登陆注册
15517200000054

第54章 VIII. THE VENGEANCE OF THE STATUE(1)

It was on the sunny veranda of a seaside hotel, overlooking a pattern of flower beds and a strip of blue sea, that Horne Fisher and Harold March had their final explanation, which might be called an explosion.

Harold March had come to the little table and sat down at it with a subdued excitement smoldering in his somewhat cloudy and dreamy blue eyes. In the newspapers which he tossed from him on to the table there was enough to explain some if not all of his emotion. Public affairs in every department had reached a crisis. The government which had stood so long that men were used to it, as they are used to a hereditary despotism, had begun to be accused Of blunders and even of financial abuses. Some said that the experiment of attempting to establish a peasantry in the west of England, on the lines of an early fancy of Horne Fisher's, had resulted in nothing but dangerous quarrels with more industrial neighbors.

There had been particular complaints of the ill treatment of harmless foreigners, chiefly Asiatics, who happened to be employed in the new scientific works constructed on the coast. Indeed, the new Power which had arisen in Siberia, backed by Japan and other powerful allies, was inclined to take the matter up in the interests of its exiled subjects; and there had been wild talk about ambassadors and ultimatums.

But something much more serious, in its personal interest for March himself, seemed to fill his meeting with his friend with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation.

Perhaps it increased his annoyance that there was a certain unusual liveliness about the usually languid figure of Fisher. The ordinary image of him in March's mind was that of a pallid and bald-browed gentleman, who seemed to be prematurely old as well as prematurely bald. He was remembered as a man who expressed the opinions of a pessimist in the language of a lounger. Even now March could not be certain whether the change was merely a sort of masquerade of sunshine, or that effect of clear colors and clean-cut outlines that is always visible on the parade of a marine resort, relieved against the blue dado of the sea. But Fisher had a flower in his buttonhole, and his friend could have sworn he carried his cane with something almost like the swagger of a fighter. With such clouds gathering over England, the pessimist seemed to be the only man who carried his own sunshine.

"Look here," said Harold March, abruptly, "you've been no end of a friend to me, and I never was so proud of a friendship before; but there's something Imust get off my chest. The more I found out, the less I understood how y ou could stand it. And I tell you I'm going to stand it no longer."Horne Fisher gazed across at him gravely and attentively, but rather as if he were a long way off.

"You know I always liked you," said Fisher, quietly, "but I also respect you, which is not always the same thing. You may possibly guess that I like a good many people I don't respect. Perhaps it is my tragedy, perhaps it is my fault. But you are very different, and I promise you this: that I will never try to keep you as somebody to be liked, at the price of your not being respected.""I know you are magnanimous," said March after a silence, "and yet you tolerate and perpetuate everything that is mean." Then after another silence he added: "Do you remember when we first met, when you were fishing in that brook in the affair of the target? And do you remember you said that, after all, it might do no harm if I could blow the whole tangle of this society to hell with dynamite.""Yes, and what of that?" asked Fisher.

"Only that I'm going to blow it to hell with dynamite," said Harold March, "and I think it right to give you fair warning. For a long time I didn't believe things were as bad as you said they were. But Inever felt as if I could have bottled up what you knew, supposing you really knew it. Well, the long and the short of it is that I've got a conscience; and now, at last, I've also got a chance. I've been put in charge of a big independent paper, with a free hand, and we're going to open a cannonade on corruption.""That will be--Attwood, I suppose," said Fisher, reflectively. "Timber merchant. Knows a lot about China.""He knows a lot about England," said March, doggedly, "and now I know it, too, we're not going to hush it up any longer. The people of this country have a right to know how they're ruled--or, rather, ruined.

The Chancellor is in the pocket of the money lenders and has to do as he is told; otherwise he's bankrupt, and a bad sort of bankruptcy, too, with nothing but cards and actresses behind it. The Prime Minister was in the petrol-contract business; and deep in it, too. The Foreign Minister is a wreck of drink and drugs. When you say that plainly about a man who may send thousands of Englishmen to die for nothing, you're called personal. If a poor engine driver gets drunk and sends thirty or forty people to death, nobody complains of the exposure being personal.

The engine driver is not a person."

"I quite agree with you," said Fisher, calmly. "You are perfectly right.""If you agree with us,, why the devil don't you act with us?" demanded his friend. "If you think it's right, why don't you do what's right? It's awful to think of a man of your abilities simply blocking the road to reform.""We have often talked about that," replied Fisher, with the same composure. "The Prime Minister is my father's friend. The Foreign Minister married my sister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is my first cousin. I mention the genealogy in some detail just now for a particular reason. The truth is I have a curious kind of cheerfulness at the moment. It isn't altogether the sun and the sea, sir. I am enjoying an emotion that is entirely new to me; a happy sensation I never remember having had before.""What the devil do you mean?"

"I am feeling proud of my family," said Horne Fisher.

同类推荐
  • The Wrong Box

    The Wrong Box

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 金匮方歌括

    金匮方歌括

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 百字论

    百字论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • The Heroes

    The Heroes

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 洞真太上紫文丹章

    洞真太上紫文丹章

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 你一直在我身后

    你一直在我身后

    一个考不上高中的大专生,在职校里迷惘之后的逆袭,他像一股清流,让她的世界明亮,让她深深的依恋着他,他......
  • 大话系统伴我行

    大话系统伴我行

    大话西游手游附体,回归家乡在山林田野间嬉笑怒骂悠闲自得。
  • 惊世主宰

    惊世主宰

    悲催的少年一出生就遭雷劈,而且是被劈得外焦里嫩,却意外生存了下来;一场因美女相赠香囊而引起的死亡风波,却让他觉醒了一缕独特的记忆,从此弃文从武!天道不容,吾便逆转苍天,吾命不由天;重重身世谜团,万年大劫降临,破碎的荒古三大千世界,不容武者冲破的天道禁制,究竟蕴藏着怎样的惊天之秘?少年将一路冲破解开,成就惊世主宰……
  • 阴阳先生事迹

    阴阳先生事迹

    生来带有一双特殊的眼睛,可以让我看见别人看不见的东西,旅游时,一次意外的遭遇。改变了我一生的道路,恶鬼,僵尸,危机四伏的墓穴,让我的生活中充满了,喜剧,惊悚。阴阳先生事迹。
  • 江枫的历险

    江枫的历险

    标注在右眼的隐隐光圈,看待不一样的世界,平行的穿梭,感受不一样的非人类生活,体验一下无限流的感觉吧少年!
  • 有凤求凰

    有凤求凰

    被告白,结果被穿越,作为一名公主,被人甩了,不好好呆在宫里等着被嫁出去,偏要到外面看什么热闹,还好坏人不多。去青楼串场,到别人府上替人暖床,还要到藩国去放羊,这日子依旧过得美滋滋的。
  • 大道文仙

    大道文仙

    书山有路勤为径,学海无涯苦作舟!一朝入道,踏破天阙,文武同修,方可成仙。谁说平凡书生不能修通天大道,以文修身,以武明志,莫欺少年穷!
  • 我的冥界恋人

    我的冥界恋人

    自从做了那个奇怪的梦之后,我的生活便发生了翻天覆地的变化,先是被一只男鬼非礼,最后,不仅被迫跟他冥婚,还被他吃干抹净。身边不断的出现灵异事件,如果不是因为他在,我可能早就已经和他变成了同类。每次在最危急的关头,他都会在,“我的女人,岂是你等有资格碰的?”尼玛,要知道这一切的根本都是拜他所赐!直到后来我才知道,原来,冥婚是假的,吃干抹净是假的,一切的真相,都只是因为我是欧阳家族的后人……
  • 小心女人

    小心女人

    男人一点也不懂得怎样去欣赏美女,他们认为美女只是一种所有人类都在向往,于是有钱人更疯狂向往的,可以炫耀的奢侈品!
  • 绝品废柴狂逆天

    绝品废柴狂逆天

    什么鬼,学校通知旅游,竟然被嫉妒自己的同学给推下悬崖,莫名其妙穿越到古代的灵天大陆的一个大户人家,穿越到的那个人竟然还是个被姐姐欺负的一个废材,而且和我的名字一模一样。诶,我又惹上了一个厉害的霸主,我才不会屈服呢,结果那个霸主竟然是第二空间的天宇尊者,百般宠着我。“哼,我狂我傲,是因为我有狂傲的资本。”