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

shouting.
"Stop, you blasted madmen!" he cried, at the top of a voice that tore
his throat. "Stop, you--"
But louder than Gregory's shouting and louder than the roar of the room
came the voice of Syme, still speaking in a peal of pitiless thunder--
"I do not go to the Council to rebut that slander that calls us
murderers; I go to earn it (loud and prolonged cheering). To the priest who
says these men are the enemies of religion, to the judge who says these men
are the enemies of law, to the fat parliamentarian who says these men are
the enemies of order and public decency, to all these I will reply, 'You are
false kings, but you are true prophets. I am come to destroy you, and to
fulfil your prophecies.' "
The heavy clamour gradually died away, but before it had ceased
Witherspoon had jumped to his feet, his hair and beard all on end, and had
said--
"I move, as an amendment, that Comrade Syme be appointed to the post."
"Stop all this, I tell you!" cried Gregory, with frantic face and
hands. "Stop it, it is all--"
The voice of the chairman clove his speech with a cold accent.
"Does anyone second this amendment?" he said. A tall, tired man, with
melancholy eyes and an American chin beard, was observed on the back bench
to be slowly rising to his feet. Gregory had been screaming for some time
past; now there was a change in his accent, more shocking than any scream.
"I end all this!" he said, in a voice as heavy as stone.
"This man cannot be elected. He is a--"
"Yes," said Syme, quite motionless, "what is he?" Gregory's mouth
worked twice without sound; then slowly the blood began to crawl back into
his dead face. "He is a man quite inexperienced in our work," he said, and
sat down abruptly.
Before he had done so, the long, lean man with the American beard was
again upon his feet, and was repeating in a high American monotone--
"I beg to second the election of Comrade Syme."
"The amendment will, as usual, be put first," said Mr. Buttons, the
chairman, with mechanical rapidity.
"The question is that Comrade Syme--"
Gregory had again sprung to his feet, panting and passionate.
"Comrades," he cried out, "I am not a madman."
"Oh, oh!" said Mr. Witherspoon.
"I am not a madman," reiterated Gregory, with a frightful sincerity
which for a moment staggered the room, "but I give you a counsel which you
can call mad if you like. No, I will not call it a counsel, for I can give
you no reason for it. I will call it a command. Call it a mad command, but
act upon it. Strike, but hear me! Kill me, but obey me! Do not elect this
man." Truth is so terrible, even in fetters, that for a moment Syme's
slender and insane victory swayed like a reed. But you could not have
guessed it from Syme's bleak blue eyes. He merely began--
"Comrade Gregory commands--"
Then the spell was snapped, and one anarchist called out to Gregory--
"Who are you? You are not Sunday"; and another anarchist added in a
heavier voice, "And you are not Thursday."