He went on to express a quite extravagant4 contempt for the leaders of the Labour Party who had “neither the grit5 to prevent the General Strike nor the grit to keep on with it.” It was clear that he had a little lost his equanimity6 over the struggle and that his criticisms of selfish toryism had tilted7 him heavily towards the side of the strikers in the struggle. And he was intensely annoyed to find his uncle’s estimate of the situation so completely confirmed. The time had come to call out the second line, stop light and power and food distribution and bring matters to a crisis, and there was little reason to suppose that most of the men of the second line would not have stood by their unions.
But it would have meant the beginning of real violence and a grimmer phase of the struggle and the trade union leaders were tired, frightened and consciously second-rate men. They were far more terrified by the possibilities of victory than by the certainty of defeat. They had snatched at the opportunity offered by a new memorandum8 by “that Kosher Liberal, Herbert Samuel”—“Tut tut!” said Mrs. Rylands; “but this is real bad temper, Philip!"— which nobody had accepted or promised to stand by, and unconditionally9, trusting the whole future of the men they stood for, to a government that could publish the British Gazette, they had called the strike off. They had given in and repented10 like naughty children “and here we are — with men being victimised right and left and the miners in the cart! Nothing has been done, nothing has been settled. The railway workers are eating humble11 pie and the red ties of the Southern railway guards are to be replaced by blue ones. (Probably Jix thought of that.) The miners have already refused to accept Samuel’s memorandum, and Uncle Robert’s little deal is almost the only hopeful thing in the situation. He gets his laugh out of it sure enough.”
Even the writing showed Philip in a phase of anti-climax. He was irritated, perplexed12.
“Is all life a comedy of fools? Am I taking myself too seriously and all that? Here is a crisis in the history of one of the greatest, most intelligent, best educated countries in the world, and it is an imbecile crisis! It does nothing. It states nothing. It does not even clear up how things are. By great good luck it did not lead to bloodshed or bitterness — except among the miners. Who aren’t supposed to count. And Catherine’s kill of course. There was no plan in it and no idea to it. It was a little different in form and it altered the look of the streets; but otherwise it was just in the vein13 of affairs as they go on month by month and year by year, coming to no point, signifying nothing. Burbling along. Just, as you say old Sempack said, just Carnival14. Where are we going? — all the hundreds of millions that we are on this earth? Is this all and has it always been such drifting as this? Are the shapes of history like the shapes of clouds, fancies of Polonius the historian? Now we expand and increase and now we falter15 and fail. Boom years and dark ages until the stars grow tired of us and shy some half-brick of a planet out of space to end the whole silly business.
“I cannot believe that, and so I come back to old Sempack again with his story of all this world of ours being no more than the prelude16 to a real civilisation17. Hitch18 your mind to that idea and you can make your life mean something. Or seem to mean something. There is no other way, now that the religions have left us, to make a life mean anything at all. But then, are we getting on with the prelude? How are we to get on with the prelude? How are we to get by Uncle Robert? How are we to get by Winston and Amery? How are we to get by all these posturing19, vague-minded, labour politicians? My dear, I set out writing these letters to you to tell you how my mind was going on and what I was finding out to do. And in this letter anyhow I have to tell you that my mind isn’t going on and that I am lost and don’t know what to do. It is as if a squirrel in a rotating cage reported progress. I wish I had old Sempack here, just to put him through it. Is he anything more than a big bony grey squirrel spinning in a cage of his own? The great crisis came and the great crisis went, and it has left me like a jelly-fish stranded21 on a beach.
“The only people in all this tangle22 of affairs who seem to have any live faith in them and any real go are — don’t be too startled — the Communist Party. I’ve had glimpses of one or two of them. And the stuff they teach and profess23 seems to me the most dead-alive collection of half-truths and false assumptions it is possible to imagine. For everyone who isn’t a Communist they have some stupid nickname or other, and their first most fundamental belief is that nobody who owns any property or directs any sort of business, can be other than deliberately24 wicked. Everything has to be sabotaged25 and then everything will come right. They don’t work for one greatly organised world in the common interest, not for a moment. Their millennium26 is a featureless level of common people, and it is to be brought about by a paradox27 called the dictatorship of the proletariat. And yet they have an enthusiasm. They can work. They can take risks and sacrifice themselves — quite horrible risks they will face. While we ——”
He had pulled up in mid28 sentence. The second fascicle began as abruptly29 as the first ended.
“I have just been to see Sempack at Charing30 Cross Hospital. I had no idea that he too had come back to England. I thought he was doing a walking tour in the Alpes Maritimes. But it seems that he was knocked down by a bus in the Strand20 this morning. They got through to me by telephone when he recovered consciousness and I went to see him at once. There is some question whether the bus skidded31, but none that the great man, with his nose in the air and his thoughts in the year 4000, overlooked it as he stepped off the kerb. He wasn’t killed or smashed, thank goodness, but he had a shock and very bad contusions and a small bone broken in his fore-arm, and for two hours he seems to have been insensible. He was very glad to see me and talked very pleasantly — of you and the garden among other things. Voice unabated. I could not have imagined they could have packed him into an ordinary hospital bed, but they had. There are no complications. He will be out of hospital to-morrow and I shall take him to South Street and see that he is sent off properly and in a fit condition to his own house near Swanage. Perhaps I will take him down. I like him and it might be good to talk things over with him. But what can he be doing in London? He wasn’t at all clear about that. Has everybody come to London? Shall I next have to bail32 you out at Bow Street or identify the body of Bombaccio recovered from the Thames?”
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1
precursor
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| n.先驱者；前辈；前任；预兆；先兆 | |
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2
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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3
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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5
grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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6
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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7
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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memorandum
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| n.备忘录，便笺 | |
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unconditionally
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| adv.无条件地 | |
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10
repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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12
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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14
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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15
falter
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| vi.(嗓音)颤抖，结巴地说；犹豫；蹒跚 | |
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16
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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17
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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18
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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19
posturing
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| 做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 ) | |
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20
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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21
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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22
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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23
profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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24
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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25
sabotaged
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| 阴谋破坏（某事物）( sabotage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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28
mid
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| adj.中央的，中间的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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30
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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31
skidded
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| v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的过去式和过去分词 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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32
bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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