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

"Comrades," cried Gregory, in a voice like that of a martyr who in an
ecstacy of pain has passed beyond pain, "it is nothing to me whether you
detest me as a tyrant or detest me as a slave. If you will not take my
command, accept my degradation. I kneel to you. I throw myself at your feet.
I implore you. Do not elect this man."
"Comrade Gregory," said the chairman after a painful pause, "this is
really not quite dignified."
For the first time in the proceedings there was for a few seconds a
real silence. Then Gregory fell back in his seat, a pale wreck of a man, and
the chairman repeated, like a piece of clock-work suddenly started again--
"The question is that Comrade Syme be elected to the post of Thursday
on the General Council."
The roar rose like the sea, the hands rose like a forest, and three
minutes afterwards Mr. Gabriel Syme, of the Secret Police Service, was
elected to the post of Thursday on the General Council of the Anarchists of
Europe.
Everyone in the room seemed to feel the tug waiting on the river, the
sword-stick and the revolver, waiting on the table. The instant the election
was ended and irrevocable, and Syme had received the paper proving his
election, they all sprang to their feet, and the fiery groups moved and
mixed in the room. Syme found himself, somehow or other, face to face with
Gregory, who still regarded him with a stare of stunned hatred. They were
silent for many minutes.
"You are a devil!" said Gregory at last.
"And you are a gentleman," said Syme with gravity.
"It was you that entrapped me," began Gregory, shaking from head to
foot, "entrapped me into--"
"Talk sense," said Syme shortly. "Into what sort of devils' parliament
have you entrapped me, if it comes to that? You made me swear before I made
you. Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we think right
is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of
concession. There is nothing possible between us but honour and death," and
he pulled the great cloak about his shoulders and picked up the flask from
the table.
"The boat is quite ready," said Mr. Buttons, bustling up. "Be good
enough to step this way."
With a gesture that revealed the shop-walker, he led Syme down a short,
iron-bound passage, the still agonised Gregory following feverishly at their
heels. At the end of the passage was a door, which Buttons opened sharply,
showing a sudden blue and silver picture of the moonlit river, that looked
like a scene in a theatre. Close to the opening lay a dark, dwarfish
steam-launch, like a baby dragon with one red eye.
Almost in the act of stepping on board, Gabriel Syme turned to the
gaping Gregory.
"You have kept your word," he said gently, with his face in shadow.
"You are a man of honour, and I thank you. You have kept it even down to a
small particular. There was one special thing you promised me at the
beginning of the affair, and which you have certainly given me by the end of
it."
"What do you mean?" cried the chaotic Gregory. "What did I promise