Something obscured the Lord Paramount1’s mind. Clouds floated before it. Voices that had nothing to do with the course of affairs sustained some kind of commentary. Events were no longer following one another with a proper amplitude2 of transition. He seemed to be passing in cinematograph fashion from scene to scene. A pursuit of Sir Bussy was in progress, Gerson was hunting him, but it was no longer clear where and how these events were unfolding.
Then it would seem that Sir Bussy had been discovered hiding in Norway. He had been kidnapped amazingly by Gerson’s agents and brought to Norfolk and shot. It was no time to be fussy3 about operations in neutral territory. And some rigorous yet indefinable necessity required that the Lord Paramount should go secretly at night to see Sir Bussy’s body. He was reminded of the heroic murder of Matteotti, of the still more heroic effacement4 of the Duc d’Enghien by Napoleon. It is necessary that one man should die for the people. This financial Ishmaelite had to be ended in his turn. The day had come for property also to come into the scheme of duty.
The Lord Paramount found himself descending5 from his automobile6 at the end of a long winding7 and bumpy8 lane that led down to the beach near Sheringham. Extravagantly9 like Napoleon he felt; he was even wearing a hat of the traditional pattern. He had to be muffled10. He was muffled in a cloak of black velvet11. The head lamps showed a whitewashed12 shed, a boat on a bank of shingle13; beyond the breakers of an uneasy sea flashed white as they came out of the blue-gray indistinctness into the cone14 of lights. “This way, sir,” said a young officer and made his path more difficult by the officious flicking15 of an electric torch. The shingle was noisy underfoot.
On a plank16, already loaded with shot to sink it into the unknown, and covered with a sheet, lay the body of Sir Bussy. For a moment the Lord Paramount stood beside it with his arms folded. The Dictatorship had lost its last internal enemy. Everyone had come to a halt now, and everything was silent except for the slow pulsing of the sea.
And in this fashion it was, thought the Lord Paramount, that their six years of association had to end. It had been impossible to incorporate this restless, acquisitive, innovating17 creature with the great processes of history; he had been incurably18 undisciplined and disintegrating19, and at last it had become a plain struggle for existence between him and his kind, and the established institutions of our race. So long as he had lived he had seemed formidable, but now that his power was wrested20 from him, there was something pathetic and pitiful in his flimsy proportions. He was a little chap, a poor little fellow. And he had had his hospitably21 friendly, appealing side.
Why had he not listened to Mr. Parham? Why had he not sought his proper place in the scheme of things and learnt to cooperate and obey? Why had he pitted himself against history and perished as all who pit themselves against tradition must perish? The Lord Paramount stood by the little spherical22 protrusion23 of the sheet that veiled Sir Bussy’s head; Gerson stood at the feet. The Lord Paramount’s thoughts went from the dead to the living.
Had he really killed Sir Bussy, or had Gerson killed him?
What are the real and essential antagonisms24 of human life? Spite of all the ruthless tumult25 of events that had crowded upon the Lord Paramount, he had continued thinking. At the outset of his dictatorship, he had thought the main conflict in human affairs was the struggle of historical forms to maintain themselves against the skepticism, the disregard, and the incoherent enterprise of modern life. But was that indeed so? Had Sir Bussy been his real adversary26? Or had his real adversary been the wider, more systematic27 intellectual alienations of Camelford? It was Camelford who had liberated28 Sir Bussy, had snatched him out of the influence of Mr. Parham. It was Camelford who had given the fundamental mysteries of Sir Bussy’s disposition29 a form of expression. Just as the Lord Paramount himself, out of the fears, prejudices, resistances, habits, loyalties30, and conservative vigour31 of mankind, had been able to evoke32 the heroic insensitiveness of Gerson. If so, it was Sir Bussy and Gerson who were the vital forces of this affair, the actual powers, and he and Camelford were mere33 intellectualizers to this restlessness on the one hand and this obstinacy34 on the other. But why, if Sir Bussy embodied35 a fundamental human force, had it been so easy to kill him? It was absurd even to dream of killing36 a fundamental force. Had he indeed been killed so easily? A wedge of doubt invaded the mind of the Lord Paramount and spread out to colour all his thoughts.
“Uncover the face,” he said.
He motioned to the chauffeur37 to turn his lamps onto the white and shrunken visage.
Amazing yet inevitable38 came the confirmation39 of his doubts.
“Yes,” he said. “It is like him, but it is not him. Of course, Gerson, you will ALWAYS kill the wrong man. It is well I came to see with my own eyes.”
But Gerson was shameless.
“And now we’ve seen it’s the wrong one,” said Gerson, “it’s time we set about the right one — if the Empire is to get its Gas L in time to win this war.”
“I wonder who this is.”
“Any old chap who got in the way. Such things have to happen in wartime.”
The Lord Paramount’s reserves showed signs of breaking down. “But shall we ever get this stuff? Shall we ever overtake Camelford and Sir Bussy?”
“We got to,” said Gerson in a wrathful shout.
收听单词发音 |
1
paramount
|
|
| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
amplitude
|
|
| n.广大；充足；振幅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
fussy
|
|
| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
effacement
|
|
| n.抹消，抹杀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
descending
|
|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
automobile
|
|
| n.汽车，机动车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
bumpy
|
|
| adj.颠簸不平的，崎岖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
extravagantly
|
|
| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
muffled
|
|
| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
whitewashed
|
|
| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
shingle
|
|
| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
cone
|
|
| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
flicking
|
|
| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
plank
|
|
| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
innovating
|
|
| v.改革，创新( innovate的现在分词 )；引入（新事物、思想或方法）， | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
incurably
|
|
| ad.治不好地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
disintegrating
|
|
| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
wrested
|
|
| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
hospitably
|
|
| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
spherical
|
|
| adj.球形的；球面的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
protrusion
|
|
| n.伸出，突出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
antagonisms
|
|
| 对抗，敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
tumult
|
|
| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
adversary
|
|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
systematic
|
|
| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
liberated
|
|
| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
loyalties
|
|
| n.忠诚( loyalty的名词复数 )；忠心；忠于…感情；要忠于…的强烈感情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
vigour
|
|
| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
evoke
|
|
| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
obstinacy
|
|
| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
embodied
|
|
| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
killing
|
|
| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
chauffeur
|
|
| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
confirmation
|
|
| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |