Latest / Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) / 12 - Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare (Dramatic Reading) by G K Chesterton

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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The criminals chased the police. Sime put the field glasses
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: from his eyes with an almost ghastly relief.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: The President's not with them, anyhow.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: He said, and wiped his forehead.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: But surely they are right away on the horizon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Said the bewildered colonel, blinking and but half recovered from
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Bull's hasty, though polite explanation.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Could you possibly know your president amongst all these people?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Could I know white elephants among all those people?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Answered Sime, somewhat irritably.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I believe this ground would shake.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: After an instant's pause, the new man called Ratcliff said,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with gloomy decision.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Of course a president.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: It isn't with them.
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: I wish to Gemina he were much more likely. The
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: president is riding in triumph through Pariso, sitting on the
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: ruins of supposed cathedral.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It is absurd, said Sime.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Something may have happened in our absence, But he caul
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Us have carried the world with a rush like that.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It is quite true, he added, frowning dubiously at the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: distant fields that lay towards the little station.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: It is certainly true that it seems to be a
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: crowd coming this way. But They are not all the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: army that you make out, Oh, they.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Said the new detective contemptuously.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: No, they are not a very valuable force. But let
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: me tell you frankly, that they are precisely calculated to
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: our value. We are not much my boy in Sunday's universe,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: he has got hold of all the cables and telegraphs himself.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: But to kill Supreme Council he regards as a trivial matter,
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: like a postcard. It may be left to his private secretary.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: And he spat on the grass. Then he turned to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the others and said, somewhat austerely.
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: There is a great deal to be said for death.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: But if anyone has any prefer for the other alternative,
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: I strongly advised him to walk after me.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: With these words, he turned his broad back and strode
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: with silent energy towards the wood. The others gave one
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: glance over their shoulders and saw that the dark cloud
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of men had detached itself from the station and was
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: moving with a mysterious discipline across the plain. They saw already,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: even with the naked eye, black flots on the foremost faces,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: which marked the masks they wore. They turned and followed
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: their leader, who had already struck the wood and disappeared
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: among the twinkling trees. The sun on the grass was
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: dry and hot, so in plunging into the wood they
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: had a cool shock of shadow, as of divers who
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: plunge into a dim pool. The inside of the wood
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was full of shattered sunlight and shaken shadows. They made
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a sort of shuddering veil, almost recalling the dizziness of
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a cinema. Even the solid figures walking with him, Sime
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: could hardly see for the patterns of sun and shade
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: that danced upon them. Now a man's head was lit
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: as with the light of Rembrandt, leaving all else obliterated.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Now again he had strong and staring white hands, with
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the face of a negro. The ex marquis had pulled
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the old straw hat over his eyes, and the black
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: shade of the brim cut his face so squarely into
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that it seemed to be wearing one of the black
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: half masks of their pursuers. The fancy tinted Sime's overwhelming
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: sense of wonder. Was he wearing a mask? Was anyone
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: wearing a mask? Was any one anything? This wood of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: witchery in which men's faces turned black and white, by
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: turns in which their figures first swelled into sunlight and
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: then faded into formless night. This mere chaoe of Ceskuiro,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: after the clear daylight outside, seemed to sign a perfect
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: symbol of the world in which he had been moving
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for three days, This world where men took off their
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: beards and their spectacles and their noses and turned into
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: other people. That tragic self confidence which he had felt
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: when he believed that the Marquis was a devil, had
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: strangely disappeared now that he knew that the Marquis was
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a friend. He felt almost inclined to ask, after all
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: these bewilderments, what was a friend and what an enemy?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Was there anything that was apart from what it seemed.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: The Marquis had taken off his nose and turned out
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to be a detective. Might he not just as well
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: take off his head and turn out to be a hobgoblin?
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Was not everything? After all? Like this bewildering woodland, this
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: dance of dark and light, Everything only a glimpse, the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: glimpse always unforeseen and always forgotten. For Gabriel Syme had
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: found in the heart of that sun splashed wood what
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: many modern painters had found there, He had found the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: thing which the modern world call impressionism, which is another
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: name for that final skepticism which can find no floor
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: to the universe. As a man in an evil dream
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: strains himself to scream and wake Syme Strove with a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: sudden effort to fling off this last and worst of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: his fancies. With two impatient strides, he overtook the man
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in the mark with his straw hat, the man whom
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: he had come to address as Ratcliffe. In a voice
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: exaggeratively loud and cheerful, he broke the bottomless silence and
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: made conversation.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: May I ask, he said, where on earth we're all
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: going to?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So genuine had been the doubts of his soul that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: he was quite glad to hear his companion speak in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: an easy human voice.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: We must get down through the town of Lancey to
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: the sea, he said, I think that part of the
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: country is least likely to be with them.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: What can you mean by all this, cried Sime. They
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: can't be running the real world in that way. Surely
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: not many working men are anarchists, and surely if they
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: were mere mobs. Cannot beat modern armies and police.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Mere mobs, repeated his new friend with a sort of scorn.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: So you talk about mobs in the working classes, if
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: they were the question, you've got the eternally idiotic idea
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: that if anarchy came or to come from the poor,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: why should it. The poor have been rebels, but they
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: have never been anarchists. They have more interest than anyone
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: else in there being a in some decent government. The
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: poor man really has a stake in the country. The
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: rich hasn't. He can go away to New Guinean yacht.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: The poor have sometimes subjected to being governed badly. The
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: were always anarchists, as you can see from the Barons Wars.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: As electoral English history for the little ones, said Sime.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: This is all very nice, but I've not yet craft
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: its application.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Its application is said his informant, that most.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Of Old Sunday's right hand men are South African and
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: American millionaires. That is why he got hold of all
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: the communications, and that is why the last four champions
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: of the anti anarchists police force are running through a
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: wood like rabbits, millionaires.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I can understand, said Sime thoughtfully.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: They're nearly all mad. But getting hold of a few
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: wicked old gentlemen with hobbies is one thing. Getting hold
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: of great Christians in another. I have bet the nose
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: of my face forgive the illusion that some they would
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: stand perfectly helpless before the task of converting any ordinary,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: healthy person anywhere.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: Well, said the other, It rather depends on what sort
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: of person you mean.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Well, for instance, said Sime, he can never convert that person.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And he pointed straight in front of him. They had
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: come to an open space of sunlight, which seemed to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: express to Sime the final return of his own good sense.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And in the middle of this forest clearing was a
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: figure that might well stand for that common sense. In
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: an almost awful actuality, burnt by the sun and stained
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: with perspiration, and grave with the bottomless gravity of small
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: necessary toils, a heavy French peasant was cutting wood with
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: a hatchet. His cart stood a few yards off, already
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: half full of timber, and the horse that cropped the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: grass was like his master, valorous but not desperate. Like
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: his master, he was even prosperous, but yet was almost sad.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: The man was a Norman, taller than the average of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the French, and very angular, and his swarthy figure stood
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: dark against a square of sunlight, almost like some allegoric
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: figure of labor frescoed on a ground of gold.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Mister sim Is saying.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Called out Ratcliffe to the French colonel.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: That this man at least will never be an anarchist.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Mister sim is right enough, there, answered Colonel de Croix, laughing,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: if only for the reason that he has plenty of
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: property to defend. But I forgot that in your country
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: you are not used to peasants being wealthy.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: He looks poor, said doctor Bull. Doubtfully. Quite so, oh,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: said the colonel.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: That is why he is rich.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I have an idea, called out doctor Bull suddenly.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: How much would he take to give us a lift
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: in his cat? Those dogs are all on foot, and
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: we could soon leave them behind.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I'll give him anything, said sim eagerly.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I have piles money on me.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: That will never do, said the colonel. He will never
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: have any respect for you unless you drive a bargain.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Oh if he haggles, began Bull impatiently.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: He haggles because he is a free man, said the
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: other You do not understand. He would not see the
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: meaning of generosity. He is not being tipped.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And even while they seemed to hear the heavy feet
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: of their strange pursuers behind them, they had to stand
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: and stamp while the French colonel talked to the French woodcutter,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: with all the leisurely badinage and bickering of market day.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: At the end of the four minutes, however, they saw
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that the colonel was right, for the woodcutter entered into
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: their plans not with the vague servility of a tout
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: too well paid, but with the seriousness of a solicitor
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: who had been paid the proper fee. He told them
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that the best thing they could do was to make
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: their way down to the little inn in the hills
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: above Lancey, where the innkeeper, an old soldier who had
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: become devaux in his latter years, would be certain to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: sympathize with them, and even to take risks in their support.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: The whole company therefore piled themselves on top of the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: stacks of wood and went rocking in the rude cart
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: down the other and steeper side of the woodland. Heavy
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and ramshackle as was the vehicle, it was driven quickly enough,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and they soon had the exhilarating impression of distancing altogether
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: those whoever they were, who were hunting them. For after all,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the riddle as to where the anarchists had got all
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: these followers was still unsolved. One man's presence had sufficed
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: for them. They had fled at the first sight of
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the deformed smile of the secretary. Sime every now and
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: then looked back over his shoulder at the army on
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: their track. As the wood grew first thinner and then
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: smaller with distance, he could see the sunlit slopes beyond it,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and above it, and across these was still moving the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: square black mob like one monstrous beetle. In the very
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: strong sunlight, and with his own very strong eyes, which
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: were almost telescopic, Sime could see this mass of men
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: quite plainly. He could see them as separate human figures,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: but he was increasingly surprised by the way in which
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: they moved as one man. They seemed to be dressed
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in dark clothes and plains hats, like any common crowd
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: out of the streets. But they did not spread and
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: sprawl and trail by various lines to the attack, as
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: would be natural in an ordinary mob. They moved with
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a sort of dreadful and wicked woodenness, like a staring
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: army of automatons. Sime pointed this out to Ratcliffe. Yes,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: replied the policeman.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: That's discipline, that's Sunday. He is perhaps five hundred miles off,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: but the fear of him is in all of them,
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: like the finger of God. Yes, they are walking regularly,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: and you bet your boots that they are talking regularly, yes,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: and thinking regularly. But the one important thing for us
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: is that they are disappearing regularly.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Sime nodded. It was true that the black patch of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the pursuing men was growing smaller and smaller as the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: peasant belabored his horse. The level of the sunlit landscape,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: though flat as a hole, fell away on the farther
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: side of the wood, in billows of heavy slope towards
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the sea, in a way not unlike the lower slopes
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of the Sussex Downs. The only difference was that in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Sussex the road would have been broken and angular, like
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a little brook. But here the white French road fell
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: sheer in front of them, like a waterfall. Down this
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: direct descent, the cart clattered at a considerable angle, and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in a few minutes the road growing yet steeper, they
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: saw below them the little harbor of Lancey, and a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: great blue arc of the sea. The traveling cloud of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: their enemies had wholly disappeared from the horizon. The horse
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and cart took a sharp turn round a clump of elms,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and the horse's nose nearly struck the face of an
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: old gentleman who was sitting on the benches outside the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: little cafe of Lace d'Or. The peasant grunted an apology
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and got down from his seat. The others also descended
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: one by one and spoke to the old gentleman with
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: fragmentary phrases of courtesy, for it was quite evident from
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: his expansive manner that he was the owner of the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: little tavern. He was a white haired, apple faced old
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: boy with sleepy eyes and a gray mustache, stout, sedentary,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and very innocent, of a type that may often be
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: found in France, but is still commoner in Catholic Germany.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Everything about him, his pipe, his pot of beer, his flowers,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and his beehive suggested an ancestral peace. Only when his
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: visitors looked up as they entered the inn parlor, they
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: saw the sword upon the wall. The colonel, who greeted
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the innkeeper as an old friend, passed rapidly into the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: inn parlor and sat down, ordering some ritual refreshment. The
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: military decision of his action interested Sime, who sat next
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to him, and he took the opportunity when the old
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: innkeeper had gone out of satisfying his curiosity.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: May I ask you, colonel, he said, in a low voice,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: why we've come here?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Colonel de Crax smiled behind his briskly white mustache.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: For two reasons, sir, he said, And I will give
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: the first, and not the most important, but the most utilitarian.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: We came here because this is the only place within
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: twenty miles in which we can get horses.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Horses, repeated Sime, looking up quickly.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, replied the other. If you people are really to
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: distance your enemies, it is horses or nothing for you, unless,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: of course, you have byscles and motor cars in your pocket.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And where do you advise us to make for asked Sime.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Doubtfully beyond question, replied the colonel.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: You had better make all haste to the police station
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: beyond the town. My friend whom I seconded, under somewhat
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: deceptive circumstances, seems to me to exaggerate very much the
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: possibilities of a general rising. But even he would hardly maintain,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I suppose that you were not safe with the gendarmes.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Sime nodded gravely. Then he said, abruptly.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: And your other reason for coming here?
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: My other reason for coming here, said Ducroix, soberly, is
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: that it is just as well to see a good
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: man or two when one is possibly near to death.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Sime looked up at the wall and saw a crudely painted,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: empathetic religious picture. He said, you're right, And then almost
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: immediately afterwards.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Has anyone seen about the horses?
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, answered Ducarx.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: You may be quite certain that I gave orders the
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: moment I came in. Those enemies of yours gave no
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: impression of hurry, but they were really moving wonderfully fast,
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: like a well trained army. I had no idea that
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the anarchists had so much discipline. You have not a
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: moment to waste.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Almost as he spoke, the old innkeeper with the blue
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: eyes and white hair came ambling into the room and
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: announced that six horses were saddled outside. By Duca's advice,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the five others equipped themselves with some portable form of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: food and wine, and keeping their dueling swords as the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: only weapons available, they clattered away down the steep white road.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: The two servants who had cared maried the Marquess's luggage
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: when he was a marquis, were left behind to drink
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: at the cafe, by common consent and not at all
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: against their own inclination. By this time, the afternoon sun
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: was slanting westward, and by its race Sime could see
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the sturdy figure of the old Innkeeper, growing smaller and smaller,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: but still standing and looking after them quite silently the
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: sunshine in his silver hair. Sime had a fixed, superstitious
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: fancy left in his mind by the chance phrase of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the Colonel, that this was indeed perhaps the last honest
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: stranger whom he should ever see upon the earth. He
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was still looking at this dwindling figure, which stood as
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a mere gray blot touched with a white flame against
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the great green wall of the steep down behind him,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: And as he stared over the top of the down
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: behind the Innkeeper, there appeared an army of black, black
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: clad and marching men. They seemed to hang above the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: good Man and his house like a black cloud of locusts.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: The horses had been saddled none too soon. End of
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven,