Гилберт Честертон: Английский с улыбкой. Охотничьи рассказы / Tales of the Long Bow

“I do not think,” she answered in a low voice, “that life after death is too good to be true.”

When he looked at her a thrill went through him like a message too quick to be understood; and at the back of his mind something awoke that repeated again and again like a song the same words, “too good to be true.” There was always something distressing, even in her days of pride, about the short-sighted look of her half-closed eyes; but it was for other reasons that they were now blinking in the strong white sunlight, almost as if they were blind. They were blind and bright with tears:she gained control of her voice and it was steady.

“You talk about failures,” she said. “I suppose most people would call me a failure and all my people failures now – except those who would say we never failed, because we never had to try. Anyway, we’re all poor enough now. I don’t know whether you know that I teach music. I dare say we deserved to go. I dare say we were useless. Some of us tried to be harmless. But – but now I MUST say something, about some of us who tried rather hard to be harmless – in that way. The new rich people will tell you those ideals were aristocratic, and all that – well, it doesn’t matter what they say. They know quite as little about us as we about them. But to you, when you talk like that… what can I do, but tell you that you that if we were stiff, if we were cold, if we were careful and conservative, it was because deep down in our souls some of us DID believe that there might be loyalty and love like that, for which a woman can wait even to the end of the world. What is it to these people if we chose not to be drugged or distracted with anything less worthy? But it would be hard indeed if when I find it DOES exist after all… hard on you, harder on me, if when I have really found it at last…”

She stopped and couldn’t speak anymore. The silence caught and held her.

He took one stride forward as into the heart of a whirlwind; and they met on the top of that windy hill as if they had come from the ends of the earth.

“This is an epic,” he said, “and an epic demands actions, not words. I have lived with words too long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you have turned me into a man of action,” he replied. “As long as you were in the past, nothing was better than the past. As long as you were only a dream, nothing was better than dreaming. But now I am going to do something that no man has ever done before.”

He turned towards the valley and raised his hand with a gesture, almost as if the hand was holding a sword.

“I am going to break the Prophecy,” he cried in a loud voice. “I am going to make fun of my evil star. Those who called me a failure will admit I have succeeded where all humanity has failed. The real hero is not he who is bold enough to fulfil the predictions, but he who is bold enough to make them false. And you will see how it happens tonight.”

“What in the world are you going to do?” she asked.

He laughed suddenly. “The first thing to do,” he cried, turning around with a new look of resolution and even cheerfulness on his face, “the very first thing to do is to Vote for Hunter. Or, at any rate, help to get him into Parliament.”

“But why in the world,” she asked wondering, “do you want so much to get Dr. Hunter into Parliament?”

“Well, we must do something,” he said with an appearance of good sense, “to celebrate the occasion. We must do something; and after all he must go somewhere, poor devil. You will say, why not throw him into the river? It would make us feel better and make a splash. But I’m going to make something much bigger than a splash. Besides, I don’t want him in my nice river. I’d much rather pick him up and throw him all the way to Westminster. Much more sensible and suitable. Obviously there should be a brass band and a torchlight procession somewhere tonight; and why shouldn’t he have a bit of the fun?”

He stopped suddenly as if surprised at his own words. Indeed, for him his own phrase fell with the significance of a falling star.

“Of course!” he muttered. “A torchlight procession! I thought that what I wanted was trumpets and what I really want is torches. Yes, I believe it can be done! Yes, the hour has come! By stars and comets, I will give him a torchlight procession!”

He was almost dancing with excitement on the top of the hill; now he suddenly went running down the slope beyond, calling to the girl to follow, as carelessly as if they were two children playing. Strangely enough, perhaps, she did follow; more strangely still when we consider the extravagant scenes through which she allowed herself to be led. They were scenes from a completely different world than all her sensitive and even secretive dignity.

This world was loud with lies and vulgarity. For her it was like joining a travelling circus right before the end of the world. It was as if a Carnival day could also be a Day of Judgement. But the farce could no longer offend her, so the tragedy could no longer terrify. She went through it all with a pale smile, which probably nobody in the world understood. It was not in the normal sense excitement; yet it was something much more positive than patience. Perhaps in a way, more than ever before in her lonely life, she was sitting in her ivory tower; but it was all bright within, as if it were lit up with candles or decorated with gold.

Hood’s wide movements brought them to the bank of the river and the offices of the factory, all of which were covered with the coloured posters of Dr. Hunter, and one of which was obviously a busy committee-room. Hood actually met Mr. Low coming out of it, dressed in a fur coat and bursting with speechless effectiveness. But Mr. Low’s little black eyes glistened with an astonishment bordering on suspicion when Hood in the most friendly fashion offered his sympathy and co-operation. That strange subconscious fear, that underlay all the wealthy manager’s success and security in this country, always came to the surface at the sight of Owen Hood’s ironical face.

Just at that moment, however, one of the local agents ran to him with telegrams in his hand and distracted him. They didn’t have enough men, they didn’t have enough cars, they didn’t have enough speakers. The crowd at Little Puddleton had waited half an hour, Dr. Hunter could not come to them till ten past nine, and so on. The agent in his agony was ready to ask a black person to speak on behalf of a nationalist party without asking him about his own opinions. That’s how impractical all these practical people are. On that night Robert Owen Hood would have been encouraged to go anywhere and say anything; and he did. It might be interesting to imagine what the lady thought about it; but it is possible that she did not think about it. She had some memory of passing through a number of ugly rooms with gas lamps and piles of leaflets, where little irritated men ran about like rabbits. The walls were covered with large allegorical pictures printed in black and white or in a few bright colours, representing Dr. Hunter as a knight in shining armour, as killing dragons, as rescuing ladies who looked like classical goddesses, and so on. Just in case someone might think that Dr. Hunter had a habit of killing dragons as part of his everyday routine (as a form of exercise) the dragon had its name written down in large letters.

It seemed its name was “National Extravagance [24]”. For those who were not sure about the alternative to extravagance which Dr. Hunter had discovered the sword was decorated with the word “Economy.” Elizabeth Seymour, who was watching these pictures, could not avoid thinking that she herself had lately practised economy a lot and had resisted many temptations to extravagance; but she would have never thought about the action as about killing a big green monster with a sword.