Latest / Science Fiction Books / 25 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton

Transcript

25 - The Flying Inn - GK Chesterton · Science Fiction Books

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five, The Finding of the Superman. I've brought
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: you a little dog, said mister Dolroy, introducing the rampant crudle.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I had him brought down here in a large hamper
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: labeled Explosives, a title which appears to have been well selected.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: He had bowed to Lady Enid on entering and taking
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Jones's hand, with the least suggestion that he wanted to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: do something else with it, But he resolutely resumed his conversation,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: which was on the subject of dogs. People who bring
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: back dogs, he said, are always under a cloud of suspicion.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it is hideously hinted that the citizen who brings
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the dog back with him is identical with the citizen
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: who took the dog away with him. In my case,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of course, such conduct is inconceivable. But the returners of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: dogs that prosperous and increasing class are also accused. He
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: went on, looking straight at jan with blank blue eyes,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of coming back for a reward. There is more truth
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: than this charge. Then, with a change of manner more
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: extraordinary than any revolution, even the revolution that was roaring
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: round the house, he took her hand again and kissed it,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: saying with a confounding seriousness. I know at least that
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: you will pray for my soul. You had better pray
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: for mine if I have one, answered Joan. But why now?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Because said Patrick, you will hear from outside. You may
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: even see from that turret window something which, in brute fact,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: has never been seen in England since poor Mamma's army
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: went down. In spirit and in truth, it has not
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: happened since Saladin and court Lyon crashed together. I only
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: add one thing, and that you already know. I have
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: lived loving you, and I shall die loving you. It
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: is the only dimension of the universe in which I
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: have not wandered and gone astray. I leave the dog
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to guard you, and he disappeared down the broken staircase.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Lady Enid was much mystified that no popular pursuit of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: sailed the stair or invaded the house, but Lady Joan
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: knew better. She had gone on the suggestion she most
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: cared about into the turret room and looked out of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: its many windows on to the abandoned copes and tunnel,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: which were now fenced off with high walls. The boundary
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of the mysterious property next door across that high barrier.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: She could not even see the tunnel, and barely the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: tops of the tallest trees which hid its entrance from sight.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: But in an instant she knew that Dowry was not
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: hurling his forces on Ivywood at all, but on the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: house and the state beyond it. And then followed a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: sight that was not in experience, but rather a revolving vision.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: She could never describe it afterward, nor could any of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: those involved in so violent and mystical a wheel. She
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: had seen a huge wall of a breaker wash all
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: over the parade at Pebblewick, and wondered that so Yojohammer
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: could be made merely of water. She had never had
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a notion of what it is like when it is
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: made of men. The palisade put up by the new
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: landlord in front of the old tangled ground by the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: tunnel she had long regarded as something as settled and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: ordinary as one of the walls of the drawlling room.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It swung and split and sprang into a thousand pieces
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: under the mere blow of human bodies bursting with rage,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and the great wave crest at the obstacle more clearly
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: than she had ever seen any great wave crest the parade.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Only when the fence was broken she saw behind it
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: something that robbed her of reason, so that she seemed
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to be living in all ages and all lands at once.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: She could never describe the vision afterward, but she always
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: denied it was a dream. She said it was worse.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It was something more real than reality. It was a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: line of real soldiers, which is always a magnificent sight.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: But they might have been soldiers of Hannibal or of Attila.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: They might have been dug up from the cemetery of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Sidon in Babylon. For all Joan had to do with them. There,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: encamped in English meadows, with a hawthorn tree in front
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: of them and three beaches behind, was something that has
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: never been en camped nearer than some leagues south of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Paris since the Carolists called the hammer broke it backward
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: at Tours. There flew the green standard of that great
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: faith and strong civilization which had so often almost entered
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the great cities of the West, which long encircled Vienna,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: which was barely barred from Paris, but which had never
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: before been seen in arms on the soil of England.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: At one end of the line stood Philip Ivywood in
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a uniform of his own special creation, a compromise between
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the Sapoy and the Turkeish uniform. The compromise worked more
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: and more wildly. In Joan's mind. If any impression remained,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it was merely that England had conquered India and Turkey
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: had conquered England. Then she saw at ivy Wood, for
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: all his uniform, was not the commander of these forces.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: For an old man with a great scar on his face,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: which was not a European face, set himself in front
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of the battle as if it had been a battle
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in the old Epyx, and crossed swords with Patrick Dowroy.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: He had come to return the scar upon his forehead,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and he returned it with many wounds, though at last
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: it was he who sank under the sword thrust. He
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: fell on his face, and Dowroy looked at him with
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: something that is much more great than pity. Blood was
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: flowing from Patrick's wrist and forehead, but he made a
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: salute with his sword. As he was doing so. The corpse,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: as it appeared, laboriously lifted a face with feeble eyelids,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and seeming to understand the quarters of the sky by instinct,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Oman Pasha dragged himself a foot or so to the
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: left and fell with his face towards Mecca. After that,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the turret turned round and round about June, and she
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: knew not whether the things she saw were history or prophecy.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Something in the last fact of being crushed by the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: weapons of brown men and yellow secretly intrenched in English
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: meadows had made the English what they had not been
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: for centuries. The hawthorn tree was twisted and broken, as
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it was at the Battle of Ashdown, when Alfred led
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: his first charge against the Danes. The beech trees were
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: splashed up to their lowest branches with a mingling of
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: brave Heathen and brave Christian blood. She knew no more
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: than that. When a column of the Christian rebels, led
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: by Humphrey of the Sign of the Ships, burst through
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the choked and forgotten tunnel and took the Turkish regiment
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: in the rear, it was the end that violent and
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: revolving vision became something beyond the human voice or human ear.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: She could not intelligently hear even the shots and shouts
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: round the last magnificent rally of the Turks. It was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: natural therefore that she should not hear the words Lord
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Ivywood addressed to his next door neighbor, a Turkish officer,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: or rather to himself. But his words were, I have
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: gone where God has never dared to go. I am
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: above the silly supermen, as they are above mere men.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: When I walk in the heavens, no man has walked
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: before me. And I am alone in a garden. All
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: this passing about me is like the lonely plucking of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: garden flowers. I will have this blossom, I will have that.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: The sentence ended so suddenly that the officer looked at
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: him as if expecting him to speak, But he did
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: not speak. But Patrick and Joan wandered together in a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: world may warm and fresh again, as it can be
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: for few in the world that cause courage, frenzy and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: love Superstition, Feeling every branching tree as a friend with
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: arms open for the man, or every sweeping slope as
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a great train trailing behind the woman, did one day
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: climb up to the little cottage that was now the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: home of the superman. He sat playing with a pale,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: reposeful face, with scraps of flowers and weed put before
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: him on a wooden table. He did not notice them,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: nor anything else around him. Scarcely even Enid Wimple, who
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: attended to always wants. He is perfectly happy, she said quietly. Joan,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: with a glow on her dark face, could not prevent
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: herself from replying. And we are so happy, yes, said Enid.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: But his happiness will last. And she wept. I understand,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: said Joan, and kissed her cousin, not without tears of
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: her own. And of chapter twenty five,