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

pursuing him, that in that labyrinth of little streets he could soon throw
him off the scent. He dived in and out of those crooked lanes, which were
more like cracks than thoroughfares; and by the time that he had completed
about twenty alternate angles and described an unthinkable polygon, he
paused to listen for any sound of pursuit. There was none; there could not
in any case have been much, for the little streets were thick with the
soundless snow. Somewhere behind Red Lion Court, however, he noticed a place
where some energetic citizen had cleared away the snow for a space of about
twenty yards, leaving the wet, glistening cobble-stones. He thought little
of this as he passed it, only plunging into yet another arm of the maze. But
when a few hundred yards farther on he stood still again to listen, his
heart stood still also, for he heard from that space of rugged stones the
clinking crutch and labouring feet of the infernal cripple.
The sky above was loaded with the clouds of snow, leaving London in a
darkness and oppression premature for that hour of the evening. On each side
of Syme the walls of the alley were blind and featureless; there was no
little window or any kind of eve. He felt a new impulse to break out of this
hive of houses, and to get once more into the open and lamp-lit street. Yet
he rambled and dodged for a long time before he struck the main
thoroughfare. When he did so, he struck it much farther up than he had
fancied. He came out into what seemed the vast and void of Ludgate Circus,
and saw St. Paul's Cathedral sitting in the sky.
At first he was startled to find these great roads so empty, as if a
pestilence had swept through the city. Then he told himself that some degree
of emptiness was natural; first because the snow-storm was even dangerously
deep, and secondly because it was Sunday. And at the very word Sunday he bit
his lip; the word was henceforth for hire like some indecent pun. Under the
white fog of snow high up in the heaven the whole atmosphere of the city was
turned to a very queer kind of green twilight, as of men under the sea. The
sealed and sullen sunset behind the dark dome of St. Paul's had in it smoky
and sinister colours-- colours of sickly green, dead red or decaying bronze,
that were just bright enough to emphasise the solid whiteness of the snow.
But right up against these dreary colours rose the black bulk of the
cathedral; and upon the top of the cathedral was a random splash and great
stain of snow, still clinging as to an Alpine peak. It had fallen
accidentally, but just so fallen as to half drape the dome from its very
topmost point, and to pick out in perfect silver the great orb and the
cross. When Syme saw it he suddenly straightened himself, and made with his
sword-stick an involuntary salute.
He knew that that evil figure, his shadow, was creeping quickly or
slowly behind him, and he did not care.
It seemed a symbol of human faith and valour that while the skies were
darkening that high place of the earth was bright. The devils might have
captured heaven, but they had not yet captured the cross. He had a new
impulse to tear out the secret of this dancing, jumping and pursuing
paralytic; and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the Circus he
turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer.
Professor de Worms came slowly round the corner of the irregular alley
behind him, his unnatural form outlined against a lonely gas-lamp,
irresistibly recalling that very imaginative figure in the nursery rhymes,