登陆注册
5213800000001

第1章

There are always two ways of looking at a thing, frequently there are six or seven; but two ways of looking at a London fog are quite enough.When it is thick and yellow in the streets and stings a man's throat and lungs as he breathes it, an awakening in the early morning is either an unearthly and grewsome, or a mysteriously enclosing, secluding, and comfortable thing.If one awakens in a healthy body, and with a clear brain rested by normal sleep and retaining memories of a normally agreeable yesterday, one may lie watching the housemaid building the fire;and after she has swept the hearth and put things in order, lie watching the flames of the blazing and crackling wood catch the coals and set them blazing also, and dancing merrily and filling corners with a glow; and in so lying and realizing that leaping light and warmth and a soft bed are good things, one may turn over on one's back, stretching arms and legs luxuriously, drawing deep breaths and smiling at a knowledge of the fog outside which makes half-past eight o'clock on a December morning as dark as twelve o'clock on a December night.Under such conditions the soft, thick, yellow gloom has its picturesque and even humorous aspect.

One feels enclosed by it at once fantastically and cosily, and is inclined to revel in imaginings of the picture outside, its Rembrandt lights and orange yellows, the halos about the street-lamps, the illumination of shop-windows, the flare of torches stuck up over coster barrows and coffee-stands, the shadows on the faces of the men and women selling and buying beside them.Refreshed by sleep and comfort and surrounded by light, warmth, and good cheer, it is easy to face the day, to confront going out into the fog and feeling a sort of pleasure in its mysteries.This is one way of looking at it, but only one.

The other way is marked by enormous differences.

A man--he had given his name to the people of the house as Antony Dart--awakened in a third-story bedroom in a lodging-house in a poor street in London, and as his consciousness returned to him, its slow and reluctant movings confronted the second point of view--marked by enormous differences.He had not slept two consecutive hours through the night, and when he had slept he had been tormented by dreary dreams, which were more full of misery because of their elusive vagueness, which kept his tortured brain on a wearying strain of effort to reach some definite understanding of them.Yet when he awakened the consciousness of being again alive was an awful thing.

If the dreams could have faded into blankness and all have passed with the passing of the night, how he could have thanked whatever gods there be! Only not to awake--only not to awake! But he had awakened.

The clock struck nine as he did so, consequently he knew the hour.

The lodging-house slavey had aroused him by coming to light the fire.She had set her candle on the hearth and done her work as stealthily as possible, but he had been disturbed, though he had made a desperate effort to struggle back into sleep.That was no use--no use.He was awake and he was in the midst of it all again.

Without the sense of luxurious comfort he opened his eyes and turned upon his back, throwing out his arms flatly, so that he lay as in the form of a cross, in heavy weariness and anguish.For months he had awakened each morning after such a night and had so lain like a crucified thing.

As he watched the painful flickering of the damp and smoking wood and coal he remembered this and thought that there had been a lifetime of such awakenings, not knowing that the morbidness of a fagged brain blotted out the memory of more normal days and told him fantastic lies which were but a hundredth part truth.He could see only the hundredth part truth, and it assumed proportions so huge that he could see nothing else.In such a state the human brain is an infernal machine and its workings can only be conquered if the mortal thing which lives with it--day and night, night and day--has learned to separate its controllable from its seemingly uncontrollable atoms, and can silence its clamor on its way to madness.

Antony Dart had not learned this thing and the clamor had had its hideous way with him.Physicians would have given a name to his mental and physical condition.He had heard these names often--applied to men the strain of whose lives had been like the strain of his own, and had left them as it had left him--jaded, joyless, breaking things.Some of them had been broken and had died or were dragging out bruised and tormented days in their own homes or in mad-houses.He always shuddered when he heard their names, and rebelled with sick fear against the mere mention of them.They had worked as he had worked, they had been stricken with the delirium of accumulation--accumulation--as he had been.They had been caught in the rush and swirl of the great maelstrom, and had been borne round and round in it, until having grasped every coveted thing tossing upon its circling waters, they themselves had been flung upon the shore with both hands full, the rocks about them strewn with rich possessions, while they lay prostrate and gazed at all life had brought with dull, hopeless, anguished eyes.He knew --if the worst came to the worst--what would be said of him, because he had heard it said of others."He worked too hard--he worked too hard." He was sick of hearing it.

What was wrong with the world--

what was wrong with man, as Man --if work could break him like this?

If one believed in Deity, the living creature It breathed into being must be a perfect thing--not one to be wearied, sickened, tortured by the life Its breathing had created.Amere man would disdain to build a thing so poor and incomplete.

A mere human engineer who constructed an engine whose workings were perpetually at fault--which went wrong when called upon to do the labor it was made for--who would not scoff at it and cast it aside as a piece of worthless bungling?

"Something is wrong," he mut-

同类推荐
  • 还丹金液歌注

    还丹金液歌注

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 是斋百一选方

    是斋百一选方

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 明伦汇编皇极典君道部

    明伦汇编皇极典君道部

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Tartuffe

    Tartuffe

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 复郎廷佐书

    复郎廷佐书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 让客户回头:超乎想象的客户服务6大宝典

    让客户回头:超乎想象的客户服务6大宝典

    影响时空管理丛书由影响力训练集团组织十几位专家、几十位学者、上百位培训界精英历经三年时间精心创作,内容注重实战,以解决企业管理实际问题为导向;论述深入浅出,通俗易懂;工具多、方法多、案例多,且经过多轮培训课程使用并经过多次修订,受到各层次管理者的欢迎和好评。本书提出了完善企业客户服务的6大宝典:客户服务的3重境界,打造高效服务团队的5大步骤,卓越客户服务人员的5项修炼,卓越客服人员的5大任务,客户服务的6大创新模式,应对客户抱怨和投诉的4个方面。
  • 最好的爱是恰逢其时

    最好的爱是恰逢其时

    本文的主角没有重生、没有军嫂、更没有超能力,也许有人会问,那么要看什么?我想让你们看的就是浪漫的爱情、真挚的友情和温暖的亲情,仅此而已。而不管是哪一种情感,最好的一种,就是要恰逢其时的。走进故事,你们会看到一个高IQ的厨艺小白是怎么与她的命定浪漫的相遇、相知、相爱的,你们会发现一段竹马戏青梅的纯洁之爱,你们还能旁观一见钟情的妖娆设计师是怎么倒追冰山男的,当然,主线还是第一段,后面两段会穿插进行。
  • 爱情举着寂寞静灯

    爱情举着寂寞静灯

    2017年3月,天还很冷,我的儿子半岁了。我妈我爸和一个中年女保姆在一天中午来到了我家,抱走了孩子。出门前,我妈说,你去旅游吧,去你想去的地方。但是,不要一个人去,报个团。等我答应,他们就离开了。房间里剩下我一个人。孩子的衣服、尿布、婴儿床、玩具等等,在前一天已经打包好,这会儿他们已经全部搬走。房间里又剩下了我一个人。我呆呆地坐了一会儿,打开电脑,报了一个去广西的团。关上电脑,我就开始想孩子,有那么一刻我特别想去妈妈家找她,可是最终,我还是认为听从妈妈的话,好好出去散散心,重新思考一些事情。于是我静下心来,收拾好箱子,坐公车去了另一座城市。
  • 断残集:郁达夫作品精选

    断残集:郁达夫作品精选

    本书内容主要概况: 南行杂记、街灯、感伤的行旅、在寒风里、马蜂的毒刺、纸币的跳跃以、纸币的跳跃、故都的秋、江南的冬景、志摩在回忆里、移家琐记。
  • 上门大神拽翻天

    上门大神拽翻天

    紫云昭刚刚出生,便被自己的亲爹输给高阳家做了上门女婿,之后的一千年里二弟和三弟又被亲爹输给了李天王家做了上门女婿,紫云家从此沦为仙界的笑柄。高阳彩儿嘴里叼着根狗尾巴草,冲着愁云满面的紫云昭招手:“小昭昭,你很不开心做我家的上门女婿?”不等紫云昭回话,高阳彩儿一把抓住他的衣领,踮起脚尖儿咬了上去。情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 太上泰清拔罪升天宝忏

    太上泰清拔罪升天宝忏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 明伦汇编皇极典帝运部

    明伦汇编皇极典帝运部

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 剑恩刀怨

    剑恩刀怨

    刀剑之下有恩有怨,笔墨之下有喜有悲,但愿无愧于心。
  • 为美丽疗伤:让99种扮靓方式不再损害健康

    为美丽疗伤:让99种扮靓方式不再损害健康

    每个女人都爱美,这是亘古不变的真理。否则这个世界上不会出现紧身衣、高跟鞋、眼影、口红之类的东西。可女人往往又很胆小,不敢面对美丽过后的健康问题。于是,女人开始在高跟鞋和平底靴之间左右摇摆,迟疑不决,放下哪个都舍不得。《为美丽疗伤:让99种扮靓方式不再损害健康》便教给你一些美丽过后的补救秘诀,让你轻松把握美丽与健康之间的平衡。做女人,就要做到美丽——不受伤。《为美丽疗伤:让99种扮靓方式不再损害健康》包括身体、形体、生活三部分,介绍了99个美女健康生活的补救方案,是女性的必备手册,也是男士送给妻子、女友、女儿的贴心礼物。
  • 重生大唐做可汗

    重生大唐做可汗

    某铁杆唐粉重生来到了大唐贞观年间,本来他还以为能成为权高位重之人,能跟李二称兄弟,与魏征在朝堂争锋,和那些大唐纨绔们同饮葡萄美酒夜光杯,还可以结识下一代女皇武媚娘,他还想......可是,可是,尼玛成了极北地区的某原始部落小酋长的儿子,这可咋办啊?