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

contradicted the fanaticism of his face. It seemed almost as if all friendly
words were to him lifeless conveniences, and that his only life was hate.
After a pause the man spoke again.
"Of course, the Secretary of the branch told you everything that can be
told. But the one thing that can never be told is the last notion of the
President, for his notions grow like a tropical forest. So in case you don't
know, I'd better tell you that he is carrying out his notion of concealing
ourselves by not concealing ourselves to the most extraordinary lengths just
now. Originally, of course, we met in a cell underground, just as your
branch does. Then Sunday made us take a private room at an ordinary
restaurant. He said that if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you
out. Well, he is the only man on earth, I know; but sometimes I really think
that his huge brain is going a little mad in its old age. For now we flaunt
ourselves before the public. We have our breakfast on a balcony--on a
balcony, if you please-- overlooking Leicester Square."
"And what do the people say?" asked Syme.
"It's quite simple what they say," answered his guide.
"They say we are a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are
anarchists."
"It seems to me a very clever idea," said Syme.
"Clever! God blast your impudence! Clever!" cried out the other in a
sudden, shrill voice which was as startling and discordant as his crooked
smile. "When you've seen Sunday for a split second you'll leave off calling
him clever."
With this they emerged out of a narrow street, and saw the early
sunlight filling Leicester Square. It will never be known, I suppose, why
this square itself should look so alien and in some ways so continental. It
will never be known whether it was the foreign look that attracted the
foreigners or the foreigners who gave it the foreign look. But on this
particular morning the effect seemed singularly bright and clear. Between
the open square and the sunlit leaves and the statue and the Saracenic
outlines of the Alhambra, it looked the replica of some French or even
Spanish public place. And this effect increased in Syme the sensation, which
in many shapes he had had through the whole adventure, the eerie sensation
of having strayed into a new world. As a fact, he had bought bad cigars
round Leicester Square ever since he was a boy. But as he turned that
corner, and saw the trees and the Moorish cupolas, he could have sworn that
he was turning into an unknown Place de something or other in some foreign
town.
At one corner of the square there projected a kind of angle of a
prosperous but quiet hotel, the bulk of which belonged to a street behind.
In the wall there was one large French window, probably the window of a
large coffee-room; and outside this window, almost literally overhanging the
square, was a formidably buttressed balcony, big enough to contain a
dining-table. In fact, it did contain a dining-table, or more strictly a
breakfast-table; and round the breakfast-table, glowing in the sunlight and
evident to the street, were a group of noisy and talkative men, all dressed
in the insolence of fashion, with white waistcoats and expensive
button-holes. Some of their jokes could almost be heard across the square.
Then the grave Secretary gave his unnatural smile, and Syme knew that this