who will fetch up the Siren from the sea, and destroy silence, and save the world!" ”
