"Wells, H G - Soul Of A Bishop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

He groaned helplessly.

(4)


These country doctors were no good. There wasn't a physician in
the diocese. He must go to London.

He looked into the weary eyes of his reflection and said, as
one makes a reassuring promise, "London."

He was being worried. He was being intolerably worried, and he
was ill and unable to sustain his positions. This doubt, this
sudden discovery of controversial unsoundness, was only one
aspect of his general neurasthenia. It had been creeping into his
mind since the "Light Unden the Altar" controversy. Now suddenly
it had leapt upon him from his own unwary lips.

The immediate trouble arose from his loyalty. He had followed
the King's example; he had become a total abstainer and, in
addition, on his own account he had ceased to smoke. And his
digestion, which Princhester had first made sensitive, was
deranged. He was suffering chemically, suffering one of those
nameless sequences of maladjustments that still defy our ordinary
medical science. It was afflicting him with a general malaise, it
was affecting his energy, his temper, all the balance and comfort
of his nerves. All day he was weary; all night he was wakeful. He
was estranged from his body. He was distressed by a sense of
detachment from the things about him, by a curious intimation of
unreality in everything he experienced. And with that went this
levity of conscience, a heaviness of soul and a levity of
conscience, that could make him talk as though the Creeds did not
matter--as though nothing mattered....

If only he could smoke!

He was persuaded that a couple of Egyptian cigarettes, or three
at the outside, a day, would do wonders in restoring his nervous
calm. That, and just a weak whisky and soda at lunch and dinner.
Suppose now--!

His conscience, his sense of honour, deserted him. Latterly he
had had several of these conscience-blanks; it was only when they
were over that he realized that they had occurred.

One might smoke up the chimney, he reflected. But he had no
cigarettes! Perhaps if he were to slip downstairs....

Why had he given up smoking?