"Feedback" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

“Mr. Dunner! Who are the seditioners?”

There are a number of them.” He had answered! A sudden hush fell.

He spoke again. “They are here.”

The questioner asked, “Which ones?” People in the crowd stirred uneasily, not speaking. The names coming would be a shock. Bruce glanced around uneasily. Which ones?

The teacher raised his head sickly and looked at them, turning his face slowly to look across the crowd, with a wild smile touching his lips. They couldn’t tell whose face his eyes touched— He spoke softly in that clear, carrying teacher’s voice.

“Oh, I know you,” he said. “I’ve talked to you and I know your minds, and how you’ve grown past the narrow boundaries of what was considered enlightened opinion and the right ways—forty years ago. I know how you hate against the unchanging limits, and fight yourselves to pretend to think like the contented ones around you, chaining and smothering half your mind. And I know the flashes of insane rage that come to you from nowhere when you are talking and living like the others live; rage against the world that smothers you; rage against the United States; rage against all crowds; rage against whoever you are with—even if it is your own family; rage like being possessed!” Bruce suddenly felt that he couldn’t breathe.

And it seemed to him that William Dunner was looking at him, at Bruce Wilson. The gentle, inhumanly clear voice flowed on mercilessly.

“And how terror comes that the hatred will show, that the rage will escape into words and betray you. You force the rage down with the frenzy of terror and hide your thoughts from yourself, as a murderer conceals his reddened hands. You are comforted and reassured, moving with a crowd, pretending that you are one of them, as contented and foolish as they.” He nodded slightly, smiling.

But Bruce felt as if the eyes were burning into his own, plunging deep with a torturing dagger of cold clear vision. He stood paralyzed, as if there were a needle in his brain—feeling it twist and go deeper with the words.

The man leaning against the tree nodded, smiling. “I’ve had dinner with all of them one time or another. And I know you, oh hidden seditioners, and the fear of being known that drives you to act your savagery and hatred against those of us who become known.” He smiled vaguely, leaning his head back against the tree, his voice lower. “I know you—”

The husky questioner jogged him, asking harshly—

“Who are they?”

Bruce Wilson waited for the names, and incredibly, impossibly, his name. It would come. He stood unmoving as if he were a long way away from himself, his eyes and ears dimmed by the cold weight of his knowledge. He waited. There was no use moving. There was no place to go, no way to escape. From all the multitude of the people of Fairfield there came no sound.

The teacher raised his head again and looked at them. He chuckled almost inaudibly in a teasing gentle chuckle that seemed to fill the world.

“All of you.”



Bruce grasped at the words and found that they were nonsense, meaningless— Swaying slightly he let out a tiny hysterical chuckle.

Like a meaningless thing he saw the questioner swing an instantaneous blow that rammed the teacher’s head against the tree and sent him toppling slowly forward to dangle from the ropes at his elbows.

Around him were strange noises. Gifford was clapping him on the back, shouting in his ear. “Isn’t that funny! Ha ha! Isn’t that crazy! The guy’s insane!” Gifford’s eyes stared frightened out of a white face. He shouted and laughed.

“Crazy!” shouted Bruce back, and laughed loudly and shouted, “What crazy nonsense! We’ll get the truth out of him yet.” It had all been a dream, a lie. He could not remember why he was shaking. He had nothing to fear, he was one of the vigilantes, laughing with them, shouting against the teacher, hating the teacher…



They revived William Dunner and he leaned back against the tree with his eyes closed, not speaking or answering, his body glittering with tacks. He must have been in pain. The crowd voices lashed at those on the platform. “Make him answer!” “Do something!” Bruce took out his pocket lighter and handed it up.

They took the pocket lighter.

The teacher leaned against the tree he was tied to, eyes closed with that infuriating attitude of unresentful patience, not seeing what was coming, probably very smug inside, laughing at how he had tricked them all, probably thinking—

Thinking—