["[Event happened on 2024-01-01 The user is reading a book]\n<User> JUDGE PYNCHEON, while his two relatives have fled away with such\nill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as\nthe familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To\nhim, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now\nbetake itself, like an owl, bewildered in the daylight, and hastening\nback to his hollow tree. The Judge has not shifted his position for a long while now. He has\nnot stirred hand or foot, nor withdrawn his eyes so much as a\nhair's-breadth from their fixed gaze towards the corner of the room,\n    since the footsteps of Hepzibah and Clifford creaked along the passage,\n    and the outer door was closed cautiously behind their exit. He holds\n    his watch in his left hand, but clutched in such a manner that you\n    cannot see the dial-plate. How profound a fit of meditation! Or,\n    supposing him asleep, how infantile a quietude of conscience, and what\n    wholesome order in the gastric region, are betokened by slumber so\n    entirely undisturbed with starts, cramp, twitches, muttered dreamtalk,\n    trumpet-blasts through the nasal organ, or any slightest irregularity\n    of breath! You must hold your own breath, to satisfy yourself whether\n    he breathes at all. It is quite inaudible. You hear the ticking of\n    his watch; his breath you do not hear. A most refreshing slumber,\n    doubtless! And yet, the Judge cannot be asleep. His eyes are open! A\n    veteran politician, such as he, would never fall asleep with wide-open\n    eyes, lest some enemy or mischief-maker, taking him thus at unawares,\n    should peep through these windows into his consciousness, and make\n    strange discoveries among the reminiscences, projects, hopes,\n    apprehensions, weaknesses, and strong points, which he has heretofore\n    shared with nobody. A cautious man is proverbially said to sleep with\n    one eye open. That may be wisdom. But not with both; for this were\n    heedlessness! No, no! Judge Pyncheon cannot be asleep. It is odd, however, that a gentleman so burdened with engagements,--and\n    noted, too, for punctuality,--should linger thus in an old lonely\n    mansion, which he has never seemed very fond of visiting. The oaken\n    chair, to be sure, may tempt him with its roominess. It is, indeed, a\n    spacious, and, allowing for the rude age that fashioned it, a\n    moderately easy seat, with capacity enough, at all events, and offering\n    no restraint to the Judge's breadth of beam. A bigger man might find\n    ample accommodation in it. His ancestor, now pictured upon the wall,\n    with all his English beef about him, used hardly to present a front\n    extending from elbow to elbow of this chair, or a base that would cover\n    its whole cushion. But there are better chairs than this,--mahogany,\n    black walnut, rosewood, spring-seated and damask-cushioned, with varied\n    slopes, and innumerable artifices to make them easy, and obviate the\n    irksomeness of too tame an ease,--a score of such might be at Judge\n    Pyncheon's service. Yes! in a score of drawing-rooms he would be more\n    than welcome. Mamma would advance to meet him, with outstretched hand;\n    the virgin daughter, elderly as he has now got to be,--an old widower,\n    as he smilingly describes himself,--would shake up the cushion for the\n    Judge, and do her pretty utmost to make him comfortable. For the Judge\n    is a prosperous man. He cherishes his schemes, moreover, like other\n    people, and reasonably brighter than most others; or did so, at least,\n    as he lay abed this morning, in an agreeable half-drowse, planning the\n    business of the day, and speculating on the probabilities of the next\n    fifteen years. With his firm health, and the little inroad that age\n    has made upon him, fifteen years or twenty--yes, or perhaps\n    five-and-twenty!--are no more than he may fairly call his own. Five-and-twenty years for the enjoyment of his real estate in town and\n    country, his railroad, bank, and insurance shares, his United States\n    stock,--his wealth, in short, however invested, now in possession, or\n    soon to be acquired; together with the public honors that have fallen\n    upon him, and the weightier ones that are yet to fall! It is good! It\n    is excellent! It is enough! Still lingering in the old chair! If the Judge has a little time to\n    throw away, why does not he visit the insurance office, as is his\n    frequent custom, and sit awhile in one of their leathern-cushioned\n    arm-chairs, listening to the gossip of the day, and dropping some\n    deeply designed chance-word, which will be certain to become the gossip\n    of to-morrow. And have not the bank directors a meeting at which it\n    was the Judge's purpose to be present, and his office to preside? Indeed they have; and the hour is noted on a card, which is, or ought\n    to be, in Judge Pyncheon's right vest-pocket. Let him go thither, and\n    loll at ease upon his moneybags! He has lounged long enough in the old\n    chair! This was to have been such a busy day. In the first place, the\n    interview with Clifford. Half an hour, by the Judge's reckoning, was\n    to suffice for that; it would probably be less, but--taking into\n    consideration that Hepzibah was first to be dealt with, and that these\n    women are apt to make many words where a few would do much better--it\n    might be safest to allow half an hour. Half an hour? Why, Judge, it is\n    already two hours, by your own undeviatingly accurate chronometer. Glance your eye down at it and see! Ah; he will not give himself the\n    trouble either to bend his head, or elevate his hand, so as to bring\n    the faithful time-keeper within his range of vision! Time, all at once,\n    appears to have become a matter of no moment with the Judge! And has he forgotten all the other items of his memoranda? Clifford's\n    affair arranged, he was to meet a State Street broker, who has\n    undertaken to procure a heavy percentage, and the best of paper, for a\n    few loose thousands which the Judge happens to have by him, uninvested. The wrinkled note-shaver will have taken his railroad trip in vain. Half an hour later, in the street next to this, there was to be an\n    auction of real estate, including a portion of the old Pyncheon\n    property, originally belonging to Maule's garden ground. It has been\n    alienated from the Pyncheons these four-score years; but the Judge had\n    kept it in his eye, and had set his heart on reannexing it to the small\n    demesne still left around the Seven Gables; and now, during this odd\n    fit of oblivion, the fatal hammer must have fallen, and transferred our\n    ancient patrimony to some alien possessor. Possibly, indeed, the sale\n    may have been postponed till fairer weather. If so, will the Judge\n    make it convenient to be present, and favor the auctioneer with his\n    bid, On the proximate occasion? The next affair was to buy a horse for his own driving. The one\n    heretofore his favorite stumbled, this very morning, on the road to\n    town, and must be at once discarded. Judge Pyncheon's neck is too\n    precious to be risked on such a contingency as a stumbling steed. Should all the above business be seasonably got through with, he might\n    attend the meeting of a charitable society; the very name of which,\n    however, in the multiplicity of his benevolence, is quite forgotten; so\n    that this engagement may pass unfulfilled, and no great harm done. And\n    if he have time, amid the press of more urgent matters, he must take\n    measures for the renewal of Mrs. Pyncheon's tombstone, which, the\n    sexton tells him, has fallen on its marble face, and is cracked quite\n    in twain. She was a praiseworthy woman enough, thinks the Judge, in\n    spite of her nervousness, and the tears that she was so oozy with, and\n    her foolish behavior about the coffee; and as she took her departure so\n    seasonably, he will not grudge the second tombstone. It is better, at\n    least, than if she had never needed any!\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-01, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-03 The user is reading a book]\n<User> The next item on his list was\n    to give orders for some fruit-trees, of a rare variety, to be\n    deliverable at his country-seat in the ensuing autumn. Yes, buy them,\n    by all means; and may the peaches be luscious in your mouth, Judge\n    Pyncheon! After this comes something more important. A committee of\n    his political party has besought him for a hundred or two of dollars,\n    in addition to his previous disbursements, towards carrying on the fall\n    campaign. The Judge is a patriot; the fate of the country is staked on\n    the November election; and besides, as will be shadowed forth in\n    another paragraph, he has no trifling stake of his own in the same\n    great game. He will do what the committee asks; nay, he will be\n    liberal beyond their expectations; they shall have a check for five\n    hundred dollars, and more anon, if it be needed. What next? A decayed\n    widow, whose husband was Judge Pyncheon's early friend, has laid her\n    case of destitution before him, in a very moving letter. She and her\n    fair daughter have scarcely bread to eat. He partly intends to call on\n    her to-day,--perhaps so--perhaps not,--accordingly as he may happen to\n    have leisure, and a small bank-note. Another business, which, however, he puts no great weight on (it is\n            well, you know, to be heedful, but not over-anxious, as respects one's\n            personal health),--another business, then, was to consult his family\n    physician. About what, for Heaven's sake? Why, it is rather difficult\n    to describe the symptoms. A mere dimness of sight and dizziness of\n    brain, was it?--or disagreeable choking, or stifling, or gurgling, or\n    bubbling, in the region of the thorax, as the anatomists say?--or was\n    it a pretty severe throbbing and kicking of the heart, rather\n    creditable to him than otherwise, as showing that the organ had not\n    been left out of the Judge's physical contrivance? No matter what it\n    was. The doctor probably would smile at the statement of such trifles\n    to his professional ear; the Judge would smile in his turn; and meeting\n    one another's eyes, they would enjoy a hearty laugh together! But a fig\n    for medical advice. The Judge will never need it. Pray, pray, Judge Pyncheon, look at your watch, Now! What--not a\n    glance! It is within ten minutes of the dinner hour! It surely cannot\n    have slipped your memory that the dinner of to-day is to be the most\n    important, in its consequences, of all the dinners you ever ate. Yes,\n    precisely the most important; although, in the course of your somewhat\n    eminent career, you have been placed high towards the head of the\n    table, at splendid banquets, and have poured out your festive eloquence\n    to ears yet echoing with Webster's mighty organ-tones. No public\n    dinner this, however. It is merely a gathering of some dozen or so of\n    friends from several districts of the State; men of distinguished\n    character and influence, assembling, almost casually, at the house of a\n    common friend, likewise distinguished, who will make them welcome to a\n    little better than his ordinary fare. Nothing in the way of French\n    cookery, but an excellent dinner, nevertheless. Real turtle, we\n    understand, and salmon, tautog, canvas-backs, pig, English mutton, good\n    roast beef, or dainties of that serious kind, fit for substantial\n    country gentlemen, as these honorable persons mostly are. The\n    delicacies of the season, in short, and flavored by a brand of old\n    Madeira which has been the pride of many seasons. It is the Juno\n    brand; a glorious wine, fragrant, and full of gentle might; a\n    bottled-up happiness, put by for use; a golden liquid, worth more than\n    liquid gold; so rare and admirable, that veteran wine-bibbers count it\n    among their epochs to have tasted it! It drives away the heart-ache,\n    and substitutes no head-ache! Could the Judge but quaff a glass, it\n    might enable him to shake off the unaccountable lethargy which (for the\n            ten intervening minutes, and five to boot, are already past) has made\n    him such a laggard at this momentous dinner. It would all but revive a\n    dead man! Would you like to sip it now, Judge Pyncheon? Alas, this dinner. Have you really forgotten its true object? Then\n    let us whisper it, that you may start at once out of the oaken chair,\n    which really seems to be enchanted, like the one in Comus, or that in\n    which Moll Pitcher imprisoned your own grandfather. But ambition is a\n    talisman more powerful than witchcraft. Start up, then, and, hurrying\n    through the streets, burst in upon the company, that they may begin\n    before the fish is spoiled! They wait for you; and it is little for\n    your interest that they should wait. These gentlemen--need you be told\n    it?--have assembled, not without purpose, from every quarter of the\n    State. They are practised politicians, every man of them, and skilled\n    to adjust those preliminary measures which steal from the people,\n    without its knowledge, the power of choosing its own rulers. The\n    popular voice, at the next gubernatorial election, though loud as\n    thunder, will be really but an echo of what these gentlemen shall\n    speak, under their breath, at your friend's festive board. They meet\n    to decide upon their candidate. This little knot of subtle schemers\n    will control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party. And what worthier candidate,--more wise and learned, more noted for\n    philanthropic liberality, truer to safe principles, tried oftener by\n    public trusts, more spotless in private character, with a larger stake\n    in the common welfare, and deeper grounded, by hereditary descent, in\n    the faith and practice of the Puritans,--what man can be presented for\n    the suffrage of the people, so eminently combining all these claims to\n    the chief-rulership as Judge Pyncheon here before us? Make haste, then! Do your part! The meed for which you have toiled, and\n    fought, and climbed, and crept, is ready for your grasp! Be present at\n    this dinner!--drink a glass or two of that noble wine!--make your\n    pledges in as low a whisper as you will!--and you rise up from table\n    virtually governor of the glorious old State! Governor Pyncheon of\n    Massachusetts! And is there no potent and exhilarating cordial in a certainty like\n    this? It has been the grand purpose of half your lifetime to obtain it. Now, when there needs little more than to signify your acceptance, why\n    do you sit so lumpishly in your great-great-grandfather's oaken chair,\n    as if preferring it to the gubernatorial one? We have all heard of King\n    Log; but, in these jostling times, one of that royal kindred will\n    hardly win the race for an elective chief-magistracy. Well; it is absolutely too late for dinner! Turtle, salmon, tautog,\n    woodcock, boiled turkey, South-Down mutton, pig, roast-beef, have\n    vanished, or exist only in fragments, with lukewarm potatoes, and\n    gravies crusted over with cold fat. The Judge, had he done nothing\n    else, would have achieved wonders with his knife and fork. It was he,\n    you know, of whom it used to be said, in reference to his ogre-like\n    appetite, that his Creator made him a great animal, but that the\n    dinner-hour made him a great beast. Persons of his large sensual\n    endowments must claim indulgence, at their feeding-time. But, for\n    once, the Judge is entirely too late for dinner! Too late, we fear,\n    even to join the party at their wine! The guests are warm and merry;\nthey have given up the Judge; and, concluding that the Free-Soilers\nhave him, they will fix upon another candidate. Were our friend now to\nstalk in among them, with that wide-open stare, at once wild and\nstolid, his ungenial presence would be apt to change their cheer. Neither would it be seemly in Judge Pyncheon, generally so scrupulous\nin his attire, to show himself at a dinner-table with that crimson\nstain upon his shirt-bosom. By the bye, how came it there?\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-03, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-06 The user is reading a book]\n<User> It is an\nugly sight, at any rate; and the wisest way for the Judge is to button\nhis coat closely over his breast, and, taking his horse and chaise from\nthe livery stable, to make all speed to his own house. There, after a\nglass of brandy and water, and a mutton-chop, a beefsteak, a broiled\nfowl, or some such hasty little dinner and supper all in one, he had\nbetter spend the evening by the fireside. He must toast his slippers a\nlong while, in order to get rid of the chilliness which the air of this\nvile old house has sent curdling through his veins. Up, therefore, Judge Pyncheon, up! You have lost a day. But to-morrow\nwill be here anon. Will you rise, betimes, and make the most of it? To-morrow. To-morrow! To-morrow. We, that are alive, may rise betimes\nto-morrow. As for him that has died to-day, his morrow will be the\nresurrection morn. Meanwhile the twilight is glooming upward out of the corners of the\nroom. The shadows of the tall furniture grow deeper, and at first\nbecome more definite; then, spreading wider, they lose their\ndistinctness of outline in the dark gray tide of oblivion, as it were,\n             that creeps slowly over the various objects, and the one human figure\n             sitting in the midst of them. The gloom has not entered from without;\n             it has brooded here all day, and now, taking its own inevitable time,\n             will possess itself of everything. The Judge's face, indeed, rigid and\n             singularly white, refuses to melt into this universal solvent. Fainter\n             and fainter grows the light. It is as if another double-handful of\n             darkness had been scattered through the air. Now it is no longer gray,\n             but sable. There is still a faint appearance at the window; neither a\n             glow, nor a gleam, nor a glimmer,--any phrase of light would express\n             something far brighter than this doubtful perception, or sense, rather,\n             that there is a window there. Has it yet vanished? No!--yes!--not\n             quite! And there is still the swarthy whiteness,--we shall venture to\n             marry these ill-agreeing words,--the swarthy whiteness of Judge\n             Pyncheon's face. The features are all gone: there is only the paleness\n             of them left. And how looks it now? There is no window! There is no\n             face! An infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where\n             is our universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos,\n             may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and\n             murmuring about in quest of what was once a world! Is there no other sound? One other, and a fearful one. It is the\n             ticking of the Judge's watch, which, ever since Hepzibah left the room\n             in search of Clifford, he has been holding in his hand. Be the cause\n             what it may, this little, quiet, never-ceasing throb of Time's pulse,\n             repeating its small strokes with such busy regularity, in Judge\n             Pyncheon's motionless hand, has an effect of terror, which we do not\n             find in any other accompaniment of the scene. But, listen! That puff of the breeze was louder. It had a tone unlike\n             the dreary and sullen one which has bemoaned itself, and afflicted all\n             mankind with miserable sympathy, for five days past. The wind has\n             veered about! It now comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking\n             hold of the aged framework of the Seven Gables, gives it a shake, like\n             a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist. Another and\n             another sturdy tussle with the blast! The old house creaks again, and\n             makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty\n             throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in\n             complaint at the rude wind, but rather, as befits their century and a\n             half of hostile intimacy, in tough defiance. A rumbling kind of a\n             bluster roars behind the fire-board. A door has slammed above stairs. A window, perhaps, has been left open, or else is driven in by an\n             unruly gust. It is not to be conceived, before-hand, what wonderful\n             wind-instruments are these old timber mansions, and how haunted with\n             the strangest noises, which immediately begin to sing, and sigh, and\n             sob, and shriek,--and to smite with sledge-hammers, airy but ponderous,\n             in some distant chamber,--and to tread along the entries as with\n             stately footsteps, and rustle up and down the staircase, as with silks\n             miraculously stiff,--whenever the gale catches the house with a window\n             open, and gets fairly into it. Would that we were not an attendant\n             spirit here! It is too awful! This clamor of the wind through the\n             lonely house; the Judge's quietude, as he sits invisible; and that\n             pertinacious ticking of his watch! As regards Judge Pyncheon's invisibility, however, that matter will\n             soon be remedied. The northwest wind has swept the sky clear. The\n             window is distinctly seen. Through its panes, moreover, we dimly catch\n             the sweep of the dark, clustering foliage outside, fluttering with a\n             constant irregularity of movement, and letting in a peep of starlight,\n             now here, now there. Oftener than any other object, these glimpses\n             illuminate the Judge's face. But here comes more effectual light. Observe that silvery dance upon the upper branches of the pear-tree,\n             and now a little lower, and now on the whole mass of boughs, while,\n             through their shifting intricacies, the moonbeams fall aslant into the\n             room. They play over the Judge's figure and show that he has not\n             stirred throughout the hours of darkness. They follow the shadows, in\n             changeful sport, across his unchanging features. They gleam upon his\n             watch. His grasp conceals the dial-plate,--but we know that the\n             faithful hands have met; for one of the city clocks tells midnight. A man of sturdy understanding, like Judge Pyncheon, cares no more for\n             twelve o'clock at night than for the corresponding hour of noon. However just the parallel drawn, in some of the preceding pages,\n             between his Puritan ancestor and himself, it fails in this point. The\n             Pyncheon of two centuries ago, in common with most of his\n             contemporaries, professed his full belief in spiritual ministrations,\n             although reckoning them chiefly of a malignant character. The Pyncheon\n             of to-night, who sits in yonder arm-chair, believes in no such\n             nonsense. Such, at least, was his creed, some few hours since. His\n             hair will not bristle, therefore, at the stories which--in times when\n             chimney-corners had benches in them, where old people sat poking into\n             the ashes of the past, and raking out traditions like live coals--used\n             to be told about this very room of his ancestral house. In fact, these\n             tales are too absurd to bristle even childhood's hair. What sense,\n             meaning, or moral, for example, such as even ghost-stories should be\n             susceptible of, can be traced in the ridiculous legend, that, at\n             midnight, all the dead Pyncheons are bound to assemble in this parlor? And, pray, for what? Why, to see whether the portrait of their ancestor\n             still keeps its place upon the wall, in compliance with his\n             testamentary directions! Is it worth while to come out of their graves\n             for that? We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghost-stories are\n             hardly to be treated seriously any longer. The family-party of the\n             defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise. First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak, steeple-hat, and\n             trunk-breeches, girt about the waist with a leathern belt, in which\n             hangs his steel-hilted sword; he has a long staff in his hand, such as\n             gentlemen in advanced life used to carry, as much for the dignity of\n             the thing as for the support to be derived from it. He looks up at the\n             portrait; a thing of no substance, gazing at its own painted image! All\n             is safe. The picture is still there. The purpose of his brain has\n             been kept sacred thus long after the man himself has sprouted up in\n             graveyard grass. See! he lifts his ineffectual hand, and tries the\n             frame.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-06, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-09 The user is reading a book]\n<User> All safe! But is that a smile?--is it not, rather a frown of\n             deadly import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? The stout\n             Colonel is dissatisfied! So decided is his look of discontent as to\n             impart additional distinctness to his features; through which,\n             nevertheless, the moonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond. Something has strangely vexed the ancestor! With a grim shake of the\n             head, he turns away. Here come other Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in\n             their half a dozen generations, jostling and elbowing one another, to\n             reach the picture. We behold aged men and grandames, a clergyman with\n             the Puritanic stiffness still in his garb and mien, and a red-coated\n             officer of the old French war; and there comes the shop-keeping\n             Pyncheon of a century ago, with the ruffles turned back from his\n             wrists; and there the periwigged and brocaded gentleman of the artist's\n             legend, with the beautiful and pensive Alice, who brings no pride out\n             of her virgin grave. All try the picture-frame. What do these ghostly\n             people seek? A mother lifts her child, that his little hands may touch\n             it! There is evidently a mystery about the picture, that perplexes\n             these poor Pyncheons when they ought to be at rest. In a corner,\n             meanwhile, stands the figure of an elderly man, in a leathern jerkin\n             and breeches, with a carpenter's rule sticking out of his side pocket;\n             he points his finger at the bearded Colonel and his descendants,\n             nodding, jeering, mocking, and finally bursting into obstreperous,\n             though inaudible laughter. Indulging our fancy in this freak, we have partly lost the power of\n             restraint and guidance. We distinguish an unlooked-for figure in our\n             visionary scene. Among those ancestral people there is a young man,\n             dressed in the very fashion of to-day:  he wears a dark frock-coat,\n             almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent\n             leather, and has a finely wrought gold chain across his breast, and a\n             little silver-headed whalebone stick in his hand. Were we to meet this\n             figure at noonday, we should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the\n             Judge's only surviving child, who has been spending the last two years\n             in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? If\n             dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon property, together with the\n             great estate acquired by the young man's father, would devolve on whom? On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and rustic little Phoebe! But another and a greater marvel greets us! Can we believe our eyes? A\n             stout, elderly gentleman has made his appearance; he has an aspect of\n             eminent respectability, wears a black coat and pantaloons, of roomy\n             width, and might be pronounced scrupulously neat in his attire, but for\n             a broad crimson stain across his snowy neckcloth and down his\n             shirt-bosom. Is it the Judge, or no? How can it be Judge Pyncheon? We\n             discern his figure, as plainly as the flickering moonbeams can show us\n             anything, still seated in the oaken chair! Be the apparition whose it\n             may, it advances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, tries to\n             peep behind it, and turns away, with a frown as black as the ancestral\n             one. The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no means be considered as\n             forming an actual portion of our story. We were betrayed into this\n             brief extravagance by the quiver of the moonbeams; they dance\n             hand-in-hand with shadows, and are reflected in the looking-glass,\n             which, you are aware, is always a kind of window or doorway into the\n             spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too long and\n             exclusive contemplation of that figure in the chair. This wild wind,\n             too, has tossed our thoughts into strange confusion, but without\n             tearing them away from their one determined centre. Yonder leaden\n             Judge sits immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again? We shall\n             go mad unless he stirs! You may the better estimate his quietude by the\n             fearlessness of a little mouse, which sits on its hind legs, in a\n             streak of moonlight, close by Judge Pyncheon's foot, and seems to\n             meditate a journey of exploration over this great black bulk. Ha! what\n             has startled the nimble little mouse? It is the visage of grimalkin,\n             outside of the window, where he appears to have posted himself for a\n             deliberate watch. This grimalkin has a very ugly look. Is it a cat\n             watching for a mouse, or the devil for a human soul? Would we could\n             scare him from the window! Thank Heaven, the night is well-nigh past! The moonbeams have no longer\n             so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the blackness of the\n             shadows among which they fall. They are paler now; the shadows look\n             gray, not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah! the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the Judge's forgetful fingers\n             neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o'clock, being half an hour\n             or so before his ordinary bedtime,--and it has run down, for the first\n             time in five years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its\n             beat. The dreary night--for, oh, how dreary seems its haunted waste,\n             behind us!--gives place to a fresh, transparent, cloudless morn. Blessed, blessed radiance! The daybeam--even what little of it finds\n             its way into this always dusky parlor--seems part of the universal\n             benediction, annulling evil, and rendering all goodness possible, and\n             happiness attainable. Will Judge Pyncheon now rise up from his chair? Will he go forth, and receive the early sunbeams on his brow? Will he\n             begin this new day,--which God has smiled upon, and blessed, and given\n             to mankind,--will he begin it with better purposes than the many that\n             have been spent amiss? Or are all the deep-laid schemes of yesterday as\n             stubborn in his heart, and as busy in his brain, as ever? In this latter case, there is much to do. Will the Judge still insist\n             with Hepzibah on the interview with Clifford? Will he buy a safe,\n             elderly gentleman's horse? Will he persuade the purchaser of the old\n             Pyncheon property to relinquish the bargain in his favor? Will he see\n             his family physician, and obtain a medicine that shall preserve him, to\n             be an honor and blessing to his race, until the utmost term of\n             patriarchal longevity? Will Judge Pyncheon, above all, make due\n             apologies to that company of honorable friends, and satisfy them that\n             his absence from the festive board was unavoidable, and so fully\n             retrieve himself in their good opinion that he shall yet be Governor of\n             Massachusetts? And all these great purposes accomplished, will he walk\n             the streets again, with that dog-day smile of elaborate benevolence,\n             sultry enough to tempt flies to come and buzz in it? Or will he, after\n             the tomb-like seclusion of the past day and night, go forth a humbled\n             and repentant man, sorrowful, gentle, seeking no profit, shrinking from\n             worldly honor, hardly daring to love God, but bold to love his fellow\n             man, and to do him what good he may? Will he bear about with him,--no\n             odious grin of feigned benignity, insolent in its pretence, and\n             loathsome in its falsehood,--but the tender sadness of a contrite\n             heart, broken, at last, beneath its own weight of sin? For it is our\n             belief, whatever show of honor he may have piled upon it, that there\n             was heavy sin at the base of this man's being. Rise up, Judge Pyncheon! The morning sunshine glimmers through the\n             foliage, and, beautiful and holy as it is, shuns not to kindle up your\n             face. Rise up, thou subtle, worldly, selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite,\n             and make thy choice whether still to be subtle, worldly, selfish,\n             iron-hearted, and hypocritical, or to tear these sins out of thy\n             nature, though they bring the lifeblood with them! The Avenger is upon\n             thee! Rise up, before it be too late! What! Thou art not stirred by this last appeal? No, not a jot!\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-09, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far.", "[Event happened on 2024-01-11 The user is reading a book]\n<User> And\n             there we see a fly,--one of your common house-flies, such as are always\n             buzzing on the window-pane,--which has smelt out Governor Pyncheon, and\n             alights, now on his forehead, now on his chin, and now, Heaven help us! is creeping over the bridge of his nose, towards the would-be\n             chief-magistrate's wide-open eyes! Canst thou not brush the fly away? Art thou too sluggish? Thou man, that hadst so many busy projects\n             yesterday! Art thou too weak, that wast so powerful? Not brush away a\n             fly? Nay, then, we give thee up! And hark! the shop-bell rings. After hours like these latter ones,\n             through which we have borne our heavy tale, it is good to be made\n             sensible that there is a living world, and that even this old, lonely\n             mansion retains some manner of connection with it. We breathe more\n             freely, emerging from Judge Pyncheon's presence into the street before\n             the Seven Gables.\n\n<System> Please remember what the user reads on 2024-01-11, save the details within the book, and retain a summary of the book the user has read so far."]
[{"question": "Summarize the content of the book I read from 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-11", "answer": "Judge Pyncheon, House of the Seven Gables, dead with eyes open, watch, Jaffrey Pyncheon, missed plans, family physician, dimness of sight, dizziness, party meeting, candidacy for governor, night, important day, death in the house, announcement"}]