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Chapter One
The book you are holding in your two
hands right now'assuming that you are, in
fact, holding this book, and that you have
only two hands'is one of two books in the
world that will show you the difference
between the word ìnervousî
and the word ìanxious.î The
other book, of course, is the dictionary,
and if I were you I would read that book
instead.
Like this book, the dictionary shows
you that the word ìnervousî
means ìworried about
somethingî--you might feel nervous,
for instance, if you were served prune ice
cream for dessert, because you would be
worried that it would taste awful--whereas
the word ìanxiousî means
ìtroubled by disturbing
suspense,î which you might feel if
you were served a live alligator for
dessert, because you would be troubled by
the disturbing suspense about whether you
would eat your dessert or it would eat
you. But unlike this book, the dictionary
also discusses words that are far more
pleasant to contemplate. The word
ìbubbleî is in the
dictionary, for instance, as is the word
ìpeacock,î the word
ìvacation,î and the words
ìtheî ìauthor'sî
ìexecutionî
ìhasî ìbeenî
ìcanceled,î which make up a
sentence that is always pleasant to hear.
So if you were to read the dictionary,
rather than this book, you could skip the
parts about ìnervousî and
ìanxiousî and read about
things that wouldn't keep you up all night
long, weeping and tearing out your
hair.
But this book is not the dictionary,
and if you were to skip the parts about
ìnervousî and
ìanxiousî in this book, you
would be skipping the most pleasant
sections in the entire story. Nowhere in
this book will you find the words
ìbubble,î
ìpeacock,î
ìvacation,î or, unfortunately
for me, anything about an execution being
canceled. Instead, I'm sorry to say, you
will find the words ìgrief,
ìdespair,î and
ìwoefulî as well as the
phrases ìdark passageway,î
ìCount Olaf in disguise,î and
ìthe Baudelaire orphans were
trapped,î plus an assortment of
miserable words and phrases that I cannot
bring myself to write down. In short,
reading a dictionary might make you feel
nervous, because you would worry about
finding it very boring, but reading this
book will make you feel anxious, because
you will be troubled by the disturbing
suspense in which the Baudelaire orphans
find themselves, and if I were you I would
drop this book right out of your two or
more hands and curl up with a dictionary
instead, because all the miserable words I
must use to describe these unfortunate
events are about to reach your eyes.
ìI imagine you must be
nervous,î Mr. Poe said. Mr. Poe was
a banker who had been put in charge of the
Baudelaire orphans following the death of
their parents in a horrible fire. I am
sorry to say that Mr. Poe had not done a
very good job so far, and that the
Baudelaires had learned that the only
thing they could rely on with Mr. Poe was
that he always had a cough. Sure enough,
as soon as he finished his sentence, he
took out his white handkerchief and
coughed into it.
The flash of white cotton was
practically the only thing the Baudelaire
orphans could see. Violet, Klaus, and
Sunny were standing with Mr. Poe in front
of an enormous apartment building on Dark
Avenue, a street in one of the fanciest
districts in the city. Although Dark
Avenue was just a few blocks away from
where the Baudelaire mansion had been, the
three children had never been in this
neighborhood before, and they had assumed
that the ìdarkî in Dark
Avenue was simply a name and nothing more,
the way a street named George Washington
Boulevard does not necessarily indicate
that George Washington lives there or the
way Sixth Street has not been divided into
six equal parts. But this afternoon the
Baudelaires realized that Dark Avenue was
more than a name. It was an appropriate
description. Rather than streetlamps,
placed at regular intervals along the
sidewalk were enormous trees the likes of
which the children had never seen
before--and which they could scarcely see
now. High above a thick and prickly trunk,
the branches of the trees drooped down
like laundry hung out to dry, spreading
their wide, flat leaves out in every
direction, like a low, leafy ceiling over
the Baudelaires' heads. This ceiling
blocked out all the light from above, so
even though it was the middle of the
afternoon, the street looked as dark as
evening--if a bit greener. It was hardly a
good way to make three orphans feel
welcome as they approached their new
home.
ìYou have nothing to be nervous
about,î
Mr. Poe said, putting his handkerchief
back in his pocket. ìI realize some
of your previous guardians have caused a
little...
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