登陆注册
15465600000050

第50章 CHAPTER XIX AN INCIDENT(3)

"Oh, I 'm making a mistake? I 'll take your name and address, please; we have to report these things.""By all means," said Shelton, angrily giving it. "I spoke to her first.""Perhaps you'll come up to the court tomorrow morning, and repeat that," replied the policeman, with incivility.

Shelton looked at him with all the force at his command.

"You had better be careful, constable," he said; but in the act of uttering these words he thought how pitiable they sounded.

"We 're not to be trifled with," returned the policeman in a threatening voice.

Shelton could think of nothing but to repeat:

"You had better be careful, constable."

"You're a gentleman," replied the policeman. "I'm only a policeman.

You've got the riches, I've got the power."

Grasping the woman's arm, he began to move along with her.

Shelton turned, and walked away.

He went to Grinnings' Club, and flung himself down upon a sofa. His feeling was not one of pity for the woman, nor of peculiar anger with the policeman, but rather of dissatisfaction with himself.

"What ought I to have done?" he thought, "the beggar was within his rights."He stared at the pictures on the wall, and a tide of disgust surged up in him.

"One or other of us," he reflected, "we make these women what they are. And when we've made them, we can't do without them; we don't want to; but we give them no proper homes, so that they're reduced to prowl about the streets, and then we run them in. Ha! that's good--that's excellent! We run them in! And here we sit and carp. But what do we do? Nothing! Our system is the most highly moral known.

We get the benefit without soiling even the hem of our phylacteries--the women are the only ones that suffer. And why should n't they--inferior things?"

He lit a cigarette, and ordered the waiter to bring a drink.

"I'll go to the Court," he thought; but suddenly it occurred to him that the case would get into the local papers. The press would never miss so nice a little bit of scandal--"Gentleman v. Policeman!"And he had a vision of Antonia's father, a neighbouring and conscientious magistrate, solemnly reading this. Someone, at all events, was bound to see his name and make a point of mentioning it too good to be missed! And suddenly he saw with horror that to help the woman he would have to assert again that he had spoken to her first. "I must go to the Court!" he kept thinking, as if to assure himself that he was not a coward.

He lay awake half the night worrying over this dilemma.

"But I did n't speak to her first," he told himself; "I shall only be telling a lie, and they 'll make me swear it, too!"He tried to persuade himself that this was against his principles, but at the bottom of his heart he knew that he would not object to telling such a lie if only guaranteed immune from consequences; it appeared to him, indeed, but obvious humanity.

"But why should I suffer?" he thought; "I've done nothing. It's neither reasonable nor just."He hated the unhappy woman who was causing him these horrors of uncertainty. Whenever he decided one way or other, the policeman's face, with its tyrannical and muddy eyes, rose before him like a nightmare, and forced him to an opposite conviction. He fell asleep at last with the full determination to go and see what happened.

He woke with a sense of odd disturbance. "I can do no good by going," he thought, remembering, aid lying very still; "they 're certain to believe the policeman; I shall only blacken myself for nothing;" and the combat began again within him, but with far less fury. It was not what other people thought, not even the risk of perjury that mattered (all this he made quite clear)--it was Antonia.

It was not fair to her to put himself in such a false position; in fact, not decent.

He breakfasted. In the room were some Americans, and the face of one young girl reminded him a little of Antonia. Fainter and fainter grew the incident; it seemed to have its right proportions.

Two hours later, looking at the clock, he found that it was lunch-time. He had not gone, had not committed perjury; but he wrote to a daily paper, pointing out the danger run by the community from the power which a belief in their infallibility places in the hands of the police--how, since they are the sworn abettors of right and justice, their word is almost necessarily taken to be gospel; how one and all they hang together, from mingled interest and esprit de corps. Was it not, he said, reasonable to suppose that amongst thousands of human beings invested with such opportunities there would be found bullies who would take advantage of them, and rise to distinction in the service upon the helplessness of the unfortunate and the cowardice of people with anything to lose? Those who had in their hands the sacred duties of selecting a practically irresponsible body of men were bound, for the sake of freedom and humanity, to exercise those duties with the utmost care and thoroughness . . . .

However true, none of this helped him to think any better of himself at heart, and he was haunted by the feeling that a stout and honest bit of perjury was worth more than a letter to a daily paper.

He never saw his letter printed, containing, as it did, the germs of an unpalatable truth.

In the afternoon he hired a horse, and galloped on Port Meadow. The strain of his indecision over, he felt like a man recovering from an illness, and he carefully abstained from looking at the local papers.

There was that within him, however, which resented the worsting of his chivalry.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 重生之幸福日子

    重生之幸福日子

    上一世带着憎恨、复仇的执念遗憾而亡,这一世执念不变,携着异宝重生。对于苏小北来说复仇不是一个死字能了结的,复仇的最高境界在于让敌人品尝身在天堂的滋味,只有享受过失去的时候才会更为疯狂,简曰求不得。
  • 骨质疏松症:食疗食谱

    骨质疏松症:食疗食谱

    本书内含骨质疏松症菜肴类食谱、骨质疏松症糕点饼面类食谱,以及骨质疏松症饭粥类食谱三大部分内容。
  • 快穿:男主,你别跑!

    快穿:男主,你别跑!

    【甜宠,爽文,1V1】校花任冉被炮灰了!她和一个据说是升级版的系统契约了!这个系统无良且傲娇,还说什么不升到100级,不让走!还有没有人权啦!~~且看本校花打遍天下白莲花,男主男配快到碗里来!
  • 命剑

    命剑

    太初末年,坐忘峰圣者以命破情,打破绝情断欲,武道百花齐放,进入圣者时代。坐忘峰上,神剑永镇天下,武道圣院由此而立,无数天才前赴后继,走上这条饮血路。数千年后,十五岁的少年林风以命为凭,得到命剑,打破武道秩序,开启了一个逆天妖孽的崛起神话。人世间,他是唯一的神。
  • 南男北女

    南男北女

    一个是来自北方的外地女孩,一个是出生南方的本地土著;一个情感经历丰富却在感情路上屡屡受挫,一个只谈过一次恋爱却被弄得遍体鳞伤;两个号称低情商的人于茫茫人海相遇相知相爱,在跨越前任家人朋友等种种羁绊冲突的过程中,会有多少狗血经历,又会碰撞出怎样的情感火花?……他们的故事很平凡,但自有动人之处。
  • 死神之辰星云隐

    死神之辰星云隐

    猪脚穿越至死神世界,为了生存,一步步成为强者的故事!非11,扮猪吃老虎,当然作弊器是肯定带的!拙劣之文,希望喜欢的朋友多多支持!
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 无限之永恒战记

    无限之永恒战记

    沈墨是现实里的修真爱好者,在一次的意外事件中卷入了名为轮回的无限世界,生存与死亡是这个世界永远的课题,不能在恐怖片中变强,就只能默默无名地死去。小说群:一三零零三二二五六
  • 星语魔法学院

    星语魔法学院

    苏莫是星语学院的一名高级学生,和校草兄弟是死对头,祖上是第一魔女“莉莉丝”,红水灭世,救世主出事,被封印在黄金棺,神龙暴走......世界一片混乱。还是迟了一步......我亲眼看见所有人被冥河带走,学院最后的希望和瑰宝——月族双子也不知所踪。好纠结,好难过,我到底该怎么办,成为下一任救世主?
  • 异世大陆之画眉

    异世大陆之画眉

    让他一生为你画眉,愿他的心宽容似海,再不提你曾给他伤害,你要他心中,再没别的女孩……我甘愿为你画眉,我甘愿舍掉尊严,甚至舍掉生命延续你的生命,我……名叫画眉。辗转于几个国度,流离,颠沛。眼望你和他的背影,我的心痛到忘了自己……