Different Seasons

1: The Club

It is the Thursday night before Christmas, and the narrator, David Adley, is getting into a taxi on his way to his club. That is what its members call it; it has no other name. David is 73 and has been coming to the brownstone at 249 East 35th Street for 10 years. He is met at the door by Stevens, the apparently ageless factotum of the building. The interior is paneled in mahogany with oak parquet floors. A huge fireplace in the library/reading room/bar contains a fire of birch logs. David thinks of it as a “gentlemen’s club,” but he’s not sure that that is exactly what it is. Tonight, David feels a sense of more than usual excitement because this is Emlyn McCarron’s night to tell “the tale.”

David jumps back in time 10 years to tell how he first came to be invited to the club. He doesn’t know how old the club might be. He supposes that Stevens might know, but Stevens will never tell. David is convinced that Stevens has been around from the first, but David has no idea how long that might have been. He is sure that Stevens is much, much older than he looks.

David was first invited to the club by George Waterhouse, the head of the law firm at which David works. David is in his sixties. His primary relationship is with his wife, and he has no close male relationships. He is neither a go-getter nor a genius, and he is unsurprised that he has never advanced in the firm. He is surprised, however, when Waterhouse drops by his office and chats for a few minutes about nothing in particular before inviting David to a sort of club that is open every night. On Thursday nights, there is always someone telling stories.

On Thursday night, Waterhouse meets David at the steps of 249 East 35th Street, and Stevens opens the door for them. There are no formal introductions, but one of the men who introduces himself to David is Emlyn McCarron. David is left to his own devices to explore the room. The bookshelves seem to stretch into infinity, and on the keystone of the enormous fireplace is carved the motto, “IT IS THE TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT” (791).

David quickly learns that relationships among club members are different within the club than outside—his boss, Mr. Waterhouse, is “George” within those walls. Each time that David tries to ask a question about the nature of the club or its rules, he is met with interruptions or diversions. He soon stops asking questions and begins to feel a sense of peace and belonging. Exploring the library, he finds many familiar old classics, a number of books by authors he has never heard of, and some by authors he knows but unfamiliar titles. When he returns home and his wife asks him how it was, he tells her that it was just a bunch of stuffy old men boring each other. Somehow, he has the feeling that he should not talk about the club. His wife, much as he loves her, is an outsider. She has her own busy life and extensive relationships with other women.

Over the years, David learns that the brownstone is full of strange doors and strange hallways leading to stranger places and appears to be virtually infinite in size. He sometimes hears strange noises like a grandfather clock in the distant hallway or an odd slither and bump in a room upstairs. On Thursday nights, the members tell stories—funny, sentimental, dramatic, or terrifying. The Thursday before Christmas, however, there is always a special story—a ghost story. The first Christmas ghost story that David hears at the club concerns a disembodied head that wouldn’t die. A year after joining the club, David is made a junior partner at the firm and put on a fast track to become a full partner.

David’s narrative reverts briefly to the present day and introduces the story told by Emlyn McCarron:

2: The Breathing Method

Emlyn McCarron recounts the story of a young patient of his named Sandra Stansfield. Sandra came to him unmarried and pregnant, which was at the time a viciously difficult position for a woman to be in. However, Sandra, from the first, exhibits enormous courage, self-possession, and a relentless determination to have a healthy baby. Sandra confronts prejudice against unmarried pregnant women. She loses her job as a consequence, loses her room at her boardinghouse and, much against her will, buys a cheap wedding ring so that she can pose as a young widow. She makes everything else in her life subordinate to her intention to have a healthy baby.

Doctor McCarron is an early proponent of what he refers to as “the breathing method” (which has now come to be called the Lamaze method), the final stage of which he describes as the “locomotive” stage because it sounds like the chuffing of a train. Sandra practices the method assiduously, finding that it helps her to control her temper when she encounters contempt and scorn for her unmarried situation.

Months pass, and the baby is due around Christmas. Sandra continues to be disciplined and determined, but in a vulnerable moment she admits to McCarron that she has a strong feeling that she is doomed. That night, McCarran dreams of finding Sandra in his office carrying her head in her arms. Her eyes open, and she repeats that she is doomed.

Sandra goes into labor on Christmas Eve. By the time that she is ready to go to the hospital, the city streets are covered in ice. Looking back, McCarran believes that the breathing method indirectly contributed to her death. The cabbie driving her to the hospital is young and nervous about the pregnant woman in his car, and her puffing through her contractions makes him more anxious. Approaching the hospital, the driver loses control of his car. The taxi skids across the ice, hits a statue standing before the hospital, and Sandra is thrown through the window and decapitated.

McCarran finds, to his horror, that the body is still breathing in the locomotive stage. The body continues to breathe through contractions until the baby is born. When the baby is wrapped in a blanket and taken away, McCarran looks at Sandra’s head. Her eyes are still open, and McCarron realizes that she sees him. He tells her that the baby is a healthy boy. Her eyes close and the body stops breathing.

3: The Club

As David is leaving the club after the story, he says to Stevens that he has a question that he would like to ask if Stevens doesn’t mind. Stevens replies that David might ask if he likes, but it’s better not to ask too much if David wants to keep coming to the club. People who learn too much generally choose to stay away.

David wants to ask a lot of questions: Where do the strange books in the library come from? How old is Stevens? And, most of all, where are they really when they enter the brownstone with its infinite rooms and impossible size? All he actually asks is whether there are many more rooms upstairs.

Stevens replies that, yes, there are miles of rooms and corridors and entrances and exits—so many that men have become lost in them. David decides that he doesn’t really want to know more. His final question to Stevens is whether there will be more stories, and Stevens assures him that there will always be more stories.

They exchange good nights, and for a moment, David fears that when Stevens opens the front door, David will see a hellish alien landscape and that Stevens will shove him through the door and close it behind him. Instead, he sees the ordinary familiar world. Since then, there have been many more tales, and David promises the reader that, one day soon, he may share another one.