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

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Yesterton the accuser. As Sime strode along the corridor, he
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: saw the secretary standing at the top of a great
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: flight of stairs. The man had never looked so noble.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: He was draped in a long robe of starless black,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: down the center of which fell a band or broad
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: stripe of pure white, like a single shaft of light.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The whole looked like some very severe ecclesiastical vestment. There
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: was no need for Sime to search his memory or
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the Bible in order to remember that the first day
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of creation marked the mere creation of light out of darkness.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: The vestment itself would alone have suggested the symbol, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Syme felt also how perfectly this pattern of pure white
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and black expressed the soul of the pale and austere secretary,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: with his inhuman veracity and his cold frenzy, which made
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: him so easily make war on the anarchists, and yet
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: so easily pass for one of them. Sime was scarcely
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: surprised to notice that, amid all the ease and hospitality
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of their new surroundings, this man's eyes were still stern.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: No smell of ale or orchards could make the secretary
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: cease to ask a reasonable question. If Sime had been
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: able to see himself, he would have realized that he
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: too seemed to be, for the first time, himself and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: no one else. For if the secretary stood for that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: philosopher who loves the original and formless light, Sime was
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a type of the poet, who seeks always to make
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the light in special shapes, to split it up into
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: sun and star. The philosopher may sometimes love the infinite,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the poet always loves the finite. For him, the great
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: moment is not the creation of light, but the creation
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of the sun and moon. As they descended the broad
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: stairs together they overtook Ratcliff, who was clad in spring
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: green like a huntsman, and the pattern upon whose garment
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: was a green tangle of trees. For he stood for
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that third day on which the earth and green things
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: were made, and his square, sensible face, with its not
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: unfriendly cynicism, seemed appropriate enough to it. They were led
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: out of another broad and low gateway into a very
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: large old English garden full of torches and bonfires, by
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the broken light of which a vast carnival of people
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: were dancing in motley dress. Sime seemed to see every
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: shape in nature imitated in some crazy costume. There was
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a man dressed as a windmill with enormous sails, a
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: man dressed as an elephant, a man dressed as a balloon.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: The two last together seemed to keep the thread of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: their farcicle adventures. Sime even saw with a queer thrill
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: one dancer dressed like an enormous hornbill with a beak
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: twice as big as himself, the queer bird, which had
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: fixed itself on his fancy like a living question. While
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: he was rushing down the long road. At the zoological gardens,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: there were a thousand other such objects. However, there was
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: a dancing lamp post, a dancing apple tree, a dancing ship.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: One would have thought that the untameable tune of some
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: mad musician had set all the common objects of field
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and street dancing an eternal jig. And long afterwards, when
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Sime was middle aged and at rest, he could never
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: see one of those particular objects, a lamp post, or
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: an apple tree, or a wind mull, without thinking that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it was a strayed from that revel of masquerade. On
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: one side of this lawn alive with dancers, was a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: sort of green bank like the terrace in such old
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: dashed gardens. Along this, in a kind of crescent, stood
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: seven great chairs, the thrones of the seven days, Gogol
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and Doctor Bull were already in their seats. The Professor
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: was just mounting to his gogl Or Tuesday, had his
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: simplicity well symbolized by a dress designed upon the division
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of the waters, a dress that separated upon his forehead
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and fell to his feet, gray and silver, like a
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: sheet of rain. The professor, whose day was that on
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: which the birds and fishes, the ruder forms of life
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: were created, had a dress of dim purple, over which
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: sprawled goggle eyed fishes and outrageous tropical birds, the union
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: in him of unfathomable fancy and of doubt. Doctor Bull,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the last day of creation, wore a coat covered with
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: heraldic animals in red and gold, and on his crest
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: a man rampant. He lay back in his chair with
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a broad smile, the picture of an optimist in his element.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: One by one the wanderers ascended the bank and sat
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in their strange seats. As each of them sat down,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a roar of enthusiasm rose from the carnival, such as
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that with which crowds received kings, cups were clashed, and
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: torches shaken, and feathered hats flung in the air. The
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: men for whom these thrones were reserved were men crowned
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: with some extraordinary laurels. But the central chair was empty.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Sime was on the left hand of it, and the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Secretary on the right. The secretary looked across the empty
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: throne at Syme and said, compressing his lips.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: We do not know yet that he is not dead
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: in a field.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Almost as Syme heard the words, he saw on the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: sea of human faces in front of him, a frightful
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and beautiful alteration, as if heaven had opened behind his head.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: But Sunday had only passed silently along the front like
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a shadow, and had sat in the central seat. He
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: was draped plainly in a pure and terrible white, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: his hair was like a silver flame on his forehead.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: For a long time, it seemed for hours that huge
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: masquerade of mankind swayed and stamped in front of them
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: to marching and exultant music. Every couple dancing seemed a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: separate romance. It might be a fairy dancing with a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: pillar box, or a peasant girl dancing with the moon.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: But in each case it was somehow as absurd as
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: alice in one land, yet as grave and kind as
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a love story. At last, however, the thick crowd began
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to thin itself. Couples strolled away into the garden walks,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: or began to drift towards that end of the building,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: where stood smoking in huge pots like fish kettles, some
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: hot and scented mixtures of old ale or wine. Above
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: all these, upon a sort of black framework on the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: roof of the house roared in its iron basket a
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: gigantic bonfire, which lit up the land for miles. It
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: flung the homely effect of firelight over the face of
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: vast forests of gray or brown, and it seemed to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: fill with warmth even the emptiness of upper night. Yet this, also,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: after a time, was allowed to grow fainter. The dim
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: groups gathered more and more round the great cauldrons, or pasted,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: laughing and clattering into the inner passages of that ancient house.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Soon there were only some ten loiterers in the garden,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: soon only four. Finally, the last stray merrymaker ran into
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the house, whooping to his companions. The fire faded, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the slow, strong stars came out, and the seven strange
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: men were left alone, like seven stone statues on their
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: chairs of stone. Not one of them had spoken a word.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: They seemed in no haste to do so, but heard
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in silence the hum of insects and the distant song
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of one bird. Then Sunday spoke, but so dreamily that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: he might have been continuing a conversation rather than beginning one.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: We will eat and drink later, he said, Let us
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: remain together a little, we who have loved each other
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: so sadly and fought so long. I seem to remember
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: only centuries of heroic war, in which you were always
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: heroes epic on epic iliad on iliad, and you always
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: brothers in arms, whether it was but recently, for time
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: is nothing, or at the beginning of the world, I
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: sent you out to war. I sat in the darkness,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: where there is not any created thing, and to you
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I was only a voice, commanding valor and an unnatural virtue.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: You heard the voice in the dark, and you never
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: earth and sky denied it. All human wisdom denied it.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: And when I met you in the daylight. I denied
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: it myself.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Signs stirred sharply in his seat. But otherwise there was silence,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and the incomprehensible went on.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: But you were men. You did not forget your secret honor,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: tear it out of you. I knew how near you
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: were to hell. I know how you Thursday crossed swords
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: with King Satan, and how you Wednesday named me in
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: the hour without hope.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: There was complete silence in the starlit garden, and then
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the black browed Secretary, implacable, turned in his chair towards
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Sunday and said, in a harsh voice.
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  Speaker 2: Who and what hi you?
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I am the Sabbath.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Said the other, without moving.
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  Speaker 3: I am the Peace of God.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The secretary started up and stood, crushing his costly robe
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in his hand.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: I know what you mean, he cried, And it is
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: exactly that that I cannot forgive you. I know you
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: are contentment, optimism, what they call the thing an ultimate reconciliation.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Well I am not reconciled. If you were the man
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: in the dark room, why were you also Sunday an
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: offense to the sunlight. If you were from the first,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: our father and our friend, why were you also our
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: greatest enemy? We wept, we fled in terror. The iron
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: entered into our souls, and you are the peace of God. Oh.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I can forgive God his anger so it destroyed nations,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: but I cannot forgive him his peace.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Sunday answered not a word, but very slowly he turned
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: his face of stone upon Sime, as if asking a question.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: No, said Sime, I do not feel fierce like that.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: I'm grateful to you, not only for wine and hospitality here,
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: but for many a fine scamper and free fight. But
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I should like to know my soul and heart was
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: happy and quiet here as this old garden. But my
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: reason is still crying out. I should like to know.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Sunday looked at Ratcliffe, whose clear voice said.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: It seems so silly that you should have been on
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: both sides in fort yourself.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Baul said, I understand nothing, but I am happy.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: In fact, I am going to sleep. I am not happy,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: said the professor, with his head in his hands.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Because I do not understand.
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: You let me stray a little too near to hell.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And then Goggle said, with the absolute simplicity, of a child.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I'll behind you, I offered so much. Still Sunday said nothing,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: but only sat with his mighty chin upon his hand
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and gazed at the distance. Then at last he said.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I have heard your complaints in order, and here I
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: think comes another to complain. We will hear him also.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The falling fire in the great cresset threw a long,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: last gleam, like a bar of burning gold across the
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: dim ground. Against this fiery band was outlined in utter
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: black the advancing legs of a black plaid figure. He
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: seemed to have a fine close suit with knee breeches,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: such as that which was worn by the servants of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the house, only that it was not blue. But of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: this absolute sable he had liked the servants a kind
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of sword by his side. It was only when he
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: had come quite close to the Crescent of the Seven
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and flung up his face to look at them, that
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Simeon saw with thunderstruck clearness that the face was the broad,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: almost apelike face of his old friend Gregory, with its
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: rank hair and its insulting smile. Gregory gasped sime half
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: rising from his.
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: Seat, Why this is the real anarchist yes, sir.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Said Gregory, with a great and dangerous restraint.
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: I the real anarchist.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Now there was a day, murmured Bull, who seemed really
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to have fallen asleep.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: When the sons of God came to present themselves before
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: the Lord and Satan came off.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: So long them.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: You are right, said Gregory, and gazed all round.
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: I am a destroyer. I would destroy the world if
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: I could.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: A sense of a pathos far under the earth stirred
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: up in time, and he spoke brokenly and without sequence.
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: Oh, most unhappy man, he cried, Try to be happy.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: You have red hair like your sister.
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: My red hair like red flames shall burn.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Up the world, said Gregory.
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: I thought I hated everything more than common men can
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: hate anything. But I find that I do not hate
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: everything so much as I hate you.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I never hated you, said Sime, very sadly. Then out
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of this unintelligible creature, the last thunders broke you.
• 16:15
  Speaker 6: He cried, you never hated because you never lived. I
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: know what you are, all of you, from first to last.
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: You are the people in power. You are the police,
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: the great fat, smiling men in blue and buttons. You
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: are the law, and you have never been broken. But
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: is there a free soul alive that does not long
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: to break you? Only because you have never been broken?
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: We in revolt talk all kinds of nonsense, doubtless about
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: this crime or that crime of the government. It is
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: all folly. The only crime of the government is that
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: that it is supreme. I do not curse you for
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: being cruel. I do not curse you, though I might
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: for being kind. I curse you for being safe. You
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: sit in your chairs of stone and have never come
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: down from them. You are the seven angels of heaven,
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: and you have had no troubles. Oh, I could forgive
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: you everything you that rule all mankind, if I could
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: feel for once that you had suffered for one hour
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: a real agony such as.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I Sime sprang to his feet, shaking from head to foot.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: I see everything, he cried, everything that there is. Why
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: does each thing on the earth war against each other thing?
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: What is each small thing in the world have to
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to fight the whole universe? Why does the dandelion have
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: I had to be alone in the dreadful counsel of
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: the days, so that each Thingsbay's law may have the
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: glory and isolation of the anarchists, so that each man
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: fighting for order may be as brave and good a
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: man as the dynamiser, So that the real life Satan
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: may be flung back in the face of this blasphema,
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: so that by tears and torture he may earn the
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: writer say to this man, you lie. No agonies can
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: be too great to buy the right to say to
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: this accuser, we have also suffered. It is not true
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: that we have never been broken. We have been broken
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: upon the wheel. It is not true that we have
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: We are complaining of unforgettable miseries. Even at the very
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: I repel the slander. We have not been happy. I
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: can answer for every one of the great gods of
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: law whom he is accused.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: At least he had turned his eyes so as to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: see suddenly the great face of Sunday, which wore a
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: strange smile, have you, he cried in a dreadful.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: Voice, have you ever suffered?
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: grew larger than the colossal mask of Memnon which had
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: made him scream as a child. It grew larger and larger,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: filling the whole sky. Then everything went black. Only in
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the blackness before it entirely destroyed his brain, he seemed
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: he had heard somewhere, Can ye drink of the cup
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: that I drink of? When men in books awake from
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: a vision, they commonly find themselves in some place in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: which they might have fallen asleep. They yawned in a chair,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: or lift themselves with bruised limbs from a field. Sime's
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: experience was something much more psychologically strange, if there was
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: indeed anything unreal in the earthly sense about the things
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: he had gone through. For while he could always remember
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: afterwards that he had swooned before the face of Sunday,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: he could not remember having ever come to at all.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: He could only remember that gradually and naturally he knew
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that he was and had been, walking along a country
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: lane with an easy and conversational companion. That companion had
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: been a part of his recent drama. It was the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: red haired poet Gregory. They were walking like old friends
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and were in the middle of a conversation about some triviality.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: But Simon could only feel an unnatural bullyancy in his
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: body and a crystal simplicity in his mind that seemed
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to be superior to everything that he said or did.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: He felt he was in possession of some impossible good news,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: which meant made every other thing a triviality, but an
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: adorable triviality. Dawn was breaking over everything in colors at
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: once clear and timid, as if nature made a first
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose. A
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: breeze blew so clean and sweet that one could not
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: think that it blew from the sky. It blew rather
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: through some hole in the sky. Sim felt a simple
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: surprise when he saw, rising all round him on both
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: sides of the road, the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: He had no idea that he had walked so near London.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: He walked by instinct along one white road on which
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: girl with the gold red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: with the great unconscious gravity of a girl. End of
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen. End of The Man Who Was Thursday A
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Nightmare by G. K. Chesterton