Latest / Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) / 09 - Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) by G K Chesterton

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09 - Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) by G K Chesterton · Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading)

0:00
Speaker 1: Explains when Gabriel Simon found himself finally established in a chair,
0:07
Speaker 1: and opposite to him fixed and final also the lifted
0:11
Speaker 1: eyebrows and leaden eyelids of the Professor. His fears fully
0:15
Speaker 1: returned this incomprehensible man from the fierce counsel, after all,
0:21
Speaker 1: had certainly pursued him. If the man had one character
0:26
Speaker 1: as a paralytic and another character as a pursuer, the
0:30
Speaker 1: antithesis might make him more interesting, but scarcely more soothing.
0:36
Speaker 1: It would be a very small comfort that he could
0:39
Speaker 1: not find the professor out. If by some serious accident,
0:43
Speaker 1: the Professor should find him out, he emptied a whole
0:47
Speaker 1: pewter pot of ale before the Professor had touched his milk.
0:52
Speaker 1: One possibility, however, kept him hopeful and yet helpless. It
0:58
Speaker 1: was just possible that this escapade signified something other than
1:02
Speaker 1: even a slight suspicion of him. Perhaps it was some
1:06
Speaker 1: regular form or sign Perhaps the foolish scamper was some
1:11
Speaker 1: sort of friendly signal that he ought to have understood.
1:15
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was a ritual. Perhaps the new Thursday was
1:19
Speaker 1: always chased along cheapside, as the new Lord mayor is
1:23
Speaker 1: always escorted along it. He was just selecting a tentative
1:27
Speaker 1: inquiry when the old professor opposite suddenly and simply cut
1:32
Speaker 1: him short before Sime could ask the first diplomatic question.
1:37
Speaker 1: The old anarchist had asked, suddenly, without any sort of preparation,
1:44
Speaker 1: are you a policeman? Whatever else Sime had expected, he
1:49
Speaker 1: had never expected anything so brutal and actual as this.
1:54
Speaker 1: Even his great presence of mind could only manage a
1:57
Speaker 1: reply with an air of rather blundering jocularity. A policeman,
2:03
Speaker 1: he said, laughing vaguely.
2:06
Speaker 2: Whatever makes you think of a policeman in connection with me?
2:10
Speaker 3: The process was simple enough.
2:13
Speaker 1: Answered the professor patiently.
2:16
Speaker 3: I thought you looked like a policeman. I think so.
2:20
Speaker 2: Now did I take a policeman's hat by mistake out
2:24
Speaker 2: of the restaurant?
2:25
Speaker 1: Asked Sime, smiling wildly.
2:28
Speaker 2: I any chance got the number stuck on me somewhere?
2:32
Speaker 2: Have I boots? Got that watchful look? Must I be
2:35
Speaker 2: a policeman? Do do? Let me be a postman?
2:40
Speaker 1: The old professor shook his head with a gravity that
2:42
Speaker 1: gave no hope, but Sime ran on with a feverish irony.
2:48
Speaker 2: But I have perhaps misunderstood the delicacies of your German philosophy.
2:52
Speaker 2: Perhaps policeman is a relative term in an evolutionary sense, Sir.
2:56
Speaker 2: The ape fades so grudtally into the policeman time myself
3:00
Speaker 2: can never detect the shade. The monkey is only the
3:03
Speaker 2: policeman that may be, perhaps a maiden lady on Clapham Common,
3:08
Speaker 2: is only the policeman that might have been. I don't
3:11
Speaker 2: mind being the policeman that might have been. I don't
3:14
Speaker 2: mind being anything in German thought.
3:17
Speaker 1: Are you in the police service, said the old man,
3:21
Speaker 1: ignoring all Syme's improvised and desperate raillery.
3:26
Speaker 3: Are you a detective?
3:28
Speaker 1: Sime's heart turned to stone, but his face never changed.
3:33
Speaker 2: Your suggestion is ridiculous, he began. Why on earth?
3:39
Speaker 1: The old man struck his pulsied hand passionately on the
3:43
Speaker 1: rickety table, nearly breaking it.
3:46
Speaker 3: Did you hear me ask a plague question you Patrick spy?
3:51
Speaker 1: He shrieked, in a high crazy voice.
3:54
Speaker 3: Are you or are you not? A police detective?
3:58
Speaker 1: No, answered sim like a man standing on the hangman's drop.
4:04
Speaker 1: You swear it, said the old man, leaning across to him,
4:08
Speaker 1: his dead face becoming as it were, loathsomely alive.
4:13
Speaker 3: You swear it, You swear it. If you swear fusely,
4:19
Speaker 3: will you be dumbed? Will you be sure that the
4:22
Speaker 3: devil doubtces at your funeral? Will you see the knight
4:26
Speaker 3: there sits on your grave? Will there really be no mistake?
4:31
Speaker 3: You are an etchist, You are a dynamiter, ababbled. You
4:36
Speaker 3: are not in any sense a detective. You are not
4:40
Speaker 3: in the British Police.
4:42
Speaker 1: He leaned his angular elbow far across the table and
4:46
Speaker 1: put up his large loose hand like a flap to
4:49
Speaker 1: his ear.
4:51
Speaker 2: I'm not in the British please.
4:54
Speaker 1: Said Sime, with insane calm. Professor de Worms fell back
5:00
Speaker 1: in his chair with a curious air of kindly collapse.
5:04
Speaker 3: That's a pity, he said, because I am.
5:10
Speaker 1: Sime sprang up straight, sending back the bench behind him
5:14
Speaker 1: with a crash.
5:16
Speaker 2: Because you're what, he said, thickly, you're what I am.
5:21
Speaker 1: A policeman, said the professor, with his first broad smile
5:26
Speaker 1: and beaming through his spectacles.
5:29
Speaker 3: But as you think policemen early relative term, of course,
5:33
Speaker 3: I have nothing to do with you. I am in
5:37
Speaker 3: the British Police Force. But as you tell me, you
5:40
Speaker 3: are not in the British Police force. I can only
5:44
Speaker 3: say that I met you and had died about his club.
5:47
Speaker 3: I suppose I ought to arrest you.
5:50
Speaker 1: And with these words he laid on the table before
5:53
Speaker 1: sim an exact facsimile up the blue card, which Sime
5:57
Speaker 1: had in his own waistcoat pocket, the symbol of his
6:00
Speaker 1: power from the police. Sime had, for a flash the
6:04
Speaker 1: sensation that the cosmos had turned exactly upside down, that
6:09
Speaker 1: all trees were growing downwards, and that all stars were
6:13
Speaker 1: under his feet. Then came slowly the opposite conviction. For
6:18
Speaker 1: the last twenty four hours, the cosmos had really been
6:22
Speaker 1: upside down, but now the capsized universe had come right
6:26
Speaker 1: side up again. This devil from whom he had been
6:29
Speaker 1: fleeing all day was only an elder brother of his
6:32
Speaker 1: own house, who, on the other side of the table
6:36
Speaker 1: lay back and laughed at him. He did not, for
6:40
Speaker 1: the moment ask any questions of detail. He only knew
6:44
Speaker 1: the happy and silly fact that this shadow, which had
6:47
Speaker 1: pursued him with an intolerable oppression of peril, was only
6:51
Speaker 1: the shadow of a friend trying to catch him up.
6:55
Speaker 1: He knew simultaneously that he was a fool and a
6:59
Speaker 1: free man. For with any recovery from morbidity there must
7:03
Speaker 1: go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point
7:08
Speaker 1: in such conditions when only three things are possible, first
7:12
Speaker 1: a perpetuation of satanic pride, secondly tears, and third laughter.
7:19
Speaker 1: Sime's egotism held hard for the first course for a
7:23
Speaker 1: few seconds, and then suddenly adopted the third. Taking his
7:27
Speaker 1: own blue police ticket from his own waistcoat pocket, he
7:31
Speaker 1: tossed it on to the table. Then he flung his
7:34
Speaker 1: head back until his spike of yellow beard almost pointed
7:37
Speaker 1: at the ceiling, and shouted with a barbaric laughter. Even
7:42
Speaker 1: in that close den, perpetually filled with the dinner of knives, plates, cans,
7:48
Speaker 1: clamorous voices, sudden struggles and stampedes, there was something Homeric
7:53
Speaker 1: in Syme's mirth which made many half drunken men look round.
7:59
Speaker 1: What your laugh, guv'nor, asked one wondering laborer from the docks.
8:05
Speaker 1: Hat myself, answered Sime, and went off again into the
8:09
Speaker 1: agony of his ecstatic reaction.
8:12
Speaker 3: Pull yourself together.
8:15
Speaker 1: Said the professor.
8:16
Speaker 3: Oh you'll get hysthetical. Have some more beer. I'll join you.
8:21
Speaker 4: You haven't drunk your milk, said Sime nay milk, said
8:28
Speaker 4: the other, in tones of withering and unfathomable contempt.
8:33
Speaker 3: My milk, do you think I look at the beastly
8:37
Speaker 3: stuff when I'm out of sight of the bloody anarchists.
8:40
Speaker 3: We're all Christians in his room, though perhaps.
8:44
Speaker 1: He added, glancing round at the reeling crowd, not strict ones.
8:51
Speaker 3: Finish my milk, grect pleases you. Yes, I'll finish it
8:56
Speaker 3: right enough.
8:57
Speaker 1: And he knocked the tumbler off the table, making a
9:00
Speaker 1: crash of glass and a splash of silver fluid. Sime
9:05
Speaker 1: was staring at him with a happy curiosity.
9:08
Speaker 2: I understand now, he cried. Of course, not an old
9:13
Speaker 2: man at all.
9:15
Speaker 3: He can't take my face.
9:16
Speaker 1: Off here, replied Professor de worms.
9:20
Speaker 3: It's rather than a leapert bake up as to whether
9:24
Speaker 3: I'm an old man. That's not for me to say.
9:28
Speaker 3: I was thirty eight, lush birthday.
9:31
Speaker 1: Yes, but I mean, said sim impatiently.
9:35
Speaker 2: There's nothing the matter with you.
9:38
Speaker 1: Yes, answered the other, dispassionately.
9:42
Speaker 3: I am subject to codes.
9:45
Speaker 1: Sime's laughter at all. This had about it a wild
9:48
Speaker 1: weakness of relief. He laughed at the idea of the
9:51
Speaker 1: paralytic professor being really a young actor, dressed up as
9:56
Speaker 1: if for the footlights, but he felt that he would
9:59
Speaker 1: have laughed as loudly if a pepper pot had fallen
10:02
Speaker 1: over the false professor drank and wiped his false beard.
10:08
Speaker 1: Did you know, he asked?
10:11
Speaker 3: Did that man gurgled? Is one of us? I?
10:15
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know it, answered Sime, in some surprise.
10:20
Speaker 3: But didn't you hey, you know more than the dead.
10:25
Speaker 1: Replied the man who called himself the Worms.
10:28
Speaker 3: I thought the president was talking about me, and I
10:31
Speaker 3: rattled in my boots.
10:34
Speaker 2: I thought he was talking about me.
10:37
Speaker 1: Said Sime, with his rather reckless laughter.
10:40
Speaker 2: I minds of my revolver all the time.
10:44
Speaker 1: Shoe had, I said the professor grimly.
10:48
Speaker 3: Sue had gurgled evidently.
10:51
Speaker 1: Sime struck the table with an exclamation.
10:55
Speaker 2: Why there were three of us there? He cried, three
10:59
Speaker 2: uster seven is a fighting number. If we'd only known
11:02
Speaker 2: that we were three.
11:05
Speaker 1: The face of Professor de Worms darkened, and he did
11:08
Speaker 1: not look up. We were three, he said.
11:13
Speaker 3: If we had been three hundred, we could still have
11:16
Speaker 3: done nothing.
11:18
Speaker 2: Not if we were three hundred against four.
11:21
Speaker 1: Asked Syme, jeering rather boisterously, No, said the professor, with sobriety,
11:28
Speaker 1: not if we.
11:29
Speaker 3: Were three hundred against Sunday, and the.
11:32
Speaker 1: Mere name struck sign cold and serious. His laughter had
11:37
Speaker 1: died in his heart before it could die on his lips.
11:41
Speaker 1: The face of the unforgettable President sprang into his mind
11:44
Speaker 1: as startling as a colored photograph, and he remarked this
11:48
Speaker 1: difference between Sunday and all his satellites, that their faces,
11:54
Speaker 1: however fierce or sinister, became gradually blurred by memory, like
11:59
Speaker 1: other human faces, whereas Sundays seemed almost to grow more
12:04
Speaker 1: actual during absence, as if a man's painted portrait should
12:09
Speaker 1: slowly come alive. They were both silent for a measure
12:14
Speaker 1: of moments, and then Sime's speech came with a rush,
12:18
Speaker 1: like the sudden foaming of Champagne.
12:21
Speaker 2: Professor. He cried, it is intolerable. Are you afraid of
12:27
Speaker 2: this man?
12:28
Speaker 1: The Professor lifted his heavy lids and gazed at Sime
12:32
Speaker 1: with large, wide open blue eyes of an almost ethereal honesty. Yes,
12:39
Speaker 1: I am, he said, mildly, shue, are you? Sime was
12:45
Speaker 1: dumb for an instant, then he rose to his feet,
12:49
Speaker 1: erect like an insulted man, and thrust his chair away
12:53
Speaker 1: from him. Yes, he said, in a voice indescribable your eyes.
12:59
Speaker 2: I'm afraid of him. Therefore I swear that I will
13:03
Speaker 2: seek out this man whom I fear, until I find
13:05
Speaker 2: him and strike him on the mouth. If heaven were
13:09
Speaker 2: thrown and the earth is footstool, I swear that I
13:12
Speaker 2: would pull him down.
13:15
Speaker 1: Ho, asked the staring professor.
13:18
Speaker 2: Why because I'm afraid of him, said Sime. And no
13:24
Speaker 2: man should leave in the universe anything of which he's afraid.
13:28
Speaker 1: The worms blinked at him with a sort of blind wonder.
13:32
Speaker 1: He made an effort to speak, but Sime went on
13:35
Speaker 1: in a low voice, but with an undercurrent of inhuman exaltation.
13:41
Speaker 2: Who would condescend to strike down the mere things that
13:44
Speaker 2: he does not fear, Who would debase himself to be
13:47
Speaker 2: merely brave like any common prize fighter, Who would stoop
13:51
Speaker 2: to be fearless like a tree, fight the thing that
13:55
Speaker 2: you fear. You remember the old tale of the English
13:58
Speaker 2: clergyman who gave the last to the brigand of Sicily,
14:01
Speaker 2: And how on his deathbed the great Robbers said, I
14:04
Speaker 2: can give you no money, but I can give you
14:06
Speaker 2: advice for a lifetime. He'll thumb on the blade and
14:09
Speaker 2: strike upwards. So I say to you, strike upwards if
14:14
Speaker 2: he strike at the stars.
14:17
Speaker 1: The other looked at the ceiling. One of the tricks
14:20
Speaker 1: of his pose.
14:22
Speaker 3: Sunday is a fixed star, he said.
14:27
Speaker 2: You shall see him a falling star.
14:29
Speaker 1: Said Sime, and put on his hat. The decision of
14:33
Speaker 1: his gesture drew the professor vaguely to his feet. Have
14:38
Speaker 1: you aadny idea, he asked, with a sort of benevolent bewilderment.
14:44
Speaker 3: Exactly where you are.
14:45
Speaker 1: Going, yes, replied Sime.
14:49
Speaker 2: Shortly, I'm going to prevent this bomb being thrown in Paris.
14:53
Speaker 3: Have you any conception, how.
14:56
Speaker 1: Inquired the other, No, said Sime, with equal decision.
15:02
Speaker 3: You remember, of course, resumed.
15:05
Speaker 1: The Sua de sant de Worms, pulling his beard and
15:08
Speaker 1: looking out of the window.
15:11
Speaker 3: When we break up rather hurriedly, the whole arrangements for
15:15
Speaker 3: the atrocity were left in the private hands of the
15:18
Speaker 3: Marquis and doctor Bull. The Marquis is by this time
15:22
Speaker 3: probably crossing the channels. But where he will go and
15:27
Speaker 3: what he will do, it is doubtful whether even the
15:30
Speaker 3: President knows. Certainly we don't know, the only man who
15:35
Speaker 3: does know is doctor Bull.
15:38
Speaker 2: Confound it, cried Sime. Have you don't know where he is?
15:44
Speaker 1: Yes, said the other, in his curious, absent minded way.
15:49
Speaker 3: I know where he is myself.
15:52
Speaker 1: Will you tell me, asked Sime, with eager eyes.
15:56
Speaker 3: I will take you there.
15:58
Speaker 1: Said the professor, and took down his own hat from
16:01
Speaker 1: a peg. Sime stood looking at him with a sort
16:05
Speaker 1: of rigid excitement. What do you mean, he asked sharply,
16:11
Speaker 1: Will you join me?
16:12
Speaker 2: Will he take the risk, young.
16:15
Speaker 1: Man, said the professor pleasantly.
16:18
Speaker 3: I'm amused to observe that you think I am a coward.
16:23
Speaker 3: As to that, I will say only one word, and
16:26
Speaker 3: that shall be entirely in the manner of your own
16:28
Speaker 3: philosophical rhetoric. You think that it is possible to pull
16:32
Speaker 3: down the president, I know that it is impossible, and
16:37
Speaker 3: I'm going to try it.
16:39
Speaker 1: And opening the tavern door, which let in a blast
16:42
Speaker 1: of bitter air, they went out together into the dark
16:46
Speaker 1: streets by the docks. Most of the snow was melted
16:50
Speaker 1: or trampled to mud, but here and there a clot
16:53
Speaker 1: of it still showed gray rather than white in the gloom.
16:57
Speaker 1: The small streets were sloppy and full of poor wols,
17:00
Speaker 1: which reflected the flaming lamps irregularly and by accident, like
17:05
Speaker 1: fragments of some other and fallen world. Sim felt almost
17:11
Speaker 1: dazed as he stepped through this growing confusion of lights
17:15
Speaker 1: and shadows. But his companion walked on with a certain
17:18
Speaker 1: briskness towards where at the end of the street, an
17:22
Speaker 1: inch or two of the lamp lit river looked like
17:25
Speaker 1: a bar of flame. Where are you going, sim inquired?
17:32
Speaker 1: Just now, answered the professor, I am going.
17:36
Speaker 3: Just round the corner to see whether doctor Bull is
17:38
Speaker 3: gone to bed. He is hygienique and retires early.
17:44
Speaker 2: Doctor Bull exclaimed, Sime, does he live around the corner?
17:49
Speaker 1: No, answered his friend.
17:52
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, he lives some way off
17:55
Speaker 3: on the other side of the river. But we can
17:58
Speaker 3: tell from here whether he is gone to bed.
18:02
Speaker 1: Turning the corner as he spoke, and facing the dim
18:05
Speaker 1: river flecked with flame, he pointed with his stick to
18:09
Speaker 1: the other bank on the Surrey side. At this point
18:13
Speaker 1: there ran out into the Thames, seeming almost to overhang it,
18:17
Speaker 1: a bulk and cluster of those tall tenements dotted with
18:21
Speaker 1: lighted windows and rising like factory chimneys to an almost
18:25
Speaker 1: insane height. Their special poise and position made one block
18:31
Speaker 1: of buildings especially look like a tower of babble with
18:34
Speaker 1: a hundred eyes. Sime had never seen any of the
18:38
Speaker 1: sky scraping buildings in America, so he could only think
18:41
Speaker 1: of the buildings in a dream. Even as he stared,
18:45
Speaker 1: the highest light in this innumerably lighted turret abruptly went out,
18:50
Speaker 1: as if this black argus had winked at him with
18:53
Speaker 1: one of his innumerable eyes. Professor de Worms swung round
18:58
Speaker 1: on his heel and struck his stick against his boot.
19:02
Speaker 1: We are too late, he said.
19:05
Speaker 3: The hygienie doctor has gone to bed.
19:08
Speaker 2: What do you mean, asked Sime. Does he live over there?
19:12
Speaker 3: Then, yes, said the worms behind that particular window which
19:19
Speaker 3: you can't see. Come along and get some dinner. We
19:23
Speaker 3: must call upon him tomorrow morning.
19:26
Speaker 1: Without further parley, he led the way through several byways
19:30
Speaker 1: until they came out into the flare and clamor of
19:33
Speaker 1: the East India Dock Road. The Professor, who seemed to
19:37
Speaker 1: know his way about the neighborhood, proceeded to a place
19:40
Speaker 1: where the line of lighted shops fell back into a
19:43
Speaker 1: sort of abrupt twilight and quiet, in which an old
19:47
Speaker 1: white inn, all out of repair, stood back some twenty
19:51
Speaker 1: feet from the road.
19:54
Speaker 3: You can find good English inns left by accident everywhere, like.
19:59
Speaker 1: Fossils, explained the professor.
20:02
Speaker 3: I once found a decient place in the west end, I.
20:07
Speaker 2: Suppose, said Sime, smiling, that this is the corresponding decent
20:12
Speaker 2: place in the east end.
20:14
Speaker 1: It is, said the professor reverently, and went in. In
20:20
Speaker 1: that place, they dined and slept, both very thoroughly. The
20:24
Speaker 1: beans and bacon which these unaccountable people cooked well. The
20:29
Speaker 1: astonishing emergence of Burgundy from their cellars crowned Syme's sense
20:34
Speaker 1: of a new comradeship and comfort. Through all this ordeal,
20:38
Speaker 1: his rute horror had been isolation, and there are no
20:42
Speaker 1: words to express the abyss between isolation and having one. Ally,
20:47
Speaker 1: it may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is
20:51
Speaker 1: twice two, but two is not twice one. Two is
20:56
Speaker 1: two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of
21:00
Speaker 1: a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy.
21:06
Speaker 1: Sime was able to pour out for the first time
21:08
Speaker 1: the whole of his outrageous tale, from the time when
21:12
Speaker 1: Gregory had taken him to the little tavern by the river.
21:15
Speaker 1: He did it idly and amply, in a luxuriant monologue,
21:20
Speaker 1: as a man speaks with very old friends on his side. Also,
21:25
Speaker 1: the man who had impersonated Professor to Worms was not
21:29
Speaker 1: less communicative. His own story was almost as silly as Syme's.
21:35
Speaker 2: That's a good guess up for yours.
21:37
Speaker 1: Said Sime, draining a glass of making.
21:40
Speaker 2: A lot better than old goggles. Even at the start,
21:44
Speaker 2: I thought he was a bit too hairy.
21:46
Speaker 1: A difference of artistic theory, replied the professor, pensively.
21:52
Speaker 3: Google was an idealist. He made up as the abstract
21:57
Speaker 3: to a platonic ideal, limedeticist. I am a realist. I
22:02
Speaker 3: am a portrait painter. But indeed, to say that I
22:06
Speaker 3: am a portrait painter is an inadequate expression. I am
22:10
Speaker 3: a portrait.
22:12
Speaker 2: I don't understand you, said Sime.
22:17
Speaker 1: I am a portrait, repeated the professor.
22:21
Speaker 3: I'm a portrait of the celebrated Professor de Worms, who
22:24
Speaker 3: is I believe in Naples?
22:27
Speaker 2: You mean you're made up like him, said Sime. But
22:31
Speaker 2: doesn't he know that you're taking his nose in vain?
22:35
Speaker 3: He knows it right.
22:36
Speaker 1: Enough, replied his friend, cheerfully.
22:39
Speaker 2: Then, why doesn't he denounce you.
22:42
Speaker 3: I have denounced.
22:43
Speaker 1: Him, answered the professor.
22:46
Speaker 2: To explain yourself, said Sime.
22:50
Speaker 3: With pleasure, if you don't mind hearing my story.
22:54
Speaker 1: Replied the eminent foreign philosopher.
22:57
Speaker 3: I am by profession an actor, and my name is Wilkes.
23:03
Speaker 3: When I was on the stage, I mixed with all
23:05
Speaker 3: sorts of bohemian and blackguard company. Sometimes I touched the
23:10
Speaker 3: edge of the tuft, sometimes the ref raff of the arts,
23:14
Speaker 3: and occasionally the political refugee in some den of exiled dreamers.
23:20
Speaker 3: I was introduced to the great germaniarist philosopher, Professor de Worms.
23:26
Speaker 3: I did not gather much about him beyond his appearance,
23:30
Speaker 3: which was very disgusting, and which I studied carefully. I
23:35
Speaker 3: understood that he had proved that the destructive principle in
23:38
Speaker 3: the universe was God. Hence he insisted on the need
23:42
Speaker 3: for a furious and incessant energy, rendering all things in pieces. Energy,
23:48
Speaker 3: he said, was they all. He was lame, shortsighted, and
23:54
Speaker 3: partially paralytic. When I met him, I was in a
23:58
Speaker 3: frivolous mood, and I disliked him so much that I
24:02
Speaker 3: resolved to imitate him. If I had been a draftsman,
24:07
Speaker 3: I could have drawn a caricature. I was only an actor.
24:11
Speaker 3: I could only act a caricature. I made myself up
24:16
Speaker 3: into what was meant for a wild exaggeration of the
24:19
Speaker 3: old professor's dirty old self. When I went into the
24:23
Speaker 3: room full of his supporters, I expected to be received
24:26
Speaker 3: with a roar of laughter, or, if they were too
24:30
Speaker 3: far gone, with a roar of indignation at the insult.
24:35
Speaker 3: I cannot describe the surprise I felt when my entrance
24:39
Speaker 3: was received with a respectful silence. Followed when I had
24:44
Speaker 3: first aimed my lips with the murmur of admiration, the
24:50
Speaker 3: curse of the perfect artist had fallen upon me. I
24:54
Speaker 3: had been too subtle, I had been too true. They
24:58
Speaker 3: thought I really was the great dialist Professor. I was
25:03
Speaker 3: a healthy, boded young bar at the time, and I
25:07
Speaker 3: confess that it was a blow before I could fully recover. However,
25:12
Speaker 3: two or three of these admirers who ran up to
25:15
Speaker 3: me a radiating indignation and told me that a public
25:19
Speaker 3: insult had been put upon me. In the next room.
25:23
Speaker 3: I inquired its nature. It seemed that an impertinent fellow
25:27
Speaker 3: had dressed himself up as a preposterous parody of myself.
25:32
Speaker 3: I drunk more champagne. That was good for me, and
25:35
Speaker 3: in a flash of folly, I decided to see the
25:38
Speaker 3: situation through. Consequently, it was to meet the glare of
25:42
Speaker 3: the company, and may earn if the eyebrows and freezing
25:46
Speaker 3: eyes that the real professor came into the room. I
25:51
Speaker 3: need hardly say there was a collision. The pessimist holes
25:55
Speaker 3: round me looked anxiously from one professor to the other
25:59
Speaker 3: professor to see which was really the more feeble. But I,
26:04
Speaker 3: one an old man in poor health like my rival,
26:09
Speaker 3: could not be expected to be so impressively feeble as
26:13
Speaker 3: the young actor in the pribe of life. You see,
26:16
Speaker 3: he really had paralysis, and working within this definite limitation,
26:22
Speaker 3: he couldn't be so jolly paralytic as I was. Then
26:26
Speaker 3: he tried to blast make the ape intellectually. I counted
26:30
Speaker 3: that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something
26:34
Speaker 3: that nobody but he could understand, I replied with something
26:38
Speaker 3: which I could not even understand myself. I don't fancy
26:42
Speaker 3: he said that you could have worked out the principle
26:45
Speaker 3: that evolution is only negation since there inheres in it
26:49
Speaker 3: the introduction of lucouna, which are in essential of differentiation,
26:55
Speaker 3: I replied, quite scornfully. You read all that up in PINKVI.
27:00
Speaker 3: The notion that involution functioned eugenically was exclosed long ago
27:05
Speaker 3: by Glumpey. It is unnecessary for me to say that
27:09
Speaker 3: there never were such people as pink Verts and Glumpey.
27:13
Speaker 3: But the people all round, rather to my surprise, seemed
27:17
Speaker 3: to remember them quite well. And the professor, finding that
27:22
Speaker 3: the learned and mysterious method left him, or rather at
27:25
Speaker 3: the mercy of the enemy, slightly deficient in scruples, fell
27:30
Speaker 3: back upon a mere popular form of wit. I see,
27:35
Speaker 3: he stared, You prevail like the false pig in Esop,
27:40
Speaker 3: and you fail, I answered, smiling, like the hedgehog in Montaigne.
27:47
Speaker 3: Need I say there is no hedgehog in Montaigne. Your
27:51
Speaker 3: clap trap comes off, he said, so would your bird.
27:56
Speaker 3: I had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite
27:59
Speaker 3: true and rather witty, but I laughed heartily, answered like
28:06
Speaker 3: the pantheist's boots at random, and turned on my heel
28:11
Speaker 3: with all the honors of victory. The real professor was
28:15
Speaker 3: thrown out, but not with violence. The one man tried
28:19
Speaker 3: very patiently to pull off his knees. He is now,
28:23
Speaker 3: I believe, received everywhere in Europe as a delightful impostor.
28:29
Speaker 3: His apparent earnestness and anger you see make him all
28:33
Speaker 3: the more entertaining.
28:36
Speaker 1: Well, said sime.
28:38
Speaker 2: I can understand your putting on his dirty old beard
28:41
Speaker 2: for a night's practical joke, but I don't understand you're
28:45
Speaker 2: never taking it off again.
28:47
Speaker 1: That is the rest of the story, said the impersonator.
28:52
Speaker 3: When I myself left the company, followed by reverent applause,
28:57
Speaker 3: I went limping down the dark street, hoping that I
29:00
Speaker 3: should soon be far enough away to be able to
29:03
Speaker 3: walk like a human being. To my astonishment, as I
29:08
Speaker 3: was turning the corner, I felt a touch on the shoulder,
29:12
Speaker 3: and turning, found myself into the shadow of an enormous policeman.
29:18
Speaker 3: He told me I was wanted. I struck a sort
29:21
Speaker 3: of paralytic attitude and cried in a high German accent, Yes,
29:26
Speaker 3: I am wanted by the oppressed of the world. You
29:30
Speaker 3: are resting me on the charge of being the great
29:32
Speaker 3: anarchist professor to arms. The policeman impassively consulted the paper
29:37
Speaker 3: in his hand. No, sir, he said, sivilly, at least
29:43
Speaker 3: not exactly, sir. I am resting you on the charge
29:47
Speaker 3: of not being the celebrated anarchist professor of Arms. This charge,
29:53
Speaker 3: if it was criminal at all, was certainly the lighter
29:57
Speaker 3: of the two, and I went along with the man, doubtful,
30:01
Speaker 3: but not greatly dismayed. I was shown into a number
30:05
Speaker 3: of rooms, and eventually into the presence of a police officer,
30:09
Speaker 3: who explained that a serious campaign had been opened against
30:13
Speaker 3: the centers of anarchy, and that this my successful masquerade,
30:18
Speaker 3: might be of considerable value to the public safety. He
30:23
Speaker 3: offered me a good salary and this little blue card.
30:28
Speaker 3: Though a conversation was short, he struck me as a
30:31
Speaker 3: man of very massive common sense and humor. But I
30:35
Speaker 3: cannot tell you much about him personally, because.
30:40
Speaker 1: Sime laid down his knife and fork.
30:43
Speaker 2: I know, he said, because you talked to him in
30:46
Speaker 2: a dark room.
30:48
Speaker 1: Professor de Worms nodded and drained his glass. End of
30:54
Speaker 1: Chapter eight