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

first formal words in a moderated tone and with a brief simplicity, he made
his next word ring and volley in the vault as if one of the guns had gone
off.
"Comrades!" he cried, in a voice that made every man jump out of his
boots, "have we come here for this? Do we live underground like rats in
order to listen to talk like this? This is talk we might listen to while
eating buns at a Sunday School treat. Do we line these walls with weapons
and bar that door with death lest anyone should come and hear Comrade
Gregory saying to us, 'Be good, and you will be happy,' 'Honesty is the best
policy,' and 'Virtue is its own reward'? There was not a word in Comrade
Gregory's address to which a curate could not have listened with pleasure
(hear, hear). But I am not a curate (loud cheers), and I did not listen to
it with pleasure (renewed cheers). The man who is fitted to make a good
curate is not fitted to make a resolute, forcible, and efficient Thursday
(hear, hear)."
"Comrade Gregory has told us, in only too apologetic a tone, that we
are not the enemies of society. But I say that we are the enemies of
society, and so much the worse for society. We are the enemies of society,
for society is the enemy of humanity, its oldest and its most pitiless enemy
(hear, hear). Comrade Gregory has told us (apologetically again) that we are
not murderers. There I agree. We are not murderers, we are executioners
(cheers)."
Ever since Syme had risen Gregory had sat staring at him, his face
idiotic with astonishment. Now in the pause his lips of clay parted, and he
said, with an automatic and lifeless distinctness--
"You damnable hypocrite!"
Syme looked straight into those frightful eyes with his own pale blue
ones, and said with dignity--
"Comrade Gregory accuses me of hypocrisy. He knows as well as I do that
I am keeping all my engagements and doing nothing but my duty. I do not
mince words. I do not pretend to. I say that Comrade Gregory is unfit to be
Thursday for all his amiable qualities. He is unfit to be Thursday because
of his amiable qualities. We do not want the Supreme Council of Anarchy
infected with a maudlin mercy (hear, hear). This is no time for ceremonial
politeness, neither is it a time for ceremonial modesty. I set myself
against Comrade Gregory as I would set myself against all the Governments of
Europe, because the anarchist who has given himself to anarchy has forgotten
modesty as much as he has forgotten pride (cheers). I am not a man at all. I
am a cause (renewed cheers). I set myself against Comrade Gregory as
impersonally and as calmly as I should choose one pistol rather than another
out of that rack upon the wall; and I say that rather than have Gregory and
his milk-and-water methods on the Supreme Council, I would offer myself for
election--"
His sentence was drowned in a deafening cataract of applause. The
faces, that had grown fiercer and fiercer with approval as his tirade grew
more and more uncompromising, were now distorted with grins of anticipation
or cloven with delighted cries. At the moment when he announced himself as
ready to stand for the post of Thursday, a roar of excitement and assent
broke forth, and became uncontrollable, and at the same moment Gregory
sprang to his feet, with foam upon his mouth, and shouted against the