"G.K.Chesterton. The man who was Thursday. A nightmare (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

this infernal room they would not believe me."
Syme smoked thoughtfully, and looked at him with interest. Gregory went
on.
"The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I
became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises.
I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist
pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly
understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a
cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in
episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder,
'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I
was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a
millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool
could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a
humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to
understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence-- the
proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the
major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!'
abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak
perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was
nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central
Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe."
"What is his name?" asked Syme.
"You would not know it," answered Gregory. "That is his greatness.
Caesar and Napoleon put all their genius into being heard of, and they were
heard of. He puts all his genius into not being heard of, and he is not
heard of. But you cannot be for five minutes in the room with him without
feeling that Caesar and Napoleon would have been children in his hands."
He was silent and even pale for a moment, and then resumed--
"But whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an
epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England. I said to him, 'What
disguise will hide me from the world? What can I find more respectable than
bishops and majors?' He looked at me with his large but indecipherable face.
'You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress which will guarantee you
harmless; a dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb?' I nodded. He
suddenly lifted his lion's voice. 'Why, then, dress up as an anarchist, you
fool!' he roared so that the room shook. 'Nobody will ever expect you to do
anything dangerous then.' And he turned his broad back on me without another
word. I took his advice, and have never regretted it. I preached blood and
murder to those women day and night, and--by God!-- they would let me wheel
their perambulators."
Syme sat watching him with some respect in his large, blue eyes.
"You took me in," he said. "It is really a smart dodge."
Then after a pause he added--
"What do you call this tremendous President of yours?"
"We generally call him Sunday," replied Gregory with simplicity. 'You
see, there are seven members of the Central Anarchist Council, and they are
named after days of the week. He is called Sunday, by some of his admirers
Bloody Sunday. It is curious you should mention the matter, because the very
night you have dropped in (if I may so express it) is the night on which our