My pedometer told me that I was twenty-five; and, though it is a shocking thing to stop walking, I was so tired that I sat down on a milestone1 to rest. People outstripped2 me, jeering3 as they did so, but I was too apathetic4 to feel resentful, and even when Miss Eliza Dimbleby, the great educationist, swept past, exhorting5 me to persevere6, I only smiled and raised my hat.
At first I thought I was going to be like my brother, whom I had had to leave by the road-side a year or two round the corner. He had wasted his breath on singing, and his strength on helping7 others. But I had travelled more wisely, and now it was only the monotony of the highway that oppressed me—dust under foot and brown crackling hedges on either side, ever since I could remember.
And I had already dropped several things—indeed, the road behind was strewn with the things we all had dropped; and the white dust was settling down on them, so that already they looked no better than stones. My muscles were so weary that I could not even bear the weight of those things I still carried. I slid off the milestone into the road, and lay there prostrate8, with my face to the great parched9 hedge, praying that I might give up.
A little puff10 of air revived me. It seemed to come from the hedge; and, when I opened my eyes, there was a glint of light through the tangle11 of boughs12 and dead leaves. The hedge could not be as thick as usual. In my weak, morbid13 state, I longed to force my way in, and see what was on the other side. No one was in sight, or I should not have dared to try. For we of the road do not admit in conversation that there is another side at all.
I yielded to the temptation, saying to myself that I would come back in a minute. The thorns scratched my face, and I had to use my arms as a shield, depending on my feet alone to push me forward. Halfway14 through I would have gone back, for in the passage all the things I was carrying were scraped off me, and my clothes were torn. But I was so wedged that return was impossible, and I had to wriggle15 blindly forward, expecting every moment that my strength would fail me, and that I should perish in the undergrowth.
Suddenly cold water closed round my head, and I seemed sinking down for ever. I had fallen out of the hedge into a deep pool. I rose to the surface at last, crying for help, and I heard someone on the opposite bank laugh and say: "Another!" And then I was twitched16 out and laid panting on the dry ground.
Even when the water was out of my eyes, I was still dazed, for I had never been in so large a space, nor seen such grass and sunshine. The blue sky was no longer a strip, and beneath it the earth had risen grandly into hills—clean, bare buttresses17, with beech18 trees in their folds, and meadows and clear pools at their feet. But the hills were not high, and there was in the landscape a sense of human occupation—so that one might have called it a park, or garden, if the words did not imply a certain triviality and constraint19.
As soon as I got my breath, I turned to my rescuer and said:
"Where does this place lead to?"
"Nowhere, thank the Lord!" said he, and laughed. He was a man of fifty or sixty—just the kind of age we mistrust on the road—but there was no anxiety in his manner, and his voice was that of a boy of eighteen.
"But it must lead somewhere!" I cried, too much surprised at his answer to thank him for saving my life.
"He wants to know where it leads!" he shouted to some men on the hill side, and they laughed back, and waved their caps.
I noticed then that the pool into which I had fallen was really a moat which bent20 round to the left and to the right, and that the hedge followed it continually. The hedge was green on this side—its roots showed through the clear water, and fish swam about in them—and it was wreathed over with dog-roses and Traveller's Joy. But it was a barrier, and in a moment I lost all pleasure in the grass, the sky, the trees, the happy men and women, and realized that the place was but a prison, for all its beauty and extent.
We moved away from the boundary, and then followed a path almost parallel to it, across the meadows. I found it difficult walking, for I was always trying to out-distance my companion, and there was no advantage in doing this if the place led nowhere. I had never kept step with anyone since I left my brother.
I amused him by stopping suddenly and saying disconsolately21, "This is perfectly22 terrible. One cannot advance: one cannot progress. Now we of the road——"
"Yes. I know."
"I was going to say, we advance continually."
"I know."
"We are always learning, expanding, developing. Why, even in my short life I have seen a great deal of advance—the Transvaal War, the Fiscal23 Question, Christian24 Science, Radium. Here for example—"
I took out my pedometer, but it still marked twenty-five, not a degree more.
"Oh, it's stopped! I meant to show you. It should have registered all the time I was walking with you. But it makes me only twenty-five."
"Many things don't work in here," he said, "One day a man brought in a Lee-Metford, and that wouldn't work."
"The laws of science are universal in their application. It must be the water in the moat that has injured the machinery25. In normal conditions everything works. Science and the spirit of emulation—those are the forces that have made us what we are."
I had to break off and acknowledge the pleasant greetings of people whom we passed. Some of them were singing, some talking, some engaged in gardening, hay-making, or other rudimentary industries. They all seemed happy; and I might have been happy too, if I could have forgotten that the place led nowhere.
I was startled by a young man who came sprinting26 across our path, took a little fence in fine style, and went tearing over a ploughed field till he plunged27 into a lake, across which he began to swim. Here was true energy, and I exclaimed: "A cross-country race! Where are the others?"
"There are no others," my companion replied; and, later on, when we passed some long grass from which came the voice of a girl singing exquisitely28 to herself, he said again: "There are no others." I was bewildered at the waste in production, and murmured to myself, "What does it all mean?"
He said: "It means nothing but itself"—and he repeated the words slowly, as if I were a child.
"I understand," I said quietly, "but I do not agree. Every achievement is worthless unless it is a link in the chain of development. And I must not trespass29 on your kindness any longer. I must get back somehow to the road, and have my pedometer mended."
"First, you must see the gates," he replied, "for we have gates, though we never use them."
I yielded politely, and before long we reached the moat again, at a point where it was spanned by a bridge. Over the bridge was a big gate, as white as ivory, which was fitted into a gap in the boundary hedge. The gate opened outwards30, and I exclaimed in amazement31, for from it ran a road—just such a road as I had left—dusty under foot, with brown crackling hedges on either side as far as the eye could reach.
"That's my road!" I cried.
He shut the gate and said: "But not your part of the road. It is through this gate that humanity went out countless33 ages ago, when it was first seized with the desire to walk."
I denied this, observing that the part of the road I myself had left was not more than two miles off. But with the obstinacy34 of his years he repeated: "It is the same road. This is the beginning, and though it seems to run straight away from us, it doubles so often, that it is never far from our boundary and sometimes touches it." He stooped down by the moat, and traced on its moist margin35 an absurd figure like a maze32. As we walked back through the meadows, I tried to convince him of his mistake.
"The road sometimes doubles, to be sure, but that is part of our discipline. Who can doubt that its general tendency is onward36? To what goal we know not—it may be to some mountain where we shall touch the sky, it may be over precipices37 into the sea. But that it goes forward —who can doubt that? It is the thought of that that makes us strive to excel, each in his own way, and gives us an impetus38 which is lacking with you. Now that man who passed us—it's true that he ran well, and jumped well, and swam well; but we have men who can run better, and men who can jump better, and who can swim better. Specialization has produced results which would surprise you. Similarly, that girl——"
Here I interrupted myself to exclaim: "Good gracious me! I could have sworn it was Miss Eliza Dimbleby over there, with her feet in the fountain!"
He believed that it was.
"Impossible! I left her on the road, and she is due to lecture this evening at Tunbridge Wells. Why, her train leaves Cannon39 Street in—of course my watch has stopped like everything else. She is the last person to be here."
"People always are astonished at meeting each other. All kinds come through the hedge, and come at all times—when they are drawing ahead in the race, when they are lagging behind, when they are left for dead. I often stand near the boundary listening to the sounds of the road—you know what they are—and wonder if anyone will turn aside. It is my great happiness to help someone out of the moat, as I helped you. For our country fills up slowly, though it was meant for all mankind."
"Mankind have other aims," I said gently, for I thought him well-meaning; "and I must join them." I bade him good evening, for the sun was declining, and I wished to be on the road by nightfall. To my alarm, he caught hold of me, crying: "You are not to go yet!" I tried to shake him off, for we had no interests in common, and his civility was becoming irksome to me. But for all my struggles the tiresome40 old man would not let go; and, as wrestling is not my speciality, I was obliged to follow him.
It was true that I could have never found alone the place where I came in, and I hoped that, when I had seen the other sights about which he was worrying, he would take me back to it. But I was determined41 not to sleep in the country, for I mistrusted it, and the people too, for all their friendliness42. Hungry though I was, I would not join them in their evening meals of milk and fruit, and, when they gave me flowers, I flung them away as soon as I could do so unobserved. Already they were lying down for the night like cattle—some out on the bare hillside, others in groups under the beeches43. In the light of an orange sunset I hurried on with my unwelcome guide, dead tired, faint for want of food, but murmuring indomitably: "Give me life, with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds44, with its deep moral meaning and its unknown goal!"
At last we came to a place where the encircling moat was spanned by another bridge, and where another gate interrupted the line of the boundary hedge. It was different from the first gate; for it was half transparent45 like horn, and opened inwards. But through it, in the waning46 light, I saw again just such a road as I had left—monotonous, dusty, with brown crackling hedges on either side, as far as the eye could reach.
I was strangely disquieted47 at the sight, which seemed to deprive me of all self-control. A man was passing us, returning for the night to the hills, with a scythe48 over his shoulder and a can of some liquid in his hand. I forgot the destiny of our race. I forgot the road that lay before my eyes, and I sprang at him, wrenched49 the can out of his hand, and began to drink.
It was nothing stronger than beer, but in my exhausted50 state it overcame me in a moment. As in a dream, I saw the old man shut the gate, and heard him say: "This is where your road ends, and through this gate humanity—all that is left of it—will come in to us."
Though my senses were sinking into oblivion, they seemed to expand ere they reached it. They perceived the magic song of nightingales, and the odour of invisible hay, and stars piercing the fading sky. The man whose beer I had stolen lowered me down gently to sleep off its effects, and, as he did so, I saw that he was my brother.
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1
milestone
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| n.里程碑；划时代的事件 | |
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2
outstripped
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| v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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4
apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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5
exhorting
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| v.劝告，劝说( exhort的现在分词 ) | |
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6
persevere
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| v.坚持，坚忍，不屈不挠 | |
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7
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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8
prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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9
parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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10
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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11
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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12
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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13
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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14
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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15
wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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16
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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17
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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19
constraint
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| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
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20
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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21
disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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22
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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23
fiscal
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| adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的 | |
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24
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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25
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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26
sprinting
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| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的现在分词 ) | |
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27
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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28
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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29
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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30
outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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31
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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32
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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33
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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34
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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35
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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36
onward
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| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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37
precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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38
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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39
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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40
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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41
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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42
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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43
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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44
hatreds
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| n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事 | |
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45
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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46
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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47
disquieted
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| v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
scythe
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| n. 长柄的大镰刀，战车镰； v. 以大镰刀割 | |
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49
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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50
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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