"G.K.Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. A nightmare (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

services to the cause were considerable. He organised the great dynamite
coup of Brighton which, under happier circumstances, ought to have killed
everybody on the pier. As you also know, his death was as self-denying as
his life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic mixture of chalk and
water as a substitute for milk, which beverage he regarded as barbaric, and
as involving cruelty to the cow. Cruelty, or anything approaching to
cruelty, revolted him always. But it is not to acclaim his virtues that we
are met, but for a harder task. It is difficult properly to praise his
qualities, but it is more difficult to replace them. Upon you, comrades, it
devolves this evening to choose out of the company present the man who shall
be Thursday. If any comrade suggests a name I will put it to the vote. If no
comrade suggests a name, I can only tell myself that that dear dynamiter,
who is gone from us, has carried into the unknowable abysses the last secret
of his virtue and his innocence."
There was a stir of almost inaudible applause, such as is sometimes
heard in church. Then a large old man, with a long and venerable white
beard, perhaps the only real working-man present, rose lumberingly and
said--
"I move that Comrade Gregory be elected Thursday," and sat lumberingly
down again.
"Does anyone second?" asked the chairman.
A little man with a velvet coat and pointed beard seconded.
"Before I put the matter to the vote," said the chairman, "I will call
on Comrade Gregory to make a statement."
Gregory rose amid a great rumble of applause. His face was deadly pale,
so that by contrast his queer red hair looked almost scarlet. But he was
smiling and altogether at ease. He had made up his mind, and he saw his best
policy quite plain in front of him like a white road. His best chance was to
make a softened and ambiguous speech, such as would leave on the detective's
mind the impression that the anarchist brotherhood was a very mild affair
after all. He believed in his own literary power, his capacity for
suggesting fine shades and picking perfect words. He thought that with care
he could succeed, in spite of all the people around him, in conveying an
impression of the institution, subtly and delicately false. Syme had once
thought that anarchists, under all their bravado, were only playing the
fool. Could he not now, in the hour of peril, make Syme think so again?
"Comrades," began Gregory, in a low but penetrating voice, "it is not
necessary for me to tell you what is my policy, for it is your policy also.
Our belief has been slandered, it has been disfigured, it has been utterly
confused and concealed, but it has never been altered. Those who talk about
anarchism and its dangers go everywhere and anywhere to get their
information, except to us, except to the fountain head. They learn about
anarchists from sixpenny novels; they learn about anarchists from
tradesmen's newspapers; they learn about anarchists from Ally Sloper's
Half-Holiday and the Sporting Times. They never learn about anarchists from
anarchists. We have no chance of denying the mountainous slanders which are
heaped upon our heads from one end of Europe to another. The man who has
always heard that we are walking plagues has never heard our reply. I know
that he will not hear it tonight, though my passion were to rend the roof.
For it is deep, deep under the earth that the persecuted are permitted to