The Unusual Morning by E.V. Lucas

Name: The Unusual Morning
Author: E.V. Lucas

"The Unusual Morning" by E.V. Lucas recounts two striking and contrasting surprises that befall the narrator on the same morning. The first begins while the narrator is sitting in his room writing, when a mysterious sound emerges from within the wall near the chimney. Growing louder and closer, it ends in a clatter at the fireplace, from which a robust and flustered starling appears. The bird blunders across the room and perches on the highest shelf of books, staring down at the narrator. The narrator reflects ruefully on his prosaic luck, comparing his visitor unfavourably with the birds that visited others under similar circumstances: Edgar Allan Poe received a raven, dark with mystery and fate, while a friend of the narrator awoke in her room in a beautiful Wiltshire manor-house to find a dove brooding on the frame of an Old Master painting. The narrator, by contrast, has been visited by a starling, which he regards as the least poetical and least attractive of birds. The second surprise comes an hour later and requires some explanation of the narrator's surroundings. His house stands on a road that quickly deteriorates into a cart-track and then into a mere footpath up a steep South Down. Motor-cars occasionally rush past and are soon forced to turn back, their engines groaning and shrieking in the insufficient space. On this particular morning a car passes but does not immediately return, so the narrator assumes its occupants have come deliberately for a picnic, as has happened before, and he gives them no further thought. When he hears the engine again an hour later he takes it for the picnic party departing, and again puts them from his mind. He is then called into the garden by shouts and whistles, and finds that the car has stopped because it is on fire. The vehicle stands enveloped in flames near the gate, while its dejected owner leans against the wall with his head bowed against the bricks, able only to repeat the words "What a calamity!" and declare that nothing can be done. The narrator refuses to accept this and organises the fetching of water in every available vessel. They quickly discover that throwing water on burning petrol only spreads the fire, so they instead push the car further along the road away from the worst danger before dousing it again with water. The fire is soon extinguished. The owner explains that he had just filled the tank and started the engine when it backfired, perhaps igniting petrol he had spilled, and that in a moment the car was in flames. He insists, repeatedly and at intervals throughout the aftermath, that nothing of the kind has ever happened to him before in all his years of driving. His two companions, two cool and collected ladies, had been entirely unaware of the catastrophe, having been occupied in photographing the church, and they join in urging him to come inside and take some refreshment. His behaviour at the garden table is gently comic. Though he declares he will not drink, eat, wash, or rest, he is all the while drifting closer to the table where refreshments have been laid. He vows he will not sit, and sits. He refuses the decanter with vehemence, and pours from it into his glass. He abjures cake, and eats a piece. He refuses to drink more, and is reaching for the decanter again as he speaks. He announces he has no desire to smoke, and takes a cigarette. The one resolution he holds to is his refusal to wash his blackened hands. Between these successive retreats he continues to repeat the same account of the accident in almost the same words. The party soon departs, the scorched car is pushed into a neighbouring shed to await repairs, and all that remains of the episode is a black mark on the road and a scorched patch of earth where grass had been. Life returns to its routine. The narrator adds one final observation: when the owner hands him his card, it emerges that the man now lives in a house where the narrator spent some of his happiest hours as a child. The narrator reflects on this as an unnecessary extra coincidence, a further example of the prodigality of chance, when the man might just as easily have lived in any other house in the world.

By E.V. Lucas · First published 1901 · Genre: Humorous Fiction, Literary Fiction, Domestic Fiction · 1,350 words

First lines

One is liable day by day to a great many different kinds of surprises; but few persons can have known two in the same morning quite so unusual and diverse....

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The Unusual Morning is listed on Textopian as a short story by E.V. Lucas, dated 1901 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: E.V. Lucas
Date: 1901 CE
Language: English
Genres: Humorous Fiction, Literary Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Anecdotal Fiction, Comedy
Length: 1,350 words
Structure: 1 section, 11 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

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Genres

Humorous Fiction — The narrative employs wit and irony throughout, particularly in the contrast between the narrator's mundane starling encounter and the romantic bird visitations of Poe and the English lady, as well as the comedic depiction of the car owner's contradictory behavior regarding refreshments.
Literary Fiction — The work demonstrates sophisticated prose style, philosophical reflection on chance and destiny, and explores themes of human experience and the mundane nature of everyday life, characteristic of early 20th-century literary traditions exemplified by E.V. Lucas.
Domestic Fiction — The story is set within the intimate confines of the narrator's home and immediate surroundings, focusing on personal observations and domestic incidents such as an unexpected visitor in one's study.
Anecdotal Fiction — The work is structured as a recounted anecdote or personal memoir, presenting two unusual morning incidents with the reflective tone of someone sharing memorable experiences from daily life.