Section 1
I SEEMED to awaken1 out of a refreshing2 sleep.
I did not awaken with a start, but opened my eyes, and lay very comfortably looking at a line of extraordinarily3 scarlet4 poppies that glowed against a glowing sky. It was the sky of a magnificent sunrise, and an archipelago of gold-beached purple islands floated in a sea of golden green. The poppies too, swan-necked buds, blazing corollas, translucent5 stout6 seed-vessels, stoutly7 upheld, had a luminous8 quality, seemed wrought9 only from some more solid kind of light.
I stared unwonderingly at these things for a time, and then there rose upon my consciousness, intermingling with these, the bristling10 golden green heads of growing barley11.
A remote faint question, where I might be, drifted and vanished again in my mind. Everything was very still.
Everything was as still as death.
I felt very light, full of the sense of physical well-being12. I perceived I was lying on my side in a little trampled13 space in a weedy, flowering barley field, that was in some inexplicable14 way saturated15 with light and beauty. I sat up, and remained for a long time filled with the delight and charm of the delicate little convolvulus that twined among the barley stems, the pimpernel that laced the ground below.
Then that question returned. What was this place? How had I come to be sleeping here?
I could not remember.
It perplexed16 me that somehow my body felt strange to me. It was unfamiliar17 — I could not tell how — and the barley, and the beautiful weeds, and the slowly developing glory of the dawn behind; all those things partook of the same unfamiliarity18. I felt as though I was a thing in some very luminous painted window, as though this dawn broke through me. I felt I was part of some exquisite19 picture painted in light and joy.
A faint breeze bent20 and rustled21 the barley-heads, and jogged my mind forward.
Who was I? That was a good way of beginning.
I held up my left hand and arm before me, a grubby hand, a frayed23 cuff24; but with a quality of painted unreality, transfigured as a beggar might have been by Botticelli. I looked for a time steadfastly25 at a beautiful pearl sleeve-link.
I remembered Willie Leadford, who had owned that arm and hand, as though he had been some one else.
Of course! My history — its rough outline rather than the immediate26 past — began to shape itself in my memory, very small, very bright and inaccessible27, like a thing watched through a microscope. Clayton and Swathinglea returned to my mind; the slums and darkness, Dureresque, minute and in their rich dark colors pleasing, and through them I went towards my destiny. I sat hands on knees recalling that queer passionate28 career that had ended with my futile30 shot into the growing darkness of the End. The thought of that shot awoke my emotions again.
There was something in it now, something absurd, that made me smile pityingly.
Poor little angry, miserable31 creature! Poor little angry, miserable world!
I sighed for pity, not only pity for myself, but for all the hot hearts, the tormented32 brains, the straining, striving things of hope and pain, who had found their peace at last beneath the pouring mist and suffocation33 of the comet. Because certainly that world was over and done. They were all so weak and unhappy, and I was now so strong and so serene34. For I felt sure I was dead; no one living could have this perfect assurance of good, this strong and confident peace. I had made an end of the fever called living. I was dead, and it was all right, and these ———?
I felt an inconsistency.
These, then, must be the barley fields of God!— the still and silent barley fields of God, full of unfading poppy flowers whose seeds bear peace.
Section 2
It was queer to find barley fields in heaven, but no doubt there were many surprises in store for me.
How still everything was! Peace! The peace that passeth understanding. After all it had come to me! But, indeed, everything was very still! No bird sang. Surely I was alone in the world! No birds sang. Yes, and all the distant sounds of life had ceased, the lowing of cattle, the barking of dogs . . . .
Something that was like fear beatified came into my heart. It was all right, I knew; but to be alone! I stood up and met the hot summons of the rising sun, hurrying towards me, as it were, with glad tidings, over the spikes35 of the barley . . . .
Blinded, I made a step. My foot struck something hard, and I looked down to discover my revolver, a blue-black thing, like a dead snake at my feet.
For a moment that puzzled me.
Then I clean forgot about it. The wonder of the quiet took possession of my soul. Dawn, and no birds singing!
How beautiful was the world! How beautiful, but how still! I walked slowly through the barley towards a line of elder bushes, wayfaring36 tree and bramble that made the hedge of the field. I noted37 as I passed along a dead shrew mouse, as it seemed to me, among the haums; then a still toad38. I was surprised that this did not leap aside from my footfalls, and I stooped and picked it up. Its body was limp like life, but it made no struggle, the brightness of its eye was veiled, it did not move in my hand.
It seems to me now that I stood holding that lifeless little creature for some time. Then very softly I stooped down and replaced it. I was trembling — trembling with a nameless emotion. I looked with quickened eyes closely among the barley stems, and behold39, now everywhere I saw beetles40, flies, and little creatures that did not move, lying as they fell when the vapors42 overcame them; they seemed no more than painted things. Some were novel creatures to me. I was very unfamiliar with natural things. “My God!” I cried; “but is it only I———?”
And then at my next movement something squealed43 sharply. I turned about, but I could not see it, only I saw a little stir in a rut and heard the diminishing rustle22 of the unseen creature’s flight. And at that I turned to my toad again, and its eye moved and it stirred. And presently, with infirm and hesitating gestures, it stretched its limbs and began to crawl away from me.
But wonder, that gentle sister of fear, had me now. I saw a little way ahead a brown and crimson44 butterfly perched upon a cornflower. I thought at first it was the breeze that stirred it, and then I saw its wings were quivering. And even as I watched it, it started into life, and spread itself, and fluttered into the air.
I watched it fly, a turn this way, a turn that, until suddenly it seemed to vanish. And now, life was returning to this thing and that on every side of me, with slow stretchings and bendings, with twitterings, with a little start and stir . . . .
I came slowly, stepping very carefully because of these drugged, feebly awakening46 things, through the barley to the hedge. It was a very glorious hedge, so that it held my eyes. It flowed along and interlaced like splendid music. It was rich with lupin, honeysuckle, campions, and ragged47 robin48; bed straw, hops49, and wild clematis twined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border the starry50 stitchwort lifted its childish faces, and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whirr of startled wings.
Nothing was dead, but everything had changed to beauty! And I stood for a time with clean and happy eyes looking at the intricate delicacy51 before me and marveling how richly God has made his worlds. . . . .
“Tweedle-Tweezle,” a lark52 had shot the stillness with his shining thread of song; one lark, and then presently another, invisibly in the air, making out of that blue quiet a woven cloth of gold . . . .
The earth recreated — only by the reiteration53 of such phrases may I hope to give the intense freshness of that dawn. For a time I was altogether taken up with the beautiful details of being, as regardless of my old life of jealous passion and impatient sorrow as though I was Adam new made. I could tell you now with infinite particularity of the shut flowers that opened as I looked, of tendrils and grass blades, of a blue-tit I picked up very tenderly — never before had I remarked the great delicacy of feathers — that presently disclosed its bright black eye and judged me, and perched, swaying fearlessly, upon my finger, and spread unhurried wings and flew away, and of a great ebullition of tadpoles54 in the ditch; like all the things that lived beneath the water, they had passed unaltered through the Change. Amid such incidents, I lived those first great moments, losing for a time in the wonder of each little part the mighty55 wonder of the whole.
A little path ran between hedge and barley, and along this, leisurely56 and content and glad, looking at this beautiful thing and that, moving a step and stopping, then moving on again, I came presently to a stile, and deep below it, and overgrown, was a lane.
And on the worn oak of the stile was a round label, and on the label these words, “Swindells’ G 90 Pills.”
I sat myself astraddle on the stile, not fully45 grasping all the implications of these words. But they perplexed me even more than the revolver and my dirty cuff.
About me now the birds lifted up their little hearts and sang, ever more birds and more.
I read the label over and over again, and joined it to the fact that I still wore my former clothes, and that my revolver had been lying at my feet. One conclusion stared out at me. This was no new planet, no glorious hereafter such as I had supposed. This beautiful wonderland was the world, the same old world of my rage and death! But at least it was like meeting a familiar house-slut, washed and dignified57, dressed in a queen’s robes, worshipful and fine . . . .
It might be the old world indeed, but something new lay upon all things, a glowing certitude of health and happiness. It might be the old world, but the dust and fury of the old life was certainly done. At least I had no doubt of that.
I recalled the last phases of my former life, that darkling climax58 of pursuit and anger and universal darkness and the whirling green vapors of extinction59. The comet had struck the earth and made an end to all things; of that too I was assured.
And now?
The imaginations of my boyhood came back as speculative61 possibilities. In those days I had believed firmly in the necessary advent62 of a last day, a great coming out of the sky, trumpetings and fear, the Resurrection, and the Judgment64. My roving fancy now suggested to me that this Judgment must have come and passed. That it had passed and in some manner missed me. I was left alone here, in a swept and garnished65 world (except, of course, for this label of Swindells’ to begin again perhaps . . . .
No doubt Swindells has got his deserts.
My mind ran for a time on Swindells, on the imbecile pushfulness of that extinct creature, dealing66 in rubbish, covering the country-side with lies in order to get — what had he sought? — a silly, ugly, great house, a temper-destroying motor-car, a number of disrespectful, abject67 servants; thwarted68 intrigues69 for a party-fund baronetcy as the crest70 of his life, perhaps. You cannot imagine the littleness of those former times; their naive71, queer absurdities72! And for the first time in my existence I thought of these things without bitterness. In the former days I had seen wickedness, I had seen tragedy, but now I saw only the extraordinary foolishness of the old life. The ludicrous side of human wealth and importance turned itself upon me, a shining novelty, poured down upon me like the sunrise, and engulfed73 me in laughter. Swindells! Swindells, damned! My vision of Judgment became a delightful74 burlesque75. I saw the chuckling76 Angel sayer with his face veiled, and the corporeal77 presence of Swindells upheld amidst the laughter of the spheres. “Here’s a thing, and a very pretty thing, and what’s to be done with this very pretty thing?” I saw a soul being drawn78 from a rotund, substantial-looking body like a whelk from its shell . . . .
I laughed loudly and long. And behold! even as I laughed the keen point of things accomplished79 stabbed my mirth, and I was weeping, weeping aloud, convulsed with weeping, and the tears were pouring down my face.
Section 3
Everywhere the awakening came with the sunrise. We awakened80 to the gladness of the morning; we walked dazzled in a light that was joy. Everywhere that was so. It was always morning. It was morning because, until the direct rays of the sun touched it, the changing nitrogen of our atmosphere did not pass into its permanent phase, and the sleepers81 lay as they had fallen. In its intermediate state the air hung inert82, incapable83 of producing either revival84 or stupefaction, no longer green, but not yet changed to the gas that now lives in us . . . .
To every one, I think, came some parallel to the mental states I have already sought to describe — a wonder, an impression of joyful85 novelty. There was also very commonly a certain confusion of the intelligence, a difficulty in self-recognition. I remember clearly as I sat on my stile that presently I had the clearest doubts of my own identity and fell into the oddest metaphysical questionings. “If this be I,” I said, “then how is it I am no longer madly seeking Nettie? Nettie is now the remotest thing — and all my wrongs. Why have I suddenly passed out of all that passion? Why does not the thought of Verrall quicken my pulses?” . . .
I was only one of many millions who that morning had the same doubts. I suppose one knows one’s self for one’s self when one returns from sleep or insensibility by the familiarity of one’s bodily sensations, and that morning all our most intimate bodily sensations were changed. The intimate chemical processes of life were changed, its nervous metaboly. For the fluctuating, uncertain, passion-darkened thought and feeling of the old time came steady, full-bodied, wholesome86 processes. Touch was different, sight was different, sound and all the senses were subtler; had it not been that our thought was steadier and fuller, I believe great multitudes of men would have gone mad. But, as it was, we understood. The dominant87 impression I would convey in this account of the Change is one of enormous release, of a vast substantial exaltation. There was an effect, as it were, of light-headedness that was also clear-headedness, and the alteration88 in one’s bodily sensations, instead of producing the mental obfuscation89, the loss of identity that was a common mental trouble under former conditions, gave simply a new detachment from the tumid passions and entanglements90 of the personal life.
In this story of my bitter, restricted youth that I have been telling you, I have sought constantly to convey the narrowness, the intensity91, the confusion, muddle92, and dusty heat of the old world. It was quite clear to me, within an hour of my awakening, that all that was, in some mysterious way, over and done. That, too, was the common experience. Men stood up; they took the new air into their lungs — a deep long breath, and the past fell from them; they could forgive, they could disregard, they could attempt. . . . And it was no new thing, no miracle that sets aside the former order of the world. It was a change in material conditions, a change in the atmosphere, that at one bound had released them. Some of them it had released to death. . . . Indeed, man himself had changed not at all. We knew before the Change, the meanest knew, by glowing moments in ourselves and others, by histories and music and beautiful things, by heroic instances and splendid stories, how fine mankind could be, how fine almost any human being could upon occasion be; but the poison in the air, its poverty in all the nobler elements which made such moments rare and remarkable93 — all that has changed. The air was changed, and the Spirit of Man that had drowsed and slumbered94 and dreamt dull and evil things, awakened, and stood with wonder-clean eyes, refreshed, looking again on life.
Section 4
The miracle of the awakening came to me in solitude95, the laughter, and then the tears. Only after some time did I come upon another man. Until I heard his voice calling I did not seem to feel there were any other people in the world. All that seemed past, with all the stresses that were past. I had come out of the individual pit in which my shy egotism had lurked96, I had overflowed97 to all humanity, I had seemed to be all humanity; I had laughed at Swindells as I could have laughed at myself, and this shout that came to me seemed like the coming of an unexpected thought in my own mind. But when it was repeated I answered.
“I am hurt,” said the voice, and I descended98 into the lane forthwith, and so came upon Melmount sitting near the ditch with his back to me.
Some of the incidental sensory100 impressions of that morning bit so deeply into my mind that I verily believe, when at last I face the greater mysteries that lie beyond this life, when the things of this life fade from me as the mists of the morning fade before the sun, these irrelevant101 petty details will be the last to leave me, will be the last wisps visible of that attenuating102 veil. I believe, for instance, I could match the fur upon the collar of his great motoring coat now, could paint the dull red tinge103 of his big cheek with his fair eyelashes just catching104 the light and showing beyond. His hat was off, his dome-shaped head, with its smooth hair between red and extreme fairness, was bent forward in scrutiny105 of his twisted foot. His back seemed enormous. And there was something about the mere106 massive sight of him that filled me with liking107.
“What’s wrong?” said I.
“I say,” he said, in his full deliberate tones, straining round to see me and showing a profile, a well-modeled nose, a sensitive, clumsy, big lip, known to every caricaturist in the world, “I’m in a fix. I fell and wrenched108 my ankle. Where are you?”
I walked round him and stood looking at his face. I perceived he had his gaiter and sock and boot off, the motor gauntlets had been cast aside, and he was kneading the injured part in an exploratory manner with his thick thumbs.
“By Jove!” I said, “you’re Melmount!”
“Melmount!” He thought. “That’s my name,” he said, without looking up. . . . “But it doesn’t affect my ankle.”
We remained silent for few moments except for a grunt109 of pain from him.
“Do you know?” I asked, “what has happened to things?”
He seemed to complete his diagnosis110. “It’s not broken,” he said.
“Do you know,” I repeated, “what has happened to everything?”
“No,” he said, looking up at me incuriously for the first time.
“There’s some difference ———”
“There’s a difference.” He smiled, a smile of unexpected pleasantness, and an interest was coming into his eyes. “I’ve been a little preoccupied111 with my own internal sensations. I remark an extraordinary brightness about things. Is that it?”
“That’s part of it. And a queer feeling, a clear-headedness ———”
He surveyed me and meditated112 gravely. “I woke up,” he said, feeling his way in his memory.
“And I.”
“I lost my way — I forget quite how. There was a curious green fog.” He stared at his foot, remembering. “Something to do with a comet. I was by a hedge in the darkness. Tried to run. . . . Then I must have pitched into this lane. Look!” He pointed113 with his head. “There’s a wooden rail new broken there. I must have stumbled over that out of the field above.” He scrutinized114 this and concluded. “Yes . . . .”
“It was dark,” I said, “and a sort of green gas came out of nothing everywhere. That is the last I remember.”
“And then you woke up? So did I. . . . In a state of great bewilderment. Certainly there’s something odd in the air. I was — I was rushing along a road in a motor-car, very much excited and preoccupied. I got down ——” He held out a triumphant115 finger. “Ironclads!”
“NOW I’ve got it! We’d strung our fleet from here to Texel. We’d got right across them and the Elbe mined. We’d lost the Lord Warden116. By Jove, yes. The Lord Warden! A battleship that cost two million pounds — and that fool Rigby said it didn’t matter! Eleven hundred men went down. . . . I remember now. We were sweeping117 up the North Sea like a net, with the North Atlantic fleet waiting at the Faroes for ’em — and not one of ’em had three days’ coal! Now, was that a dream? No! I told a lot of people as much — a meeting was it? — to reassure118 them. They were warlike but extremely frightened. Queer people — paunchy and bald like gnomes119, most of them. Where? Of course! We had it all over — a big dinner — oysters120!— Colchester. I’d been there, just to show all this raid scare was nonsense. And I was coming back here. . . . But it doesn’t seem as though that was — recent. I suppose it was. Yes, of course!— it was. I got out of my car at the bottom of the rise with the idea of walking along the cliff path, because every one said one of their battleships was being chased along the shore. That’s clear! I heard their guns _”
He reflected. “Queer I should have forgotten! Did YOU hear any guns?”
I said I had heard them.
“Was it last night?”
“Late last night. One or two in the morning.”
He leant back on his hand and looked at me, smiling frankly121. “Even now,” he said, “it’s odd, but the whole of that seems like a silly dream. Do you think there WAS a Lord Warden? Do you really believe we sank all that machinery122 — for fun? It was a dream. And yet — it happened.”
By all the standards of the former time it would have been remarkable that I talked quite easily and freely with so great a man. “Yes,” I said; “that’s it. One feels one has awakened — from something more than that green gas. As though the other things also — weren’t quite real.”
He knitted his brows and felt the calf123 of his leg thoughtfully. “I made a speech at Colchester,” he said.
I thought he was going to add something more about that, but there lingered a habit of reticence124 in the man that held him for the moment. “It is a very curious thing,” he broke away; “that this pain should be, on the whole, more interesting than disagreeable.”
“You are in pain?”
“My ankle is! It’s either broken or badly sprained125 — I think sprained; it’s very painful to move, but personally I’m not in pain. That sort of general sickness that comes with local injury — not a trace of it! . . . ” He mused126 and remarked, “I was speaking at Colchester, and saying things about the war. I begin to see it better. The reporters — scribble127, scribble. Max Sutaine, 1885. Hubbub128. Compliments about the oysters. Mm — mm. . . . What was it? About the war? A war that must needs be long and bloody129, taking toll130 from castle and cottage, taking toll! . . . Rhetorical gusto! Was I drunk last night?”
His eyebrows132 puckered133. He had drawn up his right knee, his elbow rested thereon and his chin on his fist. The deep-set gray eyes beneath his thatch134 of eyebrow131 stared at unknown things. “My God!” he murmured, “My God!” with a note of disgust. He made a big brooding figure in the sunlight, he had an effect of more than physical largeness; he made me feel that it became me to wait upon his thinking. I had never met a man of this sort before; I did not know such men existed . . . .
It is a curious thing, that I cannot now recall any ideas whatever that I had before the Change about the personalities135 of statesmen, but I doubt if ever in those days I thought of them at all as tangible136 individual human beings, conceivably of some intellectual complexity137. I believe that my impression was a straightforward138 blend of caricature and newspaper leader. I certainly had no respect for them. And now without servility or any insincerity whatever, as if it were a first-fruit of the Change, I found myself in the presence of a human being towards whom I perceived myself inferior and subordinate, before whom I stood without servility or any insincerity whatever, in an attitude of respect and attention. My inflamed139, my rancid egotism — or was it after all only the chances of life?— had never once permitted that before the Change.
He emerged from his thoughts, still with a faint perplexity in his manner. “That speech I made last night,” he said, “was damned mischievous140 nonsense, you know. Nothing can alter that. Nothing. . . . No! . . . Little fat gnomes in evening dress — gobbling oysters. Gulp141!”
It was a most natural part of the wonder of that morning that he should adopt this incredible note of frankness, and that it should abate143 nothing from my respect for him.
“Yes,” he said, “you are right. It’s all indisputable fact, and I can’t believe it was anything but a dream.”
Section 5
That memory stands out against the dark past of the world with extraordinary clearness and brightness. The air, I remember, was full of the calling and piping and singing of birds. I have a curious persuasion144 too that there was a distant happy clamor of pealing145 bells, but that I am half convinced is a mistake. Nevertheless, there was something in the fresh bite of things, in the dewy newness of sensation that set bells rejoicing in one’s brain. And that big, fair, pensive146 man sitting on the ground had beauty even in his clumsy pose, as though indeed some Great Master of strength and humor had made him.
And — it is so hard now to convey these things — he spoke147 to me, a stranger, without reservations, carelessly, as men now speak to men. Before those days, not only did we think badly, but what we thought, a thousand short-sighted considerations, dignity, objective discipline, discretion148, a hundred kindred aspects of shabbiness of soul, made us muffle149 before we told it to our fellow-men.
“It’s all returning now,” he said, and told me half soliloquizingly what was in his mind.
I wish I could give every word he said to me; he struck out image after image to my nascent150 intelligence, with swift broken fragments of speech. If I had a precise full memory of that morning I should give it you, verbatim, minutely. But here, save for the little sharp things that stand out, I find only blurred151 general impressions. Throughout I have to make up again his half-forgotten sentences and speeches, and be content with giving you the general effect. But I can see and hear him now as he said, “The dream got worst at the end. The war — a perfectly152 horrible business! Horrible! And it was just like a nightmare, you couldn’t do anything to escape from it — every one was driven!”
His sense of indiscretion was gone.
He opened the war out to me — as every one sees it now. Only that morning it was astonishing. He sat there on the ground, absurdly forgetful of his bare and swollen153 foot, treating me as the humblest accessory and as altogether an equal, talking out to himself the great obsessions154 of his mind. “We could have prevented it! Any of us who chose to speak out could have prevented it. A little decent frankness. What was there to prevent us being frank with one another? Their emperor — his position was a pile of ridiculous assumptions, no doubt, but at bottom — he was a sane155 man.” He touched off the emperor in a few pithy156 words, the German press, the German people, and our own. He put it as we should put it all now, but with a certain heat as of a man half guilty and wholly resentful. “Their damned little buttoned-up professors!” he cried, incidentally. “Were there ever such men? And ours! Some of us might have taken a firmer line. . . . If a lot of us had taken a firmer line and squashed that nonsense early . . . .”
He lapsed157 into inaudible whisperings, into silence . . . .
I stood regarding him, understanding him, learning marvelously from him. It is a fact that for the best part of the morning of the Change I forgot Nettie and Verrall as completely as though they were no more than characters in some novel that I had put aside to finish at my leisure, in order that I might talk to this man.
“Eh, well,” he said, waking startingly from his thoughts. “Here we are awakened! The thing can’t go on now; all this must end. How it ever began ———! My dear boy, how did all those things ever begin? I feel like a new Adam. . . . Do you think this has happened — generally? Or shall we find all these gnomes and things? . . . Who cares?”
He made as if to rise, and remembered his ankle. He suggested I should help him as far as his bungalow158. There seemed nothing strange to either of us that he should requisition my services or that I should cheerfully obey. I helped him bandage his ankle, and we set out, I his crutch159, the two of us making up a sort of limping quadruped, along the winding160 lane toward the cliffs and the sea.
Section 6
His bungalow beyond the golf links was, perhaps, a mile and a quarter from the lane. We went down to the beach margin161 and along the pallid162 wave-smoothed sands, and we got along by making a swaying, hopping163, tripod dance forward until I began to give under him, and then, as soon as we could, sitting down. His ankle was, in fact, broken, and he could not put it to the ground without exquisite pain. So that it took us nearly two hours to get to the house, and it would have taken longer if his butler-valet had not come out to assist me. They had found motor-car and chauffeur164 smashed and still at the bend of the road near the house, and had been on that side looking for Melmount, or they would have seen us before.
For most of that time we were sitting now on turf, now on a chalk boulder165, now on a timber groin, and talking one to the other, with the frankness proper to the intercourse166 of men of good intent, without reservations or aggressions, in the common, open fashion of contemporary intercourse to-day, but which then, nevertheless, was the rarest and strangest thing in the world. He for the most part talked, but at some shape of a question I told him — as plainly as I could tell of passions that had for a time become incomprehensible to me — of my murderous pursuit of Nettie and her lover, and how the green vapors overcame me. He watched me with grave eyes and nodded understandingly, and afterwards he asked me brief penetrating167 questions about my education, my upbringing, my work. There was a deliberation in his manner, brief full pauses, that had in them no element of delay.
“Yes,” he said, “yes — of course. What a fool I have been!” and said no more until we had made another of our tripod struggles along the beach. At first I did not see the connection of my story with that self-accusation.
“Suppose,” he said, panting on the groin, “there had been such a thing as a statesman! . . .”
He turned to me. “If one had decided168 all this muddle shall end! If one had taken it, as an artist takes his clay, as a man who builds takes site and stone, and made ———” He flung out his big broad hand at the glories of sky and sea, and drew a deep breath, “something to fit that setting.”
He added in explanation, “Then there wouldn’t have been such stories as yours at all, you know . . . .”
“Tell me more about it,” he said, “tell me all about yourself. I feel all these things have passed away, all these things are to be changed for ever. . . . You won’t be what you have been from this time forth99. All the things you have done — don’t matter now. To us, at any rate, they don’t matter at all. We have met, who were separated in that darkness behind us. Tell me.
“Yes,” he said; and I told my story straight and as frankly as I have told it to you. “And there, where those little skerries of weed rock run out to the ebb169, beyond the headland, is Bungalow village. What did you do with your pistol?”
“I left it lying there — among the barley.”
He glanced at me from under his light eyelashes. “If others feel like you and I,” he said, “there’ll be a lot of pistols left among the barley to-day . . . .”
So we talked, I and that great, strong man, with the love of brothers so plain between us it needed not a word. Our souls went out to one another in stark170 good faith; never before had I had anything but a guarded watchfulness171 for any fellow-man. Still I see him, upon that wild desolate172 beach of the ebb tide, I see him leaning against the shelly buttress173 of a groin, looking down at the poor drowned sailor whose body we presently found. For we found a newly drowned man who had just chanced to miss this great dawn in which we rejoiced. We found him lying in a pool of water, among brown weeds in the dark shadow of the timberings. You must not overrate the horrors of the former days; in those days it was scarcely more common to see death in England than it would be to-day. This dead man was a sailor from the Rother Adler, the great German battleship that — had we but known it — lay not four miles away along the coast amidst ploughed-up mountains of chalk ooze174, a torn and battered175 mass of machinery, wholly submerged at high water, and holding in its interstices nine hundred drowned brave men, all strong and skilful176, all once capable of doing fine things . . . .
I remember that poor boy very vividly177. He had been drowned during the anaesthesia of the green gas, his fair young face was quiet and calm, but the skin of his chest had been crinkled by scalding water and his right arm was bent queerly back. Even to this needless death and all its tale of cruelty, beauty and dignity had come. Everything flowed together to significance as we stood there, I, the ill-clad, cheaply equipped proletarian, and Melmount in his great fur-trimmed coat — he was hot with walking but he had not thought to remove it — leaning upon the clumsy groins and pitying this poor victim of the war he had helped to make. “Poor lad!” he said, “poor lad! A child we blunderers sent to death! Do look at the quiet beauty of that face, that body — to be flung aside like this!”
(I remember that near this dead man’s hand a stranded178 star-fish writhed179 its slowly feeling limbs, struggling back toward the sea. It left grooved180 traces in the sand.)
“There must be no more of this,” panted Melmount, leaning on my shoulder, “no more of this . . . .”
But most I recall Melmount as he talked a little later, sitting upon a great chalk boulder with the sunlight on his big, perspiration-dewed face. He made his resolves. “We must end war,” he said, in that full whisper of his; “it is stupidity. With so many people able to read and think — even as it is — there is no need of anything of the sort. Gods! What have we rulers been at? . . . Drowsing like people in a stifling181 room, too dull and sleepy and too base toward each other for any one to get up and open the window. What haven’t we been at?”
A great powerful figure he sits there still in my memory, perplexed and astonished at himself and all things. “We must change all this,” he repeated, and threw out his broad hands in a powerful gesture against the sea and sky. “We have done so weakly — Heaven alone knows why!” I can see him now, queer giant that he looked on that dawnlit beach of splendor182, the sea birds flying about us and that crumpled183 death hard by, no bad symbol in his clumsiness and needless heat of the unawakened powers of the former time. I remember it as an integral part of that picture that far away across the sandy stretches one of those white estate boards I have described, stuck up a little askew184 amidst the yellow-green turf upon the crest of the low cliffs.
He talked with a sort of wonder of the former things. “Has it ever dawned upon you to imagine the pettiness — the pettiness!— of every soul concerned in a declaration of war?” he asked. He went on, as though speech was necessary to make it credible142, to describe Laycock, who first gave the horror words at the cabinet council, “an undersized Oxford185 prig with a tenoring voice and a garbage of Greek — the sort of little fool who is brought up on the admiration186 of his elder sisters . . . .
“All the time almost,” he said, “I was watching him — thinking what an ass29 he was to be trusted with men’s lives. . . . I might have done better to have thought that of myself. I was doing nothing to prevent it all! The damned little imbecile was up to his neck in the drama of the thing, he liked to trumpet63 it out, he goggled187 round at us. ‘Then it is war!’ he said. Richover shrugged188 his shoulders. I made some slight protest and gave in. . . . Afterward I dreamt of him.
“What a lot we were! All a little scared at ourselves — all, as it were, instrumental . . . .
“And it’s fools like that lead to things like this!” He jerked his head at that dead man near by us.
“It will be interesting to know what has happened to the world. . . . This green vapor41 — queer stuff. But I know what has happened to me. It’s Conversion189. I’ve always known. . . . But this is being a fool. Talk! I’m going to stop it.”
He motioned to rise with his clumsy outstretched hands.
“Stop what?” said I, stepping forward instinctively190 to help him.
“War,” he said in his great whisper, putting his big hand on my shoulder but making no further attempt to arise, “I’m going to put an end to war — to any sort of war! And all these things that must end. The world is beautiful, life is great and splendid, we had only to lift up our eyes and see. Think of the glories through which we have been driving, like a herd191 of swine in a garden place. The color in life — the sounds — the shapes! We have had our jealousies192, our quarrels, our ticklish193 rights, our invincible194 prejudices, our vulgar enterprise and sluggish195 timidities, we have chattered196 and pecked one another and fouled197 the world — like daws in the temple, like unclean birds in the holy place of God. All my life has been foolishness and pettiness, gross pleasures and mean discretions — all. I am a meagre dark thing in this morning’s glow, a penitence198, a shame! And, but for God’s mercy, I might have died this night — like that poor lad there — amidst the squalor of my sins! No more of this! No more of this!— whether the whole world has changed or no, matters nothing. WE TWO HAVE SEEN THIS DAWN! . . .”
He paused.
“I will arise and go unto my Father,” he began presently, “and will say unto Him ———”
His voice died away in an inaudible whisper. His hand tightened199 painfully on my shoulder and he rose . . . .
收听单词发音 |
1
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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18
unfamiliarity
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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21
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cuff
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| n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口 | |
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steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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wayfaring
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| adj.旅行的n.徒步旅行 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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toad
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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41
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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vapors
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| n.水汽，水蒸气，无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 )；自夸者；幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁（症）v.自夸，（使）蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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43
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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45
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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46
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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47
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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48
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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49
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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50
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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51
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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52
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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53
reiteration
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| n. 重覆, 反覆, 重说 | |
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54
tadpoles
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| n.蝌蚪( tadpole的名词复数 ) | |
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55
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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56
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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57
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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58
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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59
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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60
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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61
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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62
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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63
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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64
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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65
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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67
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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68
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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69
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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70
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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71
naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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72
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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73
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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75
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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76
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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77
corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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78
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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80
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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81
sleepers
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| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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82
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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83
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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84
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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85
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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86
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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87
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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88
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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obfuscation
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| n.昏迷，困惑；发暗 | |
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90
entanglements
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| n.瓜葛( entanglement的名词复数 )；牵连；纠缠；缠住 | |
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91
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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92
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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93
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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94
slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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95
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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96
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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97
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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98
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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100
sensory
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| adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的 | |
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101
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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102
attenuating
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的现在分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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103
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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104
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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105
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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106
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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107
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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108
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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109
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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110
diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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111
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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112
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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113
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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114
scrutinized
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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115
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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116
warden
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| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
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117
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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118
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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119
gnomes
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| n.矮子( gnome的名词复数 )；侏儒；（尤指金融市场上搞投机的）银行家；守护神 | |
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120
oysters
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| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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121
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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122
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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123
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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124
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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125
sprained
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| v.&n. 扭伤 | |
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126
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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127
scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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128
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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129
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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130
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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131
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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132
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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133
puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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134
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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135
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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136
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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137
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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138
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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139
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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140
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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141
gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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142
credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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143
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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144
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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145
pealing
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| v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的现在分词 ) | |
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146
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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147
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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148
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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149
muffle
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| v.围裹；抑制；发低沉的声音 | |
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150
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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151
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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152
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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153
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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154
obsessions
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| n.使人痴迷的人（或物）( obsession的名词复数 )；着魔；困扰 | |
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155
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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156
pithy
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| adj.(讲话或文章)简练的 | |
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157
lapsed
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| adj.流失的，堕落的v.退步( lapse的过去式和过去分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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158
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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159
crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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160
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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161
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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162
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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163
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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164
chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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165
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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166
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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167
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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168
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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169
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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170
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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171
watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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172
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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173
buttress
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| n.支撑物；v.支持 | |
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174
ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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175
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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176
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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177
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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178
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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179
writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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180
grooved
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| v.沟( groove的过去式和过去分词 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
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181
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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182
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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183
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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184
askew
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| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
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185
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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186
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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187
goggled
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| adj.戴护目镜的v.睁大眼睛瞪视， （惊讶的）转动眼珠( goggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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188
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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189
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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190
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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191
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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192
jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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193
ticklish
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| adj.怕痒的；问题棘手的；adv.怕痒地；n.怕痒，小心处理 | |
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194
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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195
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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196
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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197
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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198
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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199
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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