The Storyteller (TV Series)

The Soldier and Death (1988)

John Hurt: The Storyteller

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Storyteller : The devils rushed to Hell and slammed shut the doors for fear of being followed by the soldier and his sack. And they trembled and quivered and fumed, fumed, fumed. But the soldier had no time for devils. He was the toast of the town and the star of the Tzar. But howsoever life smiles on us, the last laugh is reserved for death...

• The Storyteller : And so the soldier set up in his new trade as miracle man and travelled the world on a camel with his magic glass. Show him a sick man and he would hold up the glass. If Death sat at the foot of the bed, a quick splish, splash and up the invalid would sit, pouring out blessings. If Death stood staring at the other end, the soldier would shake his head solemnly and depart. And the relatives would mutter: 'What a pitty he came too late' and pay him all the same.

• Storyteller's Dog : So, nothing died?

  The Storyteller : Nothing. The oddest battles. There were wars going on in most places and they were very strange. At the end of a day's carnage, flashing swords and explosions, the air thick with arrows and savage swoosh of axes, nobody had died... The armies would look at each others exhausted and intact. Duels at dawn went on 'til midnight when the rivals would go home confused. Crossed lovers would thrown themselves off cliffs... and have a long climb back.

• The Storyteller : The soldier waited and waited an inch from paradise. Until after a long time, forgotten, he turned and walked slowly back to Earth. And for all I know he wanders still.

• The Storyteller : It begins a thousand miles from anywhere. After twenty years of war, with a soldier, an honest soul with nothing but a shilling in his pocket and three dried biscuits for the long trudge home...

• The Storyteller : And the landlord roasted him the goose in cloven honey and brought it back with a bottle of best wine. And the soldier ate it all and sucked the bones and drank the wine and danced until the morning when he sank, swam, flopped into bed... Three days later he woke up and looked out of the window and there on the hill he saw a palace...

• Innkeeper : These are devlish devils, and gamblers too.

  Soldier : I think I'll take a closer look.

  [leaves] 

  Innkeeper : But that's folly!

  The Storyteller : [narrating]  Folly or not, the soldier goes, sack on his shoulder, whistle on his lips, into the palace.

  The Storyteller : [the Soldier enters the empty palace, whistling]  And inside it's very quiet. As if the walls were holding their breath... and waiting.

• The Storyteller : Oh... yes, everything is dandy with our friend the good soldier and his magic sack. Rewarded by the Tsar, he's a rich gentleman now, a husband, and a father and lives in the castle. Blessed, caressed and couldn't be better. Until one day, because fate is fickle, one day, because fortune is cruel, his son falls into a terrible fever.

• The Storyteller : Good, eh? Death a prisoner. The news whispered from one of the Tsar's fifty wives to the others spread through the town as fast as gossip, which is what it was, and nothing spreads faster. And within four-and-a-half minutes the whole town knew. And within seventeen minutes the whole country knew. And by the following morning it was the talking point of a thousand languages.